Flying is hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

When I first started flying, I presumed that the phrase was referring to the take-off and landing. I hadn’t even begun to conceive of things going wrong in the air; flying from A to B was the easy bit. Getting into the air and getting back down, well, that was where I found my heart beginning to race.

Now that I am only flying intermittently, I’m very aware that my skill-set is diminishing when I don’t get up into the air regularly. The first sign that I’m falling out of date is the quality of my landings. A simple flight after weeks of sitting on the ground is much more stressful than it should be. Instead of instinctively knowing what’s next, I have to think hard and I fall behind the plane, desperately trying to keep up with everything that needs doing.

A major change that has helped me in the Saratoga is shifting from the traditional approach. Like most PPLs, I was taught to use attitude to control airspeed and power to control height. However, the inertia of the Saratoga and its tendency to sink like a stone at low speed, combined with my inability to nudge the power gently enough to keep my pitch steady, can make this difficult. A bad approach can feel like a ship in heavy weather as I adjust the power back and forth to try to keep my perspective of the runway correct.

I flew with a commercial pilot last year and he mentioned that this was not the best system for fast planes. When flying a jet, he told me, pilots always used attitude for height and power to control airspeed.

This is referenced in one of my favourite books, Beyond the PPL

In days of yore, instructors always taught that on the approach you should control airspeed with pitch and maintain the correct glideslope with the throttle.

The technique taught was (and still is) a good device for getting students to co-ordinate properly their applications of pitch and throttle.

[...]

So the old-fashioned technique is not appropriate for a jet and its pilots are therefore taught to adjust speed with throttle and glideslope with pitch control. The need to co-ordinate pitch and throttle remains as before, but the cardinal requirement for the jet pilot is to monitor the speed on the approach to a degree which usually amazes piston pilots at first. You simply HAVE to nail that speed and catch any departure before it has a chance to develop into anything the least bit significant.

Once I started looking into methods for final approach, I found a lot of discussion about pitch and power. It seems clear that attitude for speed and power for height makes for one of the most practical demonstrations of secondary effects. It also works: I was very happy using pitch and power that way in the Cessna 172 that I trained in.

But the moment I shifted to using power for speed and pitch for height in the Saratoga, my landings improved. After two days of flying touch-and-go over various airfields, I felt confident in my ability to land this way: point the plane at the numbers and hold it there, use the throttle to adjust the speed. My adjustments remained minor and my approaches became smoother than they’d ever been before. My passengers were amazed at the difference.

However, I don’t think that it not simply a case of turning the controls around. The critical factor is that I began to control the plane using both systems. I finally grasped that it isn’t a question of using pitch or power but that they are completely interlinked. I’m sure this was stated a million times in the PPL but I only understood this as a theoretical concept. I didn’t really have an instinctive feel for the fact that you can’t change one without affecting the other.

I love long finals now simply because I can see how perfectly everything works together. I set up my approach and now I’m holding the pitch steady and watching my touchdown point and my airspeed. I can almost visualise a road leading down to the runway and just a tap on the controls to keep me travelling on it. I know the correct approach speed and holding to it has never felt so easy. My interaction with both the controls affecting both height and speed means that I avoid the abrupt power changes and my approaches no longer make people seasick.

When I completed my PPL, my instructor told me that my flying was perfectly competent but that I lacked finesse. It’s been a few years but I feel like I’m starting to understand what he meant and that just maybe I’m finally getting the hang of this flying thing. Now, if only I could learn to use a soft touch on the rudder and keep that damn ball in the centre, maybe he’d agree.

If you enjoyed this post, you would probably like my ebook: You Fly Like a Woman for under a dollar at Amazon.

We’re taking off for the wild blue yonder next week, using the Saratoga to transport family between North Weald and Strasbourg. Unfortunately, I’ve not kept up with my flying over the winter and so I’ve fallen out of date. To take passengers, I should have made three take-offs and landings in the past 90 days to ensure that I am current and not taking risks with innocent bystanders. After this trip, I’ll be heading to England to do some circuits and get back into practice but in the meantime, it will be Cliff in the left-hand seat.

We have a pretty clear division of duties. As Cliff is flying IFR, he’ll be sorting his own navigation which leaves me in charge of maps, pre-flight inspections and passengers. The fact that only one of us can fly in instrument conditions means that if the weather is bad, I am the one who crawls around the muddy grass to drain the sumps. Perhaps I should re-think this concept of being a fair-weather pilot after all.

