I arrived at the airfield toward evening, with the sun and the western crosswind quickly disappearing. My instructor had been flying around the local area in the old Cessna 150 that I use to train. As I was getting into the airplane, he mentioned that the seat adjustment lever seemed a bit loose. The airplane was going in for its 100-hour inspection the next morning, and repairing the lever was on the to-do list. I religiously perform the “Cessna shuffle” on every flight (which consists of rocking the seat back and forth on entry) to ensure that the seat is properly latched. My instructor watched carefully as I did a little extra shuffle that evening. Everything seemed fine.
At a couple hundred feet above ground level, I made a slight upward pitch adjustment to bring the airplane to its best rate of climb and adjusted the trim to minimize the yoke force. About a second after that I hit a bit of unexpected turbulence that briefly pitched the nose up a few degrees. I heard a small thunk—or, rather, felt it resonate in the seat frame, and suddenly realized I was sliding backward.
I dug my heels into the carpet to stop sliding, leaned forward, and nudged the yoke forward. I then made another quick trim adjustment. With the nose lowered, I carefully readjusted the seat so that my feet could reach the rudder pedals. I climbed very gradually to 1,500 feet msl and continued through the pattern. I made a careful final approach, avoiding any steep downward pitch, and landed at a little less than a full stall to prevent the seat from unlatching in the flare.
Looking back, the recovery was a nonevent, with no sudden pitch change or anything else that might have looked unusual to an observer a few hundred feet below. The reason for that has everything to do with the trim mechanism. At the time the seat unlatched, the airplane was basically stabilized, allowing me to take my hands away from the yoke for a few quick seconds to address the problem. The fact that I trimmed the airplane shortly after establishing the climb may have even prevented a dramatic dive or a departure stall. Until that evening, I had always thought of trim as more of a convenience—something to ease the pilot’s workload. I had never considered it a safety feature.
During the early part of my training I tended to ignore the trim because I found it difficult to adjust for hands-free flying, particularly on windy days. Trying to adjust the trim precisely, especially while operating in the pattern, was more distracting than helpful.
But one day my instructor noted that he always uses the trim to lessen the yoke force for any pitch or power setting, and he tries to adjust the trim for “fingertip flying.” A light bulb went on. The goal is not necessarily a literal hands-off state. It is simply to make it easier to control the airplane. A suggestion: When adjusting the trim, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. The trim system is not an autopilot. You can get close to hands-off during cross-country flight, but in the pattern that may not be realistic.
In the times that I have spent riding with experienced pilots, I have noticed them making regular adjustments to the trim setting. I grew up riding in the back seat of the Super Cub my grandfather bought in 1965, which my dad inherited in 1988. Even on short final, I’ve noticed my dad making quick trim adjustments—I always thought it was neat that with the engine at idle you could hear the dry, squeaking pulleys of the Cub’s trim system. The Cub’s sculpted trim handle is conspicuously fancy in a cockpit that is otherwise unadorned. By contrast, the stick is just a straight metal tube and, instead of pedals, two metal bars operate the rudders. Cubs are my favorite aircraft, so it pains me to admit that one of the only nods to aesthetics in the Cub line of aircraft is the lightning bolt on J-3s (and that is probably just an early example of irony as a marketing technique). In any case, it is curious, given the Cub’s utilitarian makeup, that the trim system on those old birds was given a curvy, shiny handle as if to say, “Hey, don’t forget about me!” And that, I guess, is the message here.
Illustration by Alex Williamson
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