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against complacency as well as simple forgetfulness.
Skill-building: As you begin f ly- ing, practice some specific tasks to regain and add to your skills. Use the flight director for an initial pitch refer- ence on takeoff. Make a short- or soft- field takeoff. Done right, this won’t overly unnerve most passengers, and it sharpens your skills without any ad- ditional flight time or cost. Use your navigator’s VNAV function. Consistent with actual ATC requirements, give yourself a crossing restriction and f ly to achieve it. Aim for a specific touch- down spot on landing (you should do this all the time anyway). If you’re f lying a leg without passengers, throw in a steep turn and a go-around. When you’re done, grade yourself on your performance – what you did right, what you need to work on, and what you’d do differently next time. Just as with checklist use, use your return to the cockpit to spur making this kind of practice and self-evaluation a normal routine no matter how often you fly.
Emergency procedures: Find that stack of old 5x7 index cards you have in the back of your desk that you’ve not used since the introduction of the Palm Pilot. On one side of each card write an emergency condition: en- gine failure, engine fire, emergency descent, electrical fire, pressurization loss, whatever applies to the airplane you fly. On the back of each card list the memory steps of the appropriate checklist. If your handbook does not specifically identify them in bold or red print, use your judgment to select those things you think must be done from memory because there isn’t time to pull out the checklist at the onset of each emergency.
Keep this stack of cards in your airplane where you can reach them while strapped in. During your cockpit procedures, practice on the ground, pull a card at random and perform the memory steps. Do the same in cruise flight. Don’t actually move switches and controls in flight, of course, but move your hands (and head) through the motions of each emergency. Do this once or twice dur- ing the low-workload en route phase of normal trips to turn some of the in-air
downtime into productive emergency skills enhancement.
For most experienced pilot’s it’s not difficult to get back up to speed quickly after a period of flying inac- tivity if you’ve been well trained and have good personal operating pro- cedures. The re-immersion process will go much more quickly if you use deliberate practice techniques to over- come the effects of being out of the left seat. And a period of downtime might be just the push you need to sharpen your skills even more, not only for your immediate return to the cockpit but to become an even more professional pilot for as long as youfly.
Thomas P. Turner is an ATP CFII/MEI, holds a master's Degree in Aviation Safety, and was the 2010 National FAA Safety Team Rep- resentative of the Year.Subscribe to Tom’s free FLYING LESSONS Weekly e-newsletter at www.mastery- flight-training.com.
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September 2021 / TWIN & TURBINE • 15