Often passengers will come out to the plane with me as I do the walk-around inspection and, although I try to give a brief explanation of what I’m doing, I can tell the concept makes many of them somewhat uncomfortable.

“Are you checking to make sure the wings won’t fall off?”

Once, I was on the ground, checking out the undercarriage when I heard one passenger say to another, “I asked her about that, she said she was looking for bird’s nests. I thought she was joking but you know, a bird really could build a nest down there, couldn’t it!”

I’ve been in the process of creating backseat documentation for passengers and, as a part of that, I thought I might offer a companion piece to my standard checklist. This cannot be used to check the plane but it gives useful information if you are following someone who is doing a formal walk-around of the plane.

In addition, it strikes me as useful to have a photographic record of what the plane should look like in normal conditions and an extra set of eyes comparing those photographs to the actual condition of the plane.

This month, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in the U.S. announced their winners for the fifth annual Archie League Award.

Archie League Medal of Safety Awards

The ability to think quickly and remain calm under pressure while maintaining a situational awareness are all unique qualities that air traffic controllers possess. Without their willingness to jump right in to resolve complex situations, offer a reassuring voice to those on the frequency and coordinate their efforts with other controllers, this group of dedicated professionals wouldn’t be as successful as they are today at maintaining the safety of the National Airspace System.

The great thing is that NATCA put up details and audio recordings for the event which led to the regional winners. I’d recommend having a read through all of them but the write-up that particularly caught my eye told the story of the dual winners for the Western Pacific Region.

On Nov. 2, 2008, the pilot of N40NL found herself in such a situation as rime ice accumulated on the windshield of her aircraft. The pilot checked on to frequency reporting the weather problem, as well as a loss of airspeed indicator. It was up to NCT controllers Tom Gallagher and Neil Irvin to take over as the middle men between the pilot’s uncertainty and the danger unfolding.

If you listen to the audio, you can hear the stress in the pilot’s voice but then the conversation takes an unexpected turn: the pilot says she isn’t sure if the plane has pitot heat. Lucikly an air traffic controller familiar with the type was in the next room and was able to step her through finding the pitot and getting the plane safe.

IRVIN: Yeah, that metal Bonanza, you should have pitot heat and also … you might also want to make sure, I know it’s fuel injected, but you should be able to have some heat source to … in case your pitot heat’s iced over.
PILOT: Roger. I agree with you. I’m just not finding it.
IRVIN: OK. Do you have a flashlight?
PILOT: I think I just found it. I just turned it on

Maybe it’s because I was trained where the weather is variable – I can imagine California pilots get used to temperate weather – but I was surprised to hear that she hadn’t dealt with the pitot heat. I was taught to put on the heat as soon as I was in doubt. Got icing? Pitot heat on. Airspeed dropping? Pitot heat on. Low temperatures? Might want to put on that pitot heat. There is only one circumstance that I can think of where using pitot heat to solve a problem is absolutely the wrong thing to do:

AOPA Online: Driven to distraction

Leaving the pitot tube cover on is more subtle. The little flag just flaps quietly under the wing. A commercial pilot student rejected the takeoff in a Cessna 150 and went off the end of the runway into some bushes. There was no major damage and when asked what happened, the pilot claimed that he had no airspeed and was afraid the aircraft would stall on liftoff. His instructor had failed to demonstrate that the aircraft will fly just fine with no indicated airspeed — it’s the real thing you need to stay aloft. By the way, turning on the pitot heat to burn off the cover is not recommended as the residue usually works its way back into the tube and will require far more technical support upon landing. It also doesn’t resolve the initial problem.

Generally, however, pitot heat can do no harm – it’s amazing to me that a pilot in icing conditions hadn’t instinctively put the pitot heat on and in fact the Bonanza pilot was flying over mountains without being sure if she had pitot heat at all or where the switch might be. She stated that she couldn’t see through the window but didn’t think to put the heat on until advised by Irvin. On the other hand, when asked what type of ice she was experiencing, she responded with “rime” without hesitation, and she was right!

