Page 47 - March 2015 Volume 19 Number 3

much as anyone. The data available in the cockpit is more and more often coming from other than ground-based VHF, UHF and navigational signals – and the majority of it is not aviation related. Today’s electronic content comes from geosynchronous and orbiting satellites for weather and GPS, and the internet, radio and cell/Sat phones for everything else. While these new sources of information and entertainment are transformational in their usefulness, they can be habit-forming and an insidious and overwhelming distraction.
Have you been running a flight plan and been interrupted by a phone call, e-mail or text and had to start over? How about when you were driving to the airport, while pre-flighting the plane, or boarding your pax? Did you forget to duck while texting and hit your head on the tail? Did you forget to remove a protective cover or the chocks because you were distracted? Forget to close or lock the hangar door? Maybe one of your pax took a call, answered an e-mail or text while you were giving them a briefing on the doors, environmental system or how to communicate in flight. Our new information sources can be real attention grabbers – we must learn how, and when, it’s appropriate to ignore them.
Sterile Period
At the airlines it’s a well-defined point: when we
begin required duties or run the first checklist. And if that fails, the sterile period is a line in the sand (the time at which all communication is strictly related to the operation of the jet – engine start to 10k). In GA, the beginning of the before-starting-engines checklist is a good point to turn off the phone, reader and tablets; you may even add “non-essential electronics off” to your on-screen checklist or write it on your old-fashioned paper version. At my carrier, it’s on the before-starting-engines checklist and is listed as PED’s...Set and Off – personal electronic devices set in airplane mode, or off.
Before flight isn’t the only time that our electronics may beckon to us. In the middle of the cruise segment, particularly if the flight is longer than a couple of hours, our minds will drift or we may indulge in non-flying activities. Call it boredom, day-dreaming or complacency. But, whatever it is, your head is in the clouds and you’re not paying attention. You may catch yourself, ATC may ask you if you copy center, or they might call you on guard. This is your heads-up, your black screen with white letters telling you that you’ve been placed in safe m m o o d d e e . . R R e e m m e e m m b b e e r r, , s s a a f f e e m m o o d d e e i i s s n n ’ ’ t t s s o o s s a a f f e e a a f f t t e e r r a a l l l l . .
Do you have a plan if your GPS, GFMS or electronic kitbag becomes corrupted? They are not as sensitive as a hard working hard drive but they are electronic machines after all, and machines malfunction. The method in which we typically bring ourselves back to reality is to simulate the failure of a system, in this case,
MARCH 2015
the loss of our virtual world of electronic data. The less often we perform this exercise, the more uncomfortable it becomes to lose the virtual world. Perhaps at some point during every flight we should tune out some, or all, of the virtual world, and tune in more of the real world – excepting required use of the autopilot during certain single-pilot operations. Plus, loss of some of this electronic magic may remind you of why you got into airplanes in the first place: it’s fun to be fully engaged a a n nd d f f l ly y t t h he e t t h h i i n n g g s s . .
Angry Birds
The information available and presented to us through
cockpit-installed hardware, our tablets, readers and cell/ Sat phones, is very useful, but it’s creating an unforeseen level of distraction, and, sometimes, dependence. We deal with real things while at the controls of our vehicles, particularly our aerospace vehicles, real things that remain the most important. From your airplane’s perspective, it’s still a matter of up-down-left-right, and faster-and-slower; gravity is still there – and the ground is still there. Our electronics will supply data or entertainment to a final point when the first brings us into contact with the second. If your head is in the “Cloud”, this contact may occur at a time and manner other than your choosing. Don’t blow a slide, hit your head or let a house fall on you while reading an e-mail, t t e e x x t t i i n n g g o o r r a a t t t t e e m m p p t t i i n n g g t t h h e e n n e e x x t t l l e e v ve e l l o o f f A A n n g g r r y y B B i i r r d d s s . . I I
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