Air News On Learning To Fly: Circuit Work,tHe 'first' and 'second' Nature By Johan Lottering

Air News On Learning To Fly: Circuit Work,tHe 'first' and 'second' Nature By Johan Lottering

In June 1978 while taking part as a member of the Defense Force team in the national skydiving championships in Pietermaritzburg, the impossible happened.

After pulling the ripcord there was only blue sky above me, but no canopy! Hurtling through 2000 feet at 176 feet per second the eleven seconds between me and eternity began ticking down.

My body position was almost upright with the malfunctioning parachute streaming in the empty burble' of space above me. It was time to assess the situation, consider the various options, consult the rest of my team and my quick reference handbook; select the best possible option then allocate resources..

Nobody had told me my goggles would be half over my eyes sockets. Air was being sucked out of every crevice in my contorted face. The bundle of washing above me was jerking me about in all directions. The ground was rushing up. Hysteria tried to choke and overwhelm me. I had to choose real fast. I opted for attempting to impose an emergency drill into the situation. The brain works in split-seconds in such situations.

I unclipped the cape-wells. The main chute separated. Next I turned on my back and clutched the T-7A front mounted reserve. I pulled out the ripcord. The next instant it felt if the back of my head and heels collided as the 24 feet conical reserve' chute snapped open. For an instant I had thought I had hit the ground at the same time the reserve chute had opened.

Strangely I was still safely aloft. The air had stopped howling. I was aware of my breathing. Some seconds later I braced and did a dive-roll in a scorched veldt. The webbing harness had left blood blisters about which I would never complain.

No, its not another when we' tale. I have drawn on the experience many times afterwards in flying. Had I not realized the importance and learnt and rehearsed the emergency drill hundreds of times, I would not have survived .That's the first lesson..

I recently encountered my friend since school days, Dawid Laas, with arc eyes' reclining in a darkened room. He was using the recovery down-time by doing imaginary emergency drills.

His office recliner chair was doubling for the cockpit of the Impala Jet often seen at air shows in South Africa .He was wrestling with a new' concept to jettison the canopy first before ejecting. Some veteran engineers had convinced him of the merits.

"When the time comes to decide, it's got to be first nature to me," said Dawid."In facing emergency situations, there can never be unresolved issues."

He emphasizes that to be really proficient, emergency actions can never be second nature like we are sometimes taught. That's the difference between life and death.

Roy J. Clegg writes in his excellent The Multi-Engine Rating Flight Manual (2008 issue; p.15) that there is no way around having to know emergency checklists from memory."At fifty feet," he quite rightly states, "you do not even have time to look for the checklist. As you remember only about 70% of something memorized for the first time the next day, data should be reviewed at least once a week to be retained."

The realization that emergency checks have to be ones first instinct and reaction is the other equally important lesson.

First Encounter

A student's first real encounter with emergency procedures of nay kind occurs during the circuits and landings training phase. Some instructors battle with when it would be most viable to first introduce emergency aspects, like engine failure after take-off and/or executing the go-around procedure.

Many instructors advocate that a good basis in normal procedures should be established first and emergencies taught later. My experience suggests that students taught from the onset to be mindful of the emergency situations and drills invariably tend to incorporate this aspect into their flying in the long run.

I believe this makes the fundamental difference between amateurism and professionalism. Students who have never followed this approach tend to be dismissive of emergency training and very difficult to get through to.

Adrian Fischer, a retired Boeing 747 captain, believes pilots should always be so prepared to deal with potential emergency situations that landing without to do a go-around, or taking off without loosing an engine "should almost be a surprise and a disappointment each time."

Some admittedly dedicated instructors tend to use their students as their "masterpieces". As a full-time instructor, I was often guilty of trying to make me and my student look good by sending the more talented ones on the first solo flight the moment everything seemed to come together and not when I had been doubly sure he or she would handle every possibility in the book.

With the benefit of hindsight I would encourage instructors and their protgs to show off in a very different manner.

Today, I would rather make doubly sure a student is absolutely proficient not only in all variation of circuit work like flapless or short landings and take-offs ,but the often neglected go-around procedures and engine failures after take-off, as well as on downwind position.

Good sense should, of course, prevail.The eventual aim is to send the student solo. I have found that if the circuit training in overcooked, student's general standard tends to deteriorate. Once the student is proficient and all the drill are in palace and the student is kept back too long, fear at times gets the better of them.

This seems to be a problem especially when a student has been sent solo once or twice and a break in training occurs.

Some students then tend to lower performance levels as "good shows" are "rewarded "by being sent solo flying. To the nervous ones being sent solo in effect becomes a "penalty". Countering the peculiar phenomenon is best dealt with by keeping the pressure on and not being too nice about protestations and complaints from students.

Students are sometimes presented with so many scenarios and options that they become confused about selecting the correct option from any range of stimuli. I find that judgment only comes over time and after repeated analyses of exercises.

At first, the best results seem to originate from letting students do complete sequences as many times as possible. You simply cannot leave it to chance that all appropriate action will be followed through all the time. If you would think this approach is too militaristic, present an off-the-cuff challenge to your fly-buddy, for example: "Engine failure at 50 feet!" or "Execute a go-around now," or "Engine fire on start-up!"

You may be astonished at the level of incompetence. Unfortunately such challenges invariably ruin dinner evenings as inept pilots waste time and conversation trying to justify and explain their hesitation or faltering.

At fifty feet above ground level no time for in-depth critical-analytical thinking exists. This should have been taken care of during the before take-off safety briefing. Do remember, if one flies long enough and/or often enough in all flying careers situations are bound to occur where one would either act swiftly and appropriately, or die.

As instructor one has to be cruel to be kind. Students simply have to memorize and internalize certain "trigger actions "that will get emergency drill sequences going through muscle memory and association. If an engine quits, a students hand has to, for example, immediately and almost impulsively reach for the carburetor heat.

Instructors can often be too nice. My advice would be to never try to be a legend in ones own mind. Never try to create a reputation .But do drill the students till actions are accurate and automatic. Sweat saves blood.

I recently undertook a PPL renewal test for Dr. Johann Grobbelaar (42) in the very same Cessna 182 RG I had once instructed him as young matriculant.We attempted every possible emergency drill we could think of and even invented an original scenario. He passed with flying colours.

He was flying almost three decades ago. It would have been so easy to take short-cuts with emergency drills. I was so relieved having never done so.

Do challenge yourself with emergency drills.

(In the next issue we will look at beginning in earnest the preparation for PPL theory examinations, while practicing taking off and circuits and landings).

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