Mistakes
This
article is about the difference between a good pilot, and a bad pilot.
First
we have to define what a “good pilot” is, and what a “bad pilot” is. Amazingly, this simple definition can cause
enormous amounts of trouble and hurt feelings.
Being
the anachronistic dinosaur that I am, I personally define a “good pilot” as
someone that doesn’t alter the appearance
of the aircraft. A “bad pilot”
conversely alters the appearance of the aircraft, and in the process may very
well injure or kill people dumb enough to be in the same aircraft as him, or
unfortunate enough to be on the ground under him.
The
above would appear to be simple and self-evident, but in our sensitive new-age
times, an amazing number of touchy-feely people define a “good pilot” as
someone who feels the compulsive, pathetic need to make as many new friends
every day as he possibly can, while a “bad pilot” is the opposite. I am not making this crap up. I really wish I was – it would be funny if it
weren’t so stupid.
No
longer do people really care much if you crash or kill your passengers – that’s
a “learning experience”. If you have
enough “learning experiences” you can probably get hired by Transport, so that
you can spend the rest of your career touring and lecturing and spreading the
word about all of your “learning experiences”.
What
insane nonsense. But again, I am a
cranky old guy that cares much more about not having an accident, than people’s
delicate feelings. This, I understand
qualifies me as a “Bad Pilot” in the estimation of the touchy-feely crowd,
despite the fact that I haven’t dinged an airplane in a lifetime of
flying. Not a lot of “learning
experiences” for me, I suppose.
But
let’s get back and look at a “good pilot” by my definition, which means that he
doesn’t bend any tin. At least, he tries
very hard not to.
Unless
you are completely deranged – and there are some suicidal four-bars out there
that have notably intentionally crashed 737’s and killed everyone on board –
you probably don’t wake up in the morning and say in the mirror: “Today is a
good day to trash an airplane”.
If
you’re a sane pilot, you will do everything in your power not to damage an
aircraft. I hope. Anything bad that happens is the result of a
mistake.
So
I’ve taken an entire page to come to the conclusion that I hope is blindingly
obvious to you: good pilots make fewer
mistakes than bad pilots.
To
be more specific, good pilots make fewer serious
mistakes than bad pilots.
Unless
you’re deluded or a pathological liar, I hope you will admit that everyone
makes mistakes, all the time. Human
beings do that, you know. How many
courses that you took in the past, did you receive a mark of 100% on?
I
have been flying for over 40 years, and in that time I am reasonably certain
that I have never, ever performed a perfect, flawless flight. Anyone that tells you that they have, is a
liar.
Every
flight is a collection of mistakes. This
is a fact.
A
“good pilot” is quite aware (and very unhappy about) his mistakes, which he
spends a lot of effort trying to reduce.
A pilot lacking this important self-motivation is just hamburger in the
cockpit, and it’s no surprise to the rest of us when he crashes. He just doesn’t care.
What
is intensely important to realize is that not all mistakes are created the
same. There is a spectrum of errors.
For
example, if I make the minor error of taxiing 4 inches left of centerline, I’m
pissed off with myself for my inaccuracy, but bent tin is unlikely to result
from it.
A
very common and popular error with pilots is to forget to lower the gear before
landing. Fortunately this rarely results
in fatalities but it’s very hard on the airplane. One could classify this as a “major error” or
a “learning experience” depending upon your perspective.
A
“good pilot” tries very hard to minimize and
never repeat his errors – especially major ones!
Here’s
something that’s important to realize: There are no new mistakes in aviation. Every accident that’s going to happen
this year, has already occurred many, many times before. There’s not much new under the sun. I am willing to wager a large amount of money
that in 2015, for example, a Boeing will not crash because of an alien warship
attack. If that happens to you this
year, kudos for originality.
If
you accept this as axiomatic, and really care about making as few mistakes as
possible going forward, we have begun the life-long journey of learning from
other people’s mistakes, and not insist on making them all ourselves.
A
“good pilot” has a near-OCD need to minimize his minor mistakes, and at the
same time, is very aware of the existence of the spectrum of errors, and is alert
to the dangers of lurking major mistakes.
A
very smart man once said that someone who ignores the lessons of history is
doomed to relive it, and boy, does that ever apply in spades to aviation.
I
am disappointed in so many young people today, who want to put on a white shirt
and gold bars, and climb into the right seat of a Boeing or Airbus at
300TT. While they think they might be “Winning”
Charlie Sheen-style, they have shortchanged themselves and their passengers. They have neglected a huge amount of
learning, in their need to get ahead.
I
am puzzled by flight training today, which seems intent on disregarding the
lessons of history. You probably don’t
care, but the very best B-schools out there very strongly emphasize case study
learning.
If
you want to qualify to fly low-altitude aerobatics at airshows, every year you
need to take an ICAS test, the ground portion of which specifies a review of
previous airshow accidents. So, at least
some people “get it”.
Little
airplanes and big airplanes are different.
