The rating game
A good pilot is always learning
This captain, however, had flown the Boeing 707. His training for this type rating included a procedure designed to cope with a jammed stabilizer. It involved deactivating certain spoilers so that deploying the others would result in a pitching moment in the desired direction. (Deploying the aft/outboard spoilers on a swept wing moves the center of lift forward, thus causing the aircraft to pitch up, and vice versa.)
Would using such a procedure on the disabled Lockheed have the same effect? The captain had nothing to lose by trying. Fortunately, his use of the Boeing procedure restored sufficient pitch control to enable him to nurse the L–1011 into nearby Los Angeles International Airport. If the captain had not had
the B707 rating, the outcome of this flight might have been
tragically different.
Some believe that “collecting” additional ratings does not necessarily make a pilot better. I disagree and cannot understand how a pilot would not benefit from the additional knowledge and skill, as the preceding example demonstrates.
When training for a seaplane rating, for example, pilots are taught a special procedure for landing on glassy water. Such training is needed because it can be difficult to judge height above a smooth, reflective surface.
The maneuver requires maintaining a shallow (about 200 fpm), slow, nose-high, power-on approach. This configuration is held until the seaplane touches down. The aircraft is not flared because it is already in touchdown attitude during the approach. A conventional approach could result in flaring prematurely and stalling; flaring too late can be equally catastrophic. A glassy-water approach and landing can theoretically be made on instruments and without looking out the window. This procedure also can be used in a landplane when depth perception is in short supply (such as when landing at night without landing or runway lights).
A glider rating rewards a transitioning power pilot with an invaluable assortment of additional skills and knowledge that can enhance the way airplanes are flown. Sailplane pilots are so reliant on the movement of the air that they form an intimacy with wind and current that power pilots can only envy. They also master gliding techniques that can be useful when sitting behind a
stilled propeller, such as how and when to use a minimum-sink glide and how to compensate for wind when needing to maximize glide ratio.
The Air Canada captain who glided his fuel-exhausted Boeing 767—known as the Gimli Glider—onto a drag strip in Manitoba credits the safe arrival of his flight to his experience as a glider pilot.
Getting a helicopter rating taught me how much more secure it felt to be supported by fixed wings. Even though I am a rotary wing instructor—in helicopters and gyroplanes—I never felt as comfortable when flying a machine that seemed to lack “a visible means of support.”
Because there is little if any operational need for a single-engine ATP, many believe that only a masochist would endure the agony needed to obtain this rating. Others argue, however, that acquiring the skills needed to earn an ATP—even in a single—brings them a step closer to being able to fly an airplane on instruments as well as it can be flown. When executing an ILS approach during the flight test for an instrument rating, for example, the localizer and glideslope needles are allowed to wander as much as a three-quarters-scale deflection. But during the flight test for an ATP, the needles must be kept within one-quarter-scale. There is little tolerance for mediocrity. Obtaining a single-engine ATP also boosts one’s ego and gives a pilot the right to emblazon each of his or her pajama sleeves with four gold stripes.
On the other hand, an additional rating can be dangerous. Consider, for example, the newly minted multiengine pilot who never again practices engine-out procedures (because, strangely, there is no requirement to do so). This is why such a pilot is at least as likely to become an accident statistic following an engine failure in a twin than having a similar failure in a single.
When a pilot obtains an additional rating, he or she effectively reverts to being a student in that operation and should conduct him or herself accordingly. An additional rating can be little more than a scrap of paper—a word or two etched on a certificate—but it also documents a pilot’s dedication to continuing education.
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