Insights

The benefit of reversing course

Locomotion is the act or power of moving from place to place. Forward locomotion - moving ahead - describes most pilots who are pursuing aviation careers. To acquire thorough knowledge about flying, however, you must occasionally reverse course and review old information. Your reference books should not be dust collectors.

I know the feeling you possess. Flying motivates you, but you must integrate it with your school, work, family, and social responsibilities. Limited time and money create pressure, but the desire to acquire new aviation knowledge and experience keeps you going.

Before the ink is dry on your private pilot certificate, you acquire instrument flying information in earnest. You do the same thing when you're eligible for a commercial, flight instructor, and airline transport pilot certificate. When you take aim at a multiengine rating, your motivation, enthusiasm, and desire for new information really soar.

Here's an excellent way to improve your knowledge during this time and in subsequent years - Review your old training references. You'll discover important information you didn't assimilate on your first encounter. A perfect example is watching a movie for the second or third time. In the subsequent screenings, you see new things that hadn't made an impression before.

Review is an important part of learning. What you re-read depends on your mood. If you want to fall asleep, try the Aeronautical Information Manual or the federal aviation regulations, but make certain your information is current. Reading an out-of-date AIM or FAR could do you more harm than good.

For some more government, fall-asleep publications, try FAA advisory circulars. For instrument pilots interested in the design criteria for instrument approaches, look up the United States Standard for Terminal Instrument Procedures (TERPS) manual, which is published and sold by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

These publications don't promise exciting reading, but you can't beat the quality of the information they present. Years ago I discovered a personal learning characteristic. If I read dry information just before I turn off the light at night and mentally review it when I wake up, I'll remember it in the future.

If your mood tells you to stay awake, dust off your copy of Wolfgang Langewiesche's Stick and Rudder. Wings, Air Sense, Controls, Basic Maneuvers, and Getting Down are especially informative chapters. The book's appendix, Dangers of the Air, was written by the late Leighton Collins who published Air Facts magazine.

Flight instructors should re-read William Kershner's The Flight Instructor's Manual. Your teaching skills will improve automatically when you review whole-part-whole instruction, pessimistic optimism, positive reinforcement, and PEDPER - preparation, explanation, demonstration and practice, evaluation, and review.

If the technical side of airplane aerodynamics and performance interests you, review Kershner's The Advanced Pilot's Flight Manual and H. H. Hurt's Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators. My copy of Hurt's book opens automatically to the chart on page 179 that relates true airspeed, bank angle, radius of turn, and rate of turn. This reference has solved many arguments.

Instrument pilots who subscribe to a Jeppesen IFR airway manual should re-read the introduction, en route, and terminal sections. You'll find information that is difficult to locate or understand in other publications.

Dedicated aviators study and understand meteorology, and the old meteorology books give the best insights. Subsequent meteorological advances - icing and thunderstorm research to include microbursts and wind shear, and the methods of acquiring and disseminating weather information - have not diluted the old books' significance. Charles Halpine's A Pilot's Meteorology - published in 1941 and reprinted in 1963 by the Lancaster Press - is my favorite.

Another excellent but hard-to-find book is C.E. Wallington's Meteorology for Glider Pilots. First published in 1961, John Murray (Publishers) Ltd., London, reprinted it in 1986 by. Don't be deceived by the title. You'll benefit from Wallington's discussion of localized conditions (micro-meteorology) and upper air conditions that spawn convective weather and mountain waves.

You used other publications during your flight training, and you probably still have them. When you review these publications, mark or highlight the passages that now grab your attention. These subjects will come up again, and if you've marked or highlighted them, you'll be able to find them quickly because the finer points of discussion are seldom included in a book's index.

Flight Training magazine's motto is "A good pilot is always learning." The truth of this statement will become quite evident when you conduct your book reviews.