Following my retirement from TWA last June, I wrote an article about my last flight. It was titled " Sentimental Journey" and appeared in the August issue of Pilot.
Of the many heartwarming letters I received in response to that article, the one from Capt. Kenneth P. Eckel, Jr., was of particular interest.
Eckel related an experience that he had had during his new-hire training at Southwest Airlines. One of his instructors had told him that although they (the instructors) could teach procedures and give checkrides, they could not grade a student's final exam. (Yes, all pilots, even airline pilots, are students to some extent.) Passing such a test, Eckel was told, required completing a career without bending metal or scratching a passenger.
Although his purpose in writing was to congratulate me for having passed my final exam (most airline pilots do), it made me realize that this philosophy applies to all pilots, whether they slice through the skies in a Beechcraft or a Boeing. And because I hopefully have many years of general aviation flying ahead, it occurred to me that I couldn't pass my final exam until after closing my logbook for the last time.
Experience helps us to become better pilots. Embodied within the context of that word is the process of learning from our mistakes and lapses of judgment. In other words, experience is measured by more than the total number of hours logged. It also reflects the problems that we have encountered (including those of our own making) and what was learned from having coped with them. Experience also includes doses of anxiety, apprehension, and, yes, fear.
In addition to religiously logging all of his flying time, a friend of mine also writes a lengthy, detailed, handwritten description of each and every one of his flights. For him, this has resulted in an ongoing, work-intensive diary that has become a tome of such length that — because of its sheer volume — can only rarely be reviewed, if at all. But this gives rise to an interesting concept.
Consider how worthwhile it would be to maintain a second logbook, one in which the only items entered were the errors of our ways and the lessons learned. After all, mistakes are made and/or lessons are learned during every flight. Such a log would be for your personal use only and never have to be revealed to others. It could be reviewed on occasion to serve as a valuable reminder of our vulnerability to error and help us to avoid repeating our mistakes (even though most of us would rather forget them).
For example, I was in the right seat and accompanying this same pilot when he was taking off from his home airport. Although I did not pay much attention, it appeared that he had completed the Before-Takeoff Checklist. It became obvious during the subsequent liftoff, however, that he had not. The airplane was trimmed almost fully nose-down.
As the airplane continued to accelerate beyond its normal rotation speed, my friend began to vocalize concern about being unable to raise the nose. But with both of us now hauling on the dual controls and my left hand groping for the trim wheel, we finally managed to get the airplane to stagger off the ground.
I'd hate to guess how much control force was applied and wonder to this day if either of us could have handled it alone.
The obvious error was not being thorough about completing a checklist. The not-so-obvious lesson was that the takeoff should have been aborted while there was still sufficient runway available to do so.
Such a notation in his personal "Log of Lessons Learned" would have provided a review that could have prevented history from repeating itself.
As fate would have it, I was again with this pilot and in the same airplane during a ferry flight. This was immediately after substantial maintenance that had required disassembling and reassembling the elevator trim system. After what seemed to be a normal preflight inspection and runup, he taxied onto the runway and began the takeoff roll. The trim tab indicator was positioned normally, but the pilot once again had difficulty raising the nose. Instead of aborting the takeoff, however, he continued the flight and flew home with a trim tab that had been improperly reinstalled.
Because the pilot had failed to abort the takeoff when this would have again been the wiser choice, he should have then cut short the flight by returning to the departure airport. This was not only dictated by common sense but was required by FAR 91.7(b), which states that a pilot shall discontinue a flight when an aircraft is known to be unairworthy.
I admit that I was equally culpable for not having tried to convince him to land while we were still within the confines of the traffic pattern, an error that I could write in my own personal Log of Lessons Learned. (I am convinced that if I had kept such a log during my career, it could be used as the basis for a thick educational, and perhaps entertaining, book about what not to do in an airplane.)
A second log is not for everyone. Many have difficulty maintaining just one. Perhaps a simple list of lessons learned can be equally effective. The idea is to not repeat past mistakes in an effort to pass that final exam.
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