Out of the Pattern

In their zeal to control the beast, some pilots manage to over-control the aircraft to the point of jeopardizing the safety of the flight.

It's like the lead-in on an old joke: Which flies better, the pilot or the airplane? Ask any engineer and she'll tell you right off - human beings were not meant to fly. Look at us, all gangly bipeds with scrawny arms that couldn't create lift without being hurled from great heights and accelerated to terminal velocity, and even then we're falling - fast. Any five-year-old who's launched from the hayloft wearing a pair of homespun flour-sack wings can tell you that.

Airplanes, on the other hand, have been around - in our imagination, at least - for hundreds of years. We finally figured out how to get airborne in a powered, winged craft nearly 100 years ago, and airplanes are flying better every day. They fly all the time without human control intervention (note the properly trimmed airplanes that have, upon being hand-propped, taken off and flown away while their befuddled pilots watched, earthbound).

Good flight instructors teach you who's in charge of what in the air. Most pilots are convinced that to maintain control of their craft they must fly it. In the process, the only thing these pilots manage to do is create enough pilot-induced flight oscillations and unusual attitudes to nauseate even the toughest passengers. In their zeal to control the beast, some pilots manage to over-control the aircraft to the point of jeopardizing the safety of the flight.

I spend a lot of time retraining these folks on how we really "take to the air." I explain to them that the pilot is merely a communicator, and a navigator when flying. The airplane actually flies. The stick or yoke, rudder pedals, and throttle are the vehicles through which the pilot communicates where he wants the airplane to go. Then the airplane, being well-engineered for the task, responds to the pilot's communication and takes him there. It's little different from the interactions the pilot has with the tower and ATC controllers. (Actually, the pilot-airplane communication is more efficient, generally, given that the airplane is a machine). And yet it is rare, in my line of work, that I come across a pilot who so completely understands the concept that he actually lets the airplane do its job - which is to fly.

I encountered one such pilot the other day. He was a former professional pilot and flight instructor who hadn't flown in awhile. We brushed up his instrument scan in the simulator and spent an hour on the ground going over all the new rules regarding proficiency. Then we went out to fly.

To say that the flight was pleasant would be an understatement. This pilot flew with the calm of a Zen master. He ran through all the airplane's checklists methodically and watched for the proper airspeed before allowing the airplane to lift off. From there he stayed centered, concentrating on adjusting the trim (both rudder and aileron) to maintain a precise 500-foot per minute rate of climb. His level-off procedure was by-the-book: pitch to the horizon, accelerate to cruise, adjust the power to the desired cruise setting, and finally, trim away the control pressures. After that he rarely touched the yoke with more than two fingers at once.

As a result of this pilot's finesse the airplane flew on altitude, on heading, and on airspeed for the next hour's worth of maneuvers. He used small control inputs, well-timed, including gentle rudder turns during partial panel instrument flight and while bracketing the sensitive localizer needle, avoiding the typical tendency for pilots to S-turn along the course. Best of all, he didn't turn left every time he looked down at his chart or reached for the radios (heavy left hand syndrome). An airplane is inherently stable, and this pilot left it that way, giving him plenty of time to knock the rest of the rust off his instrument scan, to fumble his first couple of radio calls (then swiftly recover) and even botch one or two navigation switches. Before the hour was up, though, he'd remembered how to do it all.

How come this pilot only took an hour to complete the airborne portion of his proficiency check? The answer is simple. He let the airplane do the flying. With that out of the way, he had plenty of time to complete the rest of his chores. Heck, he even had time to relax and look out the window occasionally to scan for traffic and enjoy the view. He had time to have fun, and isn't that why we go flying in the first place?

Next time you take to the air in an airplane, keep in mind this old adage: If you were meant to fly, you'd have been born with wings. Short of that, handle the airplane the way its engineers meant it to be handled.