Mnemonics

Phil Scott's article on mnemonics ("Head Work," April 1998 Pilot) generated numerous letters and e-mails from readers interested in sharing mnemonics and other memory aids from their flying experience. A compilation of the responses follows. Because of space constraints, only a few were published in Pilot as "Letters to the Editor."

I enjoyed Phil Scott's article on mnemonics ("Head Work," April 1998 Pilot). As I am down to my last half-gram of brain tissue and can never remember where I put the checklists, mnemonics are a necessary feature of flying.

We in Nebraska enjoy a few advantages unknown in some parts of our nation. First, the state is quite flat. When (that is, if) we arrive anywhere close to our destination, all we have to do is turn off some of those things in front of us, relax with a book, and hop out when the bumping stops.

Another advantage is our section lines. When the state was laid out, the surveyors of the day hadn't yet figured out how to map the wiggly lines enjoyed in some of our more benighted states and made them all square and on a one-mile grid (except where some smart-aleck who knew spherical trigonometry confused it). Most of the roads follow these lines, which makes navigation a simple chore. To remind us of this fact, we have our own mnemonic: 1-Mile-Lines-On-Sections (Theoretically), or, 1'M LOST.

"Head Work" brought to mind a mnemonic that I used both during training in a Piper Tomahawk, and later on in my acquired Cessna 182.

Part of a prelanding checklist always includes fuel. I developed the mnemonic 4-F (yes, like the old military draft designation) to jog my memory. In the Piper, which has a fuel pump, 4F stood for Full fuel (correct tank), Full rich (mixture), Fuel pump (turn on electric pump), and Full pressure (check pressure gauge).

When I bought my 182, I adapted it to: Full fuel (both tanks), Full rich (mixture), Full prop (high rpm), Full heat (carb heat). Somehow with all this alliteration, it also reminds me to consider flaps.

Thank you for a fine publication.

A variation on GUMP that we used in the T-6 during Air Force pilot training in the 1950s was GRUMPS, for Gas, Radios, Undercarriage, Mixture, Props, Straps. For a pretakeoff check we used CIGarettes For The Poor Russian Soldiers�Controls, Instruments, Gas, Flaps, Trim, Prop, Radios, Straps.

I don't think any of us knew what a mnemonic was. Sounds like a disease. Anything that helped us to remember a procedure was referred to as a gouge.

During my private training I had a problem trying to figure out if an aircraft was coming toward me or not. I use a mnemonic that my father had taught me from his Navy days: "Red Right Run." It so happens that the position lights on a ship are located on the same sides as nav lights. It also helped me to determine that my red nav light is on the left, because it's opposite.

A mnemonic that I learned some 30-odd years ago when I was learning to fly (in a Tri-Pacer, N2931Z!) to remember the color of the wingtip nav lights was: "Port wine is red." The left nav light is red.

Here are two mnemonics I use every time I fly:

For a pretakeoff brief I use HATS�Heading, Altitudes (cleared to/traffic pattern), Torque (power), Speeds (Vr, Vy, Vxse, Vyse).

For briefing an IAP I use I-SHAFT-M�Identify the approach to be shot; Speed (Vref), Heading (of the inbound course), Altitudes (Initial, MDA, DH), Frequencies (localizer, VOR, TACAN, etc.), Time, Missed Approach.

Favorite mnemonic:

G — Gear
U — Undercarriage
M — Michelin
P — Pirelli
S — Siberling

Everything else is bravo sierra that you can worry about some other time.

With regard to the use of mnemonics for remembering the order of certain actions, I tend not to use them. I have found that they tend to confuse me more than just knowing what to do. We don't need mnemonics for driving our cars, do we? On the other hand, I have found two things that help me to remember certain items. The first one deals with the altitude that we are flying VFR. With respect to the compass rose, I remember 0 being on the left and 1 being on the right. Since 1 is odd, 0 must be even; thus you have a compass rose with even on the left and odd on the right. Being a "C" programmer, it is natural to start counting from zero instead of from one. With regard to the location of the navigational light colors, I have always remembered it as red being on the left because red is a term for communists and, of course, communists are leftists.

I read with interest Phil Scott's article on mnemonics; here goes yet another mnemonic that I have used for years. FBOs is a prebriefing for the instrument approach:

F — Frequency (Select, tune, and identify the appropriate frequencies for the procedure)
B — Beacon (Verify that the marker beacon switch is turned on and volume set)
O — Select the proper OBS course (if applicable)

S — Study the chart (This is where you would do the standard approach briefing and review the entire chart/procedure.)

