Flying behind the mental power curve

I became such a victim early in my career, after learning to fly in an Aeronca 7AC Champion. This wonderfully docile, fabric-covered taildragger has an engine little more powerful than a lawnmower and rips through the sky at a blistering 70 knots. A trip around the traffic pattern seems like a cross-country flight.

Shortly after receiving my private pilot certificate in the Champ, my instructor offered me a chance to check out in a Cessna 180, a huge airplane with a throaty 225-horsepower engine. It even had metal skin, an electrical system, a starter, toe brakes, control wheels, side-by-side seating, humongous flaps, and an instrument panel containing a bewildering array of instruments, switches, and other gadgets. So this, I thought, is what it would be like to fly an airliner, so vast was the difference between the Champ and the 180.

My biggest problem was keeping up with the airplane. I had difficulty getting down and slowing it up in time to land. It kept arriving before I did. I could peripherally sense my instructor shaking his head in silent disappointment. He later offered advice that has served me well. He told me that pilots get caught behind the “mental power curve” by beginning to prepare for landing at certain fixed distances from the airport.

He told me that I was flying the 180 as if it were a Champ. “You descend and make speed reductions at the same places and distances from the airport that you use when flying the Champ. Staying ahead of a faster airplane requires using common times from a destination, not common distances.”

This advice has helped me greatly in not getting caught behind an airplane, especially when going back and forth between flying high- and low-performance airplanes. Whether flying a Cessna 182 or a bizjet, I typically leave cruise altitude and begin to prepare for landing about 20 minutes out. Adjustments are made for unusual cruise altitudes or circumstances.

Newly rated instrument pilots also are susceptible to being caught behind the airplane. This is not so much because of high performance as it is having so much to do—and perhaps not enough time in which to do it. Until developing the experience needed to cope with the workload associated with instrument approaches, for example, pilots have the option to reduce speed as soon as they enter the terminal area. This gives them more time to prepare for the challenge of an IFR approach. There is nothing wrong with taking your time if this is what you need. I have seen airline captains do this while flying heavy jets, so there is no reason that you cannot do the same.

The most common reason for getting behind during an IFR flight is that the pilot simply fails to think ahead. He often has sufficient time to prepare for the approach, but fails to take advantage of it. Instead, he might wait until something needs to be done before doing it. I had an instructor who cured me of that by offering this piece of sound advice: “If you’re not doing something all of the time, then you’re not doing it right.”

Can a pilot get ahead of the airplane, a situation where he is ready to go but the airplane is not? You bet. It happens all the time.

Consider the pilot about to embark on a flight. He performs an ignition check during the preflight and—oops, a bad mag. Plans for departure are scrubbed.

Such disappointment often can be avoided with a postflight inspection. By inspecting an airplane and performing an abbreviated power check after a flight, discrepancies can be discovered and repaired in time to prevent a subsequent delay.

When you think about it, it makes no sense to wait until departure to discover a problem. Maintenance should be done when you plan for the airplane to be on the ground, not when you need to fly.

This procedure is designed to detect failures that might have occurred during the previous flight. This is not meant to imply that a postflight inspection should replace the preflight inspection. It is simply another way for a pilot to stay ahead of the airplane.

Web: www.barryschiff.com