Topics this week include: << Right-seater << Custom checklist << Washout
FLYING LESSONS uses recent mishap reports to consider what might have contributed to accidents, so you can make better decisions if you face similar circumstances. In most cases design characteristics of a specific airplane have little direct bearing on the possible causes of aircraft accidents—but knowing how your airplane’s systems respond can make the difference in your success as the scenario unfolds. So apply these FLYING LESSONS to the specific airplane you fly. Verify all technical information before applying it to your aircraft or operation, with manufacturers’ data and recommendations taking precedence. You are pilot in command and are ultimately responsible for the decisions you make.
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This week’s LESSONS:
The pilot of a Cessna 172, according to this NTSB Final Report,
…was flying with two passengers, one of whom was seated in the right front pilot seat, held a commercial pilot certificate, and had more flight experience than the private pilot. The pilot-rated passenger in the right front seat reported that during the approach, she had commented to the pilot twice about the airplane’s airspeed, and that she had nudged the yoke forward with one fingeras an indication to the pilot to lower the nose; however, the pilot pulled back on the yoke and added power to cushion the landing, which resulted in several bounces on the runway before the airplane traveled off the left side. She further described that the landing flare occurred while the airplane too high above the runway and at too slow a speed, about 15 ft above the runway and at an airspeed decreasing to less than 50 knots.
The pilot reported that during the landing attempt, after the pilot-rated passenger pushed the yoke forward, he pulled back because he did not want the nose of the airplane to strike the runway first, which resulted in a hard landing and subsequent bounce. As the pilot was attempting to regain control of the airplane, the pilot-rated passenger increased the engine power to full in attempt to abort the landing, but the airplane then veered to the left and departed the runway surface.
The airplane came to rest upright in a grass area next to the runway. The fuselage was substantially damaged during the accident sequence. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. He also stated that, “…we will need to improve the communication between me as the PIC and [any pilot-rated passengers] such as informing me of their concern rather than touching the control, especially during landing.”
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be: The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane while landing and his inadequate communication to the of her role during the flight.
The airline and corporate worlds achieve the highest level of safety of any mode of transportation. There are many reasons this segment of the industry shines…among them the use of two-pilot crews. The accident rate in similar single-pilot corporate jets is higher enough by comparison that it elicits special attention among flight safety advocates; safety is the chief argument against nascent efforts to develop single-pilot operations of major airliners.
So two is safer than one where pilots are concerned. But this safety enhancement is only valid when the pilots have defined, complementary duties and are trained on those functions as a crew. Without that focused training—without the ability of one crewmember to work with, and not against, the other—the overall operation may be less safe than if there was only one pilot with access to the flight controls. The Cessna 172 crash is one example. Here’s another.
Many years back I had a Beech Baron pilot as a student in the flight simulator at the international flight safety training facility where I worked at the time. The Baron pilot told me he had an employee who flew with him “almost all the time” that rode in the right front seat. This employee was not qualified or sufficiently experienced to fly the Baron, but he held a Private Pilot certificate. “He helps me a lot during approaches,” my customer told me. “I’d like to train the way I fly. Can he ride in the right seat during my simulator sessions?”
I agreed on the condition that the pilot complete a representative series of tasks without the aid of the right-seater, given that he had the other pilot in the right seat almost, but not all of the time. My student agreed.
We were inbound on an ILS approach in the “sim.” The pilot flying was going a good job. The pilot in the right seat was also making good altitude callouts every few hundred feet as the airplane descended. I’d set the simulator’s visual display for a dreary, low-clouds day with maybe two miles’ visibility. As the simu-Baron slid down the approach course the lower part of the visual display out the front and on the sides of “the box” began to darken into partly obscured greens and tans, the ground slowly becoming visible downward. The runway environment ahead was still obscured, the pilot looking through more distance in clouds forward than almost straight down. But the ground below was beginning to poke through the bases.
“I see it,” the right-seat said. “See what?” asked the pilot. “The ground,” replied the right-seat occupant. “Do you see the runway lights?” asked the pilot. A brief pause as the right-seater looked up, away from the ground nearly underneath, and focused forward. “No,” he finally said.
I noticed that during this exchange the pilot began to deviate up and down, left and right, from the ILS lateral and vertical needle guidance. He had been rock-solid to that point but imprecise communication from the right-seater was distracting him away from precision control.