When operating IFR, partial panel, West Coast, you roll out before your planned heading for northbound headings and after for the southbound headings. As an IFR student, I remembered it by saying "Beforth."

After reading the article on mnemonics, I just had to send my favorite. In 1977 my instructor, John Kohlmeyer, was helping me with cross-country flight planning. To help me remember the following, take True heading, allow for magnetic Variation, which gives you your Magnetic heading. Figure in compass Deviation, which will give you your true Course. John suggested that I remember, True Virgins Make Dull Company. I hope I got this right; it has been a while.

Also, I like "East is least and West is best" for remembering VFR altitudes.

Power loss in flight:

TLC: To Let down Cautiously

T — Trim (for best glide speed).
L — Locate (suitable landing area).
C — Check for trouble (the "C" here could also stand for "Checklist," as in the "Troubleshooting Checklist").

Here's another, for an engine fire in flight

MA GOT MAD AT DAD

M — Mixture (to idle cut-off)
A — Aviate

G — Gas
O — Off (auxiliary pump, too, if equipped and running at the time of fire)
T — Throttle (to idle)

M — Master switch (off)
A — Air vents (closed, except for overhead vents)
D — Drag (lower flaps and/or gear)

A — Aviate
T — Turn (slip, to be precise; yet, still easy to recall)

D — Descend (quickly)
A — Aviate
D — Door (open for off-airport landing)

We are all aware that many accidents occur because pilots stop flying the airplane when confronted with an emergency situation. The mnemonic above is judiciously sprinkled with the letter A so that one will not forget to aviate in dire circumstances.

As a student pilot on the Big Island of Hawaii, I always had trouble with the VFR altitude rule (the fact that no one in Hawaii uses cardinal points for giving directions doesn't help...even ATC sometimes references direction by Mauka, Makai, Diamond Head, and Ewa). I finally came up with my own [mnemonic], which has never failed me:

"Even in the West, the East is Odd." Having lived on both coasts, and beyond, I know this to be true.

I have several mnemonics that I would like to add to your list:

The first involves compass correction factors. If you draw your course line on a chart (sectional, WAC, etc.), you next measure your true heading. You then apply magnetic variation to the true heading to get magnetic heading. The aircraft's compass has a deviation card that gives you the error to apply to the magnetic heading to get the compass heading you must steer. (If you were an Air Force student navigator back in the days of the T-29C, the deviation was obtained through math and the periscopic sextant, not a simple deviation card.) If you were a navigator, you had to make these calculations very frequently, and you had better apply them in the proper sequence.

The way we learned it back in the days of tan uniforms and the T-29 (which indicates that I've already lost a great deal of brain mass) was:

True Virgins Make Dull Companions (True heading + magnetic Variation = Magnetic heading + Deviation = Compass heading.)

When it came to applying the variation, how did we know when to add and when to subtract? It was "East is least and West is best," which meant that you subtracted (least) when there was east variation.

After departing the Air Force, I returned home to Chicago. Instead of looking at the compass problem as one of TVMDC, I learned from some fellow Chicagoans that the problem is looked at backwards, or CDMVT. To remember that, they use:

Chicago Democrats Mostly Vote Twice.

The F-4 Phantom had different types of bomb release systems, depending on the type of bomb you were dropping, the type delivery mode desired, as well as other factors not worth mentioning here. Some systems required the pilot to depress and hold the bomb release ("pickle") button (red button on the top of the stick) upon crossing a certain point. The amount of time set into the first ("pullup") timer (there were two timers, with the second one having a set number of seconds, depending on the type of bomb delivery selected. For our purposes now, I won't go into greater detail) would be changed to compensate for the head-tail component of the wind. For a headwind, you want to be closer to the target, so you would add a correction to the no-wind timer setting.

Head Add; Tail Subtract, or "HATS."

An instrument pilot can use HATS for timed approaches. If you wish to change your airspeed to make good a proposed groundspeed, you must add knots to the no-wind airspeed for a headwind (HATS).

If you prefer the technique of flying the no-wind airspeed and changing the timing, you would also add seconds for a headwind (HATS).

Another F-4 bomb delivery system involved a distance from target that would be set into the bombing computer. For most bomb delivery methods, one would, in effect, move the target, in the computer's mind, upwind. For one type of bomb delivery, however, it was necessary to adjust the distance from target setting for the head-tail wind component. For a headwind, you wanted to release the bomb closer to the target, so you subtracted distance. For a tailwind, it was added or "increased." To apply the corrections to the distance figure, therefore, you would:

Subtract Head; Increase Tail.

I know this to be true because I taught, and wrote instructional papers on, these systems.

