Out Of The Pattern

Here's One Good Reason You Should

This is a little story about a man who had an airplane, which he flew all the time. The man learned to fly this airplane with a checklist and a flow pattern. The checklist came from the Normal Procedures section of the airplane's pilot operating handbook. It was a good checklist for the airplane when it was new because the airplane was equipped with standard radios and other essentials mentioned on the checklist. It wasn't a fancy machine, but it got him where he needed to go on both IFR and VFR days.

As the airplane aged, the man upgraded and changed certain systems. The checklist still worked, but not as well as before, so the pilot developed a backup flow pattern to check his radios, instruments, circuit breakers, lights, and engine instruments. His flow was a classic plus sign. He started with the top of the radio stack and moved down through the throttle quadrant to the trim wheel, cowl flaps and fuel selector lever. Then he went back up to the throttle quadrant and outward, first to the left, toward the gear handle, lights, circuit breakers, and master switch; and then to the right, past the flap handle and on to the copilot's instruments.

Over time he became so familiar with the procedures required to fly his airplane that eventually, out of expediency, he dropped the checklist and just used the flow pattern. It worked for years. Until one day it didn't.

The pilot's job duties changed, and he didn't have as much time to fly his airplane. He had to travel to more distant places, and many of his trips had deadlines only the airlines could meet. He just wasn't flying his own airplane much. Then, again, it was time to upgrade some avionics in his airplane.

All of a sudden, he didn't feel so comfortable in his "new" old machine. His flow pattern didn't work like it used to, and he was so unfamiliar with the airplane's POH checklist that he didn't even consider using it. No matter how he tried, he kept missing items. He didn't like that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach each time he climbed in his craft.

When a pilot feels the way this one did, there's only one thing to do. He scheduled a flight review with his favorite flight instructor. The instructor watched him fly - and saw the problem immediately. This pilot needed his checklist back. But the original POH checklist wasn't going to work with the retrofitted machine.

The instructor was creative, though, and he'd seen the problem before. He suggested the two of them sit in the airplane and go over a revised flow pattern. The pilot demonstrated, and the flight instructor wrote. When the two were finished, they had eliminated any extraneous redundancy (such as checking the position of the fuel handle four times before takeoff) and made sure all the critical items, such as the position of the gear handle and the fuel selector valve, were checked twice.

The pilot's secretary typed the new checklist and shrunk it to a convenient size, not so small that it would be hard to read and not so large that it would be unwieldy. Then she had it laminated. The pilot then scheduled another lesson with the flight instructor because he was smart enough to know that old habits die hard, especially old bad habits. He wanted at least another hour or two of intensive training, with the flight instructor looking over his shoulder to make sure he was using the checklist they had spent so much time and energy creating.

Did it work? Exceptionally well, says the pilot, who still only gets to fly his craft twice a month. Now, however, when he straps himself into the left seat, he's got a guide - simple enough to be useable, sized right for his lap and customized to his personal craft. He's learned how to use a checklist again to make his cockpit feel like the warm familiar place it has always been. To an old pilot who wants to keep flying, that is a wonderful thing.