Examiners' impact on aviation thinking
What has this to do with you and your upcoming practical test? Perhaps nothing.
Because few pilots earn a 100 percent score on their knowledge tests, most will come under the FAA mandate that their flight instructors render extra training in the areas found deficient on a knowledge test. In reality, that additional training seems far rarer than the signatures attesting that it has occurred. As you prepare for your approaching practical test, it is worth paying your flight instructor to review with you those areas indicated on your test report form. They appear in an alphanumeric format, because the FAA notes the broad subject area that each question tests, and through the alphanumeric code directs you to the appropriate publication to deepen your knowledge in that area or task. This is a good concept, because the FAA's objective should be that of your flight instructor and DPE as well: developing your long-term operating habits as a pilot.
In order to attain your goals, there are certain essentials that you must acquire. What may surprise us are the seemingly innocent details upon which our success, failure, or--worse--mediocrity hinges. One of these details appears with regularity on knowledge test reports as an innocuous code: A01. You find what that code means by consulting the most recent Advisory Circular 60-25.
If this code appears on your FAA knowledge test report, it refers to a list of essential terms found in Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, part 1, better known to you as Part 1 of the federal aviation regulations (FARs). The appearance of that little segment of the aviator's language hints at a deeper problem.
That problem is the lack of detail orientation on the part of what may be a growing percentage of aviators. A large portion of learning to fly was grasping aerodynamic concepts that seemed counterintuitive. (In the region of reversed command, we increase power to fly slower?) Included in this effort was the lexicon of terms and phrases that sometimes were intimidating. (Region of reversed command?)
There are two reasons why pilots lack "A01 knowledge": They are ignorant of the words and their meanings, or they choose to ignore them. In either instance, one might paraphrase Goethe: The only thing more dreadful than ignorance in action is when it is flying an airplane.
For most pilot examiners, general definitions seem to be fairly low on our priority list of testing items. In a society that by its nature seems more concerned with finishing a task than accomplishing that task correctly, this should not be surprising. As a culture, we in aviation might be wise to consider why our foundational texts have cemented these definitions in the first place. Each is specific, encompassing a very narrow meaning and use, unless the context requires otherwise. For example, at the airfield where your author primarily serves, he has heard pilots say airship when referring to training airplanes. FAR Part 1 is explicit that the term means "an engine-driven lighter-than-air aircraft that can be steered." At least they got part of it right.
How should pilot examiners respond when applicants report weather findings and refer to any sky cover, including a thin or partial obscuration--or even scattered clouds--as a ceiling? Part 1 clearly states that a ceiling means the height above the Earth's surface of the lowest layer of clouds or obscuring phenomena that is reported as "broken," "overcast," or "obscuration" and not classified as "thin" or "partial." If such a statement comes from an applicant whose knowledge test report displayed an A01, H320, H856, H957, or some others, there would certainly be a strong indication that the applicant has not demonstrated sufficient knowledge to meet the requirements of the certificate or rating sought.
Then there is the applicant who states that flap extended speed means the speed on the airspeed indicator at the moment the pilot deployed the flaps. You can be sure that Lewis Carroll, the author of Through the Looking-Glass, was not considering the aviators of more than a century hence as he wrote in 1872: "'When I use a word,' said Humpty Dumpty, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.'" Our world aloft is somewhat more demanding of accuracy than Carroll's Wonderland because imprecise aviators are susceptible to an even greater fall than was Humpty Dumpty.
But do all pilot examiners honor that fact? Or are we all aware of precision's importance to aviation safety, yet we ignore breaches of A01 knowledge for fear of being judged as too harsh? Do we fear the loss of income when flight instructors and applicants understandably migrate to examiners whose forgiveness overrides their professionalism? Perhaps it is neither.
David Riesman, in his 1950 work, The Lonely Crowd, wrote that "Words not only affect us temporarily; they change us, they socialize or unsocialize us." How socially annoying to be corrected by some well-meaning, aging authority that a kite means "a framework, covered with paper, cloth, metal, or other material, intended to be flown at the end of a rope or cable, and having as its only support the force of the wind moving past its surfaces" (per Part 1) when all your friends know that when you use the word, you mean a small airplane. Naturally, few DPEs would insist on the FAR terminology during a social conversation. But how to keep innocent social habits out of the cockpit, where the game turns serious?
For fear of offending somebody, our society couches explicit ideas in new words or phrases, the use of which allows an escape should we be called to task. This is pervasive, but not new. In 1901, George Ade wrote in Forty Modern Fables that "For parlor use, the vague generality is a life-saver." For aviation use, vague generalities can be quite the opposite. DPEs have the position to influence this, but why should we?
Observed over the long term, applicants whose mental approach to flying is imprecise or haphazard also tend to fly haphazardly and without precision. The two times when a pilot does not want that characteristic are during a practical test, when the results cost money, and just before an accident--when the cost is much, much higher!
Dave Wilkerson is a designated pilot examiner, writer/photographer, and historian. He has been a certificated flight instructor since 1981 with approximately 2,000 hours of dual instruction, and is a single- and multiengine commercial-rated pilot.
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