Licensed to learn: a pilot’s postgraduate phase

The practical examination for a pilot licence or rating covers a wide range of piloting skills to determine the candidate is not only competent, that is, able to successfully perform each task.

To be efficient, most flight instruction focuses on the information and skills needed to pass the flight test. Going beyond the minimums would add significant time and expense to learning to fly. This is not intended as criticism of the process; it’s a statement of the reality: even for a recreational or private pilot, there’s a lot to learn after you’ve satisfied the flight examiner.

There’s a difference between the accident rate and fatal accident rate in instructional versus personal aviation, which is any recreational or transportation use of an aeroplane other than corporate, business or instructional. Personal aviation has been roughly twice as likely to result in an accident than instructional aviation, and 4 to 5 times more likely to end in a fatality.

This is, I believe, because the instructional flying is more controlled – we limit weather exposure, fly to fewer unfamiliar aerodromes and kindly instructors do their best to keep us in a safe training environment. After graduating in a flight test we’re then left to manage on our own. What are some of the essentials we need to learn as a postgraduate pilot?

Fuel and other factors

It’s rare that a training flight departs without full fuel, especially on a cross-country navigation exercise. What instructor wants to send a student on a trip alone with less than full tanks?

However, outside the training environment, carrying passengers and luggage or cargo often requires a reduced fuel load to remain within aeroplane limits. This in turn affects flight planning and options for alternates and requires keener attention to fuel management and monitoring in flight.

Using actual data for the aeroplane you fly (or aspire to fly), plan trips to a few destinations assuming you bring along your family or a coupleof friends with enough baggage for a weekend. Purposely load the aeroplane in this exercise so you cannot fill the fuel tanks completely. How might this affect your flight planning, including delays or diversions?

How often did you refuel the aeroplane while learning to fly? Are you comfortable knowing how to order fuel at a large aerodrome and using self-fuelling stations? Ask other pilots or even pay your instructor to show you how to self-fuel, including grounding the aircraft, turning the pump on and off and what to do if the card reader is down or the pump won’t work. (Hint: don’t land with minimum fuel unless you’re very confident fuel is available).

What did you learn about mixture management? Fuel management in many aircraft is very simple.

In the postgraduate world, you need to be ready for whatever might happen. It’s not as daunting as it might seem.

Often the pilot’s operating handbook (POH) says simply to gradually reduce fuel flow until the engine runs roughly, then advance it until it smooths out.

There is a lot of great information online about mixture control and management. Find as many opinions as possible but be careful to back them up with hard data and POH information.

Expand your envelope

Aircraft performance will be affected by changes in centre of gravity (CG). Practise flying the aircraft at different positions of CG, within the acceptable range according to the loading charts. This is even more critical in light sport aircraft which may have a shorter and less tolerant CG range than a trainer aircraft.

Potential of the panel

In learning to fly we tend to learn minimal use of advanced avionics. We don’t go far on training flights and the focus is on physically manipulating the controls. Now that you have your licence, it’s time to develop mastery of the avionics. Most avionics have excellent online tutorial programs for your postgraduate instruction. (Under the general competency rule, you must make sure you are competent to use the avionics before flying an aircraft in your class rating, as pilot in command.)

You could pay an instructor for an hour or 2 to teach more advanced capabilities of the GPS and panel displays, and operating modes of the autopilot and flight director if installed.

Think about the use of the flight director and autopilot. How will you use the flight director for take-off and initial climb?

When do you use heading mode versus navigation, attitude versus rate (vertical speed/airspeed modes) versus altitude? How do you switch between different navigation and vertical navigation sources?

When do you engage the autopilot, and when is autopilot use prohibited? How do you confirm you’ve activated autopilot and flight director modes correctly? If your autopilot requires manual trim adjustment, how does it indicate the need for a trim change? Importantly, how many ways can you interrupt or disconnect the autopilot and electric trim, in the event of a malfunction or trim runaway? Read the POH autopilot supplement. You need to be competent to use the autopilot before you use it in flight.

Emergencies

Your private pilot licence flight test required you to demonstrate proficiency in 4 emergency scenarios:

• engine failure after take-off
• manage a malfunction during start or shutdown
• one of:
  • system malfunction
  • fire
  • radio failure
• forced landing (from at least 2,500 feet above ground level).

