In fact, chances are that your mother taught you long ago what it takes to be a good pilot. That's because, among other things, being a good pilot means always trying to improve not only your skills but also the way you fit into the aviation community. It means trying to be a good citizen, which sometimes outweighs the value of a superb set of skills. If a pilot can do flawless vertical rolls and every landing is a grease job, but he insists on buzzing the neighbors and blasts around the ramp as if he owns it, then he's missing some of the intangibles that are necessary to be a really good pilot.
So, what are the intangibles that make a pilot look better than average in the eyes of his peers? The answer may sound like a lecture from your mother about how to behave on your first day in school. There's a reason: Your mom was preaching being considerate to others, which matters in school and in flying. Common courtesy and good sense are probably the most important ingredients in becoming a good citizen as well as a good pilot.
What kinds of things are we talking about? Let's take some really simple ones. Let's say that you just fueled your airplane. Did you lay the hose on the ramp or did you make sure it went back on the take-up reel? And did you put the little stepladder away next to the pump where you got it? Remember what mom always said, "Put things back where you found them." Be considerate of the next person.
You're in the airplane ready to crank it up. Did you happen to look behind the airplane before you strapped in? What's behind the tail? If you want to become the airport's most despised citizen, make a habit of ignoring whoever or whatever is behind you when you start the engine.
Remember that you have a fast-moving column of air behind you and bear in mind what effect that blast can have. Even if no one is behind you when you crank up, it usually takes a lot of power to make the turn out of the parking place. Will that make you blast something or someone that will cause other people inconvenience? Think ahead. If you're going to blast people or sensitive airplanes in the act of turning, push or pull the airplane out of the spot and make the turn by hand before you start the engine.
And don't forget to test the brakes. If they aren't up to par, you might add power to get the airplane moving only to discover that you can't make it stop.
When you're at the runway and ready to do the runup, ask yourself where your tail is pointed. Is it pointed into an unoccupied area or is it pointing across the dirt between the runway and taxiway at another airplane? Rocks and dirt blown around by an engine runup become sharp little projectiles. It's not neighborly to be bouncing rocks off of the guy next door.
Even taxiing up to the hold-short area before takeoff requires a little consideration. If no one else is in the runup area, always position yourself as far out of the way as possible to make sure that others can get past you if they are ready to go before you or the tower wants to get them moving because of an instrument clearance void time.
Watch how people behave in the traffic pattern. Good pilots are aware of everyone in the pattern and set their patterns up accordingly. They know someone is behind them, so they don't drag the pattern out unnecessarily. Nor do they scoot in tight behind the airplane in front of them. The pattern is a good place to remember your mother's admonitions about being polite. Among other things, it's rude, and even dangerous, to cut into line. It's also helpful to make yourself the moving part of the equation, so that if a conflict appears to be developing, you can be the one who solves it by changing your path, rather than waiting for the other guy to give way.
Part of pattern courtesy and being a good pilot is remembering that you own neither the pattern nor the runway, and you should always assume someone is behind you. So, once you're down and maintaining directional control on the runway, start looking for the first turn-off you can make safely. This doesn't mean smoking the tires, but it does mean you're not going to dawdle, causing the pilot behind to go around. If that was you up there on short final behind someone who decided to taxi to the last turnoff, you'd really be hacked off.
Now let's look at a different situation where the question is one of judgment: As you taxi out you notice the weather deteriorating. You're only an hour from home, and it's getting dark fast. What's your call? Do you take off or not? This depends on a lot of factors, including airplane equipment, your ability to fly in bad weather, fuel on board, and a bunch of other variables. The bottom line is, however, that if there is any question about the safety of the flight with regard to your ability to easily handle it, the smart pilot doesn't go. Get-home-itis doesn't exist for him, and he feels no pressure to be a hero. Besides, have you ever noticed that almost no one criticizes you for being overly cautious, but the second you do something that is stupid or stretches your talent limits, they are all over you. No one will ever fault you for making the conservative decision. Knowing when not to go is as important as having the talent to go. Judgment - and always erring toward the conservative side - is another hallmark of a good pilot.
A good pilot will admit when he or she has made a mistake rather than seeking someone or something to blame. Too often, for instance, a pilot botches a landing and immediately says, "...the sun was in my eyes, the wind was gusty, and my dog is going to have puppies...." Hey, we all have to deal with the same or similar factors. If you blew it and couldn't handle the conditions, simply say, "I screwed up and didn't get the wing down and hold it." The really good guys will laugh at them-selves and say, "Boy, that was ugly!" Then they'll move on to improving the next landing.
And then there's the question of how smoothly a pilot handles an airplane. Some of the hot dogs love to hold it down on takeoff, waiting until they are doing warp nine, before yanking it up nose high in an effort to amaze the pea-nut gallery of friends watching. Abusing an airplane and slamming it around doesn't make a pilot good. It makes him an uncaring, and maybe even dangerous, pilot. A good pilot is a smooth pilot. Everything he does reflects an effort to make the airplane think that each movement is the airplane's idea, not the pilot's. This doesn't require talent. It just requires the right mental attitude and a gentle feel for the airplane.
A good pilot is not the one who takes friends up for a ride and immediately decides this is the time he's going to show them accelerated stalls. A good pilot is the one who shows consideration and empathy for those who have trusted him to take them flying. A good pilot is the one who understands that these Earthlings have no idea what is going on. He explains everything before doing it, like warning the passengers before dropping a wing to turn or killing the power for approach. If something as benign as a turn can be upsetting to first-time little-airplane passengers (and it often is), think how the more abrupt moves must unsettle them. You want to be the kind of pilot who brings each passenger back wearing a grin and asking to fly with you again, soon. You want to be a salesman for aviation and that, all by itself, will make you a good pilot.
Yes, of course, raw skill is also a measure of how good a pilot is, but that's by no means the most important yardstick. What is important is how you apply that skill and the attitude with which you use it. For instance, it takes little or no extra effort to put an airplane down in the first quarter of the runway than it does the middle half. So, why don't more people do that? The answer is again one of attitude. Although most folks have the basic skills to consistently land in the first quarter, they just don't see it as being that important. It's not an issue of skills but one of thought processes. Since they fly from long runways, they see no reason to habitually land short. They are forgetting that not all runways are equally long or that they may find themselves under a lowering cloud deck happy to find any runway of any length to set down upon. But, when the time comes, they don't have the right visual references set up to guide them into a shorter-than-normal runway. Two thousand feet suddenly looks very short, even though it doesn't have to be.
In case you haven't noticed, most of what we're talking about here is attitude - a point of view in which a pilot sees himself not only as an operator of a machine but also as a member of a community. Viewed in that light, becoming a good pilot could be viewed exactly the same way you'd look at becoming a worthwhile member of your local community. The Golden Rule very much applies. You want to become one of the folks others like to have around by being a positive asset in terms of the way in which you conduct yourself in an airplane. So, do you have to be a super-skilled pilot to become a "good" pilot? Not by a long shot. You just have to remember what your mother taught you and be a good citizen in the cockpit. That's all there is to being a good pilot.
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