Put your mind to it
Outsmart the startle response
The FAA states that these pilot-error accidents are typically the result of “inappropriate responses to unexpected events.” The event can be anything from a severe emergency, such as a full engine failure, to something seemingly less severe, like a door opening on takeoff. Both these scenarios have resulted in fatal accidents, though, and indicate the need to prepare for a variety of situations and mitigate the negative effects of the startle response, which is that delayed or inappropriate response to an unexpected event. Pilots tend to forget that the startle response is dangerous, and our instinctual reaction can easily and negatively impact the outcome, damage the aircraft, or, in extreme cases, pull off the wings or tail. When the mind is unable to reconcile what is happening, we’ve ceded our higher cognitive functions to our more basic ones. Professional pilots train specifically to counter this.
We should all embrace skill reassessment and improvement that follows a more professional schedule with regular recurrent training.While the pros are often operating in a crew environment, we GA pilots are almost always operating as single pilots, so even more so than in airlines, you’ll have to do the prep yourself. GA pilots can mimic the way the pros stay sharp. You can do this at three different levels of simulation—on the ground at home, on the ground with a simulator, or in the air with a CFI.
On the ground at home.
You can chair fly, review checklists and flows, and set up a mini-simulation corner in your home. Buying an accurate poster of the aircraft you fly’s flight deck (modified as needed) will help your flows and checklist usage. These paper tigers are what the pros use, and while GA aircraft are notably less complex, this method is known to improve proficiency. Practice going through action and memory items for emergency and abnormal scenarios, and when you need that in the air, your recall will be sharper.
On a flight simulator.
Computer-based simulators are excellent for reviewing instrument failures, VFR into IMC, diversions, and other similar tasks. Simulation for power-related emergencies will vary—glide behavior after an engine failure in a simulator is only as realistic and worthwhile as the software allows it to be—but it can still be helpful to go through the flows and checklists, even if it otherwise doesn’t “feel” real. Familiarity with early indications of a variety of failures, the FAA says, can positively impact your ability to deal with one of these failures in the real world. Simulators can give you this as many times as you want with no threat to you while you practice serious emergencies.
Work emergency practice in an actual airplane.
After earning a pilot certificate, it is rare to fly with a flight instructor outside of flight reviews. Because of this, CFIs are a vastly underutilized resource by the wider pilot community, and we should all embrace skill reassessment and improvement that follows a more professional schedule with regular recurrent training. An hour or two of practicing the uncomfortable in the air with a CFI you trust will help sharpen your skills.
These shorter winter days when flying slows down could be the perfect time to start or revitalize a proficiency program. Chair flying or procedures training is a great way to review and commit checklists to memory while reviewing the order or operations. Opening a supplemental manual or reviewing the systems diagram speeds up our troubleshooting and helps prevent mistakes. Flying a computer sharpens our skills and reaction time. Consider implementing a dedicated emergency preparedness flight at least once a quarter and make your flying safer.
