Flight Training - July 2014 - 35

by-step retraction. The pilot who
knows why the flaps should come
up in stages is less likely to hastily
raise them all at once, reducing lift
while low and slow to the point the
aircraft might settle onto the runway.
Knowing what to do is good. Knowing why it's being done leads pilots to
a higher level of learning and expands
their intellectual toolbox in the process.
The knowledgeable pilot goes beyond
rote learning, breezes past understanding,
masters application, and launches into the
rarified air of correlated learning.
Consider this example. The before take-off
checklist instructs pilots to verify that controls
are free and correct. Typically this results in a
pilot pumping the elevator up and down a couple
times, pushing the rudder pedals to the stops once
or twice, and wiggling the ailerons a bit. If that is
your practice, you have complied with the checklist
and might consider yourself to be in good shape. But
if you ask yourself why you would bother to verify
that your controls are free and correct before flight,
this otherwise pedestrian checklist item becomes
a very different exercise. Mechanics work on
airplanes, and sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes the manual they are working from is incorrect.
Errors can be introduced over time. Cables can be
routed improperly and internal bracing can wear
through or break. So we want to make sure our controls are free before we fly, which is to say they move
from stop to stop without interference. We also want
to make sure they are correct on all three axes. If you
pull on the yoke and your elevator moves upward,
you push on the right rudder pedal and the rudder
deflects to the right, and move the aileron controls
to full left deflection and see the right aileron shoot
upward, you need to head back to the hangar.
When you pull back on the elevator control, the
elevator should move upward. This spoils lift on
the tail, causing it to fall while the nose rises, and a
climb results. Pushing the right rudder pedal should
cause the rudder to deflect to the right, creating
lower pressure on the left side of the rudder, which
will pivot the aircraft clockwise on the yaw axis,
resulting in the nose moving right. And if you put
full left deflection on the aileron controls, the right
aileron should droop down while the left rises up. If
the right aileron rises as it did in our example, your
roll inputs will be reversed when you gain airspeed,
forcing you to think hard about how to control an
airplane in flight when the rudder and aileron controls are crossed.

GET ME THAT
CHECKLIST-STAT
The use of checklists isn't restricted
to aviation. Industries as varied as
education and medicine have
instituted regular checklist usage,
usually with profound results. A study
published in the New England Journal
of Medicine in 2009 found that using
a simple 19-point checklist in surgery
reduced complications by more than
35 percent and reduced surgery-related
deaths by half.

Every aircraft has its own checklists.
It is wise to spend time with a qualified
flight instructor before transitioning to
a new airplane to really get to know it.
That is true regardless if you fly a light
sport aircraft and are stepping up to a
high performance aircraft, or vice versa.
Make it your practice to learn the aircraft
and its systems. All pilots should develop
their own personal checklist as well. The
IM SAFE checklist asks us to accurately
self-evaluate our health to verify that
we're fit to fly. Knowing why the particular items it espouses are of importance is
even more critical than memorizing each
of them in order.
Be a rebel. Learn to go beyond the
checklist and get into an ever-deepening
understanding of why.
Jamie Beckett is a writer and flight instructor living
in Winter Haven, Florida.
JULY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING

/ 35



Flight Training - July 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - July 2014

Flight Training - July 2014 - Cover1
Flight Training - July 2014 - Cover2
Flight Training - July 2014 - 1
Flight Training - July 2014 - 2
Flight Training - July 2014 - 3
Flight Training - July 2014 - 4
Flight Training - July 2014 - 5
Flight Training - July 2014 - 6
Flight Training - July 2014 - 7
Flight Training - July 2014 - 8
Flight Training - July 2014 - 9
Flight Training - July 2014 - 10
Flight Training - July 2014 - 11
Flight Training - July 2014 - 12
Flight Training - July 2014 - 13
Flight Training - July 2014 - 14
Flight Training - July 2014 - 15
Flight Training - July 2014 - 16
Flight Training - July 2014 - 17
Flight Training - July 2014 - 18
Flight Training - July 2014 - 19
Flight Training - July 2014 - 20
Flight Training - July 2014 - 21
Flight Training - July 2014 - 22
Flight Training - July 2014 - 23
Flight Training - July 2014 - 24
Flight Training - July 2014 - 25
Flight Training - July 2014 - 26
Flight Training - July 2014 - 27
Flight Training - July 2014 - 28
Flight Training - July 2014 - 29
Flight Training - July 2014 - 30
Flight Training - July 2014 - 31
Flight Training - July 2014 - 32
Flight Training - July 2014 - 33
Flight Training - July 2014 - 34
Flight Training - July 2014 - 35
Flight Training - July 2014 - 36
Flight Training - July 2014 - 37
Flight Training - July 2014 - 38
Flight Training - July 2014 - 39
Flight Training - July 2014 - 40
Flight Training - July 2014 - 41
Flight Training - July 2014 - 42
Flight Training - July 2014 - 43
Flight Training - July 2014 - 44
Flight Training - July 2014 - 45
Flight Training - July 2014 - 46
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Flight Training - July 2014 - 49
Flight Training - July 2014 - 50
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Flight Training - July 2014 - 54
Flight Training - July 2014 - 55
Flight Training - July 2014 - 56
Flight Training - July 2014 - Cover3
Flight Training - July 2014 - Cover4
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