There is probably no aspect of aviation that has been talked and written about more, and practiced less, than flight planning. I wrote a book on flight planning myself; it was the slowest selling book I ever wrote.
Most general aviation pilots flight plan by filling up the tanks, estimating airspeed and fuel flow with basic “rules of thumb”—“I figure I cruise at 130 knots and burn 10 gallons an hour”—and select an altitude based on how high they have to go to get smooth air. Departure airport is a given, destination whichever airport is closest to the final destination—what’s the point of having an airplane if you end up having to drive further than you want to?—and alternates are something they don’t think about too much because they seldom need them and if they do there are usually a bunch to choose from, all within comfortable range since they started with full tanks and don’t usually fly all that far on any one leg anyway. If the weather looks like they have to file IFR, they pick a route that they would like to get—you never know, you might get it and you sure won’t if you don’t ask, and anyway, if maybe enough people keep filing for a route that makes sense instead of the stupid routes ATC usually gives you, maybe they might someday get the message. And for most pilots most of the time, this so called “flight planning” works. Most of the time.
The problem isn’t that it isn’t really flight planning—it is flight planning of a very rough and inefficient sort. The problem is that it doesn’t tell you anything about how the flight is actually going—it just assumes that it is going well. The only back up is a bunch of fuel, but without a clear cut plan of action, that bunch of fuel can not only disappear quickly, it can lead you to all kinds of trouble, flailing about trying to figure out what to do when Plan A didn’t work.
I’m not just picking on non-professional pilots here either when I say general aviation pilots: when I flew corporate Citations and Falcons we did exactly the same thing: filled the tanks, filed for a standard airspeed and altitude, estimated range based on rules of thumb for airspeed and fuel burns, and launched. We didn’t always fill the tanks when away from base, where it cost more, but we still put plenty on: you know, the old,”… except when you’re on fire” cliché. But the airlines do it differently, and I think there is a lot to be learned from the differences, and I think it is a big factor in explaining their much lower incident and accident rate compared to general aviation.
There are really two parts to flight planning: one, flight planning, and two, planning the flight. Sounds like the same thing, but the first part pertains to the flight from takeoff to touchdown, and the second part answers the question, “What sort of flight are you planning?” Every pilot who has ever passed a private pilot written test or done a dual cross country flight knows what flight planning is: plot a true course, convert it to magnetic, adjust for winds and compass deviation, estimate true airspeed and fuel flow, establish check points, make up a flight log, etc. But they seldom think about the second part because it seems like a given: I’m going to fly from here to there; what’s there to plan?
In terms of the departure airport, there isn’t much to plan: short of taking the wings off and trucking the aircraft to another airport, the departure point is determined by the aircraft location. (But if you rent, presumably you do have some choices there, and the most suitable departure airport then becomes a factor.) But whether you file IFR or VFR, your choice of destination airport, and your alternate airport selections, are big factors in safe and reliable flight planning—the “planning the flight” part.
Let’s look at the IFR versus VFR choice first. Obviously, if you’re not instrument rated or current, you have no choice here, but let’s assume you are (and if you’re not, start working on it right now). Most instrument rated pilots only have the rating to “keep themselves out of trouble,” meaning, so they can fly in the clouds legally if they have to. It isn’t something they want to use or like to use, it’s there just in case they need it, but the fun part is flying VFR.
The problem with that is that the only way to stay proficient in instrument techniques is to file an IFR flight plan and fly IFR all the time, regardless of conditions. If you always fly on an IFR flight plan, it will become second nature to sometimes fly in the clouds and sometimes not, to sometimes shoot a full instrument approach and other times do a visual approach. But if you only have the rating for the times you have to use it, how comfortable are you going to be in those clouds or on instruments on approach when it isn’t something you normally do? The simple truth is, if you aren’t comfortable filing IFR on VFR days, how comfortable are you going to be filing IFR on IFR days?
I know all the arguments for not filing IFR and none of them hold any water—they’re just excuses, really. But I’m not going to try to argue you out of not filing IFR all the time, because if you don’t want to hear it you won’t hear it. Just remember what I said and think about it.
So let’s assume you have decided to file IFR. The next question is, from where to where? Departure is normally a given, but the destination is not—there are almost always a variety of destination airports to chose from in the vicinity of your final destination. Some will be closer, some will have cheaper gas, some will have full service FBOs, some will have multiple runways, some may have long runways, some will have only non-precision approaches and some may have precision approaches, either ILS or LPV (localizer performance with vertical guidance, which requires approved GPS or DME/DME equipment), and a few may even have precision approach guidance to multiple runways. So how do you chose? Easy, chose the best one. If you’re talking about making your flights simple, easy, reliable, uneventful and routine, you go to the airport that has the most of everything: the longest runways, at least one precision approach to standard minimums (200 & 1/2), a full service FBO, operating control tower during the expected time of arrival, approach and departure control, the full works. I know the folks at the local grass roots airports can be very friendly and helpful and need the business, I know I don’t have to have a long runway, I know that most of the time the weather will let me get in with a non-precision approach or maybe even a contact approach, and I know I would really prefer to be as close to my final destination as I can get, but what I also know is that, when I take off, I want to have everything going in my favor to complete the flight safely and routinely.
Why not file to the close-in airport, the one without long runways and precision approaches, take a look, and if it doesn’t look good, then go to the big one? Sounds reasonable, but it isn’t just about whether the weather cooperates and lets you sneak in, it’s also about all the other little “surprises” the less than fully capable airports have in store: obstructions, narrow runways with soft shoulders, non-standard patterns, minimal lighting, poor taxiways. (As a young Part 135 pilot I once took a Cherokee 6 down a road I thought was a taxiway, tried to get back to the taxiway by cutting across the grass and dinged the prop when the nose wheel went into a ditch. The boss let me drive the prop to the prop shop for repair, on my time, as part of my “education”.) Even if you’re very familiar with the airport and don’t expect to be taken by surprise, why take any unnecessary risks when you have another nearby airport with a nice big long wide runway with a full approach light system and an ILS that will take you right down to within ½ mile of that runway, 200 feet over the approach lights, virtually guaranteeing a safe arrival?
There’s another reason not to follow this strategy, this “take a look” approach, and that is that it is human nature to want to make it work out once you’re there, to do more than just “take a look” because you don’t want to have admit that you would have been better off to just go to the big airport in the first place, so you fudge a little bit on the MDA, or maybe you do a little bit of scud running, diving through a hole because you know once you get underneath it will be “right there”, or you go back and try the approach again because you caught a couple of glimpses of the runway as you went around and you know you have a good chance of making it the next time, or you try a different approach because, “It looked like the weather was breaking up at the other end,” and so on. Those are just not safe, routine arrivals.
So you filed IFR to the best airport in the area, you shot an ILS approach to minimums, a good approach, but the “runway or runway environment” just wasn’t there, or there were thunderstorms in the vicinity, or freezing rain, or snow flurries, or a truck hit a regional jet and closed the main runway, or for whatever reason you weren’t able to land at your preferred destination. Now what?
You aren’t always required to have an alternate; if weather reports and forecasts indicate that, “For at least 1 hour before and for 1 hour after the estimated time of arrival, the ceiling will be at least 2,000 feet above the airport elevation and the visibility will be at least 3 statute miles” [FAR 91.167], an alternate is not required. What’s the significance of this? Fuel. An alternate airport requirement means you have to have enough fuel to fly from your destination to the alternate airport, so more fuel is required. This is almost never a problem for general aviation aircraft because they usually have a lot more fuel capacity than is ever really needed. And anyway, who would want to take off on an IFR flight plan with only 45 minutes more fuel than needed just because the destination was forecast to be just a little bit better than basic VFR minimums (3 miles and 2000 feet)? So the question isn’t, “Do you need an alternate airport?” but, “How do you select one?”
Under Part 121, the part under which the airlines operate, a flight cannot be release unless both the Pilot in command and a certified dispatcher have agreed on the flight plan. Discussion and negotiation are allowed, but eventually you have to agree on a plan. I used to have more disagreements with dispatchers over alternate airports than any other part of the dispatch release, because fuel planning (i.e. fuel conservation) is a big part of the dispatcher’s job, and the selection of an alternate airport determined the amount of extra fuel required, a nearby alternate requiring less extra fuel, a faraway alternate more. So dispatchers, who aren’t bad people, mind you, but they have their job and I had mine, almost always look for the closest alternate, in order to save fuel. (You sometimes wouldn’t know it, but airlines are in business to make money.) But I was the one who had to actually go there if I couldn’t get in to my original destination, and I sure didn’t want to have a problem getting into the alternate as well. If it came to diverting, I wanted to be sure it was going to be a big non event, and not more of the same only now with that much less fuel.
