Unless a person flies every day with a total awareness of what he’s doing right or wrong, there’s no way we can keep from getting a little sloppy. We’re just not doing things quite the way we know they should be done. And if we’re flying only occasionally, the sloppiness is floating on a layer of rust. How do we know when we’re compromising safety?
We can be performing at a level where we may not be doing everything quite right, but we’re not yet dangerous. It’s a difficult area to quantify: We’re in the green zone, but are we high green or low green, teetering on sliding into yellow? Is there any way to judge our “sloppy factor” except through the outside observations offered by a CFI? Yes.
The post-student mindset. Once a private pilot certificate is nestled in our wallet, when we go to the airport we are there either for personal entertainment or to go someplace. We are looking to apply what we learned. We know we’re somewhere in the green zone and green is good, so why bother with the details?
Just as no one remembers everything they were told, our hands and feet—as orchestrated by our brain—don’t remember everything they were taught, either. In fact, to a certain extent, the instant we stop taking lessons, we start going downhill. Our skills don’t fall off a cliff the instant our pilot certificate is signed. However, our skills are like a garden and they need care to remain healthy. So, we have to put a little work into maintaining our skills, not just using them. Look at it as personal maintenance.
Who sets the parameters? The tasks to be accomplished and the ways to gauge how well those tasks are done are first defined by the FAA’s Practical Test Standards (PTS) for your pilot certificate. The performance standards spelled out in the PTS represent the absolute minimum standards, not the optimum. They are the bottom of the green arc. On the flight test, if you dip a toe into the yellow by not meeting the standards, you fail.
The PTS is not what we strive to attain. It sets the limits for what we strive to avoid. If, for instance, we’re regularly 100 feet high or low on downwind, we’re at the outside boundaries of what the FAA says is barely passable. If we are routinely that far off our downwind altitude, we may not be dangerous, but that’s a sure indication we’re sloppy.
In real life, if you sag down into the yellow, there is no one to point out that you’ve just ventured into dangerous territory. It’s up to us to police our own flying and watch for areas that need improvement.
How do we measure our own “sloppy factor”? The example of being off our downwind altitude by 100 feet is a clear case of knowing where we’re supposed to be, but we’re not. If we see the difference and mentally say, “That’s close enough,” we’re sowing the seeds of sloppy flying. That’s a mindset, not a lapse in skill.
If we want to maintain or even improve our flying skills, we must compare where we are with where we know we’re supposed to be—and correct as much as possible. This is a healthy way of looking at our flying that can be applied to every single part of every single flight.
On takeoff, we know the prettiest, most organic takeoffs are those in which the nose is lifted just a little early and held there while the airplane accelerates to a speed it likes, and it makes the takeoff. If we’re roaring down the runway and forcibly rotating the airplane off the surface, we’re not working at being as “right” as we can.
We all know the best climb speed for our airplane, but how closely do we hold it? Three knots one way or the other really changes the rate of climb, so we should try to stay inside that range. If we’re not, we’re being sloppy.
When we level out, do we lower the nose first and let the airplane accelerate a little before bringing the power back? Or are we powering back as the nose goes down, so the airplane settles a little before gaining speed? It’s a small thing, but it makes holding altitude a million times easier.
Do we have an altitude in mind that we want to hold? And how close have we set our altitude margins? Plus or minus 25 feet? Fifty feet? The tighter the better. How exact we want to be is an individual judgment call, but it should be a point of pride that we’re always really close to exactly what we want.
If we’re on a cross-country, are we just pushing the “go to” button and enjoying the ride, or are we trying to keep the airplane right on the course line we laid out on a sectional (you are using a sectional as backup, right?) Do we smile a little when we see ourselves splitting our checkpoints and being within seconds of hitting our estimated times of arrival?
The pattern brings it all together. There’s a certain amount of pride associated with exactitude, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the traffic pattern. Have we established a definite path for the downwind, or are we just out there somewhere more or less parallel to the runway? Is the approach itself the result of a carefully executed plan, or something that just happens and is vaguely rectangular and culminates with plopping onto the runway in a place that doesn’t require massive braking to avoid going off the other end?
The pattern should be the most carefully choreographed part of every flight, because every single thing we know about aviation except cross-country navigation is crowded into that small space. This is where our sloppy factor is most easily identified.
Downwinds—Are they consistently the same distance out and at, or close to, the right altitude for the airport?
Initial point—The point opposite the end of the runway is the most important position in the pattern, because it sets the foundation for everything that happens after that. How consistent is it?
Power and configuration changes—Are the first power and configuration changes made at the initial point, consistent, and appropriate for the type of approach to be flown (power on, power off)?
Final approach speed—A given approach speed is indicated in the pilot’s operating handbook for different conditions. How close are our speeds? The PTS says five under or 10 over are the minimum standards, but we should be much more exact than that. An airplane behaves much differently with that much change in airspeed.
Touchdown point—Are we aiming for a specific point on the runway, or are we just accepting what we get? The sign of a good pilot is his ability to put the airplane exactly where he wants it on the runway.
Touchdown! Scoring ourselves. The most obvious piece of flying on which we’re consistently judged by others is how our flare and landing look. But, even if we’re totally alone at the airport, this is where we can most easily judge ourselves and try to make improvement.
Assuming a nosewheel airplane, the ultimate flare and touchdown would be the one in which we literally “flow” onto the runway. There are no quick motions or jabs in which the airplane jerks around. It squats into ground effect and gradually changes deck angle as it slows and gently touches down on the main gear, the nosewheel held slightly off the runway until it is purposely let down. Landings should be a graceful return to Earth, not a desperate lunge for the pavement in which anything is acceptable as long as the airplane can be used again. We all know what a good landing looks like, and we should judge our landings at least as harshly as we judge those of others.
What do we do with what we’ve found? Every time we fly, we should be watching ourselves from the outside as others would see us. We should be judging every single move we make and trying to measure those moves against what we know is well into the green, far away from the minimal green/yellow interface at the bottom of the arc. Flying to the minimums might be OK for passing a flight check, but it is not the proper way to approach aviation in general.
Keeping the student mindset.
Student pilots know that their entire aviation existence is built around learning. Every move is aimed at improving the skill of aviating. There is absolutely zero reason for that mindset to be clicked off like a TV remote just because we accomplished our goal and got a pilot certificate. Throughout our entire aviation career, we should still have at least one foot in the world of the student. We should constantly be seeking to improve and build our knowledge and, in so doing, guarantee a safe, uneventful life in the air.
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