As we drove back home, I said to Dot, “It must be great to learn how to fly.” Dot said, “Why don’t you try it?” To which I replied, “No, I can’t. It would cost too much and take too much time.” So, there I was, two days later at Appleton International Airport (KATW) in the pilot’s seat of a vintage Cessna 150, clutching my student pilot certificate and taking my first flying lesson. In December, with my consulting work finished, we moved back to Massachusetts. After we resettled, I continued my flying lessons at Marlboro Airport (9B1). With its 1,659-foot runway bookended by extremely tall pine trees, there couldn’t be a better place to practice landings and takeoffs. I finally earned my private pilot certificate on May 14, 1975. After we got home, Dot and I held a proper champagne celebration. Then we had a serious discussion about flying, and I promised her that the one thing I would never do was buy an airplane.

Besides, renting would be fine. A month later, I was reflecting on that decision as I was sitting in the left seat of my newly purchased 1958 Piper Comanche 250 at Minute Man Air Field (6B6) with its 2,700-foot runway in Stow. Wow. My landings didn’t have to be precise at all, not after my Marlboro short-field training. In July 1976 with my flight hours adding up, and my wanderlust afoot, I thought it might be fun to try a cross-country flight in my “Baby Airliner.” What better destination than a trip to Oshkosh for another air show? At that time, Burt Rutan was selling his VariEze homebuilt kits to builders around the country—a composite, canard, high-performance aircraft. Burt would occasionally visit some of the builders to help them assemble the kits. There were three kits being built at Stow that would be flying to the Oshkosh show. We planned on meeting them there to see how well the airplanes performed. We had the privilege of working with Burt for a few days.

The Oshkosh show was scheduled to start on July 31, so we started planning for our big adventure. We were to be joined on the trip by Mal Bennert, a good friend of ours who was also a certificated pilot. We spent Saturday packing clothes and thoroughly preflighting the airplane, cleaning, topping the gas tanks, double-checking our checklists, planning the flight route, etc.

Later that afternoon, my son Bill and daughter Sharon dropped by to see how we were doing. Because it was early and a beautiful day, we asked if they would like to take a final sunset sightseeing trip before we left. It would include a stop at Manchester Airport (KMHT) in New Hampshire for the proverbial hundred-dollar hamburgers. It was probably a good thing that we took that flight because later, when I radioed my landing intentions, my second radio was dead. It was an emergency because I would not launch on this trip without both radios working. After we landed, I told our mechanic my problem. Fortunately, one of the local pilots said he had a radio he could lend us for the trip. We spent Sunday replacing and testing the radio. I slept soundly that night, and we left early Monday morning in kind of an overcast day.

• READ MORE: Leaving in the Chocks

Because I wanted to keep both tanks as full as possible, our first fuel stop was planned for Binghamton Airport (KBGM) in New York. We had been flying for about two hours, which put us over the Allegheny Mountains—not too hospitable on the ground. I was pilot flying for this first leg, and all was going well. Dot was in the back, reading a magazine, and we were just cruising along. Suddenly, I thought I heard a skipped cylinder from the engine. I asked Mal on the intercom if he heard that. He said, “Heard what? I didn’t hear anything.” I said, “Yeah, that nothing is the noise I’m talking about.” Just then, the engine coughed for a few beats then a few more until finally it went quiet. Nothing like a shot of adrenaline to liven up a dull morning. I wanted to start down the checklist for “Engine Power Loss During Flight,” so I said, “Mal, you’ve got the airplane.” He answered, “I’ve got the airplane.” I wanted to be free to check the obvious things that can stop an engine, the most likely being fuel starvation. The fuel selector was on the floor between the pilot and copilot. Looking down to move it would have taken my eyes off the horizon—not a good idea. I said, “Leave the flaps and gear up and trim for 100 mph.” Mal answered, “Flaps and gear up, trim for 100.” (For youngsters reading this, we were still using miles per hour back then.)

I looked down at the fuel selector, and it was positioned on the right tank, which was the correct one that I had selected before we left. I turned it to the left tank, pushed mixture to full rich, pulled carb heat on, and turned on the fuel pump. The prop was windmilling nicely, which was a good sign. The best sign, however, was the sound of the engine coughing twice, spitting a little because the carb heat was on, and then coming up to full power. “Now,” I thought, “pretend you’re a professional pilot. Just take a deep breath, wipe the sweat off your brow. Return all settings back to cruise. Continue with normal flight.”

• READ MORE: Why Do Pilots Use Checklists?

When we landed in Binghamton, I immediately dipsticked the right tank. It was dry as a bone. What had happened? As is so often the case, a series of small errors can result in a major problem. After we took the sightseeing flight Saturday, I had every intention of topping off the tanks when we returned, but I was totally distracted by the new problem—the dead radio. While working with that on Sunday, I completely forgot the needed gasoline, thus causing the right tank to be partially empty and run dry before my predicted time.

Is there a moral here to be learned? I don’t know. Checklists are only good when used at the right time. But how do you know when that is, and who checks the checklist checker?