For example, on flights from DTW to LAS, the dispatchers would almost always select LSV, Nellis Airbase, just a few miles from LAS on the north side of town, for an alternate. If the weather went down at LAS, thunderstorms for instance, then Nellis would probably also be affected. So it really wasn’t a very good alternate, but it was close, and if thunderstorms weren’t forecast it would be legal and the dispatcher didn’t have to allow for very much extra fuel. So I would call and say I wanted a more distant alternate, LAX, for instance, and they would usually agree and give me a revised release with a little more fuel, or if they gave me a hard time I’d just put the extra fuel on, knowing I could get to LAX if I had to. Another time I was going somewhere in the Caribbean, St. Martin I think, and the dispatcher gave me some little island airport I had never heard of for an alternate, it had one runway, a non-precision approach, and was listed as a Special Airport, meaning there was something unusual enough about it to require an airport briefing or prior experience, but it was nearby. I called and got quite of bit of resistance, the dispatcher telling me that it was all legal and the weather was good in St. Martin anyway and what was the problem? I said the problem is, this is the Caribbean, where anything can go wrong, single airport runways get closed because of damaged aircraft, thunderstorms roll in unexpectedly, radars go down, power fails, five aircraft arrive at once and four have to hold, all kinds of things that lead to diversions, and when that happens I don’t want to have to go to another airport with only one runway, a non-precision approach, no radar, and special approach restrictions. So I got a better alternate, probably San Juan, and no, I didn’t need it, but I sure was glad to have it and to not have to worry all the way to St. Martin about it.
Under Part 91 you don’t have to have a dispatcher sign off on your flight plans, so you can pick any alternate you want, even none at all if the destination weather is good enough. And because of that it often doesn’t get much thought, just a quick check to make sure there are some other airports with decent weather forecast nearby, the assumption being you probably won’t need it anyway and if you do you’ll deal with the weather that actually exists at that time, real reports, not forecasts, so you’re good to go. And that is absolutely not the way to do it, for all kinds of reasons, but the main one is if you are shut out at your destination for any reason—weather, runway closures, security threats, lost pilots in the vicinity—you don’t want to have to figure out what to do at that point, you want to already know what you’re going to do and then just do it. Before you left you should have said, “I’m going to fly from this airport to that airport, and if that doesn’t work out I’m going to fly to this other airport, an airport that has several runways, several approaches including an ILS, approach radar, excellent weather forecast, and I’m going to land there, and that is that. Not that it can’t be changed if needed: if you get to your destination, and can’t land, and you advise ATC that you want to go to your alternate, and they tell you it isn’t available for some reason, or it is but the ILS is out of service and the weather is marginal, or you head that way and check the weather, and the same weather that shut you out at your destination is headed that way also, of course you can ask ATC to check the conditions for you at other airports nearby and change your alternate. But changing your alternate is a lot different than not really having one in the first place, or having to pick one quickly after having just done a missed approach because a snow flurry hit the field and visibility dropped to zero.
So let me summarize how I think you should plan a flight: Choose a destination airport that is the best you can find within a practical distance from your final destination; select an even better airport for your alternate, one with excellent approach and landing facilities and good weather, one that virtually assures a safe arrival; fly to your destination; if that doesn’t work out, go to your alternate and land. That’s the easy way to plan a flight, and the best way I know to make sure your flight ends up with everyone walking away happy.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Single Pilot Cockpit Techniques, Part III
Use your autopilot.
I give you the conclusion first, and if that’s all you need, fine, but autopilots are much misunderstood and therefore misused, and are worth some further thought.
The Basics. Autopilots are classified by axis, one, two, and three, corresponding to the three axis about which the aircraft rotates: roll, pitch and yaw. A simple, one axis autopilot, often called a wing leveler, controls the roll axis. A two axis autopilot controls roll and pitch, and in its simplest form is therefore both a wing leveler and pitch hold, with altitude hold, altitude preselect, heading hold and nav tracking being useful complements to the basic roll and pitch commands. A three axis autopilot (often erroneously used to describe a “full” autopilot with altitude hold and preselect and all nav and approach functions), is normally only found on turbine powered multiengine aircraft, and provides for engine out control by the autopilot: the third axis, yaw, provides the rudder power to maintain directional control with an engine out and varying degrees of power from the remaining engine or engines. Even with the third axis of control, it normally is only coupled when in the approach and go around modes: climb, cruise, and descent are normally uncoupled from the yaw axis and still require manual rudder input or rudder trim on the part of the pilot. (The reasons for this are very complex and have to do with autopilot certification standards, balancing autopilot functionality with negative consequences of autopilot failures, a very technical topic beyond the basics of autopilots.)
Some aircraft have yaw dampers (or dampeners), which is not an autopilot per se but does use the rudder to counter unwanted yawing, usually caused by unwanted rolling motions. Sweep winged aircraft are particularly susceptible to this uncomfortable rolling, yawing motion—the dreaded Dutch Roll—which on earlier swept wing aircraft could reach uncontrollability if left unchecked: one of the required maneuvers on the Boeing 727 type rating check ride was to regain control after the yaw dampener had been turned off and a big yaw intentionally induced. As I remember, the yaw damper was a no-go item. But a yaw damper is not part of the autopilot system and is not powerful enough to negate the adverse yaw resulting from an engine out.
Any autopilot is better than no autopilot, but the minimum for single pilot VFR flight is a single axis, or wing leveler, type autopilot (and with a heading hold or heading bug could be quite useful), while the minimum for IFR flight would be a two axis with at least heading hold and altitude hold. Each allows you to let go of the aircraft in order to do all the other things a single pilot has to do: read charts, set power, lean mixtures, write down frequencies, keep a flight log, pick up the pencil that dropped on the floor, change fuel tanks, look ahead and so on and so on. The reason I believe you need both heading hold and altitude hold for IFR is because altitude control is so much more critical on an instrument clearance than it is on a VFR flight. If the altitude nudges upward or downward a hundred feet or so VFR while looking away, you haven’t violated an assigned altitude clearance, the aircraft is still firmly under control, and a little pressure or pull on the control column will easily get it back on altitude again. But the same thing IFR is a serious enough deviation from your assigned altitude to either cause problems with ATC if left uncorrected, or take so much attention that whatever it was that you needed to do besides fly the aircraft doesn’t get done.
Pilots often feel that using the autopilot is a sign of weakness—a crutch—and if the best pilot in the airplane is the autopilot, there is some truth to that. An autopilot is no substitute for basic flying skills which, in the case of an instrument rated pilot means more than just being able to hold altitude and heading, but also being able to shoot accurate approaches to minimums. And there is no substitute for hand flying to keep those skills tuned. But assuming your basic flying skills are acceptable, and you could hand fly the airplane throughout its full profile from climb out through the approach if necessary, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the autopilot so that you can concentrate on the rest of the job—managing the flight—without the distraction of having to constantly keep scanning and correcting. That’s what it’s there for.
A couple of examples from the world of turbine aircraft may help illustrate this. The Cessna Citation SP is certified for single pilot operation, but only if the autopilot is functional. Makes sense. And let me tell you a little secret: It is an incredibly easy airplane to fly, much simpler than a typical reciprocating general aviation twin. The straight wing is as forgiving as a Cessna Skylane, with near centerline thrust an engine out is very easy to handle, and the power couldn’t be easier to manage: one power control, push forward for more, pull back for less. The fuel is either on, off, or crossfeed. The rest of the aircraft systems can be covered in a day of ground school. And the FAA still requires a fully functioning autopilot to be flown single pilot.
MNPS (Minimum Navigational Performance Specification), the document that describes equipment and procedures necessary to fly from FL 290 to FL 410 over the North Atlantic, one of the most heavily trafficked, non-radar controlled airspaces in the world, specifies that an autopilot be used at all times when in that airspace. Aircraft separation along these tracks is predicated on accurate tracking of course and very accurate maintenance of altitude, and it simply won’t allow for a pilot’s momentary lack of concentration. Anytime you’re in congested airspace, you would be wise to do the same.
At ATA Airlines, we trained to hand fly approaches to below standard minimums, and were required to demonstrate, on our check rides, the ability to hand fly an engine out approach to minimums and then do a go around. But in line flying it was ATA’s policy to do all approaches to minimums on the autopilot, and to do all Cat II (below standard minimums) and Cat III approaches (no minimums) using not just one but all autopilots, which in the case of the Boeing 757 meant all three autopilots (two for the Lockheed 1011). The reason for that was mostly redundancy—if one failed at normal minimums the approach could be continued to an autoland on the remaining autopilot or autopilots—but also accuracy: each autopilot monitored the other both for deviations from standard and for increased accuracy. If airline pilots have to use three autopilots in certain circumstances, I wouldn’t feel too bad using one. Again, that’s what it’s there for.
