Flight Training - January 2013 - 31

THE PANEL IS OUR VERIFIER. IT REDUCES WHAT YOU'RE SEEING AND FEELING TO DECIPHERABLE NUMBERS.
In the beginning, a student’s visual acuity is understandably going to be weak. He’s never looked over an airplane’s nose before, so he’s not exactly sure what he’s looking for. Students often find themselves leaving nose smudges on the artificial horizon’s glass: It’s an easy-to-understand instrument, so they get fixated on it. This is OK as long as they realize that the function of most of the instruments on the panel is to help us understand what we’re seeing in the windshield, and calibrate our visual acuity so we aren’t as dependent on the instruments. The goal is to give us a visual understanding of exactly what the changes in nose attitude are telling us and how, if we control the nose, the instruments are naturally going to follow. Not the other way around. The windshield is the primary. The instrument panel is secondary, and it is there to confirm what we’re seeing. However, because we’re constantly scanning both, neither is an exclusive source of information. We blend them together to understand what the airplane is doing. Another instrument that often is ignored in the attitude part of the scan is the skid ball. While the eyes will eventually be able to tell when the nose is yawing at the wrong time, body sensations, specifically sideways pressure, are an immediate source of that information that even an aviation novice can feel. However, including the skid ball in the scan tells him what his body is feeling and, there too, calibrates it and gives dimension to his sensations. Once he has that imbedded in his instincts, he’ll already know that the ball is off center before he ever skims across the panel as part of his scan. If a pilot is aware of what is happening in the windshield and is aware of what the sensations in his body are telling him, he’ll never accidentally spin an airplane. Combine that with a constantly moving scan, and you have a terrifically safe, precise pilot. TRACK. The track aspect of the scan refers to the path across the ground. The track across the ground is the primary ingredient in what we’re actually trying to do with an airplane. We’re almost always going from A to B, whether the two points are 200 miles apart or at opposite ends of downwind. We always have interim destinations (checkpoints) in mind, and we track our progress in our windshield scan. A good way to visualize the track is to imagine that the airplane casts a black shadow on the ground directly under it.

We’re trying to control where that shadow goes at all times and, because of wind correction, our nose may not be lined up with the desired track. This is why we have to check it every few seconds as our scan goes through the windshield. This continual checking of our ground track is critical on cross-countries but becomes even more so while in the pattern because the dimensions and time frames are so short that a minor hiccup in controlling our track means we arrive at the runway a in less-than-precise manner. ON MAKING CORRECTIONS. All of the factors being monitored are more easily controlled if you are determined that the instant something isn’t right you’re going to correct it. If we put off making needed corrections, they will pile up until we have to make a number of them at the same time. Maybe while our altitude was drifting off, we also weren’t paying attention to our track across the ground, so we’re not only at the wrong altitude, but we’re not where we want to be in relation to our course. If we’re on a cross-country, that’s a less critical, more easily corrected factor. If we’re in the pattern, where everything is crowded together, letting a number of factors get out of limits means multiple corrections—and things get very complicated very quickly. By correcting each factor as it starts to go out of whack, we’re not only dealing with one at a time, but each correction will be smaller and more easily managed. It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of keeping the eyes moving: windshield-panel, windshield-panel. The cycle is constantly happening and, even when sightseeing and examining something really interesting below, our eyes are still flicking through the cycle: rpm, altitude, attitude, track. A side benefit of this kind of scanning is that you’ll soon understand intuitively what the windshield is telling you. Then, if you were to lose every instrument, you’ll still be in full command of the airplane.
Budd Davisson is an aviation writer/photographer and magazine editor. A CFI since 1967, he teaches about 30 hours a month in his Pitts S-2A Special. Visit his website (www.airbum.com).
JANUARY 2013 FLIGHT TRAINING / 31

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Flight Training - January 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - January 2013