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Aviation Gotchas
by Stan Dunn
We tend to think of a “gotcha” as a sneaky way of being tripped up. Something that a disgruntled ex- aminer does to make life hard. This may occasionally be true, but most of the serious errors in aviation result from situations that fool us into poor responses. Nobody wants to crash. When it happens, it is almost always the result of a circumstance that has caught a pilot unaware. It could be weather or a mechanical issue. It could be due to a lack of proficiency on a particular ap- proach or a misunderstanding in communication. Sometimes we simply get distracted and make a mistake. The truth is we already know most of the things that can get us into trouble. As it relates to pilot error, a century’s worth of human flight has already revealed pretty much every way that we can get it wrong.
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Pay Attention to Your Velocity
Airspeed. There are a dozen different limitations associ- ated with it: Vno, Vne, Va, Vs, f lap speed, gear speed, approach speed, Vref. There is a reason for this alphabet soup of speed limits. It is the lifeblood of a fixed-wing aircraft. Nothing works without airspeed. Too much of it is better than too little, but not by much. Too slow and you lose control. Too fast and important components depart the airframe. Avia- tion begins and ends with speed. Not only do you need it to be safe, but it is also the primary reason why we fly (it is hard to justify the cost if you are not saving time).
Your airspeed should always be central to your instru- ment scan. During climb and approach, you should look at your airspeed indicator frequently (when changing power or configuration, you should scan it at least once every five seconds). Airspeed awareness is most important when com- munication requirements are at their highest. In the middle of this high workload environment, the margin for error is low (climb and approaches represent the lowest speeds we operate while aloft). There are a dozen different ways to get distracted while low and slow. Flub an ATC call, turn to a wrong heading or overshoot an altitude, and you will