So train by hand flying and practice by hand flying when conditions allow, but the rest of the time, use your autopilot. It’s one of the best ways to make your job easier, your results better and, all things considered, be a better pilot.
I give you the conclusion first, and if that’s all you need, fine, but autopilots are much misunderstood and therefore misused, and are worth some further thought.
The Basics. Autopilots are classified by axis, one, two, and three, corresponding to the three axis about which the aircraft rotates: roll, pitch and yaw. A simple, one axis autopilot, often called a wing leveler, controls the roll axis. A two axis autopilot controls roll and pitch, and in its simplest form is therefore both a wing leveler and pitch hold, with altitude hold, altitude preselect, heading hold and nav tracking being useful complements to the basic roll and pitch commands. A three axis autopilot (often erroneously used to describe a “full” autopilot with altitude hold and preselect and all nav and approach functions), is normally only found on turbine powered multiengine aircraft, and provides for engine out control by the autopilot: the third axis, yaw, provides the rudder power to maintain directional control with an engine out and varying degrees of power from the remaining engine or engines. Even with the third axis of control, it normally is only coupled when in the approach and go around modes: climb, cruise, and descent are normally uncoupled from the yaw axis and still require manual rudder input or rudder trim on the part of the pilot. (The reasons for this are very complex and have to do with autopilot certification standards, balancing autopilot functionality with negative consequences of autopilot failures, a very technical topic beyond the basics of autopilots.)
Some aircraft have yaw dampers (or dampeners), which is not an autopilot per se but does use the rudder to counter unwanted yawing, usually caused by unwanted rolling motions. Sweep winged aircraft are particularly susceptible to this uncomfortable rolling, yawing motion—the dreaded Dutch Roll—which on earlier swept wing aircraft could reach uncontrollability if left unchecked: one of the required maneuvers on the Boeing 727 type rating check ride was to regain control after the yaw dampener had been turned off and a big yaw intentionally induced. As I remember, the yaw damper was a no-go item. But a yaw damper is not part of the autopilot system and is not powerful enough to negate the adverse yaw resulting from an engine out.
Any autopilot is better than no autopilot, but the minimum for single pilot VFR flight is a single axis, or wing leveler, type autopilot (and with a heading hold or heading bug could be quite useful), while the minimum for IFR flight would be a two axis with at least heading hold and altitude hold. Each allows you to let go of the aircraft in order to do all the other things a single pilot has to do: read charts, set power, lean mixtures, write down frequencies, keep a flight log, pick up the pencil that dropped on the floor, change fuel tanks, look ahead and so on and so on. The reason I believe you need both heading hold and altitude hold for IFR is because altitude control is so much more critical on an instrument clearance than it is on a VFR flight. If the altitude nudges upward or downward a hundred feet or so VFR while looking away, you haven’t violated an assigned altitude clearance, the aircraft is still firmly under control, and a little pressure or pull on the control column will easily get it back on altitude again. But the same thing IFR is a serious enough deviation from your assigned altitude to either cause problems with ATC if left uncorrected, or take so much attention that whatever it was that you needed to do besides fly the aircraft doesn’t get done.
Pilots often feel that using the autopilot is a sign of weakness—a crutch—and if the best pilot in the airplane is the autopilot, there is some truth to that. An autopilot is no substitute for basic flying skills which, in the case of an instrument rated pilot means more than just being able to hold altitude and heading, but also being able to shoot accurate approaches to minimums. And there is no substitute for hand flying to keep those skills tuned. But assuming your basic flying skills are acceptable, and you could hand fly the airplane throughout its full profile from climb out through the approach if necessary, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the autopilot so that you can concentrate on the rest of the job—managing the flight—without the distraction of having to constantly keep scanning and correcting. That’s what it’s there for.
A couple of examples from the world of turbine aircraft may help illustrate this. The Cessna Citation SP is certified for single pilot operation, but only if the autopilot is functional. Makes sense. And let me tell you a little secret: It is an incredibly easy airplane to fly, much simpler than a typical reciprocating general aviation twin. The straight wing is as forgiving as a Cessna Skylane, with near centerline thrust an engine out is very easy to handle, and the power couldn’t be easier to manage: one power control, push forward for more, pull back for less. The fuel is either on, off, or crossfeed. The rest of the aircraft systems can be covered in a day of ground school. And the FAA still requires a fully functioning autopilot to be flown single pilot.
MNPS (Minimum Navigational Performance Specification), the document that describes equipment and procedures necessary to fly from FL 290 to FL 410 over the North Atlantic, one of the most heavily trafficked, non-radar controlled airspaces in the world, specifies that an autopilot be used at all times when in that airspace. Aircraft separation along these tracks is predicated on accurate tracking of course and very accurate maintenance of altitude, and it simply won’t allow for a pilot’s momentary lack of concentration. Anytime you’re in congested airspace, you would be wise to do the same.
At ATA Airlines, we trained to hand fly approaches to below standard minimums, and were required to demonstrate, on our check rides, the ability to hand fly an engine out approach to minimums and then do a go around. But in line flying it was ATA’s policy to do all approaches to minimums on the autopilot, and to do all Cat II (below standard minimums) and Cat III approaches (no minimums) using not just one but all autopilots, which in the case of the Boeing 757 meant all three autopilots (two for the Lockheed 1011). The reason for that was mostly redundancy—if one failed at normal minimums the approach could be continued to an autoland on the remaining autopilot or autopilots—but also accuracy: each autopilot monitored the other both for deviations from standard and for increased accuracy. If airline pilots have to use three autopilots in certain circumstances, I wouldn’t feel too bad using one. Again, that’s what it’s there for.
So train by hand flying and practice by hand flying when conditions allow, but the rest of the time, use your autopilot. It’s one of the best ways to make your job easier, your results better and, all things considered, be a better pilot.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Single Pilot Techniques, Part II
A previous post, “Single Pilot Techniques, Part I,” attempted to set the stage for this second part by comparing the differences between adding cockpit crewmembers and subtracting them. The conclusion was that it is a relatively simple matter to add crewmembers, adding a copilot to a single pilot operation or a flight engineer to a two pilot operation, but it is much more difficult to reduce crewmembers. I won’t attempt to summarize the full argument here, but the most important point is that the lessons learned in reducing from three man crews back to two man crews (and, of course, that means women as well), can be applied to the single pilot cockpit as well.
The main problem in reducing crewmembers is not, as you might think, increased workload, but reduced redundancy: as aircraft systems were simplified, the two man crew was able to take on systems management, just as the three man cockpit of an earlier era was able to take on what was formerly the navigator’s functions as long range navigation systems were simplified and improved. What was lost was the extra set of eyes and ears. Procedures and policies had to be created to compensate for this diminished back up capability. Those same policies and procedures, plus an additional safeguard that I will suggest toward the end of this post, can be used to compensate for the complete lack of another set of eyes and ears in the single pilot cockpit.
By way of introduction to those policies and procedures, let me relate a little story as background. Two years ago one of my very best friends, Claudio Guerra, chef/restaurateur and aircraft owner/pilot, and I were planning on flying his Cessna 310 from 7B2, Northampton Airport (Massachusetts) to Oshkosh, and then on to Half Moon Bay on the west coast where his wife and daughter were visiting friends, also not far from our apartment in San Francisco. As part of our preparations we went out flying together to help me get familiar with his airplane. If Claudio was nervous flying with a retired airline pilot and former flight instructor he didn’t show it, but he did get a little apologetic doing the before takeoff checklist: he went through a little drill, one he had memorized and that moved from one part of the cockpit to another, taking care of all the essential pre takeoff items, without a checklist. Then he took the checklist out and said, “I have all the checklists memorized, so I don’t really need this, but whenever I’m flying with passengers I take it out and go through it again just so they don’t worry.”
Actually, while I think he should do it that way every time, passengers or not, what he was doing was exactly what a careful single pilot should do. He had developed a cockpit flow for each phase of flight, and backed it up with a checklist. (There is a reason checklists are called “check lists”: they check that things have been done: they are not “to do” lists, although there are times when we use them that way; the Before Start checklist, for example, is often in reality a “to do” list, and that’s okay because nothing else is going on at that point.) Flow patterns with back up check lists are two of the key elements developed by the airlines for two man cockpits to compensate for the lack of a third crewmember.
