A Checklist For Learning

Flying is one of those skills that you only learn once. Hopefully, you learn it right the first time, because to undo bad habits later is three times as hard as learning good habits the first time. In some cases, once the skill is learned, no amount of instruction can undo problem habits. For a variety of reasons, not everyone learns right that first time around, but that doesn't have to include you. In fact, we've put together a checklist of what to watch for while you're still a student. You can use it as a guide to make sure that you're learning what you ought to be learning the way you ought to be learning it.

The list is made of both subjective and qualitative stuff that won't be found in your average test guide. And an examiner won't base any of his or her pass/fail decisions on many of these factors. These are the factors that, after more than 30 years of instructing already-licensed pilots in a wide variety of strictly stick-and-rudder skills such as aerobatics and tailwheel and type checkouts, I've found lacking in the majority of pilots. Although some of these factors actually are skills, most are intangible, qualitative judgments of those skills. These qualities combine with certain attitudes to make a student a good pilot, rather than simply an average one.

Common Errors

Coordination

A huge preponderance of pilots - as in 90 percent or better - don't coordinate while flying, meaning they don't use the rudder when using the ailerons. Of those who do attempt coordination, many do it poorly. Most of this is because these pilots don't fully understand adverse yaw and the role the rudder plays in it. At the same time, they don't understand torque, p-factor, slipstream effect, and all the other rudder-related requirements of flight. They might be able to parrot the words, but they don't see how it works when they're actually in the airplane.

More important, they don't understand how important keeping the ball centered (keeping the airplane coordinated) is to airplane efficiency and, in some situations, to overall safety. Among other things, an airplane with the ball centered is an airplane that's not yawing, and an airplane that's not yawing is an airplane that's not likely to spin.

Sensory Awareness

You can fly an airplane by the numbers, pushing and pulling at the appropriate time, which will very definitely get you into the air and where you are going. Or you can become a "real" pilot and develop a feel for the airplane that makes you part of it. Those who seem to be one with the airplane do so primarily because their senses are connected to it. They are feeling and hearing it, as well as seeing it.

One of the most underrated pieces of hardware in the cockpit - software probably describes it better - is your butt. Being aware of pressures that move your butt sideways is the best way to tell whether the airplane is coordinated or not.

Your hearing is another piece of information-gathering equipment. An airplane changes sound when it changes speed. Part of it is propeller noise, part is slipstream, but the subtle noises are talking to you. If you can become aware of those sounds, you won't have to look at the airspeed indicator to know that things are changing. Just listen. If you haven't tried this before, you'll be surprised by what you have been missing.

Attitude/Airspeed Control

Not enough emphasis is being placed on the relationship between the aircraft's attitude and its airspeed. The airspeed indicator is nothing more than an instrument that confirms and quantifies what the nose did seconds earlier. If you are always aware of what the nose is doing and you're keeping the ball centered, the chances of you getting into a stall-spin accident are next to zero. On top of that, you'll be a much smoother, more accurate pilot.

Aerodynamic Understanding

A depressing number of pilots have only the vaguest understanding about what affects an airplane's aerodynamics. Most can mumble something about "...yeah, well the wind goes faster over the top of the wing and...." It's not necessary for you to be able to argue the difference between Bernoulli's concepts and the downwash school of thought. However, understanding some of the basic precepts, such as camber and how that relates to wing and control surfaces, helps to build a well-rounded understanding of what the airplane is doing and what it is likely to do.

Yes, you can fly forever and not know a single thing about how the wings and control surfaces work, but you'll be a better, safer pilot if you do know what's going on. Among other things, that kind of understanding will have you pushing to decrease your angle of attack if the engine quits on takeoff, rather than impulsively yanking back because you want to get away from the ground.

Mechanical Understanding

It seems that society in general is drifting away from understanding the machines that we all operate, aircraft included. This is probably because of the computerization of everything from cars to coffee makers. However, an airplane is an incredibly simple, easily understood mechanism. Even the engine is easy to understand because it bears a frightening resemblance to the motor out of a mid-1960s Volkswagen Beetle. A pilot who just kicks the tires and lights the fires, giving no thought to what his input does once he is in the cockpit, is helpless if something goes wrong. It's unnecessary to know how to design or fix the airframe, but knowing how the control system works, how the fuel system is plumbed, and how brakes work is all good stuff. It'll put you in better control of the contraption that is keeping you in the air.

Approximate Vs. Specific

There is a pervasive idea that "good enough" actually is good enough. It's not. Pilots who believe this fly in an approximate manner. Their approach speed wanders five knots on either side of where it's supposed to be. The pattern altitude is plus or minus 50 feet. They make up for a wandering compass heading with a series of slow trips back and forth across the intended course line. An airplane rewards you for being precise. No one is dead on every time. But, if you don't have it in your mind that 75 kt is the only speed that you can accept on final, for instance, the needle will wander all over the place. This applies to everything that you do in the airplane from putting it on centerline to hitting your checkpoints on time.