This makes me wonder if perhaps she was suffering from hypoxia, which would explain the confusion. There is no mention of whether the plane has oxygen but at the start she mentions coming down from 16,000 feet so presumably she must have had access to some form of oxygen. Still, I can’t quite imagine flying at those heights over mountains and not being hyper-aware of strategies for dealing with ice.

My favourite part of the transcript is once the pilot has the situation under control.

PILOT: Well, my wings have cleared off now and my, I’ve got my lights on inside the cabin and it’s warm and I can see. So I just assume continue on if it’s alright.

ATC would like her to land at Mather, 9 miles to her left, both to check out the plane and sit out the rest of the storm. The pilot, however, wants to continue to her destination as that’s where her car is. Irvin tells her that it is her choice but then takes advantage of a pause in the conversation to inform her of what she is going to do:

IRVIN: And November, Four-zero November Lima, [Mather] have the runway lights turned up quite a bit for you. The airport should be to your right front still about three to four miles. You’re showing 90 knots on the ground.
PILOT: Roger. I see the runway. They do have the lights on.
IRVIN: OK. Four-zero November Lima. You are cleared visual approach Runway 22 left, the left side. If you want the right side, we’ll get you over to tower here shortly and you can request that.

Note she had not at any point agreed that she should land at Mather! I think Irvin’s handling of this is absolutely brilliant.

It’s become almost traditional for pilots to complain about the controllers in the tower making life difficult. I didn’t know about the Archie League Medal of Safety Awards before this year but I’ll be looking out for them in the future!

Joe is a pilot, sailor, former Marine (sniper) and an excellent story teller. He is 83 now and still going strong. He has neuropathy in his hands which means he can no longer use a typewriter normally. He doesn’t let that stop him, slowly typing out emails with two pencils so that he can tell friends about his adventures. I asked for his permission to share one with you.

I knew we might have some trouble. There is no VFR night flying in Mexican airspace and we were running late. I was flying a single engine airplane and although the sky was still bright, the sun had officially set. I confirmed to the controller that I intended to continue inbound to Mazatlan.

Mazatlan: Zero 8 Quebec report downwind
Pilot: Zero 8 Quebec turning downwind.

The runway was clear in the dusk but as we turned downwind, every light in the airport – it seemed like every light for miles around – flashed on. My passengers recoiled from the window as I continued the circuit, confirming to the controller that I required fuel upon our arrival.

Mazatlan: Zero 8 Quebec you are cleared to land.

As we touched down, he gave me further instructions.

Mazatlan: Exit your passengers at the administration building, have them wait for the guards, then proceed to the gas pit and they will direct you to parking.
Pilot: Roger, will debark passengers at the administration building and proceed to the gas pit.

I stopped the plane in front of the building where we were surrounded by rifle-bearing troops. The two couples were escorted to a small, stuffy room and told that they must stay there. After fueling up and parking, I was marched into a dusty little office in the main building.

A severe-looking mustached administrator sitting at a dented metal desk asked me for every piece of paper that he could think of: passport, clearance into Mexico, proof of ownership of the plane. He stared at my license for a few moments and then cleared his throat.

He handed me my paperwork piece by piece as he spoke. “Señor, the lights, they is very expensive.”

I breathed a sigh of relief now that I knew what was going to happen. “The least I could do is to help to pay for them,” I told him with a smile.

The man nodded. “Señor, more or less 2,500 pesos for the lights,” about U.S. $10 at the time. He paused and then spoke again. “And the guards, Señor, they must be paid also.”

“How much for the guards,” I said, pulling out my wallet.

“2,500 pesos. But also, Señor, the man upstairs. He is tough guy.” He pointed straight up. Did I need to bribe God as well? Or perhaps he just meant the controller.

I tried to look stern. “OK, how much for the guy upstairs?”

“Señor, 2,500 pesos.”

I peeled off the required amount and handed to the man who nodded seriously as he counted it. I grinned at him and he smiled back; we were friends now. “And for you, Señor,” I asked him. “How much for all your help?”

He gave me a shocked look and threw out his chest. “For me is nothing, Señor! Is my job!”

He ordered us a taxi and led me to the tiny waiting room where my passengers waited nervously, surrounded by the guards still clutching their rifles. I leant in close and whispered to the two couples that we were in serious trouble. I told them that I had failed to contact the American embassy and that we were probably going to have to spend the night in jail.

