Measure of Skill

Safe flights begin with visualizing your progress

Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, two of the more famous modern photographers, made previsualization a mantra for all aspiring shutterbugs who trailed in their wake. Adams and Weston were some of photography's biggest control freaks. Their "previsualization" meant that days would be spent waiting for the right light, testing exposure and processing times, and sketching out the look of the final product. If they were successful — and they were — their prints would be identical to the photographs they'd been planning in their mind's eye. For Henri Cartier-Bresson — another, earlier photographer — previsualization was perhaps taken to extremes. Cartier-Bresson would spend weeks planning a photograph, then wrap the whole thing up with a single shot taken with an 8 2 10 view camera, so sure was he of the outcome.

Pilots, much like these photographers, should also do a great deal of previsualizing. This is one way of approaching the job of flight planning, maintaining control of the situation at hand while flying, and helping to ensure that the flight's outcome is a safe one. In other words, always think ahead of the airplane.

How best to carry out this philosophy? A good preflight briefing sets the stage, of course. The following additional strategies have also proven to be extremely helpful.

Objectives of the flight

Whether you acknowledge it or not, each flight has many important objectives. Your job is to make yourself aware of them — the same way your instructor made you aware of lesson plan objectives when you were learning how to fly a traffic pattern, for example. Because each flight is different, each set of objectives must necessarily correspond to the conditions you face. If you learn that gusty crosswinds are apt to be factors, then make it your business to review crosswind landing techniques. If flight on top of a scattered or broken layer of clouds is anticipated, be sure to review the rules and strategies dealing with this situation. Are thunderstorms a possibility en route? Then circumnavigating them will definitely be an objective, and you have to begin planning any potential detours before takeoff. Navigating by GPS? Then an objective might be to master the flight planning functions of a new handheld unit that you may have bought. The point is that you learn something new on every flight, so anticipate as many objectives as you can before you leave the ground. In that way you help to keep surprises to a minimum and make flights more structured and controlled.

Standards

Just as you define objectives, so must the standards for completing them be defined. Many of them can be set down in checklist form. This lets you evaluate your performance as you fly and at the same time alerts you when your preestablished standards are not being met. The latter should serve as a warning. Let's say you've been detouring around cumulus buildups successfully, something you anticipated doing before takeoff. But now there's an undercast, and shortly you'll face entering convective clouds. If one of your standards is to remain VFR, a light should go on. To stay on track with your objective, you'll have to perform a 180-degree turn or make some other alternate plan to stay VFR.

Howgozits

These are periodic in-flight checks you can use to evaluate your progress and monitor the relative safety of your flight. They answer the question, "Are things turning out the way I thought they would?" At selected intervals, ask youself how the flight is going relative to:

• Checkpoints. Here the main concern is not just your position, but winds aloft and their potential effect on fuel consumption.
• Airplane systems. Are engine indications in the green? Does the panel reveal any abnormal situations?
• Situational awareness. Not just where you are, but your tactical and strategic strengths and weaknesses, given current conditions.
• Weather. That one's saying a mouthful. To be brief, what is the weather around you doing, and what do various sources of weather information, such as flight watch, say to expect?
• Emergency procedures. A big part of staying ahead of the airplane means anticipating an emergency situation right now. You do know your immediate action procedures for worst-case emergencies (e.g. engine fire, engine failure) by heart, don't you?

The next howgozit

Just because you've completed one cycle of howgozits doesn't mean that you can relax. It's time to think ahead to the next time you'll run them through your head. This is the true essence of thinking ahead of the airplane, and the faster your groundspeed, the farther ahead you must train yourself to think.

What if it all falls apart?

Remember the primary rule: Fly the airplane. Keep the wings level and the airspeed under control.

Let's say you've developed a rough engine, are dodging buildups, and ATC says they've lost you on radar. You may have thought ahead a bit and considered what you might do should one of those situations arise, but three at once?