Let me give you an example of how flow patterns and checklists work, one taken from the ATA Boeing 757 manual. Checklists normally follow the flight profile: before engine start, engine start, taxi, before takeoff, and so on. At each of those points there is a flow pattern established for each crewmember with a check made to insure that everything is set for that phase. This example is the check at top of descent, or just as you are getting ready to start down. The flows are divided between the pilot flying and the pilot not flying (or pilot monitoring, as it was later called: management and training types love to play with words, as if getting exactly the right word will make everything alright. We argued for years, for instance, whether the parking brake would be “set” or “parked.”) For the pilot flying the flow is:
Ensure shoulder harness is ON.
Push the EICAS [Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System] Recall switch to display existing Alert Messages.
Arm the Autobrake Selector as required.
At 18,000 feet the Captain will place the Wing Landing Lights ON and at the Captain’s discretion any other lights ON.
Passing FL 180 call “DESCENT CHECK.”
For the pilot not flying the flow is:
Place seat belt selector to ON or flash if already ON
Check the performance of the pressurization system and verify that destination airport elevation is set.
Return the lower EICAS to secondary engine display.
Ensure shoulder harness is ON.
Read the DESCENT checklist.
So at this point the cabin is being prepared for approach and landing, the pilots are legal (shoulder harnesses required for approach and landing), the pressurization has been set to start a gradual cabin descent to destination altitude, the overall aircraft systems status has been verified okay (or dealt with previously), the autobrakes system has been set up and the lights are on leaving positive control airspace. And all of this was done from memory, using a basic flow pattern which is top to bottom in this case—seat belt sign and pressurization controls are on the overhead panel, the EICAS is in the center middle panel, the autobrakes lower left panel, then, at FL 180, back up for the landing lights—with the checklist called for after the flows are complete.
So what does the actual DESCENT checklist look like?
Guess what the first item is? Challenge: SEAT BELT SIGN Response: ON
The next item? Challenge: PRESSURIZATION Response: SET
Followed by: Challenge: RECALL Response: CHECKED
Challenge: SPEED AND ALTITUDE BUGS Response: SET & CROSSCHECKED
Challenge: ALTIMETERS TRANSITION LEVEL Response: [local altimeter setting] CROSSCHECKED
Challenge: APPROACH BRIEF Response: COMPLETED.
The first three items confirm that the flow pattern was accomplished successfully; the last three cannot be done from memory, as part of a flow, since they will be different each time: speed and bugs depend on landing weight, altitude bugs on the approach expected, the local altimeter setting is given as part of the descent clearance to an altitude below the transition level (FL 180 in the US), and, of course, the approach briefing depends on the approach; the checklist makes sure these keys items have all been done.
So what does this have to do with single pilot operations? Most single pilot aircraft don’t have seat belt signs, certainly don’t have flight attendants, seldom have pressurization systems or system status monitors or autobrakes and are seldom operated in positive control airspace. But they still need to be prepared for approach and landing; this is the beginning of another phase of flight, from cruise to descent, so this is still a good place for some checks. Fuel management is the first that comes to mind: do fuel pumps need to be on for the descent, is fuel on the fullest tank or on the mains if required for anything other than level flight? What about pitot heat or carb heat? Will the descent descend into visible moisture at or near the freezing level? Will windshield defrost be needed? Is the current altimeter setting set, have you checked the destination weather and/or ATIS, is there an arrival procedure if IFR or nonstandard pattern if VFR, and so on. Each aircraft will have different areas of concern, but all will need to be prepared for approach and landing, and top of descent is a good place to start.
Here is a possible flow for the Piper Twin Comanche C, a relatively representative general aviation single pilot aircraft, beginning at the top left and working left to right, top to bottom:
Altimeter set
Power for descent set
Engine instruments checked
Fuel quantity checked
Vacuum checked
Ammeter checked
Autopilot set as required
Windshield heat as required
Landing lights as required
Pitot heat as required
Cowl flaps closed
Fuel Mains selected
This may sound like a lot to do and to remember, but it’s not with an organized flow. This flow starts with the altimeter, right in front of the pilot (and certainly doesn’t preclude checking all the primary flight instruments including resetting the heading gyro to the magnetic compass, if not slaved, but that check can and should be done on a regular basis anyway). It then moves across the panel to the throttles for descent, a quick check of engine temps and levels right under the MP and RPM gauges, down to the fuel quantity gauge, then down a level and back to the left to start over again, checking vacuum and ammeter gauges, the autopilot in the center (on or off? trimmed? altitude preselect set?), over to the far right again to check windshield heat, then down again, to the lower level of the panel, left to right, checking lights, pitot heat, and cowl flaps. Finally, down to the floor, where the fuel selectors are on the Comanche, to select or verify fuel on the mains, which are required for takeoff, climb, descent and landing.
You would then want to back up your descent flow with a written checklist. This would probably not need to repeat every item on the flow, but would want to hit the important points and add any items that should be done here that do not fit into a flow, items like checking weather and airport information. One possibility might be:
Altimeter SET
Autopilot AS REQ
Windshield heat AS REQ
Pitot heat AS REQ
Cowl flaps CLOSED
Fuel ON MAINS
Weather CHECKED
Airport/approach CHECKED
Flows and corresponding checklists should be established for each of the key phases of flight:
Before start
Before taxi
Before takeoff
Climb
Cruise
Descent
Before landing
After landing
Shut down
These flows and checks are key to safe two man cockpit operations, and will also work well with single pilot operations. But I said at the beginning that there was something else I would talk about toward the end to supplement these flows and checks for the single pilot operator. First I want to review what we normally take completely for granted, but what is worth thinking about for a moment anyway, and that is, why do we have checklists? The obvious reason is to make sure we have done everything we’re supposed to do to prepare the aircraft for safe flight. That’s true, of course, but there is a simpler and more fundamental reason: we do it to keep from killing ourselves.
Way back when I first starting flying professionally and was transitioning from recips to jets, one of my captains said something that made a big impression on me at the time. He said, “There are four things that, if not set properly, will kill you on takeoff in a jet: speed brakes, trim, flaps and slats, and the parking brake.” He went on to elaborate: "If the speed brakes are out on takeoff, it won’t fly; If the trim is miss set, it either won’t rotate when you want it to, or will when you don’t; If the flaps and slats aren’t set for takeoff, it won’t fly, and if the parking brake is set it may move but it won’t accelerate normally. They can all kill you. So every time, just before I push up the power, I do a quick scan: speed brakes stowed, trim set, flaps and slats for takeoff, parking brake released. Haven’t killed myself yet.”
Takeoff for a reciprocating engined straight wing aircraft is different, so when your primary flight instructor emphasized the importance of correctly setting the trim and flaps for takeoff, it wasn’t because your Cessna 152 or Cherokee 140 wouldn’t fly if they weren’t set properly, it was because he or she was trying to instill good habits. But there are two key points here that are relevant to checklists and flows for all pilots. The first is that all of these critical items should have been taken care of well in advance of taxiing onto the runway and bringing the power up as part of the normal Taxi/Before Takeoff flows, and if they weren’t they should have been caught when the checklist was read. The second is that even if they weren’t done and weren’t caught, this last double check will catch the really big ones, the ones that left undone will kill you.
A final double check is what pilots flying by themselves can do to, in effect, back themselves up: after all the flows have been done, and after all the checklists have been completed, at each of the key phases of flight they can make a quick scan to make sure the really big things, the things that left undone will kill you, have been done. And it needs to become a habit that is done every time to be effective.
I’m not going to attempt to cover what those items should be for a bunch of different types of aircraft, but I can give you an example that I am hopeful will be a model for you to develop final checks for whatever type of aircraft you do fly. Again the example will be based on the Piper Twin Comanche, for no better reason than that I happen to have a manual handy.
First, what are the critical phases of flight? Obviously takeoff and landing are, but are there others? There certainly are other times enroute when the opportunity to do something catastrophic presents itself: descending too soon or too low on an instrument approach or trying to land at the wrong airport VFR, for instance, but those aren’t aircraft problems—problems with the configuration or functionality of the aircraft—those are pilot problems. And while forgetting to raise the gear after takeoff or leaving the power set to climb power at cruise or reducing the power to descent but forgetting to reset or disengage autopilot would be serious errors, they probably aren’t going to kill you. Not right away anyway—you have time to correct and recover. So I think it is safe to limit the really critical phases of flight to takeoff and landing.
