If you are one of those people who just wants to get off of the merry-go-round, there is help in at least one area of your life - flying. With a little planning, you can simplify your flying, making it more enjoyable and less expensive. Here's a simple six-step program to do just that:
- Plan every flight that you intend to fly.
- Understand what's required to fly what you have planned.
- Keep your head in the game, even when you can't fly.
- Organize your cockpit, and keep it that way. Get rid of the clutter.
- Practice to keep procedures fresh.
- Execute what you already know you can do.
Rule #1: Plan every flight.
Regardless of what kind of flying you do, plan every flight ahead of time. Have you ever taken off on a beautiful day only to find yourself impatiently milling around, poking holes in the sky until it's time to take the airplane back?
It would have been better to have planned the flight with specific objectives - even if your purpose was only to visit a mountain airport for breakfast - and worked to accomplish those objectives within the tolerances of the PTS for your certificate. Could you have achieved something more than flying time when taking that approach? Absolutely!
For student pilots, flight planning has to be a joint exercise with your instructor. There should never be the slightest doubt about what your next flight will include. If there is, talk to your CFI ahead of time. Ask him or her precisely what you're expected to know and do. Then prepare for it. It's not good enough to hear, "Read pages 24 through 35." Find out what will be expected of you during the ground and flight lessons.
I try to give my students specific study assignments before every flight. In today's free society, however, there's always a choice. I summarize it this way: They can either study in advance and know the basics of what we're going to do so that we can intelligently discuss it before we fly, or I'll be glad to teach them in the airplane. The problem with the second choice is that it takes a lot more time and therefore costs seven or eight times more money than option one. Put that way, the cost savings of being prepared are abundantly clear-not to mention that knowing what's going on makes for more satisfying flights. It's a lot more fun to be doing something you already know a little about. So the smart option-and Rule #1-if you want to simplify your flying is to plan every flight ahead of time.
Rule #2: Understand your plan.
Once you (and your instructor, if on a dual flight) plan what you intend to do, take a hard look at what you know - and, more importantly, what you don't know. A lot of time and money can be saved by understanding the requirements of your plan ahead of time, studying to satisfy them, and ensuring that intellectual proficiency at least gives you a fighting chance to get some benefit from that expensive flight time.
Consider these scenarios: In the first, you are a student pilot and the lesson you're going to fly three days from now will focus on specialty takeoffs and landings. In the second, you are an experienced pilot who owns your own Piper Arrow IV, and you plan to fly it from Denver to Phoenix and back for a business meeting.
In the student training flight, start by asking yourself some questions. Do I know what I am expected to be able to do on my next flight? If not, what clarification do I need from my instructor? Have I studied the procedures for how to do what is required, especially if there will be new material? For this lesson, what are the differences between short-field and soft-field takeoff and landing procedures? Would an obstacle at the end of the runway affect my procedures? What effect might a crosswind have? If I were to lose an engine at this training site, where would I go (ask your instructor)? What are the PTS standards that I need to meet?
Answering questions like these before you get to the airport is a great way to simplify your flight and allow you to get the most out of the money you spend on training. There are many other questions you could ask, of course, but the point is this: Don't go into this flight without understanding what you have to do and how to do it-unless, of course, you want to waste money and time. If your instructor repeatedly fails to give you the information you need to prepare, ask him or her to do it...or get another instructor.
Now for our experienced pilot's cross-country flight. Several days before a flight like the one I've described, the pilot might want to ask himself some of the following questions: What might this flight require that I haven't done in a while? How much time do I have to spare? What are my clients' expectations? What problems can these expectations cause me? Have I planned the safest and best route, given the terrain, potential and forecast weather, my current proficiency in this airplane (regardless of what other airplanes I might also be flying), the performance capabilities of the aircraft, and the facilities I will encounter?
With mountains involved on this flight, have I routed myself along well-used, "rescuable" preferred routes? What fuel requirements and aircraft climb capability or other safety margins do I need? Have I tailored my survival pack to the mountainous terrain? Are my charts current? Are there sufficient emergency landing sites along my planned route? The list goes on and on, but you get the idea.
If you don't like the answers you get to any of these questions, the solution is simple - replan the flight or don't go. Asking questions on the ground will greatly simplify what you have to do in the air. But you have to ask the right questions, and one of the purposes of preflight planning is to discover what those questions are. If you think this kind of preparation complicates rather than simplifies flying, you should think again.
Rule #3: Keep your head in the game.
A few days ago, I flew with a student who said to me, "Boy, it feels like a long time since I've flown!" In fact, we had not flown for a few weeks. During that time, he had worked more than 60 hours of overtime, and that didn't leave much time for flying or studying.
Understanding that, I said to him, "Well, have you had any time to think about what we did last time?"
He replied, "Oh, yes, I think about it a lot. Driving to and from work and at other odd moments, I really enjoy it."
When he said that, I knew he'd have no problem getting back into the swing of training. During the upcoming flight, I planned mainly to review what he had already learned, and we had previously discussed many of the maneuvers. The groundwork had been laid for a productive lesson. If it had not, I would have cancelled the flight until my student could adequately prepare for it. Our flight turned out to be one of the best that I had ever flown with him because he had kept his head in the game, even though we hadn't flown recently.