Pattern Problems

Land Slow And On The Numbers

Somewhere along the line, the basic goal of landing an airplane has become blurred for many pilots. The goal is to land as slowly as practical on the first third of the runway, not the last half after floating for thousands of feet because you have too much speed. How well you've learned to fly is demonstrated in the last few feet before you touch down. Are you at the correct speed, near the numbers, and in an attitude that will gently put the airplane on its main gear? Anything else is unacceptable. A landing should be a pleasing reunion of machine with Earth, not a desperate attempt to return to the burrow.

Big Patterns In Small Planes

Flying any farther away from the airport than is absolutely necessary is a waste of energy and inconsiderate to the pilots behind you in the pattern. And it puts you in a position where you can't make it to the airport should the engine quit. All patterns should be as tight as practical.

Minimize Power Usage

There are a lot of arguments for and against power-off landings. However, ignoring the controversy, engines have been known to quit. It doesn't happen often, but one failure is usually enough. For that reason, at the very least, you should do enough power-off landings to develop a set of references as to what the airplane does when the engine is at idle. If you don't have those references and you lose an engine en route, you're just going to be a passenger because you won't have the slightest idea how far the airplane will go or how to position or scale a power-off emergency approach. Try to minimize your dependence on the throttle. It's only good technique.

Slips

The old fashioned forward slip is one of the handiest yet most seldom-taught skills that a pilot can learn. Knowing how to slip an airplane well gives you another little trick that lets you fine-tune the approach. The slip gives you control over the vertical rate of descent and is especially handy for getting rid of a little unwanted altitude at the last minute. It can also be used in an emergency to drop the airplane in over the trees to put you in that awfully short, but thankfully available, piece of ground that you have selected for a forced landing.

See And Be Seen

It seems to surprise some pilots that the windshield can be used for something other than looking straight ahead. Get your head out of the cockpit when you're in the pattern and remember that you're probably not up there alone. Then scan areas outside of the pattern. Is some idiot making a right turn in a left pattern? Is someone making a low, straight-in approach? There are lots of idiots out there, and they are all trying to complicate your life.

Situational Awareness

Where am I? Where is my airplane going? What is my relationship to the runway? Where is everyone else in the pattern? How is the wind affecting my ground track? These and a billion other questions should be ricocheting around in your brain during an approach. They describe and define the situation, and it is vital that you be aware of all the factors and how they can influence you. Far too many pilots simply react rather than planning and executing that plan.

Centerline The Runway

There's a reason a runway has a stripe painted down the middle. It's there to tell you where the middle is. That's where you should be putting the airplane. It's another of those approximate vs. specific things. You may not put it exactly in the middle very often, but if you don't try, you won't even come close.

Airwork

Understand Stalls

It's not enough to periodically slow the airplane enough to get a buffet and then recover. Yes, recognition is 95 percent of prevention, but it also helps to spend a fair amount of time pulling the airplane deep into the stall and holding it there while keeping the wings level. This gives you a better sense of how the airplane feels when the wings lose, and then regain, lift. It's like learning to feel how tire traction changes when driving on ice.

Cross-Controlled Stalls And Spins

There's a lot to be learned from training in cross-controlled stalls and spin entries. It's important to see that an airplane won't spin unless it's slow and yawed. It's even more important to see that being cross-controlled in the base-to-final turn will start a spin at a much lower nose attitude than most would imagine. If you aren't going to get training in spins, at the very least, get training that shows how insidious cross-controlled stalls can be by putting them into a real-life type of scenario.

Dead Reckoning And Pilotage

A compass doesn't need batteries. It doesn't need an electrical system. So it's a good idea to really know how to get from A to B with nothing but a compass and a map. Everything mechanical or electrical can fail. A compass, however, is about as foolproof as they come. Assuming that you know how to use it, that is. Also, by keeping dead reckoning and pilotage in the back of your mind while GPSing it on a cross-country, you have general situational awareness of what is going on around you and, should the batteries die or the electrical system go away, you'll at least know where you are and how to get where you're going.

Understand Weather

It's important to understand what makes weather tick. Get the cold front/ warm front thing down pat and learn how to read the clouds for clues as to what they are likely to do. After a while, you'll be able to look at a cloud situation and immediately know whether it's something to be feared, a nuisance, or nothing to worry about at all.

Of course this is not an all-inclusive list, but it gives you a good idea of what kinds of things to look for while you're learning to fly. If you feel as though your instructor is breezing past some of these points, tell him so and slow him down. You're only going to go through this process once, and your life may depend on doing it right the first time.