We’ve already gone over what can kill you in a jet on takeoff, but what about the Twin Comanche? Speed brakes aren’t a factor and the Twin Comanche is normally flown flaps up for takeoff (except for a short field takeoff which I don’t recommend for any twin and certainly not for the Twin Comanche where best angle of climb and minimum control airspeed are the same), so flaps are not usually a killer here either. So what is? Fuel for one. The Twin Comanche can only use fuel from the mains for takeoff, and, of course, there has to be fuel in those tanks. What does happen if the gear handle is in the UP position on takeoff? Of course it shouldn’t be, but if it is, as soon as some weight comes off the struts but before it can fly, the gear will try to retract, with what could be disastrous consequences. (Okay, it probably won’t kill you, but it’s a major accident for sure.) Finally, is the directional gyro in agreement both with the magnetic compass and with the runway? Why is this critical? What if it is set wrong and you fly the wrong heading after takeoff. Worse, what if you’re on the wrong runway, one that is too short, or is closed, or one that has power lines at the end, or that intersects another runway being used for landing? It only has to happen once.
That’s probably it for critical items for a VFR takeoff –you’re not trying to redo the entire Before Takeoff Checklist, just a last minute double check of the items that can kill you. For an IFR takeoff I would add a last minute check of the vacuum pressure and the ammeter: vacuum pumps are notoriously unreliable, which is why the Twin Comanche has two, and a quick last minute check that neither of the red buttons on the vacuum gauge is visible would confirm that they are both working, and with the ammeter gauge right beside it a quick check of alternator output insures you’re not going to be on battery power just as you fly into the clouds. Both vacuum and electrical power are essential to safe instrument flight.
So for a VFR takeoff the last minute check would be directional gyro heading, runway and compass agree (all at the top of the panel), drop down to check the gear handle down, across to the far right to check fuel quantity and then down to the floor to check that the fuel selectors are on the mains. For an IFR takeoff (and I would do it this way every time if instrument rated, just to be consistent) after checking the DG I would drop straight down and check the vacuum gauge, the ammeter and then go on to gear handle, fuel quantity and main tanks. That should keep you from killing yourself on takeoff.
Now, landing. I find it sometimes useful to carry an argument to its logical extreme to check its validity: if it seems to make sense a little bit, then it should still make sense if extended to its most extreme case. For example, Daily Saving Time: Good Idea or Bad? (My daughters dread the changeovers each year because they know they’re going to have to listen to me go off again on how stupid I think it all is. So there’s my answer already.) If Daily Saving Time is a good idea because it gives us an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day, then wouldn’t two extra hours be even better? Why not carry the argument to its logical extreme and add 12 hours? Then we could have day light all night long.
In the case of determining critical items for landing, the logical extreme would be to ask what would happen if we did absolutely nothing? If nothing adverse happened, then there wouldn’t be any critical items. So what would happen if we adjusted the power and airspeed as necessary to land, but left everything else as it was at cruise, not even checking the engine gauges, only responding to whatever happens? For the Twin Comanche at cruise the gear would be retracted, the flaps up, the power would be 75% or less, the prop would be back—RPMs would be reduced—the fuel could be set to any tank, mains, aux, tip, with anything from almost full to almost no fuel in it, the boost pumps would be off and the cowl flaps would probably be partially if not fully closed. So let’s assume either a total idiot or the laziest pilot every known starts down from cruise and doesn’t do anything. What would happen?
Initially, probably nothing would happen. But at some point fuel management, or mismanagement, would probably rear its ugly head: fuel wouldn’t flow evenly from an aux tank or tip tank on the descent or approach, and power would fluctuate. Or it might simply run empty. So in response our star pilot would presumably do what he knows he should have done and turn the boost pumps on and select fuel from the main tanks which we hope still have fuel in them. Still alive. So everything is going fine again and now he is on approach or in the traffic pattern and everything is still fine: power is well below max for maneuvering and descending so the prop rpms being reduced isn’t a factor, and, surprisingly, the mixture still at the lean setting for cruise doesn’t seem to be causing any roughness because the power level is reduced well below max, and the cowl flaps being closed are also not causing too much of a problem for the same reason. So Captain Clueless continues on around, lines up on final, or breaks out on approach, trucks on down to the runway, crosses over the numbers, reduces power for landing and the landing gear warning horn goes off. Now he has a problem: the mixture is lean, the props are not set for go around power, he is closer to stall speed than he thinks because the flaps aren’t out and the only thing that is going to save him from a gear up landing is a go around and the aircraft is not configured to do that. He may be able to save it by pushing everything forward or he may not: a second’s hesitation or pushing only the throttles up and the next thing he’s going to hear is props striking the runway. Or the worst case scenario, one engine powers up right away and the other hesitates. The next sound is going to be louder than props hitting concrete.
So, surprisingly, when you look at this extreme case, there actually isn’t that much that is absolutely critical on approach and landing, but there are some, and that’s what we want to be sure we double check on short final. (You may be wondering why the lack of flaps didn’t already get him before the gear not being down did, and they might have if he weren’t careful with his speed control and angle of bank, but the simple fact is that landing flaps for general aviation aircraft don’t decrease the stalling speed all that much; their may function is glide path control. For the Twin Comanche, for instance, the difference between clean and dirty stall speed is only 6 knots, and at a recommended approach speed 30% above the dirty stall speed, that still leaves a good margin—not something to do intentionally, but it won’t kill you.) What will kill you, or as a minimum hurt you and your airplane, is running out of gas at a low altitude, trying to land with the gear up, and trying to do a go around with less than full power. So I would say that the critical items, the items requiring a last minute double check for the Twin Comanche would be: props and mixtures full forward, gear down green light, and fuel on mains. (Sounds a lot like the old GUMP checklist, doesn’t it?) And you could develop a quick scan for this double check by reaching over to make sure the props and mixture controls were full forward, a quick downward glance for the green light, and then reach down to feel for the fuel selectors on the mains. And I would make a point of running this double check at the same point each time, maybe right after lining up on final, or as soon as possible after breaking out on approach. If you do that every time, you’re never going to unexpectedly run out of gas on final or land gear up, and you’re always going to be able to extract yourself if, for any reason, landing is not possible.
These are techniques, borrowed from airline practice, for safe single pilot operations: develop cockpit flows for all key phases of flight, back up your flows with checklists, double check the critical items before every takeoff and landing. Anything else? These techniques will take you a long way, but there are a couple of other things you can do, and they both are meant to counter complacency, distraction, and boredom. One is to stay involved, and by that I mean do things: keep a log, check the weather, get the whiz wheel out and compute the true airspeed or the pressure altitude, experiment with different prop and power settings, reset the mixture, figure the winds aloft, ask ATC if they have winds for any other altitudes and get the performance manual out to see if it’s worth climbing or descending, anything to stay involved. Don’t just sit there.
The other thing, and I learned this from one of my check captains transitioning from copilot to captain on the Boeing 727, maybe the same one who inspired the heading and title for this blog, is to look around. Don’t just sit there staring at the primary instruments in front of you. Look around. All the time. Look up, look down, look to the left, way left to the side panel, right to the entry door and latch, even look back. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, “You’d be surprised what you can see if you just look.” You’ll catch a thing or two, a switch out of place, a breaker that has popped, a latch that isn’t catching completely, and you may even be inspired to get out the flight manual and review how something works that you see that you don’t normally use, like an alternate air selector. You are providing your own set of extra eyeballs, the ones that are missing because you don’t have a copilot or a flight engineer. It’s not easy flying without help. These techniques should make it easier.
The main problem in reducing crewmembers is not, as you might think, increased workload, but reduced redundancy: as aircraft systems were simplified, the two man crew was able to take on systems management, just as the three man cockpit of an earlier era was able to take on what was formerly the navigator’s functions as long range navigation systems were simplified and improved. What was lost was the extra set of eyes and ears. Procedures and policies had to be created to compensate for this diminished back up capability. Those same policies and procedures, plus an additional safeguard that I will suggest toward the end of this post, can be used to compensate for the complete lack of another set of eyes and ears in the single pilot cockpit.
By way of introduction to those policies and procedures, let me relate a little story as background. Two years ago one of my very best friends, Claudio Guerra, chef/restaurateur and aircraft owner/pilot, and I were planning on flying his Cessna 310 from 7B2, Northampton Airport (Massachusetts) to Oshkosh, and then on to Half Moon Bay on the west coast where his wife and daughter were visiting friends, also not far from our apartment in San Francisco. As part of our preparations we went out flying together to help me get familiar with his airplane. If Claudio was nervous flying with a retired airline pilot and former flight instructor he didn’t show it, but he did get a little apologetic doing the before takeoff checklist: he went through a little drill, one he had memorized and that moved from one part of the cockpit to another, taking care of all the essential pre takeoff items, without a checklist. Then he took the checklist out and said, “I have all the checklists memorized, so I don’t really need this, but whenever I’m flying with passengers I take it out and go through it again just so they don’t worry.”
