Page 8 - 215236_Feb21T

Dangerous Rudder
by Stan Dunn
Traditional oral exams begin with a cavalcade of numbers. The multitude of airspeeds, weights and operating restric- tions that are regurgitated inevitably succumb to mist within a week (hu- mans are horrible at remembering arbitrary numbers). Fortunately, most of the important stuff is depicted by color-coding on gauges. Everyone knows that red represents a restric- tion, yellow indicates caution, and green means go. Glass cockpits with integrated electronics have further reduced the burden of memorization – computers can deal with the details while humans manage the big picture.
The first airline that I worked for (now defunct) demanded an unholy amount of memorization. We had to re- count every limitation on the aircraft,
6 • TWIN & TURBINE / February 2021
as well as 80 steps split between two dozen different procedures (we had five different go-around profiles and befuddlingly had to memorize how to enter a stall). Faithfully recalling two pages worth of memory items was improbable during live-fire train- ing and impossible during an actual emergency. We were at the tail-end of the industry transition away from memorization. Quick reference check- lists are much more reliable.
An engine fire (as an extreme ex- ample) does not require an immediate response. Flames in flight are scary, but firewalls protect the occupants for a period of time – at least long enough to ensure aircraft control prior to run- ning the appropriate procedure. Obvi- ously, a fire is a condition that must be addressed, but it is all too easy to “do
the wrong thing rapidly” in a rushed response to a high priority item. More than a few crashes have resulted from scurrying pilots shutting down the good engine.
Pilots should restrict memory items to issues that immediately affect the stability of flight. This does not mean that a pilot should not “fix the obvious” (if you switch fuel tanks and the en- gine begins to run rough, for example), but that deliberation is often the better solution to in-flight disturbances.
Flight Controls
Numerous studies indicate that stick-and-rudder skills are also en- hanced when they are a part of a de- liberative process. All too often pi- lots react impulsively in response to relatively benign disturbances. There are many accidents resulting from