Page 29 - Mar17ABS

the crash. The CJ4 captain passed a stringent type rating less than two weeks earlier — arguably making him more proficient than many at the time. The Bonanza pilot likely passed his instrument checkride within the last 200 hours, although there’s no telling how many years had elapsed.
Regardless of a pilot’s experience, here are some ways to maintain control during a low-visibility departure:
Checks and flows. Use checklists and cockpit flow checks like you were taking a type rating checkride, every time you fly. Don’t take shortcuts — printed checklists and confirming visual checks are designed specifically to protect you when you are a little off your game and more likely to miss something.
Organize before you fly. Get everything set before you take off. Don’t think “I’ll update the FMS or program the GPS once I’m in the air.” Don’t take the runway for departure until all the set-up work is done.
Along these same lines, resist the temptation to expedite your departure in marginal conditions, especially at night, if you’re not able to get your instrument clearance right away. Not only does this put you in the air in what is likely for you an unusual and therefore stressful situation, but it almost guarantees you’ll be up there for some distance and some time before you can pick up your clearance. The most common reason for a clearance delay is the presence of other IFR traffic in the area that may further delay controllers from clearing you.
Brief the departure. Review the departure procedure and clearance with the same scrutiny you apply to an IFR approach. Brief yourself on the altitude, heading and expected route. If you’re departing on vectors, know the approximate heading to your first expected fix at all times, so when you’re cleared “direct to” or “own navigation” the required turn is not a surprise. If you’re following a SID or an Obstacle Departure Procedure, have it loaded into your nav system and know it before you climb as well as you know an ILS before you’d descend.
Fly what you briefed. “Plan your flight and fly your plan” works. Sure, ATC may throw you a curve. But vectors or updated clearances should be the only changes you need to process mentally — be prepared for everything else.
Sterilize the cockpit. Focus solely on the immediate task at hand when making a low-visibility departure. Don’t worry about rental cars or passenger relations or fiddling with radar displays until you are settled into cruise climb and well away from the airport.
We focus a lot of attention on approach and landing for good reason. But taking off into dark or soupy skies, then having a distraction of some sort, shouldn’t result in a perfectly functioning aircraft impacting terrain. Plan and execute your low-visibility departures with the same care and briefing you apply to a low-minimums approach, with the added knowledge that you never know for certain how up-to-speed you are until you’re already committed to f light. T&T
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March 2017
TWIN & TURBINE • 27