“They’ve arranged for a taxi to take us to the hotel, to pick up our personal belongings in case that we don’t get out tomorrow.” We drove to the hotel in silence, where I asked them to pack their cases and meet me in the bar in 20 minutes to wait for the taxi driver to pick us up and take us to the jail.

Once at the bar, I ordered a variety of snacks and a pitcher of margaritas: a final fling. The passengers returned from the rooms one by one, pale-faced and unhappy, and bolted down their margaritas. One of the women had tears in her eyes.

The taxi driver walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Ready to go?”

The woman burst into sobs: “I don’t want to go to jail!”

The taxi driver looked stunned. “Jail? Oh no! Mr Joe fix everything good. You no going to jail, you going to dinner.”

That was the final straw: I started laughing and could not stop. No one else in my party seemed to think it was quite so funny.

• The Stories of an Adventurer
• The Last Flight
• Tipsy Nipper Crash Video
• How to Drown a Jet
• A Close Encounter with an Emu
• Unfit to Fly
• Cross Country Solo
• Drunk steals plane at airshow

Not long after the Paris Trip I decided to take the same girlfriend to Perranporth on the north coast of Cornwall.  I hired a Grumman Tiger from LSF at Elstree.  The flight down was unexciting and we had a good weekend.

It was on the return journey we had problems.  For some reason, Perranporth had no fuel available.  I calculated what we’d burnt on the way down and worked out that we had just enough fuel to get back to Elstree and thence, if necessary, to divert to Luton.  At that stage of my flying career, I’m not sure if I had never learnt or if I had forgotten about "reserves" but in any case, it didn’t occur to me.

We take off and I’m talking to Plymouth who asked me whether I was flying North or South of Dartmoor.  I said I couldn’t see Dartmoor on the map to which I got the reply, "That large danger area right in front of you.  I assume you’re not going to fly right through it!"

I’d managed to overlook it completely and yes, had planned straight through it.  "North," I said, picking one at random.  Now I had to turn left and work out where I was going next.

All the way back, I was keeping a very close eye on the fuel and was surprised to see both tanks showed a quarter as we approached the outskirts of the London control zone, I’d expected less.  I had noticed, however, that there was a definite tendency for the right wing to drop when the plane was in trim which was very frustrating as it meant paying constant attention,

Just as we approached Greenham Common and I was about to call for MATZ penetration, the engine spluttered and started to die.  I switched to the right tank and it picked up again.  Back to the left and it spluttered.  The left tank was clearly empty though still showing a quarter.   The right tank also showed a quarter but I had no idea how much was actually in it.

I had been talking to London Information so called them and calmly asked for urgent permission to land at Greenham Common.  The controller was more panicked than I was: Greenham Common had nuclear missiles at the time and was at the highest level of security.

Meanwhile the plane was flying fine on the right tank but I still wanted to get down as soon as I could.  I downgraded the emergency and was transferred to London Radar.  They pointed out that I was almost overhead Booker (now Wycombe Air Park) and suggested I land there.  They said they’d rung them and the airfield was closed but that it would be OK to land there and they’d give me vectors.  You could hear the relief in the controller’s voice that I would not be flying into Greenham Common.

As taught when landing at an unmanned airfield, I carefully overflew the runway and did one circuit.  "Would you mind just landing it this time," asked my passenger on the second final approach.

Of course, with the airfield being closed, there was no fuel available so our romantic weekend away ended with a friend having to drive out to pick us up.  He grumbled all the way back.

I felt somewhat vindicated though.  I recalculated the fuel burn and found exactly what I’d expected but all in the right tank.  When I complained to the CFI at LSF, he simply shrugged it off with, "Fuel gauges are never that accurate."

An old friend of mine, also a pilot, mailed me recently saying:

Hey, how about you tell me a tale of the day you really learnt to fly, you know – not when you got your licence, but an occasion, when you really learnt to fly, come on, I’ve got some, I’ll tell you if you tell me. :) And don’t tell me you don’t have one, cos every PPL does – promise not to tell!

I immediately remembered my screw-up the first time I flew in IMC. As I started to write it down, Sylvia said, “That’s a great story for Fear of Landing” and insisted I share my failures with the world.

Many years ago when VFR on top was legal and I had about 10 hours post qualification, I hired a C182 from Leicester to fly my new girlfriend to Paris for the weekend. In those days, you had to land at a customs airport on the way out, so I planned Southend.