I stopped the simulation right there. I briefly pointed out the distraction and its effect on localizer and glidepath control. I then moved the airplane back onto the centered needles and asked both to watch as I started it down the approach toward the runway. In a couple of hundred feet the approach lighting system started to emerge from restricted visibility ahead: first the sequenced flashing lights leading to the runway threshold, often called the rabbit; then the decision bar 1000 feet before the runway threshold; followed by the edge lights on the end of the runway pavement, then the runway itself.
“Keep making your altitude callouts,” I told the right-seat pilot, “and make them every 100 feet in the last 500 feet above minimums if you know what the minimums are.” Tell the pilot when you have ground contact, the first undeniable ground visibility below the airplane, then only as you are sure you see them:
“I have the rabbit;”
“I have the decision bar;”
“I have the edge lights,” and
“I have the runway in sight;”
…while continuing to make altitude callouts. That is the information the pilot needs, in a form that is not ambiguous or distracting.
I reset the simulator so the faux Baron was one mile outside glideslope intercept, gave the pilot control of the airplane and asked them to try it using this technique. They were perfect. In debriefing the pilot thanked me for getting the best safety and workload enhancement from flying with the other pilot “almost all of the time.”
A right-seater can add safety…or erode it. Any time someone besides you has access to the flight controls in a single-pilot aircraft, whether that person is not a pilot but especially if he or she is, brief beforehand:
- Keep hands and feet away from the flight controls and all cockpit controls and switches unless specifically asked or invited to participate.
- Provide input only as trained and briefed, for example, altitude callouts during an approach, any other aircraft sighted in flight or on the ground ahead of your landing or takeoff, and warning if the landing gear does not indicate fully down when getting close to the runway, in retractable gear airplanes.
If you have a regular right-seater take the time to brief what you want and how you want it. In good conditions practice your technique to make it a useful habit. And every time you fly together, quickly debrief the cockpit coordination you used on that flight and how you can do it even better next time.
Questions? Comments? Supportable opinions? Let us know at [email protected].
Debrief
Readers write about last week’s LESSONS:
Reader and Expanded Envelope Exercises developer Ed Wischmeyer adds to last week’s Debrief and the discussion about what Everybody Knows the week before that:
In the [then-]current FLYING LESSONS the Cessna 150 Operational Checklist after a failed engine shows carburetor heat ON as the second item, after airspeed 60 KIAS. I disagree, not respectfully, but vehemently.
What I was taught, and what I taught my students, was to put the carb heat on immediately after engine failure, before the engine heat has a chance to dissipate. Wait too long and there may not be enough heat to melt the carb ice. This argument is, of course, not quantitative – how many flying technique arguments are? – but as I told my students, the book isn’t flying the airplane, you are. And the book is never hurt in an accident.
It can, of course, be asking for trouble to carelessly ignore manufacturer’s instructions, but here are “book” curiosities accrued over the years:
- Many Cessna checklists included removing the nose tiedown. After 50+ years of flying, I have as yet to see one.
- The Beechcraft Duchess had nested checklists, e.g., do these three steps, then go find some other checklist and do that, then come back and finish this checklist.
- On some Mooneys, there are three knobs on the lower center console, IIRC: parking brake, cowl flaps, and ram air. On one checklist, two of those are checked, then other steps are accomplished, and then the last knob checked. So much for flow.
- The Pilot’s Handbook (pre-POH) for the Cessna 150 one year told when to use the parking brake, but not how to set it nor release it.
And the story goes that there was one very large, single engine drone that had an engine failure, but the procedures and switchology designed by the engineers were so convoluted that engine restart was not accomplished and the vehicle was lost.
I now fly an experimental RV-9A, and am responsible for my own checklist. Working to get everything just right, I’m now on Revision 33. (On the back are sample loadings and W&B, light signals, and local frequencies. Those are responsible for many of the changes.)
Changing focus, at Embry Riddle [if I remember correctly] one of their useful books is the Standard Operating Procedures Amplifier, covering many details that are not in the POH. For example, foot placement for rudder and brake pedals so that the pilot doesn’t drag the brakes.