Actually, while I think he should do it that way every time, passengers or not, what he was doing was exactly what a careful single pilot should do. He had developed a cockpit flow for each phase of flight, and backed it up with a checklist. (There is a reason checklists are called “check lists”: they check that things have been done: they are not “to do” lists, although there are times when we use them that way; the Before Start checklist, for example, is often in reality a “to do” list, and that’s okay because nothing else is going on at that point.) Flow patterns with back up check lists are two of the key elements developed by the airlines for two man cockpits to compensate for the lack of a third crewmember.
Let me give you an example of how flow patterns and checklists work, one taken from the ATA Boeing 757 manual. Checklists normally follow the flight profile: before engine start, engine start, taxi, before takeoff, and so on. At each of those points there is a flow pattern established for each crewmember with a check made to insure that everything is set for that phase. This example is the check at top of descent, or just as you are getting ready to start down. The flows are divided between the pilot flying and the pilot not flying (or pilot monitoring, as it was later called: management and training types love to play with words, as if getting exactly the right word will make everything alright. We argued for years, for instance, whether the parking brake would be “set” or “parked.”) For the pilot flying the flow is:
Ensure shoulder harness is ON.
Push the EICAS [Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System] Recall switch to display existing Alert Messages.
Arm the Autobrake Selector as required.
At 18,000 feet the Captain will place the Wing Landing Lights ON and at the Captain’s discretion any other lights ON.
Passing FL 180 call “DESCENT CHECK.”
For the pilot not flying the flow is:
Place seat belt selector to ON or flash if already ON
Check the performance of the pressurization system and verify that destination airport elevation is set.
Return the lower EICAS to secondary engine display.
Ensure shoulder harness is ON.
Read the DESCENT checklist.
So at this point the cabin is being prepared for approach and landing, the pilots are legal (shoulder harnesses required for approach and landing), the pressurization has been set to start a gradual cabin descent to destination altitude, the overall aircraft systems status has been verified okay (or dealt with previously), the autobrakes system has been set up and the lights are on leaving positive control airspace. And all of this was done from memory, using a basic flow pattern which is top to bottom in this case—seat belt sign and pressurization controls are on the overhead panel, the EICAS is in the center middle panel, the autobrakes lower left panel, then, at FL 180, back up for the landing lights—with the checklist called for after the flows are complete.
So what does the actual DESCENT checklist look like?
Guess what the first item is? Challenge: SEAT BELT SIGN Response: ON
The next item? Challenge: PRESSURIZATION Response: SET
Followed by: Challenge: RECALL Response: CHECKED
Challenge: SPEED AND ALTITUDE BUGS Response: SET & CROSSCHECKED
Challenge: ALTIMETERS TRANSITION LEVEL Response: [local altimeter setting] CROSSCHECKED
Challenge: APPROACH BRIEF Response: COMPLETED.
The first three items confirm that the flow pattern was accomplished successfully; the last three cannot be done from memory, as part of a flow, since they will be different each time: speed and bugs depend on landing weight, altitude bugs on the approach expected, the local altimeter setting is given as part of the descent clearance to an altitude below the transition level (FL 180 in the US), and, of course, the approach briefing depends on the approach; the checklist makes sure these keys items have all been done.
So what does this have to do with single pilot operations? Most single pilot aircraft don’t have seat belt signs, certainly don’t have flight attendants, seldom have pressurization systems or system status monitors or autobrakes and are seldom operated in positive control airspace. But they still need to be prepared for approach and landing; this is the beginning of another phase of flight, from cruise to descent, so this is still a good place for some checks. Fuel management is the first that comes to mind: do fuel pumps need to be on for the descent, is fuel on the fullest tank or on the mains if required for anything other than level flight? What about pitot heat or carb heat? Will the descent descend into visible moisture at or near the freezing level? Will windshield defrost be needed? Is the current altimeter setting set, have you checked the destination weather and/or ATIS, is there an arrival procedure if IFR or nonstandard pattern if VFR, and so on. Each aircraft will have different areas of concern, but all will need to be prepared for approach and landing, and top of descent is a good place to start.
Here is a possible flow for the Piper Twin Comanche C, a relatively representative general aviation single pilot aircraft, beginning at the top left and working left to right, top to bottom:
Altimeter set
Power for descent set
Engine instruments checked
Fuel quantity checked
Vacuum checked
Ammeter checked
Autopilot set as required
Windshield heat as required
Landing lights as required
Pitot heat as required
Cowl flaps closed
Fuel Mains selected
This may sound like a lot to do and to remember, but it’s not with an organized flow. This flow starts with the altimeter, right in front of the pilot (and certainly doesn’t preclude checking all the primary flight instruments including resetting the heading gyro to the magnetic compass, if not slaved, but that check can and should be done on a regular basis anyway). It then moves across the panel to the throttles for descent, a quick check of engine temps and levels right under the MP and RPM gauges, down to the fuel quantity gauge, then down a level and back to the left to start over again, checking vacuum and ammeter gauges, the autopilot in the center (on or off? trimmed? altitude preselect set?), over to the far right again to check windshield heat, then down again, to the lower level of the panel, left to right, checking lights, pitot heat, and cowl flaps. Finally, down to the floor, where the fuel selectors are on the Comanche, to select or verify fuel on the mains, which are required for takeoff, climb, descent and landing.
You would then want to back up your descent flow with a written checklist. This would probably not need to repeat every item on the flow, but would want to hit the important points and add any items that should be done here that do not fit into a flow, items like checking weather and airport information. One possibility might be:
Altimeter SET
Autopilot AS REQ
Windshield heat AS REQ
Pitot heat AS REQ
Cowl flaps CLOSED
Fuel ON MAINS
Weather CHECKED
Airport/approach CHECKED
Flows and corresponding checklists should be established for each of the key phases of flight:
Before start
Before taxi
Before takeoff
Climb
Cruise
Descent
Before landing
After landing
Shut down
These flows and checks are key to safe two man cockpit operations, and will also work well with single pilot operations. But I said at the beginning that there was something else I would talk about toward the end to supplement these flows and checks for the single pilot operator. First I want to review what we normally take completely for granted, but what is worth thinking about for a moment anyway, and that is, why do we have checklists? The obvious reason is to make sure we have done everything we’re supposed to do to prepare the aircraft for safe flight. That’s true, of course, but there is a simpler and more fundamental reason: we do it to keep from killing ourselves.
Way back when I first starting flying professionally and was transitioning from recips to jets, one of my captains said something that made a big impression on me at the time. He said, “There are four things that, if not set properly, will kill you on takeoff in a jet: speed brakes, trim, flaps and slats, and the parking brake.” He went on to elaborate: "If the speed brakes are out on takeoff, it won’t fly; If the trim is miss set, it either won’t rotate when you want it to, or will when you don’t; If the flaps and slats aren’t set for takeoff, it won’t fly, and if the parking brake is set it may move but it won’t accelerate normally. They can all kill you. So every time, just before I push up the power, I do a quick scan: speed brakes stowed, trim set, flaps and slats for takeoff, parking brake released. Haven’t killed myself yet.”
Takeoff for a reciprocating engined straight wing aircraft is different, so when your primary flight instructor emphasized the importance of correctly setting the trim and flaps for takeoff, it wasn’t because your Cessna 152 or Cherokee 140 wouldn’t fly if they weren’t set properly, it was because he or she was trying to instill good habits. But there are two key points here that are relevant to checklists and flows for all pilots. The first is that all of these critical items should have been taken care of well in advance of taxiing onto the runway and bringing the power up as part of the normal Taxi/Before Takeoff flows, and if they weren’t they should have been caught when the checklist was read. The second is that even if they weren’t done and weren’t caught, this last double check will catch the really big ones, the ones that left undone will kill you.
A final double check is what pilots flying by themselves can do to, in effect, back themselves up: after all the flows have been done, and after all the checklists have been completed, at each of the key phases of flight they can make a quick scan to make sure the really big things, the things that left undone will kill you, have been done. And it needs to become a habit that is done every time to be effective.
I’m not going to attempt to cover what those items should be for a bunch of different types of aircraft, but I can give you an example that I am hopeful will be a model for you to develop final checks for whatever type of aircraft you do fly. Again the example will be based on the Piper Twin Comanche, for no better reason than that I happen to have a manual handy.