You might have spent time with your instructor studying emergency checklists for your aircraft. Or your training may have been limited to the 3 types specifically noted: engine failure, fires and radio failure.

In the postgraduate world you need to be ready for whatever might happen. It’s not as daunting as it might seem. Look at each emergency checklist in the POH for the aeroplane you fly.

What checklists include actions that must be taken immediately, without time to reference the printed checklist, to prevent injury, loss of control or catastrophic aircraft failure?

These are what I call ‘true emergencies’, and include:

• rejected take-off: engine failure, control difficulty, open door or window or inability to take off with sufficient margin to avoid obstacles
• engine failure: immediately after take-off, in flight, propeller overspeed in aircraft with controllable speed propellers
• engine fire
• electrical fire
• autopilot malfunction/trim runaway.

On each of these checklists, review what must be done immediately, from memory, and what are ‘clean up’ actions that give you time to reference the checklist after memory items are complete and the aeroplane is under control. Highlight those items (make copies and highlight those steps if you don’t own the aircraft). These are the only things you need to memorise, along with any airspeeds that go along with them (best glide, for example).

For a given power setting and aeroplane configuration (flaps and landing gear position, as appropriate), there is a single pitch attitude that results in a given airspeed. That counts for zero power with total engine failure as well. Since your initial response will be delayed by surprise, airspeed will decay swiftly if you hold attitude when power is lost.

Prepare to PUSH the nose to the attitude that results in glide speed, and HOLD heading with rudder until you’re ready to manoeuvre in a glide. PUSH and HOLD should be an ingrained response to engine failure, so you’re ready in the worst-case scenario of engine failure shortly after take-off. Practise airspeeds and power to find the attitudes.

Your task is easier if you simplify the memory items. For example, engines need 3 things to develop power: fuel, air and ignition. If an engine emergency can be fixed from the pilot’s seat, it’ll be by manipulating the controls for those systems. The most likely cause of fixable engine failure in carburetted engines is carb ice, so the restart steps are:

With fuel injection, move the AIR step to the bottom of the checklist and replace it with:

Compare this to your POH checklist and modify as needed. You’re likely to find that hitting the correct airspeed and applying this technique accurately describes your actions for any rough running, partial power loss or total engine failure.

Sit in the aeroplane and move your hands through the motions of memory items. Touch, but don’t move, controls to safely develop muscle memory. In cruise flight, do the same to keep yourself refreshed on the memory steps.

Everything else in the POH gives you time to read and follow the checklist. You don’t have to do anything from memory if you see an alternator out light, for example, except  now there’s a checklist and know how to accomplish its steps. If there’s something you don’t understand or a procedure you’d like to practise (emergency gear extension in retractable gear aeroplanes, for instance), hire an instructor for a focused postgraduate flight.

With all dispatch

Any pre-flight risk assessment will include weather. All the theory you learnt to pass a flight test becomes practical knowledge only as you make real-world weather decisions before and during flight.

Keep refreshing your weather knowledge with your pre-test texts and soak up additional weather knowledge from local experts and online training. A lot of online content comes from the northern hemisphere, so seek out Australian sources as much as possible.

As a student, your instructor was a big part of your go/no-go decision-making. Now you’ve got to be your own dispatcher, evaluating weather, aeroplane, environment, airspace and human factors. It includes establishing, observing and over time, changing personal minimums, higher as well as lower.

Equally vital is evaluating your performance after a flight. Employ a short personal debrief – what went right, what went wrong, what you might do differently next time – to learn something from every flight. Ask a highly experienced instructor, or a military, corporate or airline pilot, to help you with risk management and dispatching.

You demonstrated a high level of proficiency to earn your latest pilot licence or rating. You practised so you’d be ready to pass your flight test at any time. But the test is just the beginning of mastering your aeroplane. Don’t stop with graduating from flying school – move on into the essentials with postgraduate studies.

Find these resources at casa.gov.au:

• The Part 61 Manual of Standards Schedule 2 contains the practical competencies you must demonstrate but also provides a good framework from which to build scenarios which will test your skills.
• The CASA flight test checklists also nicely list the proficiencies most important for the class of aircraft and licence level. There’s no harm in proving your own proficiency to yourself occasionally.

Refresh your knowledge. Visit the Pilot safety hub at casa.gov.au/pilots