Weather at Southend was clear, at Leicester was overcast at 1000′. We sat at Leicester for hours waiting for a break in the clouds; Brigitte was not known as the most patient of people. Finally a break appeared and I rushed off, without checking Southend again.

Arriving at Southend, it’s totally overcast between 700′ and 1200′, also for miles around. “What are your intentions?”

“Request half-mile radar to final,” I reply, fully confident after my four hours’ “Instrument Appreciation” that was part of my PPL. No autopilot so I’m about to hand-fly in IMC.

ATC are unfazed and give me headings and descent. I’m trying out that scan I was taught and all seems to be going well. “Fly 260 degrees and descend to 700′.”

A few moments later, I get a call, “Please confirm current heading.”

I look. It’s drifted to 250 degrees but I respond, “260 degrees” and adjust my heading.

ATC assume my DI is 10 degrees out and come back immediately with “Turn right, heading 270 degrees”. Now it’s too late to come clean and tell them that, actually, it was I who was 10 degrees off, not the instrument.

So I’m flying in IMC, trying to keep the scan up and having to add 10 degrees to all further headings. Or is it subtract? My work-load just doubled!

Breaking through at 700′ and seeing the runway ahead was an exhilaration I remember nearly 25 years later. If that didn’t teach me anything else, I learnt not to lie to ATC!

I’ve been travelling all over the past few weeks; the route was something like Málaga – London – Maldon (Essex) – Hadlow (Kent) – Antwerp – Brussels – Popperingen – North Weald – Málaga. It’s all a bit of a blur, to be honest but I’m safe home now and planning some fun updates.

Meanwhile, Plastic Pilot is celebrating his 500th blog post with a contest! He’s looking for aviation-related photographs which will be put up to a vote by his readers next month and some fun prizes (and fame and fortune of course!) to the winners. But today’s the LAST DAY so make sure to get your entries in quick:

Enter the Plastic Pilot photo contest right now!

As I play catch-up with the rest of my life, I leave you with this view of London from Wednesday’s flight to get you into the mood. Although considering how cold it was, I thought I’d be in for clear skies, I was very disappointed as we flew past London and I found it was covered in murk!

We arrived home yesterday after a lovely trip getting caught up with everyone. We went to England to drop Connor off at school (*sniffle*) and to see Cliff’s mum then on to Strasbourg to check out Tony’s new digs, from there a quick jaunt to Mannheim to visit with my grandmother and then last night we flew home again to Spain.

Here’s my quick-pick favourite photographs from the flying:

Taking off from Málaga airport. It’s rare that the sky is so crystal clear, usually everything is in a dull haze and you consider yourself lucky if you can see where the sea ends and the sky begins. I wish I could have taken more photographs while it was so clear.

The weather was variable – Cliff did all the flights IFR. The streaky clouds and hazy skies made for some interesting views.

Cliff’s perfect landing at Strasbourg. I held the camera up and snapped, hoping that I had the angle right. I was surprised to find out it worked!

The view flying over the Alps at 10,000 feet. We flew over Lake Geneva but it is always odd to me to be that high and still see mountains higher than us.

Angouleme Tower last night, while Cliff was radioing for clearance. The initial hour of the flight passed quickly as we watched the sun set into dark red clouds. Then we ran into 30 knot headwinds which lasted most of the way home. We finally arrived at Málaga at midnight.

Flying always feels different after sunset. Isolated, elsewhere, in orbit instead of just above. My world becomes the plane and the plane is the entire world. Cities and farmland and lakes and railway lines, they are real. But the twinkly lights below me, the reflection of a desert sky, I find it difficult to believe that there are people down there. The black land below me gains a sheen of unreality, a world between darkness and dreams.

When you are flying at night, darkness is the enemy. Darkness could be an isolated area but it might be cloud or worse, a mountain rising above your height, obscuring your view. However unreal it may feel, that darkness may be very solid and closer than you think.

At the age of forty, I finally have an excuse for being afraid of the dark.

I’ve come down with some sort of horrific flu and really not up to writing a word – but I wanted to start posting, especially as I know Plastic Pilot is waiting to see how Lausanne is faring without him. As you can see, it was a bit cloudy over the Swiss Alps on our day of departure, so Cliff (who is instrument rated) did the flight. That meant I was free to take photographs!