New Pilot

Knowledge competes with experience as aviation's number one resource

It was a display of winter weather at its surliest. A deep low pressure system was surging up the coast. Already our ramp was filling up with airliners diverting from airports serving the region's major cities. A feathery snow was falling, and the flag snapped in the south wind as I walked into the Bangor (Maine) Flight Service Station with a student pilot in tow. Everybody knows everybody around here, so when the briefer looked up and saw us, he laughed aloud and said, "What are you doing out here tonight?"

"I need a briefing," I lied. "November Two-Zero-Five-Six-Five, a Cessna 172, VFR to Logan, departing within the hour. Anything out there we should know about?" The briefer was grinning as he punched buttons on a console and flashed a series of surface, prognostic, and radar images across the screen of his video display terminal. I shook my head in dismay at the story his images were telling. "Go for it," he joked. "We're getting wind shear reports all over the area, and a King Air over Boston just reported severe turbulence at 8,000 feet." Then he launched into the spiel I really wanted to hear: the outlook for training flights in the local area after the storm was safely out of the picture.

The student pilot was surprised that such a quick glance could have told me so much about the weather. But not many months later, the same pilot made an interesting observation. He had just rendered an extremely accurate analysis of the conditions we could expect this day, based on wind direction, cloud form and height, and barometric pressure. He even ventured a guess as to how much time we'd have before the temperature and dew point began to converge and whether the air was moist enough to produce fog. I was impressed and said so. "Nowadays, when I look at the sky, I see things with new eyes," he explained.

What had changed? He had passed the private pilot written exam prior to our visit to flight service on that long-ago stormy night. He had not flown an exceptional amount since then and had received briefings a few times for flights that didn't launch. But he had acted upon one piece of advice that began paying immediate dividends: even on days when he had no plans to fly, he studied the weather, noted the trends, and soon became pretty good at divining the recurring patterns. Summer cumulus clouds were as pretty as before, but a glance skyward now brought the word "bumpy" to his mind. More often than not, he observed, south winds mean smooth rides because the incoming air is stable (lacks vertical movement), riding up over the denser cold air. North winds often mean a choppy ride, but usually the visibility is better because instability hinders the formation of obscurations. Summer cumulus form around midday because heating creates rising currents; and as the air rises, it cools to its condensation temperature.

Nice work! But he hadn't restricted his extracurricular meditations to the weather. People fly airplanes to go places, and the pilot had discovered that one of aviation's dullest, driest instruments, the Airport Facilities Directory (A/FD), is actually a thriller in disguise. Looking up airports he might like to visit as a certificated pilot, he learned a few things he was glad he didn't have to discover the day before a proposed flight. One airport seemed to have an unreasonably short, narrow runway with obstructions and a nonstandard approach. Another destination had no fuel available; going there would mean a fuel stop somewhere else. Still another had no runway lights, and a notam obtained during a just-for-practice briefing revealed that a nearby NDB he had hoped would help him to locate the airport was out of service until further notice. Armed with information, he was now able to think about aircraft performance considerations from a practical standpoint.

This led to sessions surfing the pages of his airplane's operating handbook with some pointed questions in mind. How would the airplane handle a max-performance departure from the little airport? What was that procedure again, exactly? If three people went along, how much baggage could they bring? On the trip to the field where there was no fuel available, should the pit stop be made en route or returning? What obstructions and airspace classes lay along the route? How often is that restricted area in use, and to what altitude? Is the VOR out there capable of supporting voice communication with flight service? Just how does that procedure work again?

The moral of this story is no mystery: some things you just can't study enough. Even if the flights contemplated during self-study sessions never launch, much is gained in the valuable practice time spent with aviation's resource materials. And it's not only review. Sessions like these expand your knowledge, because any material sinks in better and stays longer when applied to a real-world instance of flying or planning. Finding things in the POH becomes easier if you know from acquired experience that Chapter 2 contains specs and operating speeds, Chapter 5 contains performance information, etc. An aviation-band scanner, perched on the window sill at home and switched on during odd idle moments, demystifies air traffic control lingo more effectively than an hour or two at the airport each week. Weather, considered by many new pilots to be the toughest subject to grasp, actually offers endless opportunities to learn, because there's a quiz waiting every time you look out the window or step outside. (The next time you look up at the sky, ask yourself whether you'd be happier down here or up there. Then ask yourself why; and if you're truly curious, call flight service or dial up DUAT and see whether the folks who are out flying concur with your armchair analysis.)

