Fly like the airlines

As an airline pilot, I have been asked myriad questions, some simple and some not, some smart, and some not so much. But a common theme is always the issue of safety. The best summary of all of these questions is this: "Why are the airlines so safe?"

The answer brings insight into what we can do to improve the safety record in general aviation. So what can GA learn from the airlines and why are the carriers so safe?

We need to be safe. Simply put, the success of any airline depends on its safety record, both real and imagined. A poor safety record, or a very preventable accident, can put an airline out of business faster than a bad management team. Remember ValuJet? The wildly successful start-up had several bumps in the road, including fires, which had tarnished the carrier's image. Even the airline's name sounded cheap, and saving money was a major portion of its business plan--which allowed it to make money for several years, until Flight 592 crashed in the Everglades and the bottom started to fall out as the public shied away. Only by merging with a smaller carrier to create AirTran, and making some major changes to its business model, was the company able to turn around and survive. Pan Am, already in serious financial trouble, was largely done in by the destruction of Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Equipment. Although the avionics in general aviation are beginning to surpass airline equipment in terms of capability, the airlines have long had the advantage in many respects. Airline autopilots are incredibly precise, and the equipment costs reflect not only the quality, but the money spent by the manufacturers in getting that equipment certified. The windows in an airliner's cockpit exceed $100,000; the cockpit seats are well more than $10,000 each; the autopilot control panel in the CRJ that I fly costs more than my house; and a wing leading edge is north of $60,000. Then there is the equipment and capabilities that most general aviation airplanes simply don't have, such as weather radar, radio altimeters, autothrottles, or the ability to talk to a dispatcher or a mechanic thousands of miles away.

The equipment is rugged and dependable because it has to be. Airliners fly up to 16 hours a day at airspeeds in excess of 500 knots, in rough air and smooth, and in temperatures that might be hotter than 100 degrees Fahrenheit on the ground and as cold as 50 degrees F below zero in cruise.

Part 121 vs. Part 91. "14 CFR 121" is the chapter of the federal aviation regulations that governs the airlines, and it would be easier to talk about what isn't regulated than what is. When I put on my uniform, it becomes a set of handcuffs in a way--what I eat, when I can use the bathroom, when my work day starts and ends, and what kind of mechanical shape the airplane is in are all extremely regimented. The FAA, with the cooperation of the airlines and the unions, has done a remarkable job of taking "get-there-itis" out of the cockpit. With rare exceptions, the issue of whether or not a crew can fly is black and white. You can either go, or you can't. There is little in the area of gray. Regarding weather, the visibility is almost always the controlling factor for both takeoff and landing. When it isn't the visibility that controls, it might be thunderstorms, ice, or high winds (depending on the runway).

When it comes to a broken piece of equipment, the airlines all fly with a minimum equipment list (MEL) that lists every single item that can be nonoperational for a given flight. For instance, you won't see an airline flight cancelled because of a burned-out navigation light. The MEL allows the airline to defer the repair for a defined period of time. Depending on the part, it might be months before it has to be fixed (example: a broken window shade), or it could be days (an inoperative autopilot). It might even be as little as one flight day (the main battery under some circumstances). There are some items that simply cannot be deferred, and the airplane is grounded until the item is fixed (the floor-level emergency exit lights or the cockpit seats).

Over time, the FAA, the manufacturers, and the airlines have worked to modify the MEL for every aircraft based on worldwide experience with each fleet. If you look hard enough, there is a pattern of redundancy in place. As long as the system involved has some sort of a backup, or does not adversely affect safety, repair usually can be deferred.

In general aviation, the operating rules for pilots are much looser, giving you and me far more latitude to do something we shouldn't. If the weather is iffy, we can go. If the weather for an instrument approach is below the published landing minimums, the pilot of a Cessna 172 can still "take a look" while the Boeing 737 is going to be heading to an alternate airport, passenger inconveniences aside. Sometimes we need to avoid the temptation to take advantage of some of the leeway we are given.

It's what we do. Airline pilots fly more hours in two months than most GA pilots fly in a year. We eat, breathe, and sleep airplanes and FARs. Currency is not a problem. Neither is proficiency. An airline pilot who is away from the cockpit for 10 days has been gone a long time. Flying isn't something that we do part time, and isn't something that we do at the end of a long day at the office. Plus, when we do fly, there is another person next to us to keep an eye on us and keep us from making dumb mistakes.

Training. This is one of the most important differences between the airline pilot and the general aviation pilot. Airline pilots get several different kinds of training. In addition to the initial training for both the company and the aircraft that we fly, we also have to attend recurrent ground school once a year. Depending on the company and the approved training program, we make at least one, if not two or three, annual trips to the simulator for both training and a checkride. In addition, each captain is subject to an in-flight evaluation by a check airman (called a line check, as it takes place when "flying the line"); first officers frequently get stuck sitting through several line checks a year as we are paired with different captains. Finally, airlines frequently distribute internal paper briefings, updates, manual revisions, and safety bulletins, all of which may have a training element to them.

The airline simulator is not your PC-based flight sim. It's a true simulator, shaped like a box that sits on hydraulic jacks and moves, shakes, and bumps just like the real airplane. The simulator is developed and built as a partnership between the manufacturers of the airplane and sim. The inside is an exact duplicate of the cockpit of the airplane, and most of the parts in the sim can be put in a real airplane. (Depending on the aircraft, it's possible that the simulator cost more than the airplane itself.) The visuals that the pilots see out the windows are sometimes so realistic as to be frightening. If the instructor wants the students to experience an exploding engine, it can happen at the push of a button. Likewise with a fire (which can even include real smoke in the cockpit), flight-control malfunction, and countless other failures. If it can happen in the airplane, it can almost always happen in the simulator.

Expectation and repetition. No matter who I fly with, be it a seasoned veteran or a new hire on his first trip, I know what to expect because everything we do is scripted and regimented. We each execute the checklist in the same fashion, and use the same terminology, in the same way, every time. In other words, everything is carefully choreographed to be done the same way on every flight. There are no surprises. Any deviation from the norm is immediately noticed and corrected. In fact, the medical community has studied pilots in action to see what they can learn and apply the findings to surgeries.

The airlines have a lot of advantages in the safety realm, and they can teach us a lot. With the application of common sense, adherence to approved procedures, and good training that goes beyond stalls and steep turns, we can fly more safely and allay fears and concerns about "small" airplanes.

Chip Wright has been flying since 1990, has been a CFI since 1994, and is now an ATP and a Canadair Regional Jet captain for Comair. His total flight time is 8,000 hours.

So what can we do?

Knowing how the airlines stay so safe is only part of the lesson. Now it's time to put it into practice. Write down your own personal operations manual, in which you determine your own personal limitations for each type of flight (local versus cross-country, day versus night), as well as each phase of flight. If you are not comfortable taking a cross-country flight with a ceiling of less than 5,000 feet, write that down, and stick to your rule until you are comfortable enough to accept less. When you are, update your manual.

By the same token, you may be perfectly happy doing pattern work with a ceiling of 2,000 feet. Write that down as well. Work your way from preflight to landing, during the daytime and at night. Write down what equipment you personally feel you must have in your fight bag for each flight. If it isn't there, don't go.

Training is also critical, and although training in the airplane is helpful, having an instructor talk to you about possible scenarios you might encounter in the airplane you fly can be among the best training you can get. The instructor can draw on his day-to-day experiences to craft realistic scenarios and watch your decision-making in action. In the airplane, training safely is paramount. A good briefing on the details of the flight is critical.