Flight Training - August 2024 - 52

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scenarios in the simulator. Others still
won't make sense until something pops up
on the flight line that was discussed in a
classroom while you were sneaking away
for a quick bathroom break.
At my first regional airline, I did quite a
bit of work in the simulator on my days off
working with new-hire pilots. The biggest
obstacle I saw was self-inflicted, and that
was the lack of preparation for callouts
and flows. Frequently, the checklist is used
as just that: It checks to make sure that
nothing was missed. As opposed to the
alternative of " read and do, " a flow pattern
is used. A flow is a memorized, logically
designed series of steps used to accomplish
something in an airplane. In the GA world,
you might use a flow in a 172 to deal with
a simulated engine failure, starting at the
fuel selector, working up to the mixture,
throttle, and carburetor heat, and then
over to the ignition. In an airliner, we use
flows as a preview for most checklists,
and some might have as many as a dozen
individual steps. However, they follow
a pattern and have an easy-to-see logic.
Some flows are designed to leave a bit of
leeway for individual preferences or for
multiple different scenarios, with the end
goal being that no items are missed. Some
are much more exact.
Callouts are similar. They are scripted
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and exact. The language is chosen for
specific reasons, the most important of
which is to avoid any ambiguity or misunderstanding.
Unlike flows, callouts are
expected to be the same across the board.
It is the callouts that allow two pilots who
have never met to get in an airplane and be
comfortable flying together.
If you're a current, active instrument
pilot, the biggest challenge in transitioning
to a new airplane is usually in coping with
the speed differences, and possibly with
some of the instrument displays that may
be new or different to you. Back in the day,
the change also involved learning to go
from an analog display to a digital (glass)
one, but now that so many airplanes have
at least a partial glass panel, this is less
of a roadblock. However, for pilots who
have taken some time away from flying,
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52 FLIGHT TRAINING AUGUST 2024
getting back into the flow of a scan or of
instrument flying can be a challenge. In
fact, an instructor can usually tell right
away if the pilot just needs to knock a bit of
rust off or is going to truly struggle.
In my experience, a competent IFR
pilot reaches a point where the basic
procedures of flying by instrument and
using the radio becomes well enough
ingrained that, even after a long break, the
proficiency can come back pretty quickly.
That level of required experience will
vary from pilot to pilot, and it will depend
on how they built their overall flight time,
but when you reach a certain point, it's
like a certain hard-wiring in your brain
has occurred.
As a bit of an extreme example, I had
a customer come to me in his senior years
wanting to get back into flying. He had in
the past flown quite a bit, including some
IFR flying for business, but it had been
close to 20 years since he had been at the
controls of an airplane. I never would have
known-he flew it like he had never missed
a day. I've seen the same thing as pilots take
long breaks from airline flying and then
come back years later, in an airplane they
have never flown before. After one or two
sim sessions, they're flying like they'd never
missed a beat. In fact, for most of these
pilots I've seen the learning curve is in
learning GPS and RNAV technology, which
comes pretty quickly.
If you talk to any pilot who has flown
for multiple airlines, they will inevitably
tell you that subsequent training is
always easier, because a) they know what
to expect, and b) the general structure of
procedures varies little from company to
company, even if the airplane is different.
The FARs don't change, and most companies'
internal rules are almost the same.
Understanding ops specs, memorizing
calls and flows, and having true IFR
proficiency and currency will go a long way
toward making the transition easier. For
those coming back after a layoff, a review
of the same will bust the cobwebs and help
reacclimate to the flying environment. FT
CHIP WRIGHT is an airline pilot living in Kentucky.

http://www.EFIRC.COM/FT http://www.aopa.org/BTYRSafety

Flight Training - August 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - August 2024