Checklist design among airplane types, even individual models within a model line, is inconsistent. Most are revisions upon revisions upon revisions of earlier checklists when systems design and the placement of controls may have been different but the checklist was never updated. Most checklists for propeller aircraft predate the “cockpit flow” concept or were written by engineers who had never been exposed to turbine airplane techniques. Some handbooks omit steps that are assumed to be general knowledge (e.g., how to set and release a parking brake) or which reflect some fleet operations that are not commonplace outside large fleets. Using your example, I think the USAF T-41As in which I trained at Hondo, Texas in the early 1980s (1965 and 1967 Cessna 172s) did use nose tiedowns and, I’m almost certain, an amplifier plug-like grounding plug, but I’ve never seen that done elsewhere.
In any airplane, I suggest the owner make customized checklists for that aircraft that are up-to-date with installed equipment, including avionics, and that are arranged to make sense in an order of what you do and where things are placed. Write it in an electronic format because you will update it over time, especially as you first test and refine your checklist design. In the Experimental Amateur Built (E-AB) world this is entirely on you, if you’re the original builder, and you’re at the mercy of the original builder’s mindset if you inherit checklists with an E-AB you purchase complete from somebody else. In the type certificated world you have the beginnings of great checklists in the Pilot’s Operating Handbook but you can make your checklists even better and more usable. One key in both places: don’t make the checklists so detailed they are not easily usable in the cockpit. Work to make your checklists as short and simple as possible while still enough to conform you have completed all necessary tasks.
One last thing: I’d really like to see a copy of that ERAU SOPs Amplifier. Does anyone have one I can view? I’ve not found it online. Thank you, Ed.
Reader Mark Peterson continues:
In the recent [Debrief], it was mentioned that the flaps “increase the angle of attack.” I don’t see that. The root section of the wing, forward of the flap, is structurally fixed. Fix the wing at a constant angle. And then deploy flaps. You see this:
- The flap can change relative airflow from the leading edge of the flap aft. If you can a mental wind tunnel you can visualize the flow. But the wing itself doesn’t suddenly change position to a higher angle into the relative wind.
- The pilot can pull back on the yoke and make the AOA change, but that is pilot input. NOT the flap setting.
- The pitch angle (which is different that angle of attack) changes, due to change in relative airflow over the stab, not the angle of attack. Also the moment of the wing over the center of mass, which is one factor in a low wing pitch vs. and high wing pitch with flaps.
One has to be careful teaching that the angle of attack is not the same as deck angle of the cabin or the pitch attitude that one does to keep airspeed. The relative wind over the wing, the angle of attack doesn’t change with flap deployment. The pilot changes that with pitch and the speed of the flow.
Strictly speaking, the airfoil doesn’t change its angle just because the flaps are deployed. The pilot does that. Fix the wing in your mental wind tunnel and pull the flaps. The wing itself doesn’t change the angle of attack just because the flaps are deployed. The wind stays the same over the front part of the wing. The PILOT changes the angle of attack to keep airspeed and hence AOA constant because of the flow over the stab[ilizer] and the drag effects.
The first 10% of flap increases the effective chord and lift of the the wing, plus some added lift with the deflection of air downward. NOT the angle of attack.
One other thing: nearly all planes have washout on the wing, that is the wing tips are regularly flying at a lower angle of attack by design, not because of the flaps. In the C150/152 you can see the ailerons have a slight twist at the end to accomplish this. It’s not unusual to have two or more degrees of washout in a plane to prevent tip stalls. Again, it’s NOT because of the flaps being extended.
Extending flaps increases the area and camber of the wing and that in turn increases angle of attack. I found this diagram and explanation that indicate an increase of angle of attack with flap extension up to a point, and a lowering AoA at the extreme of flap deployment. But it’s not clear whether that increase comes from flaps alone, or the pilot’s aft elevator input to hold altitude against the downward pitch of flap extension in most light airplanes.
Thanks for pointing out the effect of wing washout on lift generation along the length of the wing. You’re right, this is particularly apparent in the ailerons of the Cessna 150/152. Washout causes the inner wing to fly at a higher angle of attack than the outer wing. The outer wing and ailerons will still have good airflow adhesion when the inner wing stalls. This helps keep the wings level in a stall and adds lateral stability to protect against wing drop. Thanks for the refresher, Mark.
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