Anyhow, today was probably the best weekend day for flying we’ve had around here in two months. Now, being a responsible type pilot, and especially since I did that Jon-Jon thing awhile back, I periodically hire an instructor and practice all those hard-to-do-by-yourself emergency things like engine-failure drills and emergency IFR for a VFR pilot (that’s how to get your butt out of the clouds after blundering into them without killing yourself for you non-pilots out there)
Well, the drill is like this - you’re put-putting along in sky when the instructor pulls out this large piece of plastic shaped like an oversized cap bill (called a “hood”) and tells you to put it on. This device blocks your vision of everything but the instrument panel in front of you, thereby simulating conditions where outside visibility is nil. You are then told to find an airport and land safely. By the way - you have to have someone sitting next to you to practice this. The co-pilot is to there to make sure you don’t fly into planes, radio towers, trees, or other hard objects and to take over if you are so inept as to threaten to overturn the airplane and such like, which can happen with folks new to this. This technique is to be used in earnest only if there are no alternatives and, indeed, if a non-instrument trained pilot can make a safe landing into, say, a farm field this is a strongly encouraged alternative.
Anyhow, practicing it not only improves your chances of survival in a rare but dire situation, it also improves your precision in flying in general, which is a good thing, and mastering the challenge can be fun. There were a few bumps upstairs today, which added some extra effort. So there I was, trying to get back into the hang of flying on instruments to the pitiful level of which I am capable, with co-pilot/instructor comments like “Um… this is not aerobatics, please reduce your bank.” (If you like roller coaster rides riding as a passenger while someone is struggling with this might be amusing) Flying in and of itself is an unnatural act for a human being, flying on instruments even more so.
So, I’m flying the airplane, and the instructor is simulating the sort of help I’d get over the radio if this situation occured and I asked for help. We’re headed for an airport with a tower so as we approach I get to not only fly the airplane but also make real radio calls so the nice gentleman in the tall building knows our intentions and we stay within the rules. I’m nudging us over to the ILS (that’s an Instrument Landing System) which are cool because, if you do them right, you wind up spang on center for the runway. The instructor announces that I will be keeping these beastly hood thing on until we are a mere 500 feet above the ground.
This part isn’t so fun. It’s one of those things that are not so fun to do, but reward you with great satisfaction if done well. I am descending closer to a Very Solid Object (called “the Earth”) in a tin can charging along at 110 mph. I can’t see where I’m going, but I know there are things like trees and powerlines underneath us and getting closer. I have to slow down and descend in a precise manner to stay above obstacles yet eventually contact cement in a gentle manner. Closer to the ground there’s more turbulence (this is not rattle-your-teeth-bite-your-tongue-scare-the-passengers stuff, more like bumpy-gravel-road intensity) This makes control just a tad more challenging. But, we get down to the magic altitude and I can take the hood off.
Yea! Right on the centerline, only about 25 higher than perfect. Woo-hoo! This should be a piece of cake.
Of course, it’s not. If it was, what would be the point of sharing, right?
As we are sliding down the last 500 feet I can feel this hood-thing sliding off the top of my head, backward into the rear seat. This is distracting. Distracting is not good during a landing, but I can ignore it. I’ve had worse distractions. The hood thumps into the rear seat of the airplane, end of distraction.
Now, you know those honkin’ big headsets you see pilots wear in the movies? The ones worn by those TV traffic chopper guys? Yeah, those. I wear one, too. Well, this headset of mine now starts following the hood. THAT is very distracting. Aside from the way it feels like it’s pulling my hair out, as the earpieces migrate I get more engine noise and less radio.
About now the passenger in the back seat (did I mention I had a passenger? His plane is being re-painted and he needed an altitude fix) helpfully leans forward and tries to sort this out for me, which is very kind of him. Unfortunately, it’s too little too late. The headset falls off my head and hangs by the mike from my neck. Gack.
So, there I am, 50 feet off the ground and suddenly extremely distracted. Not the worst landing situation by a long shot, but this was supposed to be the easy part. Backseat passenger removes the offending headset from my throat and I shout to the guy next to me “Dave, you have the radios now”.
Dave goes “Huh?”, turns to look at me, because this is a sort of odd time to turn communications over to him, then “Oh, OK.” Because we are not cleared for a full stop and this is not really dire enough to upset everyone by doing something unexpected. (If I had been solo that might be a different matter)
I touch down, pull up the flaps, take off the carb heat, and go to full throttle. We trundle along and lift off again. Sure enough, the tower was calling - I can hear Dave talking. Can’t make out what he’s saying, just hear a mumuring next to me. As I’m trimming for best climb he shouts “We’re cleared for another landing. Want to?”
“Yeah. Here, you fly for a minute.”
“OK.”
So, the instructor takes over while the passenger and I sort through hood, headset, and my flight bag until I get the audio equipment extracted from the mess and back on my head. (Guess all those difficult bits under the hood shrank my ego enough to reduce my head size).
I take over again just about to reduce power and descent again when Dave reaches over, pulls the throttle all the way back, and says “Uh-oh! Your engine quit!”
(This is how you practice engine failures - pull the power back to minimum. You don’t actually shut it down)
“You set that up with the tower when I couldn’t hear!”
“Yes.” very smug voice “I did.”
Well, made another landing. Took off again.
That son of unmarried parents did that twice more on the way to the home field. I told him that any airplane with an engine that unreliable I would not be flying it.
All in all, a pretty good work out.
Anyhow, if you’ve ever wondered what those little airplanes are doing up there, especially when not traveling in a straight line from point A to point B, that’s some of the stuff we do.
