AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2011 - 32

LICENSETOLEARN

BY ROD MACHADO

Night magic

beneath the airplane, known as CFIT, or controlled flight into terrain. The lack of perceptual information from beneath our airplane lures us downward, as if our machine is being drawn into a black hole. This is known as the black hole illusion, and it’s one of aviation’s most deadly perceptual illusions. Avoiding falling prey to the black hole illusion means avoiding the use of daytime flying strategies when operating an airplane at night. Let’s begin with a common daytime landing strategy that we surely want to avoid at that leads to insights and ultimately ends with you night—the straight-in approach. Long straight-in approaches at night to runways understanding something. The magician, however, Rod Machado is a prevents you from understanding anything, lest his having no visual or electronic glidepath information CFI and aviation sleight go over like a pregnant pole vaulter. The magiprovide the perfect setup for the magic effect. A good speaker with more cian does this by using misdirection to keep you from nighttime strategy for landing is to overfly the airthan 8,000 flight seeing what he’s actually doing. If you can’t see what’s port and enter a normal traffic pattern for landing. hours. happening, it’s hard to understand what’s happened. You might even gain a tactical advantage by keeping Let’s call this the magic effect, because it can lead us the pattern a bit tighter and using short-field (over to believe what we see, when seeing shouldn’t lead to believing. an obstacle) landing procedures, even when no obstacle actuI’ll bet the last rabbit in my hat that anyone who’s ever driven ally exists. Remaining closer to the runway environment means a car at night has experienced the magic effect to some degree. having more perceptual lighting clues with which to assess your At night, we can see lighted objects at great distances—in much height above the ground. Research shows that the black hole the same way we see normally illuminated objects during the illusion tends to become less effective (less illusory) as you move day. We can’t, however, easily see unlighted objects such as the closer to the runway. road, curves, or foreign objects along the periphery of the road. What happens if you’re making an approach to a runway When it’s dark, we’re deprived of vital visual information that having a VASI or a WAAS-based advisory glidepath? The answer keeps us from understanding our speed in relation to the road. is simple—use it. But use it based on its stated limitations. For It’s magic, right? Without this information to stimulate our example, most VASIs offer obstacle clearance only when the airbrake gland, we tend to drive faster than is safe. This is one plane is within 10 degrees of either side of the runway centerline. very big reason that 40 percent of the fatal car accidents occur Keep in mind that some VASIs are offset from that centerline, to at night, despite there being 60 percent less traffic during that provide a descent path away from local obstacles (read about time. Said another way, we’re bringing daytime driving strategies those things in the Airport/Facility Directory). to the road at night, and we’re paying a hefty price for it. It’s as if Even with VASI (or electronic glidepath) information, the we’re at a magic show being fooled, and we don’t even know it. black hole illusion still tempts some pilots to leave the glideFly at night, and the magic effect is in full force, especially path prematurely, resulting in red and white lights turning green when the approach environment offers a dark or featureless as the light filters through the grass. This is one instance where foreground next to a lighted background. Approaching an iso- you don’t want to feel either the magic or the grass beneath your lated desert airport or an airport from over the water at night for feet. Resist the urge to merge with featureless terrain below you. example. The dark environment below prevents us from having In his book Illusions, Richard Bach wrote that when you sufficient visual clues with which to assess our height above the know what the magician knows, it’s not magic anymore. The ground. Our natural response is to use what lights we do have to magic works only as long as the magician can limit what we make this assessment. This means using the distant runway edge see. A dark environment often accomplishes the same thing lighting as well as the environmental lighting around the air- for pilots, leading us to a big misunderstanding of our airplane’s port. Using only background lighting proximity to the ground. clues when approaching from over a That’s why it’s important to underdark foreground tricks the mind into stand how the black hole illusion thinking the airplane is higher than works. It’s one instance where seeing it is—sometimes, twice as high. If AOPA Aviation Summit the lights does not mean that we’ve we act on that effect, our response is Rod Machado will entertain and edu“seen the light.” cate pilots at AOPA Aviation Summit, to descend prematurely or increase our descent rate. The result is often September 22 through 24, in Hartford, Visit the author’s blog (www.rod a landing when there’s no airport Connecticut. www.aopa.org/summit. machado.com). 32 • JULY 2011

o you know what magic is? It’s pretty simple. It’s the exact opposite of what a (good) teacher does. The teacher provides perceptual information

AOPA PILOT •

http://www.rodmachado.com http://www.rodmachado.com http://www.aopa.org/summit

AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2011