Especially when you plan to make a flight that involves new maneuvers or procedures that you haven't thought about or used in a while, take the time to get into the books and clearly understand the requirements that you face. Keeping your head in the game will pay great dividends.
Rule #4: Get organized and stay that way.
There's an old saying: "A place for everything, and everything in its place."
One day last fall, the weather was just terrific. The wind at 800 feet agl was a good 20 knots-enough so that my student needed to work to maintain the proper rectangular pattern. Things were going well when the student looked to the horizon and asked, "What's that over there? It looks like an airfield."
I replied (tongue in cheek), "I don't know. You tell me. Look on your map."
"It's in my bag," he said.
Like the good designated examiner I was pretending to be (distract them if you can), I said, "Well, get your chart and let me know what you think."
That's when the real fun-and some extra learning-started.
For what seemed like five minutes, he groped around in the bag he'd put on the cabin floor behind my seat while simultaneously trying to look for traffic, maintain a stable flight attitude, and fly a good rectangular track around the field.
Frustration built as he fumbled around in his bag, unable to find the chart. "Hey, this is complicated trying to fly the airplane and find that map at the same time. I've got several charts in here and they all feel the same," he said.
He asked if I would take the airplane for a minute. I smiled and said, "No."
He confided after the flight that he'd learned a lesson. "There's no way I can stay on top of things like I should without getting better organized in the cockpit." Though this may seem like an insignificant incident, it was an instructive one in this young pilot's training.
If you have a chart-intensive flight coming up (IFR, for instance), clearly mark your course lines with highlighter (yellow preferred). Open the charts to the panels that you'll need to see when you first pick them up. Fold them so that they'll stay that way and put them in a door pocket or somewhere else they can be easily reached in the order in which you will use them. If there's nowhere in your cockpit to keep charts organized, neatly stack them in your flight bag, again in the order in which you'll use them during the flight. After use, refold them, put them away, and select the next chart.
Missing or deficient flying tools and data, or cluttered and disorganized cockpits can cause major distractions. Those distractions can make you inefficient and ineffective and can lead to major mistakes and even accidents. Getting organized, simplifying the cockpit, and keeping it that way should be a constant quest for every pilot.
It's not enough to know that what you need at a given moment is somewhere in the airplane. That's why you want to position each item in a logical, reachable place. Doing this effectively requires plenty of forethought and specific tailoring for each flight. Put essentials where you can reach them without straining. If you're flying solo, secure them on the seat next to you. Stow what you will need later or after your first fuel stop in your flight bag, and put it on the floor behind the copilot's seat. Do not put your flight bag behind your own seat. If you do, you'll have to be a contortionist to reach it while you're flying.
One other comment. Get a semi-rigid "stand-up" bag of some sort that will allow you to stow critical items in a specific place-the same place every time.
Rule #5: Practice makes perfect.
So you've planned your flight, sorted out its specific requirements, reviewed them, and organized your cockpit. Simple, isn't it? Now, refine your technique.
With so many different gadgets in the modern cockpit, it takes a little extra time and attention for a student or transitioning pilot to sort out where everything is and what does what. If you are an instructor, you might fly several different airplanes in the course of a week. Every panel is configured a little differently. Every flight has a different objective and maneuvers. It takes study to keep track of what you are trying to do and how best to do it.
Fortunately, most pilots use manufacturer-published checklists nowadays. It's an FAA requirement, and it just makes sense. Seldom do I see the "I'll do it from memory" syndrome anymore.
But how about other procedures and information for which there is no published checklist? Recalling earlier comments on the volume and complexity of what pilots need to know, doesn't it make sense to make your own thumbnail lists containing the additional stuff that you need to fly? Of course it does.
Start early in your flying career (or now, if you're an old hand who sees the need to stay current) to build your own data and procedures checklists. Your checklists can keep information that you don't use often and are likely to forget - such as light gun signals - readily available for quick reference.
I've made a small checklist for every operational environment and airplane I've ever flown. There's just no better way to keep up with everything I have to remember. I insert these data pages in little pieces of plastic designed to hold laminated cards and bind them with a ring from an office supply store. Then I put them under a clear plastic strap on my leg or in a pocket for instant use. I have them for technical information, instrument procedures, federal and local regulations, and other subjects. They contain things that can't be committed to memory because of the sheer volume of information involved, but I can choose the ones that I might need for a specific flight and keep them at hand.
Once you've done the work to capture all of this information, you're ready whenever you need it. And it's a lot quicker and easier to review this material than to look it up anew every time.
So, as applied in this rule, practice doesn't mean physical performance. It means the mental practice of compiling, writing down, organizing, and reviewing the information that you need. Think of this as the application of the "keeping your head in the game" concept.
The assumption in all of this, of course, is that you've followed the first rule and planned your flight. Without that, there is no way to know what you need to review, how you need to organize, or anything else.
Rule #6: Execute the plan.
We can leave this step blank! There's nothing more to be said. Execution should be the simplest part of your flying...if you've followed our six-step plan and simplified everything else. According to some people, "Flying is 98 percent head and only 2 percent hands."
So, start by planning your flight. Then, just fly your plan. With a little forethought and action on your part, it should be simple.
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