This simple fact eludes many.
They are flown differently, and have different kinds of typical
accidents.
You’re
probably going to start out flying little airplanes, at first. If so, you might be interested to learn that
10% of accidents in little airplanes are due to simply running out of
fuel. Even big airplanes do this, every
once in a while – see the Gimli Glider, Avianca Flight 52, etc – almost always
due to a preceding sequence of events that created a nasty trap that the pilots
fell into.
Incredibly,
another 60% of General Aviation accidents occur during takeoff and landing,
generally under fairly benign conditions.
Cirrus pilots are notorious for this.
Despite the requirement for Cirrus flight instructors to be super-men
with super-factory training, their students often have really poor basic stick
and rudder skills, which aren’t in the Cirrus business plan.
Many
GA pilots never developed any basic stick and rudder skills in the first place
due to the eternally tolerant nosewheel aircraft they trained on, and they
certainly don’t fly enough to retain any proficiency, so whatever skill they
had in the first place is certain to deteriorate.
Given
the above, it’s no wonder that GA pilots struggle with basic takeoff and
landing tasks. Any kind of
less-than-perfect conditions presents a real challenge.
So
if you focus on not running out of gas (hint: get a fuel totalizer, and lean
the mixture) and developing some basic stick & rudder skills, you have
addressed a staggering 70% of the GA accidents.
What
are some other high-runner categories of GA accidents? Navigation, weather, night and mechanical
come to mind.
In
the Bad Old Days, we didn’t have GPS.
You are a fool to fly without at least one GPS with a strong power
supply. I would be really happy if
people learned to fly a heading and time, but that skill is lost. Just follow the magenta line. So, navigation shouldn’t really be a problem
any more – just hit the Direct-To button and hope there’s no restricted
airspace or tall stuff between you and your destination.
Weather
is a huge challenge for a low-time VFR-only GA pilot, who generally doesn’t
understand the weather very well, and struggles with making go/no-go
decisions. It is all too easy for him to
take off into really nasty stuff, or to cancel when conditions aren’t really
that bad. I might suggest that most GA
pilots spend a little bit more time learning about the weather – understanding
and predicting it themselves by looking at the raw data – and most important be
willing to simply turn around or divert when the wx deteriorates. You must be flexible.
Night
is extremely dangerous for GA pilots. Accidents
are night are many times more likely to be fatal, than during the day. Don’t think that because you have your night
rating, and are legal for night flight, that you are prepared for what you will
encounter. Just west of me is
They
have trained around large cities with good visual horizons because of all the
lights, and have no idea about how deadly the transition to instruments is.
JFK, jr didn’t, either. When I do
a night rating, I head the student out over
Another
deadly trap at night is CFIT – simply flying into unseen objects on the ground
– see the Herc at Alert – because a safe altitude is not determined and adhered
to.
If
night VFR is starting to sound a lot like IFR – instrument flying, safe
altitudes – that’s because it is. Please
remember, just because something is legal, doesn’t mean it’s safe. An amazing number of pilots don’t get that.
Last
category I will mention is mechanical, which historically causes around 10% of
GA accidents (this means that pilots cause the other 90%). The lesson to learn here is that as the
pilot, it’s up to you to deal with other people’s mistakes – not just
yours. Could be a mechanic, the manufacturer,
or a supplier. While this might not seem
fair at first, well, that’s life in the pointy end. You’re holding the bag.
But
it’s not as bad as it sounds. No one
will ever tell you this, but there is considerable redundancy in an aircraft,
and you can have an awful lot of stuff broken on it, and it will still fly ok,
if you don’t let it rattle you.
For
example, we could have an airplane with a broken vacuum pump (no attitude
indicator, no heading indicator), broken pitot-static systems (no airspeed
indicator, no altimeter, no VSI), no compass, broken tachometer, broken starter,
broken alternator, all the radios gone, missing battery, unserviceable flaps,
dead right magneto, missing interior …. and it will fly just fine.
I
shouldn’t mention this, but a few years back, a friend of mine was going to
cancel a flight because his right brake was mushy. I looked at the strong crosswind from the
right across the runway, and told him he didn’t actually need it. He asked how he could turn right? I told him a 270 left would probably
work. His flight went fine. Don’t tell anyone this, though.
As
long as gas is flowing to the engine and the prop is turning, and the flight
controls move, life is good in VMC. Even
that stuff isn’t actually required.
A
friend of mind lost his C140’s prop in flight, so he just landed at a nearby airport. Many airshow pilots have done that. And I routinely teach flight control failure
in my advanced checkouts. You can
actually fly an airplane just fine with power, pitch trim and rudder – you
don’t need ailerons or elevator. With
two engines, you don’t even need the rudder.
Heck, if you have doors and dihedral on a single, you don’t need the
rudders, either.
People
will criticize me for saying this, but become an expert at flying broken
airplanes, and flying them well. This
skill will pay off hugely in the future, when you have to deal with other
people’s mistakes.
--
March
2015