This is when the checklist can be your best friend. Run through it. It will probably suggest carburetor heat or alternate induction air to deal with the roughness. Other checklist items may also direct you to procedures that may smooth out the engine.

Remember the four Cs: climb, communicate, confess, and comply. Tell ATC or flight service of your problem. Help is out there. Do not hesitate to demand it.

Keep your wits. If you've visualized that buildups might be factors in your flight scenario, you should be mentally prepared to leave yourself an out — either a 180-degree turn, a landing at an alternate airport, or maybe both.

The key is to be always mentally prepared for the worst that could happen — have complete plans of action should they be necessary. This kind of ruins some of the fun of flying, but we're talking about emergency preparedness here, not poetic visions of the joy of flight.

Targets and landings

The destination airport is drawing near. You're still at 9,000 feet and have to descend 7,000 feet to arrive at traffic pattern altitude — or the final approach fix altitude if you're flying under IFR. When should the descent begin, and at what airspeed and rate of descent? What airspeed should you be carrying at the fix or on downwind? What radio calls should be made, and where? Is the panel set up for an instrument approach if this is called for? What power settings should you use? What's the active runway? The answers to these questions are all examples of the objectives we discussed earlier. A well-prepared pilot has thought ahead of the airplane, already knows the answers, already knows how to meet these targets, and already knows how to compensate should any target standards not be met. He or she also has a good grasp of any risk factors at work — crosswinds, a busy pattern, low visibilities, whatever — and has developed an appropriate level of caution and preparedness to deal with them. This caution is born not of fear, but of a kind of omniscience that it seems only experience can bring.

FlightSafety International (FSI), the well-known provider of simulator-based flight training, often speaks of a safety envelope extending from a runway to the airspace 2,000 feet above and around it. Many, many accidents happen in this envelope. FSI recommends that pilots take very seriously the decision to enter that envelope. If you're not up to fighting gusty crosswinds, ceilings and visibilities are too low for your personal standards, or malfunctioning radios won't let you communicate with a busy tower, then consider staying out of the safety envelope. Instead, divert to an airport with a friendlier environment.

Assuming that you decide to land, meeting target approach airspeeds and configurations will definitely come into play. Fail to meet these objectives within acceptable standards and you may be facing anything from a stall short of the runway to an overshoot. However, if you're constantly evaluating your progress, you'll know that any failure to meet your objectives is grounds for a go-around or missed approach.

Achieving pure clairvoyance is an impossiblity, of course, but by thoroughly previsualizing your flights the way those photographers envisioned their images, you'll fly more precisely, be better prepared for surprises, and be mentally in front of the airplane. Your landings may not always be picture-perfect, but at least they'll be safe.

Knowledge, skill, and judgment

All of these come with experience. While planning a flight, keep those three vital elements in mind when considering:

• The airplane. You should be completely familiar with it and its systems. If you have low time in type, then don't plan on a long flight or a trip in adverse weather or over challenging terrain.
• The route. Visualizing your progress along a planned route is essential, but it's best if you've flown the route before and are familiar with the terrain, procedures, and airports that make it up.
• The weather. Don't take on more than you're ready for. Practice gradual immersion when it comes to flying in or near instrument weather or aggressive turbulence. When facing instrument weather hazards, it's much easier — and safer — to stay ahead of the airplane if you've been there before and have a good sense of what to expect of the weather. This leaves you free to maintain control of the airplane and fly the appropriate procedures.
• Yourself. Be honest. Do you feel comfortable with the airplane, the route, and the weather you may be about to face? If the answer is no, then reconsider the flight. Your confidence level, and your self-awareness of your confidence level, must match the skill levels you may be called upon to exercise. If they don't, and you're beset with problems, how can you possibly stay ahead of the airplane, let alone deal safely with deteriorating conditions?

For further reading:

The following articles on this Web site provide additional information regarding this month's "Measure of Skill."

• " Forced Landings," The unexpected should not go unplanned.