'Festina lente' (Hasten slowly)

But my students often also hear an adage borrowed from the Roman emperor Augustus, who scolded impulsive generals with a favorite phrase: “Whatever is done well enough was done quickly enough.” Or in its concise Latin form, festina lente—“hasten slowly.”

Unfortunately, in the electronic flight bag era, it’s so easy to plan an IFR flight that pilots often rush through important duties, and then omit or repeat steps in the air. Carefully managing tasks from preflight to debrief reduces distractions and heads-down time, helping you develop and maintain situational awareness, with the side benefits of reducing expenses and wear-and-tear on the aircraft. So, with festina lente in mind, here are some of my top suggestions for an effective IFR workflow.

As you parse your preflight briefing, review notams and annotate the airport diagrams for the departure and arrival airports to reflect taxiway and runway closures, the location of the FBO and self-serve fuel pumps, and similar information. Completing that step during planning helps you slow down and absorb details that can become distractions when the aircraft is moving.

With the weather and notams in mind, mark up your charts. Copy the ATC phone numbers for IFR clearances and for canceling IFR from the chart supplement to airport diagrams so those details are readily available as you taxi out for takeoff or turn off the runway after landing. Note amended data on approach charts, such as minimums changed by FDC notams or inoperative lighting systems. Highlight the legs and transitions and the descriptions for the route you’ll fly. That step declutters charts for departure procedures, standard instrument departures, and standard terminal arrivals, helping you focus on the details that apply to your clearance.

Before engine start, call ATIS/AWOS phone numbers (available at most airports) and fill in the scratchpad on your EFB. Calling from the comfort of the FBO helps you grasp the departure gestalt before you’re busy in the airplane. You should confirm the latest ATIS or one-minute weather before you depart or begin an approach, but a telephone preview helps you understand current conditions, and it can save money. (I called and timed several typical ATIS broadcasts. The average length was 33 seconds. At a conservative $200 per hour, that’s about $1.67 per loop. If you listen to the broadcast three times with the Hobbs ticking, you’ve spent $5—or about $125 during a 25-lesson training syllabus.) If you have a handheld radio, use it to get your IFR clearance before the propeller is turning.

Speaking of IFR clearances: Use the Routes feature in ForeFlight (or its counterpart in other apps) to plan and file a path that the ATC computer will accept. ATC may issue an amended clearance, but filing a suggested route helps you look ahead and better understand last-minute zigs and zags. When your EFB displays the expected route, fill in the standard clearance (CRAFT) scratchpad with those details. Later, as you copy your actual clearance, check off fixes and airways that you’ve already entered. Typically, the only details you need to write down are an initial heading, altitude, departure frequency, and transponder code. This procedure worked well recently on a dreary IFR day, at Nashua, New Hampshire (ASH), where I was not familiar with local fixes and airways. Although the ATC computer jumbled what I had filed, I read back a long full route clearance to Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport (MFD) without stumbling.

To avoid juggling too many balls in the air, follow a methodical sequence to prepare the aircraft for each new phase of flight. When it’s time to brief an approach, focus on the plan for the steps ahead as highlighted on the plate, not a rote repetition of details (such as the chart date) that should have been confirmed before takeoff.

Bruce Williams is a CFI. Find him at youtube.com/@BruceAirFlying and bruceair.wordpress.com