This column first appeared in the August 2023/Issue 940 print edition of FLYING.

The post Checklists Only Function When They’re Open appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Aircraft ownership gives one an appreciation for carefulness. A Beechcraft Musketeer bought at auction while I was stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, was my first airplane. The engine started with a key, just like a car, but there was another switch, labeled “Master,” that actually put power on the airplane and needed to be turned off when the day was done. The first time I forgot to turn off the master switch and found a dead airplane, a mechanic said to me, “You’ll do that three times and never again afterward.” He was right.

There seems to be a thread of forgetfulness that runs through my flying career, and advancing age hasn’t seemed to make it better or worse.

In one recent experience, things just weren’t adding up. Our flight from Florida to New England was one taco short of a combination plate, as the saying goes. We passed each fix a few minutes later than predicted by ForeFlight, and more important, more fuel had somehow disappeared. No big deal, though. The passengers had been briefed about a possible fuel stop and were understanding, even appreciative. I had an airport picked out for its familiar approaches, nice FBOs and excellent fuel prices.

My request to divert was immediately granted, and I was given the MALNR 5 arrival to Raleigh-Durham (KRDU), North Carolina, and a descent. I loaded the arrival, hit direct to the first fix, pressed the nav button on the mode-select panel, entered the new altitude in the altitude preselect window, dialed in a vertical speed of 1,500 fpm down, and looked up the ATIS. While getting the weather, we were cleared to descend via the arrival and expect an ILS 23R. As I turned my attention to the arrival and approach charts, I felt the airplane make small heading changes consistent with the arrival.  Suddenly, I heard, “Three Bravo Gulf, where are you going?”

I looked up at the mode-select panel: The nav light was out; HDG light was out. We were in roll mode, sailing over North Carolina like a pirate ship. What in the world? Well, I’d seen this before. Once on the departure out of Las Vegas, New Mexico, and once on the arrival into Tampa, Florida. So how did I forget to closely monitor the airplane’s track? How many times have I heard during recurrent training, “The mode-select panel is what you ordered for dinner; the PFD tells you what’s coming from the kitchen”? Complacency and familiarity got me. I had forgotten a basic principle of airmanship.

On a contract flight, I’d already loaded all the bags, and Capt. Bill was walking the passengers out to the Cessna Citation CJ2+ under overcast skies. It had been my legs from Lebanon (KLEB), New Hampshire, to Nantucket (KACK), Massachusetts, and on to KRDU. When I turned on the avionics to load the flight plan, Bill tapped the windshield. He mouthed some words that looked like he was saying “Lulu.” What the heck? I was puzzled until Bill stuck his head in and said, “Landing lights.” Sure enough, I’d left the taxi lights on after shutdown.

• READ MORE: Dick Karl Archive

Checklists work best when two pilots practice “challenge, verify, respond” as standard operating procedure. A well-disciplined crew will use exactly the same words in the SOPs and on the printed checklists. Any deviation will be questioned. You may call them thrust levers, but around here, we call them throttles.

The before-start checklist includes looking at the annunciator panel, but I’ve seen a “door unlocked” after start more than once. In my Part 135 flying days, the guy who did the walk-around was the guy who had to get out and lock the hatch. Once this required taxiing back into the FBO on a snowy night.

In the single-pilot environment—in which many of us find ourselves—actually saying things out loud is helpful, if a little puzzling or even alarming to passengers. When the airplane isn’t climbing like it is supposed to, better run that “after takeoff” checklist again. Just because you flicked up the gear handle doesn’t mean the wheels are all nestled in the wells. Same goes for the flaps. Muscle memory might suggest the flaps are up, but a double-check might prove otherwise.

Here’s where the difference between “flow” and checklists becomes important. After-takeoff flow in our CJ1 goes like this:

“Positive Rate”: Gear up.

“400 feet V₂ plus 10”: Flaps up.

“1,500 feet”: Set climb power, engine sync on, ignition off.

Then, out comes the checklist to challenge, verify by pointing and confirm that I’ve done all these things. There’s a reason for these simple tools.

So far, I haven’t forgotten to lower the landing gear, but you know what they say: “There are two kinds of pilots. Those who have made a gear-up landing and those who haven’t yet.” In talking to pilots who have forgotten to lower the gear, there is a common thread: In each instance, there was a distraction, be it a traffic warning (common around airports), an unusual speed or altitude restriction.

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Speaking of distractions, I find myself joking with line personnel on the ground when I should be paying attention. After all, a walk-around is performed at zero feet above ground and therefore well below 10,000 feet, where the only conversation should be about the safe conduct of the flight. A friend of mine who owned a fancy single-engine speedster once started up only to find he’d forgotten to pull the chocks. This happened more than 10 years ago, but he mentioned it to me again just today. In fact, he mentions it almost every time I see him. The man has high standards.

There is an item I hope never to forget, and it’s not on any checklist. Sometimes, in the rush to get going because we’re late, or weather is approaching, or the passengers are eager, I may forget to say thanks to all the people who make flying so much fun. So, to the line guys, controllers and maintenance people who make it all possible: Thank you!

