AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2011 - 30

LICENSETOLEARN

BY ROD MACHADO

Fly it right

iddle me this: When is an airplane not an airliner? Answer: When it’s not an airliner. But that reality hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of

however, the use of a written checklist in the cockpit should be inversely proportional to their horizontal and vertical proximity to the runway. It’s no secret that the closer you are to an airport, the greater your risk of changing paint and unapproved parts with another airplane. Immediately after takeoff and just prior to landing, your eyeballs should be looking out, not in. Another symptom of heavy-metal flying behavior being used in small airplanes is the excessive emphasis on a stabilized approach when landmany to fly their small, single-engine airplanes as ing. In this context, the term stabilized approach if they’re operating a jumbo jet. means establishing a bigger airplane on a final Aviation writer On its face, emulating the pros seems like a good approach that’s long enough to work all the knots and professional idea, given that airline pilots are quite proficient and kinks out of the glidepath. When this involves speaker Rod at not bending the machines they fly. But upsizing turning final at or below traffic-pattern altitude in Machado has been gives airline pilots some things that single-engine a small airplane, the result is often a long, shallow flying since 1970. operators lack—two or more big engines and a coglidepath. I’m not against stabilized approaches in pilot who can be ordered in all sizes and shapes, for small airplanes, but they shouldn’t involve crossing example. What seems like an excellent piloting strategy may time zones or require filling out U.S. Customs forms. in reality be an enormous safety handicap. I recall one commercial student who insisted on extending Not long ago, I gave a flight review to a fellow in a Cessna her downwind legs so she could fly a final approach 2.5 miles in 172 whose takeoff consisted of calling out a rotation speed, length. The pilots operating behind her weren’t tickled by having an initial climb speed, a post-initial climb speed, and then to continually reset their watches and postpone lunch appointa cruise climb speed. My guess is that it would have taken a ments. I finally asked Glidepath Lady if she was going to turn base flathead screwdriver and WD-40 to pry his eyeballs off the air- for Runway 36 soon, or whether we should just get a clearance to speed indicator. I have no doubt that upon reaching rotation land on Runway 18 as she came around the other side. speed he would have pointed the airplane’s nose up to climb, Keep in mind that small airplanes are easy to stabilize on any whether the propeller was still there or not. approach, even when turning final one-half mile or less from It turned out that his flight school preps all their pilots for the runway. That’s because they’re small airplanes, meaning commuter airline jobs, whether they want one or not. Keep they respond quickly to changes in pitch and power. Voluntarily in mind that when airline pilots rotate their machines, they’re lengthening the final approach leg without a commensurate sure they will climb (and the props often are already missing). increase in altitude confers very little safety benefit, while You can’t say the same for smaller airplanes. Small airplanes almost always generating an unnecessary increase in risk. climb only when they want to climb, not when the airspeed Finally, flying an airliner is a numbers game. Controlling indicator says they should climb. a big machine means flying by the numerical values associAnother example of airline piloting behavior used by small- ated with pitch, bank, and power. For the most part, it’s the airplane pilots is the almost obsessive reliance on written flight instruments that tell you what an airliner is doing. In checklists. On a recent flight, I had one fellow pull out and start a small airplane, it’s your rear end—the seat of your pants— reading a post-takeoff checklist a few hundred feet off the ground. that should provide you with that information. Your senses are Huh? I gently took the checklist from his hands and tucked it your co-pilot. You must look outside while you fly, aided by the away in my side-door pouch (where he couldn’t get to it). The sensations of sight, touch, and sound. Unfortunately, when student said, “What am I going to do for a climb checklist?” private pilots operate as if they’re in a multipilot environment, I replied, “I’ve shortened it for you. Here it is: they often do so at the expense of listening to what their pants “Checklist item number 1. Get away from the ground are telling them. So listen to your pants. pronto. Checklist item number 2. Don’t bump into anything We should fly an airplane as if it’s the airplane we’re actuwhile doing it.” ally flying, not the one that someone thinks we might fly at Checklist Man was so focused on reading that he wasn’t some future time. Even if there is a beverage service involved, thinking about the critical nature of an engine failure at low private pilots operating a single-engine airplane in a singlealtitude, let alone seeing and avoiding airport traffic. pilot environment decrease their safety margin by acting as if Of course, airline captains must rely heavily on checklists, and they’re flying heavy-metal, multicrew machines. they can do so safely because they have copilots who’ve graduated from Dick and Jane to VX and VREF. For small-airplane drivers, Visit the author’s blog (www.rodmachado.com). 30 • MARCH 2011

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2011

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