AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2015 - 89

effect last night's late party may have
the following day. The pilot operating under Part 91 rules of the road
knows it is legal to take off in poor
visibility, but the airline pilot needs
to have a departure alternate at the
ready. Are you keeping to those personal minimums you've set, or are
you willing to overlook them in
order to stay on schedule? Can you
easily land in 60 percent of the runway length, or will you need the
entire length and hope for the best?
After reviewing those basic
questions, the Flight Risk Evaluator
portion of the course can be used
for a quick check. It begins with
two simple questions: Is this a day or
night flight, and is it under visual or
instrument rules? How you answer
determines where the evaluation
takes you next. Answering that the
flight is a day-visual flight rules
flight brings two more questions. Is
it a local flight, and how many hours
do you have? I answered "No," for
local flight, and put in my actual
hours of 2,900.
Those questions bring up a
Flight Risk Evaluator form. On the
form was a checklist suggesting at
least a 3,000-foot ceiling, a minimum of five miles visibility, and a
maximum wind of 30 knots including gusts. The crosswind limit
should be only 75 percent of the
capability of the aircraft, the form
indicated.
Operational factors were divided
into five categories: terrain, runway,
aircraft, fuel, and recent experience.
There should be no departures or
arrivals in mountainous areas without contingency planning, the form
indicated. There should be no terrain more than 2,000 feet above the
departure or arrival airports within
10 nautical miles.
The runway, it was suggested,
should be 50 feet wide and 50 percent longer than required by the
pilot operating handbook. If the
runway surface is contaminated by

snow, ice, or rain, it should be 100
percent longer. The pilot should
have 25 hours in type for singleengine aircraft, and 50 hours in
type for multiengine or turbine
aircraft.
The pilot should arrive with no
less than a one-hour fuel reserve,
the checklist noted. Also, the
pilot should have flown 10 hours
in the past 90 days, with six takeoffs and landings in the previous six
months.
That's the "Quick Check." There
is also a "Detailed Evaluation." For
that one, I indicated it would be
a night flight under instrument
flight rules. I was then asked how
much instrument time I have, and
how much total flight time I have.
Optional questions included the
type of aircraft, departure airport,
and destination airport. I loaded up
the example with minimal visibility,
low ceilings, and high winds to see
what the Evaluator would suggest.
I would land, I said, with slightly
less than an hour of fuel, had low
recent experience, and had flown
few instrument approaches in the
past six months.
The Evaluator looked at 15
parameters, and gave me an
"unsafe" reading for three of them:
pilot recent experience, departure
wind, and destination wind. I got
a cautionary statement for icing,
although none was forecast. I had
indicated there would be rain, and
the Evaluator indicated I needed to
be aware of temperatures along the
route. I also got a warning on fuel,
because I was at or near the AOPA
Air Safety Institute-recommended
fuel minimum of one hour. A note
indicated I should divert to a closer
airport if my reserve dropped below
an hour. On all other factors, including ceilings, terrain, runways, and
visibility, I was given green check
marks-meaning the circumstances
met AOPA Air Safety Institute
recommendations.

The course is a good reminder
of aspects to be considered on any
flight. When circumstances lead
to nagging doubts about that next
flight, see what the Flight Risk
Evaluator has to say.
AOPA
EMAIL alton.marsh@aopa.org

What the FAA says
about automation

More than 30 pages of information on aeronautical decision
making can be found in the FAA
publication Pilot's Handbook of
Aeronautical Knowledge. Along
with discussions on health, judgment, and hazardous attitudes is
a section on automation.
It turns out that humans are
poor monitors of automated
systems. The FAA notes a tragic
1999 accident in Columbia involving two pilots of a multiengine
aircraft that programmed its
flight management system to fly
into the face of the Andes Mountains. Paper charts showing the
correct route were available in
the cockpit.
The glass-cockpit marvels found
in many aircraft also can result in
complacency, as well as deterioration of piloting skills. Problems
occur when such systems are used
to make up for lack of skill and
knowledge.
-AKM

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2015
