Page 34 - April 2017 Twin & Turbine

missed anything. Ironically, the busier you are the more important it is you make time for a printed checklist. When you’re busy you’ll be more likely to forget something, and at the same time more susceptible to confirmation bias.
Talk aloud. I talk to myself when I fly. Maybe it’s a byproduct of flight instructing for so long, but I am constantly voicing things like “one- thousand-seven-hundred for three- thousand, one-thousand-three-hundred to go;” “gear down, three green, no red
[in transit light];” I’ve found that by speaking aloud I increase my ability to “pilot monitor” my pilot-f lying actions.
Confirm navigation. I usually keep my GPS moving map display on either the 35 or 50 miles scale to have a level of detail for en route flying. I use closer scales (usually 20 miles) close to airports. But when I load my flight plan, I’ll zoom out to whatever it takes to see the entire programmed f light. Does it make sense? Is it taking me where Iplantogo?OrdidIprograminan
anomaly, either a typographical error on the GPS entry system or a planning error that made it into my filed route (that I’ll need to fix before takeoff)? Scaling out to check, and then zooming in to the departure or en route view, would have prevented the AirAsia 223 “landing on the wrong continent” event mentioned above.
Crosscheck altitudes. Look at the arrival airport information and state aloud your planned traffic pattern or approach intercept altitude. Make sure it makes sense and you’ve not fallen into a confirmation bias trap. For example, I instructed the low-time pilot of a Florida- based A36 Bonanza from my home field in Wichita recently. Air work complete, descending into KICT while coupled to the autopilot, the pilot spun 1,500 feet into the altitude preselect — the airplane would descend to that height and then level off without additional pilot input. As we continued descending through about 3,000 feet I pointed at the numbers on the preselect panel and asked, “What is the significance of 1,500 feet?” The pilot responded, “I always descend to 1,500 feet before final descent into the pattern,” I answered, “That might work in Florida, but the field elevation at Wichita is 1,320 feet.”
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The pilot was certain the altitude preselect was set correctly based on experience, but did not actively work to ensure that setting was appropriate to the current environment.
Monitor groundspeed and fuel burn. As we’ve discussed many times, fuel exhaustion and starvation events are way too common. Often a pilot plans enough fuel for the flight and thinks that it will be sufficient—but then doesn’t lean the mixture quite as expected, or flies at a different altitude
32 • TWIN & TURBINE
April 2017