In case no one has made this obvious to you yet, let me say it clearly: You are in charge. When you’re acting as pilot in command of an airplane, you have sole authority to do whatever is necessary to ensure the safe outcome of the flight.
Most pilots take this seriously on a conceptual level. Some go so far as to be machismo about the whole thing, saying your life hangs in the balance and it’s your duty to be in charge. Don’t worry if you aren’t Rambo in the cockpit—the application of the PIC authority is much more nuanced than that. That’s not to say it isn’t serious. It is. But no pilot examiner is going to ask you to show grand feats of strength and will to earn a pilot certificate.
No, the real story on PIC authority is in its application to seemingly minor decisions that crop up on every flight. When to take off, what runway to use, when and where to land, and so on. Things become a bit more challenging when outside variables are involved.
A flight late this summer tested my PIC authority, even though I never once considered that fact during the flight. We were flying on an instrument flight plan from northern Florida to our home base in Frederick, Maryland. Weather was building along the route, to the point that it became clear I was going to need a plan B. About 200 miles south of Frederick, I started asking air traffic control for reroutes, which they gladly gave me.
This is PIC authority in action. Although I had asked for and filed a certain route, and ATC had cleared me on that route, I didn’t just follow it like a sheep hoping that everything would be OK. I observed weather and made a judgment call to change the route. I would do so another three times before the flight was over, each time formulating a revised plan B in case the weather got worse. In fact, at one point I asked to land short of my destination and wait things out. But ATC came back and suggested a vector to get me around a small area of moderate rain, and I continued on.
I offer this example not because it’s somehow unusual, but because it’s the exact opposite. It’s common and takes place every day. And it’s a great lesson in applying the responsibility of pilot in command.
Associate Editor Jill W. Tallman writes about the nuts and bolts of making these types of decisions in her story, “When the Plan Goes Out the Window,” on page 34. Tallman makes the case, and rightfully so, that deciding to “go” fly is the first in a long string of decisions, many also requiring plans B, C, and so on. It’s about exercising PIC authority, in other words.
Tallman’s story is a natural progression on the training continuum. It speaks to the essence of why we train in the first place. Although a student learns about PIC authority early in the process, it’s an abstract concept until there’s an opportunity to apply it. And when that opportunity comes, decisions are made as a result of our training. We train in order to learn how to gather and interpret the data. How to put that data into place is up to us—the PIC.
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