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Description
Do enough instrument proficiency checks and you'll see some themes emerge. Inconsistent procedures, inefficient task management, and errors due to distraction are all common. Many of the fixes to these gaffs were summed up in Ken Holston's "CFI-I Top Ten" (May 2007 IFR).
Even with errors, the majority of pilots can slog through a series of approaches with various simulated failures and other reasonable distractions. The results are acceptable, if not always elegant.
Not flying standard profiles isn't the most common issue I see. But when it rears its head, every approach is a Keystone Cops affair, rather than John Wayne smooth. Often the approaches fall completely apart in the last 300 feet, where precision matters the most.
Maybe I'm so aware of it because it's the first thing I screw up when I start getting lazy. 'Course the irony is that being lazy and having fewer things to think about is exactly what standard profiles are all about.
Control--Performance
Number one on that "CFI Top Ten" was AI flying. The underlying concept is that a certain pitch attitude combined with a certain power setting yield a certain performance. Need a cruising climb on departure? It's three degrees nose up and 34 inches of manifold pressure at 2500 rpm. Need to slow to a holding speed where you can drop approach flaps and gear the moment you're cleared for the approach? One degree nose up and 25 inches by 2100 rpm.
The specific numbers vary widely from airplane to airplane and moderately with weight and altitude. But the core concept is solid. Know the numbers and you can set a performance that's close enough to what you need and move on to other things, like loading an approach, figuring out a complicated reroute, or noticing that the instructor surreptitiously shut down one of your alternators.
Right about now half of you are saying, "Hmm. Interesting," and the other half are ready to move on to something you don't already know. Before you go, though, ask yourself honestly if... |
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