Flight Training - October 2014 - 8

LETTERS

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TEACHING SPINS

MAKING FRIENDS FOR LIFE

I

have just finished reading Flight Training magazine from cover
to cover. As a flight instructor, I ask my students to read this
magazine when they receive it in the mail, and then call me if
they have any questions.

Today, as I read "Spinning 101" by
Catherine Cavagnaro, I remembered
the time she and I flew together, and
discussed the spin. I show her YouTube
video in every ground school class that
I teach. In "Instructor Report: Today's
Scenario-based Training," Rod Machado-whom I have never met, but hope
to someday-mentions, "We can't expect
students to learn efficiently if we fail to
emphasize the basic skills first."
Teaching is one of my most favorite
things I get do, because I get to share the
magic of flight with people I don't even
know, but usually become friends with
for life.
Dan Winnie
Seattle, Washington
WHAT HAPPENED TO BASIC FLYING
SKILLS?

This article raises some important issues
that have come to light in recent years
concerning the degradation of basic flying skills with the blame typically being
administered to increased automation
("Career Pilot," August 2014 Flight Training). While this article points to the very
real problem of ab initio training common
in foreign countries as well as accelerated
training programs in the United States, I
can assure you that this is not limited to
these types of individuals.
I recall more than a few instances while
flying 737-800s and L1011s in which "very
experienced" pilots' basic flying abilities
were substandard. It was not unusual for
pilots of both of these aircraft to be fearful
of VFR flying scenarios, which should be
second nature to any pilot such as flying
visual approaches and VFR patterns. Some
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FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

treated approaches to airports without
glideslopes or inoperative VASI to be
nothing short of an emergency. VFR traffic patterns were often flown in a sloppy,
gyrating manner.
During a flight into St. PetersburgClearwater, Florida, we were cleared
for the visual approach. The pilot flying
flew an enormous pattern, which took us
outside Class B and D airspace, subjecting us to a dense VFR traffic corridor.
So distracted by the whole situation, the
pilot forgot that he had disconnected the
autothrottles, even though he kept the
autopilot in charge. We leveled off and
airspeed degraded rapidly. Thankfully I
had seen this individual do this before, so
once the autothrottles came off I watched
him like a hawk and cued him to watch
his airspeed. At around 1,000 feet agl, if
we had stalled, we probably would have
been yet another statistic.
We all need to remember the basics
and practice them. No airline pilot should
be afraid of a visual approach, a pattern
entry, and a VFR base to final. No VASI,
no problem. Moreover, no pilot should
have issue with maintaining proper flying
airspeed and how to recover if such is not
the case. Unfortunately, both the current
airline training environment and the typical air transport operation support the
contrary with limited training on these
innate skills and their implementation in
real life.
We need to take a hard look at training,
especially recurrent training. I don't doubt
that every airline pilot out there can fly
a V1 engine failure with a landing to ILS
minimums, but a stall or a VFR pattern,
maybe not so much. Let's take back some
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Flight Training - October 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - October 2014
