Confronting three challenges
As I soon learned, I was indeed like most new pilots --an ordinary mortal who tried hard to be perfect on every flight, but almost always ended up making small errors. The positive view of that less-than-perfect performance is that every flight is a satisfying learning experience.
Of course, random errors are not the only source of a pilot's on-the-job education. Some things we have trouble grasping or understanding; some things we just have trouble doing correctly consistently. Early in my flying education I recall being confounded by several things. One was an airplane problem. The other two were of my own doing.
Confounding thing number one: I did not know how much power the engine was producing. The handbooks for all the airplanes I flew had power and performance tables, but I questioned their accuracy. They were compiled based on a new airplane and new engine under ideal test conditions. Or, possibly, the tables were mostly fiction, as was the case for some older airplanes when hyperbole was the standard for publishing performance specifications.
I cannot recall an instance when all of the howgozit information in flight--airspeed, power setting, and fuel flow--precisely matched book numbers. Even when compensating for weight, temperature, altitude, instrument error, and the effects of engine and airframe age, it's difficult to make a good match between actual and theoretical performance.
This level of imprecision has some implications for realizing all of an airplane's potential, not to mention the long-term health and vitality of the engine. For example, most pilot's operating handbooks and piston-engine manuals say the mixture can be leaned only when the engine is producing 75-percent power or less. At any higher power setting the mixture should be at full rich. But because of instrument errors and the dynamic nature of ambient conditions, I didn't have a lot of confidence in the accuracy of the power setting. If the engine was truly churning out more than 75 percent, I shouldn't be leaning. If it was less, the airplane wasn't performing to my flight-planning expectations.
I eventually concluded that the way out of the dilemma is to operate at a comfortable margin below 75 percent using the tachometer as the primary power gauge for a fixed-pitch propeller airplane. For constant-speed engines the power is determined by a combination of tachometer, manifold pressure, and fuel flow. By doing so I eliminate the concern about violating leaning restrictions.
Confounding thing number two: transitioning from cruise flight to the descent phase, and then to approach and landing. It should be a no-brainer--push the nose over slightly, retrim to maintain the descent attitude, and reduce power to maintain the trim airspeed. (Or, if desired, simply reduce power without pushing the nose over. Airspeed will decay, the nose will drop slightly as the airplane seeks its trim speed, and you descend. Don't forget to enrichen the mixture as you descend into lower, denser air.)
If it is so simple, why do problems occur? The answer, I think, is twofold. First, descents occur at a time in the flight when the brain may have become lazy. Second, there's more to do in a descent than simply descending.
On a long cross-country, alone in the cockpit and especially at higher altitudes, the mind can begin to wind down. It has been in high gear to prepare for the flight and for the takeoff and climb, but now thinking begins to slow. The sun's rays stream into the cockpit, and the vibration and noise play a steady drumbeat on the body and brain. Concentration slips.
The effect of letting concentration lapse in cruise flight is to lose the edge. Instead of planning two or three steps ahead of the airplane, at best you may be taking care of current events. If so, events can quickly overtake and overwhelm. If the descent is not well planned and executed--not starting down soon enough or at the proper descent rate to arrive at the airport boundary at the correct altitude and airspeed, or not reviewing the approach and landing procedures and frequencies for the destination airport--then we've set ourselves up for confusion and frustration in the highest workload phases of the flight.
To avoid lapsing into mental coast mode during a long cruising flight, I conduct the must-do tasks--scanning for traffic, reviewing the navigation situation, and checking the dials and gauges--but mix in some what-ifs and how's-thats.
I concoct an imaginary problem, asking myself how I would discover the problem if it was for real and, finally, I would react to the problem. It's a good exercise for staying sharp on the various aircraft systems and emergency procedures.
Those long legs also offer a good opportunity to hone proficiency in the use of avionics and equipment. Why not pass some of the long hours at cruise twiddling with knobs and buttons--so long as you remember not to fixate on the display and keep up your outside scan? It's a chance to explore hidden but still interesting and useful back alleys in the often complex and confusing street map of functions in state-of-the-art microprocessor-driven avionics equipment.
Confounding thing number three is, I'm sure, a universal problem, especially for new pilots: the inability to make consistently good landings.
I work pretty hard on being consistent in my approach and landing procedures by using specific power settings to achieve certain speeds in the pattern and on final approach, configuring the airplane with flaps (and gear if applicable) at the proper time, and finding a pitch attitude and power setting that result in the correct airspeed and descent rate on final. If I've flown the pattern and approach to standards, all that's left is to make small corrections in heading and pitch on short final to keep the expected touchdown point bull's-eyed. Crossing the threshold, I reduce power to idle, flare, and touch down perfectly. It seems so simple. So why don't I squeak it on every time?
Long ago I came to the realization that making good landings is like baking bread: You can use the exact same recipe and never vary the technique, but no matter how consistent and precise the preparation, ingredients, and methods, the bread turns out different every time.
So it is with landings. Some qualify as a delicious end to a lovely flight. Some are overcooked or underdone with a rough texture and a tough crust. That uncertainty and anticipation over how it will all turn out is what makes landings--and bread-making--such interesting challenges.
I wonder if Chuck Yeager bakes bread?
Mark Twombly is a writer and editor who has been flying since 1968. He is a commercial pilot with instrument and multiengine ratings and co-owner of a Piper Aztec.
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