First, what are the critical phases of flight? Obviously takeoff and landing are, but are there others? There certainly are other times enroute when the opportunity to do something catastrophic presents itself: descending too soon or too low on an instrument approach or trying to land at the wrong airport VFR, for instance, but those aren’t aircraft problems—problems with the configuration or functionality of the aircraft—those are pilot problems. And while forgetting to raise the gear after takeoff or leaving the power set to climb power at cruise or reducing the power to descent but forgetting to reset or disengage autopilot would be serious errors, they probably aren’t going to kill you. Not right away anyway—you have time to correct and recover. So I think it is safe to limit the really critical phases of flight to takeoff and landing.
We’ve already gone over what can kill you in a jet on takeoff, but what about the Twin Comanche? Speed brakes aren’t a factor and the Twin Comanche is normally flown flaps up for takeoff (except for a short field takeoff which I don’t recommend for any twin and certainly not for the Twin Comanche where best angle of climb and minimum control airspeed are the same), so flaps are not usually a killer here either. So what is? Fuel for one. The Twin Comanche can only use fuel from the mains for takeoff, and, of course, there has to be fuel in those tanks. What does happen if the gear handle is in the UP position on takeoff? Of course it shouldn’t be, but if it is, as soon as some weight comes off the struts but before it can fly, the gear will try to retract, with what could be disastrous consequences. (Okay, it probably won’t kill you, but it’s a major accident for sure.) Finally, is the directional gyro in agreement both with the magnetic compass and with the runway? Why is this critical? What if it is set wrong and you fly the wrong heading after takeoff. Worse, what if you’re on the wrong runway, one that is too short, or is closed, or one that has power lines at the end, or that intersects another runway being used for landing? It only has to happen once.
That’s probably it for critical items for a VFR takeoff –you’re not trying to redo the entire Before Takeoff Checklist, just a last minute double check of the items that can kill you. For an IFR takeoff I would add a last minute check of the vacuum pressure and the ammeter: vacuum pumps are notoriously unreliable, which is why the Twin Comanche has two, and a quick last minute check that neither of the red buttons on the vacuum gauge is visible would confirm that they are both working, and with the ammeter gauge right beside it a quick check of alternator output insures you’re not going to be on battery power just as you fly into the clouds. Both vacuum and electrical power are essential to safe instrument flight.
So for a VFR takeoff the last minute check would be directional gyro heading, runway and compass agree (all at the top of the panel), drop down to check the gear handle down, across to the far right to check fuel quantity and then down to the floor to check that the fuel selectors are on the mains. For an IFR takeoff (and I would do it this way every time if instrument rated, just to be consistent) after checking the DG I would drop straight down and check the vacuum gauge, the ammeter and then go on to gear handle, fuel quantity and main tanks. That should keep you from killing yourself on takeoff.
Now, landing. I find it sometimes useful to carry an argument to its logical extreme to check its validity: if it seems to make sense a little bit, then it should still make sense if extended to its most extreme case. For example, Daily Saving Time: Good Idea or Bad? (My daughters dread the changeovers each year because they know they’re going to have to listen to me go off again on how stupid I think it all is. So there’s my answer already.) If Daily Saving Time is a good idea because it gives us an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day, then wouldn’t two extra hours be even better? Why not carry the argument to its logical extreme and add 12 hours? Then we could have day light all night long.
In the case of determining critical items for landing, the logical extreme would be to ask what would happen if we did absolutely nothing? If nothing adverse happened, then there wouldn’t be any critical items. So what would happen if we adjusted the power and airspeed as necessary to land, but left everything else as it was at cruise, not even checking the engine gauges, only responding to whatever happens? For the Twin Comanche at cruise the gear would be retracted, the flaps up, the power would be 75% or less, the prop would be back—RPMs would be reduced—the fuel could be set to any tank, mains, aux, tip, with anything from almost full to almost no fuel in it, the boost pumps would be off and the cowl flaps would probably be partially if not fully closed. So let’s assume either a total idiot or the laziest pilot every known starts down from cruise and doesn’t do anything. What would happen?
Initially, probably nothing would happen. But at some point fuel management, or mismanagement, would probably rear its ugly head: fuel wouldn’t flow evenly from an aux tank or tip tank on the descent or approach, and power would fluctuate. Or it might simply run empty. So in response our star pilot would presumably do what he knows he should have done and turn the boost pumps on and select fuel from the main tanks which we hope still have fuel in them. Still alive. So everything is going fine again and now he is on approach or in the traffic pattern and everything is still fine: power is well below max for maneuvering and descending so the prop rpms being reduced isn’t a factor, and, surprisingly, the mixture still at the lean setting for cruise doesn’t seem to be causing any roughness because the power level is reduced well below max, and the cowl flaps being closed are also not causing too much of a problem for the same reason. So Captain Clueless continues on around, lines up on final, or breaks out on approach, trucks on down to the runway, crosses over the numbers, reduces power for landing and the landing gear warning horn goes off. Now he has a problem: the mixture is lean, the props are not set for go around power, he is closer to stall speed than he thinks because the flaps aren’t out and the only thing that is going to save him from a gear up landing is a go around and the aircraft is not configured to do that. He may be able to save it by pushing everything forward or he may not: a second’s hesitation or pushing only the throttles up and the next thing he’s going to hear is props striking the runway. Or the worst case scenario, one engine powers up right away and the other hesitates. The next sound is going to be louder than props hitting concrete.
So, surprisingly, when you look at this extreme case, there actually isn’t that much that is absolutely critical on approach and landing, but there are some, and that’s what we want to be sure we double check on short final. (You may be wondering why the lack of flaps didn’t already get him before the gear not being down did, and they might have if he weren’t careful with his speed control and angle of bank, but the simple fact is that landing flaps for general aviation aircraft don’t decrease the stalling speed all that much; their may function is glide path control. For the Twin Comanche, for instance, the difference between clean and dirty stall speed is only 6 knots, and at a recommended approach speed 30% above the dirty stall speed, that still leaves a good margin—not something to do intentionally, but it won’t kill you.) What will kill you, or as a minimum hurt you and your airplane, is running out of gas at a low altitude, trying to land with the gear up, and trying to do a go around with less than full power. So I would say that the critical items, the items requiring a last minute double check for the Twin Comanche would be: props and mixtures full forward, gear down green light, and fuel on mains. (Sounds a lot like the old GUMP checklist, doesn’t it?) And you could develop a quick scan for this double check by reaching over to make sure the props and mixture controls were full forward, a quick downward glance for the green light, and then reach down to feel for the fuel selectors on the mains. And I would make a point of running this double check at the same point each time, maybe right after lining up on final, or as soon as possible after breaking out on approach. If you do that every time, you’re never going to unexpectedly run out of gas on final or land gear up, and you’re always going to be able to extract yourself if, for any reason, landing is not possible.
These are techniques, borrowed from airline practice, for safe single pilot operations: develop cockpit flows for all key phases of flight, back up your flows with checklists, double check the critical items before every takeoff and landing. Anything else? These techniques will take you a long way, but there are a couple of other things you can do, and they both are meant to counter complacency, distraction, and boredom. One is to stay involved, and by that I mean do things: keep a log, check the weather, get the whiz wheel out and compute the true airspeed or the pressure altitude, experiment with different prop and power settings, reset the mixture, figure the winds aloft, ask ATC if they have winds for any other altitudes and get the performance manual out to see if it’s worth climbing or descending, anything to stay involved. Don’t just sit there.
The other thing, and I learned this from one of my check captains transitioning from copilot to captain on the Boeing 727, maybe the same one who inspired the heading and title for this blog, is to look around. Don’t just sit there staring at the primary instruments in front of you. Look around. All the time. Look up, look down, look to the left, way left to the side panel, right to the entry door and latch, even look back. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, “You’d be surprised what you can see if you just look.” You’ll catch a thing or two, a switch out of place, a breaker that has popped, a latch that isn’t catching completely, and you may even be inspired to get out the flight manual and review how something works that you see that you don’t normally use, like an alternate air selector. You are providing your own set of extra eyeballs, the ones that are missing because you don’t have a copilot or a flight engineer. It’s not easy flying without help. These techniques should make it easier.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Greeters
I wrote about my last flight as an airline pilot in a post called “Last Flight,” published in September 2007. What I didn’t mention there was that as I exited the aircraft, going through the terminal, I was greeted by locals who meet every military flight coming and going through Bangor International Airport, thanking the troops for what they have done and what they will do. It’s a program that started during Desert Storm and has continued every day and night of the year since—Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, doesn’t matter.