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the December 2021 issue of FLYING.

The post 50-Plus Years of Flying Forgetfulness appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

After the first two or three hundred hours in the airplane, you get familiar. It’s called flow.

The checklist points out that I’ve neglected to turn on the passenger safety switch. No matter—this is an empty leg. The checklist also confirms what I already know: The throttles and engine sync are off. We are “down to the line,” that dotted line on the checklist that calls for a pause before we move on. This allows for an early completion of items up to those that require turning off the air conditioning and avionics.

“Below the line” has but four items, and a standard flow sees to each of them.

Annunciator panel……….Checked

Beacon…………………………On

AC and defrost…Off

Avionics power…………….Off

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“This completes the before-start checklist below the line,” I or the first officer say. Though the Cessna Citation CJ1 my wife, Cathy, and I own is approved for single-pilot ops—and I do fly it alone—I always say these callouts, well, out loud. It almost feels like “I” becomes “we.”

Hands fall to the start switch and throttles. I signal the lineman with two fingers—starting No. 2. The N2 spools up, the N1 shows hints of life, and at 10 percent N2, I lift the throttle out of the cutoff position and watch with approval as the N2 accelerates to 45 percent, at which point the starter disengages and the engine slides back to idle. Wow, do those Williams engines start with breathtaking temperature spikes.

After a successful No. 1 start, another flow. The generators are each checked, the battery voltages (“EMER” and “BATT”) are both checked, and a left hand comes across the panel to hit the “headphone only” button that keeps the passengers from hearing when I overspeed the airplane. Flight controls, trims and FMS check all follow in a line, and hands come back up to set pressurization for landing field altitude plus 200 feet. Here, we (or I) take a break and recheck altimeters, takeoff speeds and runway heading. Then: “After-start checklist,” please.

Flow vs. Checklist

There’s a lot of misunderstanding in the nonaviation world about the difference between flow and checklists.

In my former job as a surgical oncologist, I witnessed multiple flailing attempts to institute checklists in operating rooms. Without any real appreciation of the difference between flow and checklist, we struggled. A circulating nurse would launch into a litany of the patient’s name, name of the surgeon, the procedure, and the appropriate patient record number found in the chart and on the wrist band. The only trouble was: Nobody was listening, nobody actually checked the wristband that was buried under surgical drapes, and nobody seemed to be interested in anything except recording that a “timeout” (as this nod toward safety is commonly called) had been accomplished.

• READ MORE: Dick Karl Archive

Without the power of “challenge and response,” the operating-room checklists became “to-do lists” and were stripped of their inherent usefulness. Regrettably, little progress has been made in reducing wrong-site operations, retained sponges and instruments, and all manner of inadvertent harm.

That’s one reason I enjoy flow in aviation: It makes me safer. I practice flow. I get sensual reward from the physical sequences of preparing and flying an airplane. Once the airplane is moving, muscle memory and flow conspire to wrap me in satisfactions. My hands reach without looking for the heading- and altitude-preselect knobs that tell the autopilot what to do. This wasn’t intuitive at first. The two knobs are adjacent to each other in the CJ1, and I wasn’t the first pilot to be given an altitude-change instruction only to end up changing the heading. (In the CJ4, these controls have been moved to a more traditional and sensible place just beneath the glare shield.) Lots of time in the CJ1, with its repetition and practice, makes these controls as familiar as the gearshift in your car.

Flow Is Universal

Once flow is in your head, you see it everywhere. As the scrub nurse is setting up the instruments on her “Mayo stand,” you see muscle memory and flow in action. In preparation for surgery, the scalpel is here, the suture there, the staplers over here. She will reach without looking for the right instrument before I even ask for it. Surgical flow with an experienced scrub nurse is a sensual delight. Hands fly with purpose, and few, if any, words are spoken.

Watch a major league baseball game. The first pitch is called a strike. The batter steps out of the batter’s box, tightens his batting gloves—always the left before the right—taps the plate twice, and makes the sign of the cross. The next pitch is also a strike, and the ritual is repeated. Meanwhile, on the hill, the pitcher is rolling through his own nervous flow sequences.

Line up and wait. Then, with clearance to takeoff, my eyes flicker back and forth from the centerline to the glass panel before me. Eighty knots, cross check. V₁ and, immediately thereafter, V_R. Before I can think about it, I’ve rotated, the FO has called “positive rate,” and I’ve said, “Gear up.” By the time those words are out of my mouth, I hear, “V₂ plus 10, 400 feet.” Then, “Flaps up, climb power, yaw damper on, set speed 210 knots.”

Flow.

In the morning, I put coffee beans in a grinder, put a kettle over the burner, get cream from the refrigerator, and pick up a spoon on my way back to the two coffee cups I’ve laid out on the kitchen counter. I spoon sugar into Cathy’s cup and pour the hot water into the French press that has been gifted with the freshly ground coffee. Twelve hours later, I will execute a similar movement—only this time martini glasses and gin are involved.

Flow.

The post In the Aircraft and in Life, Flow Is Essential appeared first on FLYING Magazine.