"Knowledge is power" goes the old saw. One of my early instructors carries around a little slip of paper with the equivalent aviation quotation scribbled on it — something to the effect that "superior pilots use their superior knowledge to avoid having to use their superior skill." In other words, if something that surprises you happens on a flight, it may well be that you had the knowledge at your fingertips all the time but were otherwise engaged and never found it. On the other hand, you can bet the ranch that any information you learned today but didn't use will come in awfully handy some day, perhaps as soon as tomorrow.

Fears of Flying: Sometimes It Pays to be Negative

By Randolph H. Gomez

There are times in flying when it pays to be a little "negative" to survive. Let me explain. It was a clear blue, VFR afternoon at New York's Long Island MacArthur Airport when Bob, my primary flight instructor, had me taxi back to the ramp after a series of practice touch and goes. Before climbing out of the Cessna 150, Bob asked for my logbook; scribbled in the endorsement section; and unceremoniously told me to fly the pattern, execute two touch and goes, then a full-stop landing. Bob, who was a New York Center air traffic controller at the time, said, "Remember, I'm a heavy guy, so the plane's going to feel a bit lighter on takeoff. Have fun." First solo time was here.

My first two touch and goes seemed flawless, and I thought that my communications with Islip Tower were cool and professional. On downwind for the full stop, I was ready to tear off my own shirttail to commemorate the awesome accomplishment of first solo flight. Then the controller at this very busy New York satellite airport radioed, "Cessna Six-Six-Seven-Five-Five, Boeing 727 on final. Expedite landing if able." I saw the landing lights of the indicated traffic in the distance. Still feeling cool and professional, I responded, "Roger. Cessna Six-Six-Seven-Five-Five turning left base, Runway 6."

I turned to base, dropped the flaps to 20 degrees, then turned left to final while adding 10 more degrees for the full stop. The runway swung into sight through the windshield. Just as suddenly, it swung down and out of sight of the windshield. The loud buzz of the stall warning took the "cool" right out of my sails. My mental copilot kicked in: "Nose high — low airspeed — full stall...." Low and slow, hot and high. Low altitude; slow airspeed; a hot, high-density day; and a nose-high attitude had the runway passing by again, this time higher in the windscreen, then once more as the stall horn squealed. I was out of control!

The next turn brought me over the adjoining airport business park. Eyes of people in the parking lot seemed abnormally large as I rushed faster toward the ground. Time suddenly seemed suspended as I thought, "I'm going to die, but I'm going to do it in a full stall recovery." Every moment of stall recovery practice became crystal clear. My mental copilot spoke up. "Nose down — release back pressure — full power. Flaps to 10 degrees." As the airplane accelerated, the god of aerodynamics chose to raise the nose of the Cessna at the only instant that could have averted fulfillment of my death vision. The airplane was flying. I lowered the nose to prevent a secondary stall.

Stabilized now, I called the tower. "Cessna Six-Six-Seven-Five-Five missed approach, Runway 6." Shaken, I had erroneously communicated a missed instrument approach to the tower. Having witnessed the preceding and unrehearsed aerobatic performance, the controller ignored my communication error and radioed vectors to me. I flew a 747-size pattern to the last landing. The wheels squeaked down, and I taxied back to the ramp, expecting the FAA and my instructor to be waiting for me with a noose. Leaving the 150 on wobbly knees, I saw Bob walking up to me with a huge grin. I thought, "So this is how a hangman looks before an execution."

Bob said, "I saw you go down below the treeline." I don't recall ever seeing a pine tree on Long Island over 50 feet tall, and I wisely refrained from asking him if a touch and go in an airport parking lot would have counted as one of the three required landings.

Bob continued the much-deserved lecture. "I ran to the tower and the controller said, 'Your boy ran into trouble, but he handled it OK.' When he told you to expedite, you could have said 'Negative — student pilot — unable. Will extend on downwind or make right 360 (to let the jet in).'" Then Bob told me to turn around. I thought, "Great! A backwards hanging." Instead of a noose, Bob produced a pair of scissors and clipped the tailfeathers from the brand-new shirt I had on. "There are plenty of shirts," I thought, "but only one first solo."

Being an air traffic controller himself, Bob had told me many times that if I was unable to perform a maneuver requested by a controller, I should say so and choose an alternate course of action. The FAA-authorized pilot prerogative rule can be lifesaving when judiciously applied. Besides, Bob had told me more than once, "If you go down, the controller still goes home at night." I had obviously written a check that neither I nor my airplane could cash by attempting a task that was beyond my ability at the time. Bob had jokingly stated in the past that if a controller insists on your performing a maneuver exceeding the capabilities of you or your airplane, "...aim for the tower."

