Pilotage

Flying light airplanes is such a joy that you just have to share the experience. So you invite a friend, also a pilot, to experience the pleasure of a half- day round-trip to an airport some miles distant. Winds are light, weather is good, and the tanks are full. This will be a great opportunity to wring out the new handheld radio you treated yourself to at Oshkosh.

Your copilot buddy is a few minutes late arriving at the airport, but at least he's clutching the charts you asked him to bring. He joins you during the preflight inspection, taking responsibility for the left side. That done, it takes several more minutes to settle in and organize the cockpit. Much fuss is made over sorting out and plugging in the linguini-like tangle of black wires clogging the cockpit. This is necessary to power all of the electronic toys that two light-airplane pilots absolutely must have to properly aviate, navigate, and communicate in today's complex, crowded airspace. Never mind that it's a severe- clear day, the route is over neatly sectioned off Midwestern farmland, and you'll kindly be asking the radar-watchers for a little assistance in maintaining a comfortable distance between any other airplanes and yourself.

The engine starts on the fourth blade. When you advance the throttle to taxi away from the parking spot, the airplane won't budge. There's no use denying it — the nosewheel is still chocked.

Despite departing 25 minutes late, the flight unfolds without a hitch — until you discover that your buddy forgot to bring one of the needed en route charts. Thank goodness for clear weather and GPS navigation. Then, despite having three separate sources of electronic navigation, you find that you've wandered off course. Your buddy is handling the communications, and for some reason you're missing the controllers' calls to your N number. By the time you land at the destination airport, you've acquired a vague feeling that the flight was slightly discombobulated. Nothing was dramatically out of kilter, but it just didn't go all that smoothly.

The return flight was a repeat of the outbound leg: small mistakes in the cockpit that, although not dangerous, added up to a disconcerting day in the air. Back at home base you don't talk about it with your friend, but you know he's aware that the flight was not a shining example of peak pilot performance. At least he has to share the blame because he shared the cockpit duties.

And that is the problem. It's a curious fact of general aviation life that two pilots flying in a light airplane together can perform worse than one flying alone. This flies in the face of the proven and accepted concept of cockpit resource management. CRM is SOP in airline and many corporate flight operations. It took a long time and many pilot-error accidents for the airlines, which have had minimum two-person cockpits virtually from the beginning, to formally recognize that sharing the responsibility for the safe conduct of a flight works better than investing all of the authority in an autocratic captain. Skeptics need only examine the Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 737 pop-top incident and the United DC-10 accident in Sioux City to realize that superb crew coordination prevented total loss of the aircraft and all aboard. Corporate operators and the training organizations that cater to them have followed the airlines' CRM lead. Corporate aviation safety statistics verify the wisdom of writing CRM into the flight operations manual.

So why doesn't it work very well in the cockpits of light airplanes? Why do two pilot- friends who fly together often make silly mistakes that probably neither pilot would make on his or her own? I think it's because of the spontaneous nature of the pairing. Airline and professional corporate crews are specifically trained in formal CRM procedures. The same people fly together often, especially in a corporate flight department. They get to know each other's personality, habits, strong points, and foibles. Flying is their profession, and they bring a professional's dispassionate attitude into the cockpit. A final point is that airline and corporate cockpits are configured for two pilots: two sets of flight instruments, two sets of radios.

We light-airplane pilots operate under a different set of circumstances. We carry an enthusiast's attitude into our single-pilot cockpits. We may have more fun flying, but we also may be less agreeable to truly sharing the fun. We do not receive formal CRM training, so whatever duties two pilots agree to share are decided on the spot. Since we usually fly as a crew of one, when there are two of us we don't know much about how the other flies. Personalities come into play. Picture the jockeying for captain's status when two aggressives rub shoulders in a small cockpit.

Finally, no matter how hard you fight it, there is a subtle relaxation of concentration when responsibility is shared. When flying alone, even with passengers aboard and talking, I rarely miss a controller's hand-off call. But put a pilot beside me and chances are I'll be embarrassed by an ATC type annoyed at being ignored. For lack of CRM, I must resort to CYA.