The F-4 was originally a Navy aircraft, so some things were in terms of "port" and "starboard," but how was an Air Force crewmember supposed to know which side was which? The way I remembered it, there were four letters in both "port" and "left."

Prior to shooting an instrument approach, one must review the approach and set it up. Things to be reviewed/set included:

M — Minimums
A — Approach to field checklist
I — Initial rate of descent (determine your initial rate)
L — Lost com (procedures to be used in the event of radio loss, particularly necessary for ASRs and PARs)
M — Missed approach (review missed approach procedures)
A — Airspeeds (to be flown on the segments of the approach)
N — Navaids (tune, identify, and monitor the navaid and set in the proper courses)

So what do you do when you cross the final approach fix on a timed non-precision approach?

Time (hit the stopwatch)
Turn (to the final approach course, corrected, possibly, for crosswind)
Twist (the knob to set the CDI, if the final approach course is different from the course into the FAF)
Throttles (set the power)
Talk (report your position)

If your directional gyro is inoperative and you're relying on the magnetic compass, you can depend on it only when the plane is straight and level in unaccelerated flight. If you're heading in an easterly or westerly direction and you accelerate, the compass error is predictable. So what direction of turn is indicated when accelerating? Accelerate and a turn to the North is indicated. Deceleration indicates a turn to the South. Accelerate indicates North. Decelerate indicates South (ANDS).

The way I remember position lights is the green pilot (i.e., first officer) sits in the right seat.

The mnemonic that my CFI taught me for flight levels was NEON�NorthEast Odd Numbers�i.e., if you are flying NE, you should be at the odd thousands (or odd plus 500).

The version of the mnemonic that I use for remembering the position light colours is similar to what you have: Port (the wine) is Red but Not for Right.

The easiest way for me to remember if the red light is on the left or right is very easy: RED Light-RED Heart-LEFT side (Most people with a "heart" will know that it is located on the left side of the body.)

For years, flying my Cherokee Six with fixed gear, fuel injection, four tanks, and constant-speed prop, the mnemonic TEMP served me very well. It reminded me of four important procedures: Tank, Electric fuel pump, Mixture, and Prop. This little memory jogger worked well until I started to fly retractables occasionally. I hated to part with my old crutch that had protected me all these years, but I realized that a reminder of the landing gear was an absolute must. The dilemma was solved by lengthening the mnemonic to TEMPER (extend/retract). I think of TEMPER as an abbreviation of the word "temperature." In other words, if TEMPER is checked, I'm cool.

Here are a few more mnemonics, some old, some new (reprinted from the June 20, 1996 EAA Chapter 106 Newsletter, edited by the author):

"East ain't even." — For establishing that you fly at odd altitudes (IFR), or odd plus 500 (VFR) in the easterly directions, and even altitudes (IFR), or even plus 500 (VFR) in westerly flight directions.

"Climb into headwinds, and dive away from tailwinds." — For taxiing control positions.

GUMP — Before landing: Gas, Undercarriage, Mixture, Prop

"LED and GRIGHT" — Nav light colors are Left-Red, Green-Right.

TELL VERA MAC DIDN'T CALL — For the "True, Variation, Magnetic, Deviation, Compass" heading corrections sequence.

CHASE THE BLUE SKY — For leveling the aircraft using an artificial horizon. For instance, if the "sky" moves left, turn left to level it.

STOMP ON THE BALL — To apply correct rudder for centering the turn coordination ball instrument.

PUSH THE HIGH RUDDER PEDAL — In a spin, release rudders, then advance feet evenly and fully depress the rudder pedal you contact first.

DON'T GET BEHIND THE POWER CURVE — At low altitudes, don't fly below best L/D (least power required) speed by powering up and "hanging it on the prop." If you are already at high power, stall recovery is possible only by losing unavailable altitude.

MOST USELESS THINGS TO A PILOT ARE: RUNWAY BEHIND HIM, FUEL STILL IN THE TRUCK, AND ALTITUDE ABOVE HIM — So use the whole runway, have enough fuel, and prize some altitude margin.

The 4 Cs for when you are lost, but too proud to admit it:

CLIMB to get in radio range (they can't HEAR you if you're too low)COMMUNICATE (talk to somebody)
CONFESS ("Hey! I'm lost! Can you give me a D.F. steer?")
COMPLY (get your head screwed on straight. Listen to what they say and then do what they tell you!)

Oh, yes! Don't forget the most important thing: FLY THE AIRPLANE!

The nav light mnemonic that I found useful is "When Port wine is red, stars are (starboard is) green."