My solo flight was a rough delivery, but I've grown up healthy. More than 450 uneventful landings later, I learned that, sometimes, it pays to be Negative.

Randolph Gomez of Pueblo, Colorado, is working on his flight instructor certificate. In 15 years he has accumulated 265 hours of flying. Previously an assistant flight dispatcher at Stapleton International Airport in Denver and a systems analyst for United Airlines, he is a recipient of the Phase I and II FAA Pilot Proficiency Awards.

Practice Area: Questions

By William K. Kershner

March 23 was the fifty-first anniversary of my first flying lesson. Therefore I will philosophize and at the same time wax nostalgic. (Nostalgic is the name of my airplane, and it really needs it after the winter we had in Tennessee.)

There are a number of questions on flying that have puzzled me over the years, and I put them here in no particular value or order:

• What holds an airplane up? I look out at the wing and nothing much seems to be happening.
• Why are all the good landings made when there is no one at the airport? (And why are landings so overrated anyway?) Our little airport is on the edge of a plateau, and the runway was built at a 90-degree angle to the strongest winds. (Before a strong cold front the winds are from the southeast and afterward from the northwest and, as you have already suspected, the runways are 6 and 24.)

I've landed a Cessna 152 in 20- to 25-knot gusty direct crosswinds, and after — by pure luck — greasing it on, taxied to a deserted airport. Nobody was ever around. But when I make one of my extremely rare (well, not that rare) bounces, I'm greeted by 17 people lined up by the taxiway, holding up scorecards ranging from 0.0 to, say, 3.2 on a basis of 10.

When I was a young man I never made a decent landing while flying a young woman whom I wanted to impress. One even went so far as to say, as she got out of the airplane, "I thought there for a minute we'd crashed." (I didn't drop it that far — maybe two or three feet.) That was the last time I asked her to go flying.

The hardest landing I ever rode through (except a crash on a carrier) was as a passenger on a Boeing 727 of a major airline. I swear that airplane dropped for 20 minutes. I wondered if there was a large airplane-shaped hole in the runway, but apparently not, since we taxied in without having to climb out of anything. The oxygen masks did not drop out of their compartments; the reason, I believe, was that they were too stunned or injured to do so.

I was the last person to get off the airplane, and as I passed the cockpit, the captain and first officer were in earnest conversation. I didn't know who was responsible for the arrival, but I asked "Are we down yet?" and got off the airplane in a most expeditious manner.

• Why do doctors who write letters to the editors of aviation magazines always put M.D. after their name even if the subject is strictly about flying? If I wrote to the New England Journal of Medicine about my weekend hobby of brain surgery, should I put CFI after my name?
• Why, on a long cross-country, do you always have a headwind going out and a headwind on the return trip? No matter how you schedule the legs, immediately return or wait a couple of days, this happens. Why is an hour of turbulence worse when you have a strong headwind and are making little or no progress, as compared to that same turbulence value during an hour of distance-eating tailwinds?
• What is it about a women's dormitory, particularly if the occupants are sunbathing on the roof, that causes young men to buzz it? It's extremely rare that female pilots buzz the men's dormitories. OK, that question was put in to see if you were really paying attention. Recently in a national magazine there was a long article explaining how males and females are different, and the dissemination of knowledge continues.
• Why do pilots' recitals of their flying experiences become more detailed with each telling? Some people who have heard certain of my stories more often than they wanted to have hinted that with each retelling, I lose another engine and the weather gets worse. Not true. Sometimes I lose the same number of engines that I lost when I told it yesterday.

Some questions on aviation movies:

• Why, in aviation movies, do they go to a great deal of effort to be technically inaccurate? For instance, in close-ups, the fighter cockpits appear large enough to hold the entire United States Marine Corps Band (marching).
• When an airplane is being shot at from directly behind, how can a neat row of holes appear on the side of the cockpit? The guy who had a photo of his wife and child pasted on the instrument panel is killed in this scene. When this photo was first shown earlier in the movie, you knew he was a dead duck.
• Speaking of movies, what are those air pockets that the airplane encounters at some point in flight?
• One time, as a passenger on a commuter flight, I turned around and realized with dismay that there was a nun on board. Why does every airline disaster movie have to have a nun or priest on board? Those movie people ruined my flight.
• Bombs dropped in a movie (with you as the viewer in the airplane) always whistle, even if in real life you can't hear them from the airplane. Why?
• Why does an airplane become uncontrollable in the movies when the engine starts sputtering or quits? ("The engine just quit! We're going into a spin! Help me pull back on the control wheel to get out of this stall!")
• What holds an airplane up?