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On-Time Assuagement
by Dale Brown, 2007

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT TheBigFiveOh.com Blog @ Yahoo.Com, 2/25/08

We returned home late last night to 3-4" of new snow in the driveway. The Mount Rose highway was slick and slow going but passable. Turns out they had snow here in town every day we were gone last week, a total of about 15" here in town and almost 4 feet in the mountains. Today it got up to nearly 40 deg. F and the forecasters promise temps in the mid to high 40s for the next week.

I was feeling bad yesterday because I really thought I'd do better with my instrument flying in the Cessna C-340A simulator. It's definitely a fact that your skills will erode with time, and it had been a few months (the first week in November 2007 to be exact) since I did any real instrument work. I shouldn't have been too surprised about how rusty I'd be, but I was still disappointed.

But on the plane ride home last night, I happened to watch a video by Richard Collins, a well-known and respected aviation author, entitled "Air Facts: IFR [Instrument Flight Rules] Crew Of One," and his first and most emphatic point really helped me out of my doldrums.

He said: "An autopilot is a critical part of flying without a copilot with as little risk as possible and it needs to be an integral part of the operation." He went on to say that "Flying IFR without an autopilot involves increased risk and anything we can use to decrease the risk should be used."

MY HERO!

I hesitate to criticize my Simcom instructor, because he really was a good guy and great teacher, but my one major critique was his emphasis on the use of "raw data"--flying without use of an autopilot and flight director.

If everything was going along smoothly, I was able to demonstrate that I could fly and do an approach to ATP (Airline Transport Pilot) standards using "raw data." But when he added a few malfunctions or a failed engine, my skills were not as sharp while using only "raw data."

I remember my instructor asking if I used the autopilot and flight director often, and I answered "Of course--I used them all the time." He didn't say as much, but his tone implied that I was doing myself and my passengers a great disservice by using an autopilot all the time.

I never reconciled that attitude. If we have the gadgets available, shouldn't we use them? Sure, the gadgets can fail, but frankly the gadgets fail less often than the human being in command. The pilot makes bad decisions, gets tired or inattentive, doesn't do his preflight planning well enough, and pushes a bad situation even worse. An autopilot works or it doesn't. Most modern autopilots are pretty reliable--it's usually the pilot who doesn't know how to work it, or doesn't use it when he should, or doesn't keep it properly maintained, that creates an emergency situation.

I never argued the point with my instructor because to do so would have made it appear as if I was content with being less proficient or diligent because I used a machine to fly for me.

After watching Richard Collins's video, I now feel confident enough to proclaim that I feel pretty good about my skills and attitude towards flying. Yes, I use an autopilot--I use it all the time, from takeoff to landing, probably 90% of the time on each flight. Most approaches I fly are flown by the autopilot. I'll hand-fly an approach on occasion for practice, but for perhaps one out of every ten approaches. I know how to use the autopilot for every phase of flight, in every available mode, and I know how to spot problems and what to do about them.

Am I selling myself or my passengers short by using the gadgets? I don't think so.

The purpose of single pilot instrument flying is to safely get yourself, your passengers, and your machine to your destination in marginal weather. An autopilot helps in accomplishing that task...period. Yes, you might be a better pilot if you could handle multiple emergencies while hand-flying a 6,000-pound bird in lousy weather, but are you a safe and competent pilot by doing the very same thing with an autopilot or flight director? Absolutely.

What if the autopilot fails? That's what simulator training is all about: practicing different failure modes. But should 90% of the simulator time be practicing catastrophic failures? I wouldn't take off in bad weather knowing that my flight director or autopilot were bad. Why do we need to practice such a bad scenario?

I'm glad I went to Simcom and got hammered for 3 days in the sim--that's what simulator training is about. But I needn't feel bad for doing well "only" when I had access to all the available equipment. If I had an engine loss but still had the use of the autopilot ands/or the flightdirector, I feel extremely confident about getting myself, my passengers, and my plane back safely. That's the bottom line,

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