Book smart

For example, for the steep turn maneuver, the Airplane Flying Handbook says to set the recommended speed, roll into the desired bank, add power, and trim if needed to maintain airspeed and altitude. While nothing about that advice is wrong, I flew lousy steep turns for a long time with that bit of book knowledge. On my private pilot checkride, the examiner told me the secret that has made my steep turns beautiful ever since: two turns of nose up trim, then keep your hand on the trim wheel rather than the throttle. Or how about the preflight? We’ve all read that you should complete every preflight with a checklist in hand. If you get distracted, start again at the top. Imagine my confusion then, when my instructor showed me her method of preflight. She walked around the entire airplane from memory. Then she scanned the checklist to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. Only later did I find out there are two acceptable ways to perform a checklist: Read and do, or do and verify. Throughout my pilot growing up years, there have been several such instances where I wondered, does my book knowledge apply to this situation, or is there a piece of real-life information I’m missing?

It was maybe my second week as a first officer at the regional airlines. I had gone through months of rigorous standardization training only to find that every captain ran his airplane just a little bit differently. So, I was constantly facing this old dilemma: Do what the captain says or what we learned in training? We were waiting to depart Philadelphia in poor weather conditions, something like seventeenth in line for takeoff. We ran the taxi checklist that called for checking the spoilers, among other things. We also chatted about last night’s big game, our respective favorite movies. You name it, anything to keep us awake in what felt like the longest wait ever. When we finally made it to the hold short line, I knew we had one more pre-takeoff checklist to run. But the captain taxied right out like we were all ready to go. “Perhaps they don’t actually run the pre-takeoff checklist out here on the line,” I thought. The moment after he started accelerating, all the warning bells went off in the cockpit. Apparently, we had failed to retract the spoilers after the taxi check, something we would have caught on the pre-takeoff checklist, had we bothered to run it. No matter what airplane you are flying, run a pre-takeoff checklist. Every. Single. Time.

You know how the book says you need to be in the weight and balance envelope to operate safely? But do you really? That was the question I found myself asking when my student showed up for a lesson with his girlfriend who wanted to ride along. Neither were small individuals, so I had the uncomfortable task of asking for her weight. When I ran the numbers, I found that we’d be overweight by 20 or so pounds. Would it really make a difference? I excused myself and went to the back room to call a more experienced flight instructor friend. “Don’t do it, Nat. You don’t want to be the test pilot here.” I went back to the front and told my student we’d have to fly around for a bit to burn some fuel, then could come back and take his girlfriend for a lap in the pattern. I never actually found out what would happen in an overweight aircraft because my wise friend talked me off that slippery slope. Operate in the envelope for every departure. Don’t fly overweight. Not one pound.

What about the thing the regulations say about minimum safe altitudes? You must always be at an altitude that will allow for an emergency landing without hazard to persons or property on the surface. But pilots disregard that one all the time, right? Like my flight instructor friend, practicing a simulated engine failure with one of her students and taking the airplane down to 200 feet agl over an open field with trees on one end. The student panicked and grabbed the yoke, causing the airplane to enter an unrecoverable quarter spin. The student was killed while the CFI survived with a broken ankle. I keep a personal minimum safe altitude now after hearing my friend’s story. Regardless of what the regs say, it’s always a good idea to keep your own personal minimums.

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone said, “This is one of those things in the books that you absolutely have to do exactly like they said”? If you’re like me, with a strong distaste for the ambiguous gray areas, let me help you out here. If it’s a technique thing, feel free to do your own research before deciding how you’re going to operate your airplane. But, if it has to do with safety, follow the book to the letter. Do not compromise.

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