I was reading The Wall Street Journal this morning, as I do almost every morning, and I came across a review of a show to be shown on PBS on Veterans’ Day, November 11, at 900pm, Eastern Time. It is part of a series called P.O.V. and the specific show is called “The Way We Get By.” The show is about the greeters, what they do and why they do it. It sounds great. It’s about time these people were better known, and I hope it inspires others. PBS gets a rap for being the “nuanced crowd’s” network of choice, but this sounds like the right thing to do on Veterans’ Day.
This photo was taken as I was leaving the aircraft, looking back. It is being fueled and catered for the leg outbound to Shannon. The greeters are just behind me. The troops had already deplaned to stretch their legs, and, if they were smart, have one of the Bangor Airport snack bar's famous lobster rolls. It would have to last them for a year, when they came back through Bangor, and were thanked again.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Single Pilot Cockpit Techniques, Part I
We all start out in single pilot aircraft. That doesn’t mean single seat aircraft, it means aircraft that only require one pilot to be flown. (And that doesn’t mean they can’t be flown by two pilots—most aircraft do have dual controls—only that they were designed to be flown by a single pilot.) We first encounter the reality of a single pilot aircraft on the day our flight instructor steps out and says, “I think you’re ready to do this on your own. Take it around three times and taxi back here. Have fun.” Suddenly the airplane is empty and you have your first experience with single pilot operation.
Aircraft that require two pilots come in two varieties, those that are designed that way from the beginning, and those that are required to be operated that way by the regulatory part under which they are operated. Those that are designed to be operated by two pilots do not have to have all pilot controllable items—switches, levers, circuit breakers, knobs—accessible from the left seat, they only have to be accessible from one seat or the other. A dead give away to whether an aircraft was designed to be flown by one pilot or two is to look at the gear control lever: if it’s on the left side of the cockpit it’s a single pilot aircraft; if it’s on the right side it’s a two pilot aircraft. (Professional pilots often use the phrase, “I pulled gear for so and so…,” meaning “I was a copilot for so and so.”) Aircraft flown by two pilots have what every first solo pilot wants: someone to help. So for the pilot going from a single pilot aircraft to a dual pilot aircraft, the transition is fairly straight forward and simple: just keep doing what you always have, but let your copilot help. Help can include everything from “pulling gear,” letting you concentrate on flying and not having to reach blindly for the gear handle or glance away at a critical moment, to handling the radios, keeping track of the flight log and fuel management, programming nav computers, digging approach plates out, or anything else you want him or her to do. In professional practice, pilot often “swap legs”, alternating flying and non flying duties, and in the co-captains arrangement (my least favorite mode of crewing) they alternate seats as well, the captain for each leg alternating and sitting in the left seat. (It is my least favorite because it often leads to blurring the line between the pilot in command and the second in command. But that’s a story for another day.)
There aren’t any aircraft being designed any more for a three man crew (I guess I have to say “three person crew,” but when these aircraft were being designed, “three man crew” was how they were described), but there used to be lots, in fact the three man crew was a crew member or two less than those before them that also had navigators and radio operators. The third crewmember was a flight engineer, a non flying position, and his (or her) primary job responsibility was aircraft systems management, primarily the engines but also all systems associated with those engines: electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, fuel, pressurization. It was a big job because these were big airplanes with very complex systems, multiple redundancies, and very specific troubleshooting and reconfiguring checklists. The transition from a two man aircraft to a three man aircraft was not so simple: you had more help, but how you put that help to work, and how you divided the duties while insuring that someone was still primarily responsible for flying the aircraft and nothing else wasn’t obvious: it had to be learned.
To see how this works, imagine yourself as the Captain in the left seat of an L-1011 at cruise altitude and everything is going along just fine, nice and quiet, when suddenly your flight engineer says, “Hey boss, I think we’re losing C system—the fluid level is less than half and dropping steadily.” Exactly what this means isn’t the point: in fact, the C system on the 1011 is the main hydraulic system, the one that powers all the flight controls and operates the gear and the nose wheel steering, and while there are backups, and while the gear can still be manually lowered (but not raised) and while the aircraft can still be controlled (by any one of three other hydraulic systems) even if the system is lost completely, losing C system is one of the big ones. (“Big ones” as in the Gary Larson cartoon where the captain announces to the passengers, “Well folks, we’ve got a warning light on up here, and dare if it isn’t one of the big ones.”)
The point is, how are you going to handle the problem? Just before this problem arose, you were the pilot flying—it was “your leg”—the copilot was the pilot not flying, the one handling the radios and the paperwork, and the engineer was leaning back in his chair with his feet on his desk looking at his panel like he always does. So what do you do now? If you try to help the engineer out, who’s flying the airplane? You could have the copilot try to help him out, but as a practical matter it is a lot harder for the right seat pilot to turn around and see what the engineer is doing than it is for you, you just have to turn sideways in your seat, and in any case, do you really want to just turn this problem over to the two of them while you just sit there? Probably not, so what you do is you say to the copilot, “I’m going to work the problem with the engineer. Your airplane.” meaning you, the copilot, are now the pilot flying, and the copilot would acknowledge the transfer by saying, “My airplane.” This means he has to handle the radios and paperwork as well for awhile, but at cruise that shouldn’t be a problem, and he can always ask for a little help if he gets overloaded, and it leaves you free to turn around in your seat and work with the engineer on the problem, going through the checklist carefully, agreeing on what you are seeing—a lot of checklists are, in reality, troubleshooting trees, with lots of “If this, then do this, if not, then do this” type commands—and confirming that he has his finger on the correct switch before pushing it: this would not be a good time to inadvertently disconnect one of the other hydraulic systems. So a big part of being a captain with a three man crew is learning how to best manage that crew, and the best way to learn it is as a copilot, watching captains deal with the problems that do come up. The next best way is in training, and the least best way is The Hard Way, or what we euphemistically call “experience”. The point is, going from a single pilot operation to a two pilot operation was fairly intuitive, but going on to a three crew operation was not.
So traditionally, meaning during the time I was coming up as a pilot, the normal progression was from student pilot to single pilot in command, then to copilot and captain of a two man operation and then eventually at some point usually through the same steps to captain of a three man crew (often with a stop along the way as the second officer, as pilots who are trained and serve as flight engineers are called in airline jargon). But over time things changed; As manufacturers learned to take advantage of computers and more robust, more reliable, and ultimately simpler aircraft systems, the flight engineer, or second officer, was eliminated, first on large two engine aircraft such as the Boeing 757 and 767, and then on all aircraft, Airbus 330/340s, MD-11s, 777s, even later models of the 747. And crews that had flown for years with three crew members, and who had gotten good at working together and relying on each other, had to learn to make do with just two crewmembers again. And that turned out to be a whole lot harder than learning to go from a single pilot to a dual pilot operation.
The main difference between going from a single pilot operation to a two pilot operation, versus going from a three man crew back to a two pilot operation, is that the single pilot is already used to having to do everything himself, whereas the pilot of a three man crew is used to having, and working with, lots of help. The single pilot who suddenly finds himself with a copilot has to learn to use that help, and the pilot who suddenly loses his flight engineer has to learn to make do with just the two of them. Each has some learning to do, but it is very different for each.
One of the main differences is that the three man crew is used to having back up: with three crew members, someone is always looking out for the other two, whether it is the flight engineer monitoring the radios or the captain backing up the flight engineer on his panel or the copilot monitoring the captain as he flies an approach. A good sort of dependency develops among an experienced crew—I can’t begin to count the number of times in my 727 or 1011 flying where one crewmember caught a mistake that the two others had overlooked, and no one crewmember had a monopoly on it—each made mistakes, and each caught mistakes. I used to say, as part of my standard crew briefing with pilots and flight engineers I hadn’t flown with before, “If you see something you don’t like or don’t understand or something that doesn’t seem to make sense, speak up. If it’s a mistake developing and we can correct it and keep it right here in the cockpit, it isn’t a mistake,” meaning if we can correct it before there are any negative consequences—something someone outside the cockpit is aware of—we’ve done our job.
The problem with that, with what I call a beneficial dependency, is that when you go back to the two man crew, you have to learn certain techniques to compensate for the fact that you don’t have that backup anymore. With a two man crew you are, of course, aware of what the other pilot is doing, but each has his job responsibilities and neither has the luxury of being able to just sit back and monitor the other. The airlines were very concerned with this lack of backup capability when the two man aircraft came back into their fleets, much more so than they were with the more obvious question of whether the aircraft could be flown safely and reliably without a flight engineer. So they developed some very specific policies and procedures to insure flight safety with just two pilots. Those policies and procedures are the subject of my next post, “Single Pilot Cockpit Techniques, Part II,” because those techniques also apply to pilots flying by themselves without any help at all.
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