Flight Safety = Fuel Safety

Flight Safety (or Flying Safely) is something we read about continually, talk about often and spend a lot of print space discussing. Why? It IS the essence of flying.  Since pilots continue still make (often stupid) safety mistakes, there’s obviously a good reason to keep it talking about it. With almost 23,000 hours, I still have to remind myself that taking the time now to do it right, always results in saving time (and gray hairs) later.

During one of my flights from KSBA to KJAQ for some avionics tweaking, I got to thinking about the benefits of starting any flight with full tanks.  It’s like my friend and CFII Lee Hughes says: “Why not file IFR on every flight?  Using Foreflight (or another flight planning system) it’s simple, quick and if you need it for weather, you’re ready to go. If you don’t need the IFR flight plan, you can cancel or change it to VFR and there’s no need to give ATC all that info about type, color, equipment as they already have it. It’s kind of like money in the bank.

So I got to thinking, having full fuel tanks is kind of like following Lee’s Golden Rule (always file, regardless of weather) and it’s akin to starting the flight with one of the basic flight safety components completed, removing the need to wonder if I have enough fuel to get to my destination?  Fuel in your tanks means having options. Having options means you’ve thought about various factors that may affect your flight (fuel, weather, aircraft performance and pilot readiness) so you’re able to call the shots and be a proactive rather than a reactive pilot.  

We’ve all done it…not filling up when we had the chance, figuring we can “make it” and nothing’s going to come between me and my destination.  But what if it does?  And how will it sound at the NTSB Hearing?  Probably not very good, if you live to talk about it.  So I got to thinking about the things that I consider when I mull over the “to fuel, or not to fuel” question.  (Now that I write about them, some seem pretty darn trivial when it comes to what’s important in the big picture.)

The trip to KJAQ from KSBA takes me about 1:40 in my Baron, so the round trip should be about 3:20. My fuel range, if I started with full tanks and headed into the wild blue would be dry (by book calculations) at about 4:30. But flying for a straight 4+30 (and who’s got that kind of a bladder anyway?) isn’t what we tend to do. We figure 1 leg is about 1 hour, another :45 and then keep totaling them up, forgetting that an endurance table plans for only 1 takeoff and climb, not the several figured here in my hypothetical scenario.

So with those numbers in mind, I might think it was OK not to fuel up for my return trip from KJAQ and just head home when the maintenance mission is completed.  Or, I might plan to fuel up AFTER the maintenance work is completed, since that means 1 less hot start.  Or does it?  If I fuel at the end of the day I’ve got 2 starts and with dusk coming on, it’s likely I’ll be somewhat pushed to get moving.  All of these factors can lead me into the trap of cutting corners also known as Get-Home-It is.

So why was I spending so much time reviewing the pros and cons of fueling or not fueling?  KJAQ has a good self-fueling facility…why not use it when I first get there and avoid all the “late in the day” pressures and be ready to leave when the radio work is done?  For me, the hassle of self-fueling is mostly one of dragging heavy hoses, keeping hose rash off the leading edge and trying not to splash the fuel from the high pressure hose while holding tightly onto the fuel trigger lever, allowing flow fuel but not to splash out of the filler port. But all these issues will exist whether I fuel now or later.  

Hassle or not, I balance them with the “do I have enough fuel to get home” argument and the pressure to push on vs. the serenity and peace of mind that come with beginning every flight with full tanks.  So after another 20 minutes of talking to myself about the pros and cons of fueling or not fueling, I realize there’s no contest…get out your garden gloves to help you grasp the fuel hose firmly and avoid the smell of 100LL on your hands; pull up the ladder to give you a better angle as you grip on the heavy nozzle, and purchase that peace of mind that comes with having full fuel tanks.

Why do pilots stretch fuel?  Laziness, too cheap to buy it at places that cost more than home, or why bother, I’ve got plenty for my planned (key word: planned) flight?  Does it take too much time, too much hassle?  Obviously none of these reasons have any basis when you realize YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT…why would you do anything but play it safe and FILL UP?  

Unless you have a good reason (like weight and balance) to NOT fill your tank and have carefully planned your fuel stops to allow for the unforeseen, it pays to always have that ace in the hole (lots of fuel), ready just in case you encounter the unexpected.  Then you’ve bought yourself that most precious of all commodities…TIME.  Remember that’s all fuel really is…time.  The more, the better…unless, of course, you’re on fire…and how often is that really a concern? 

Most decisions that are made in haste are bad ones.  Having the luxury of time is the wise pilot’s friend.  Time to go around, time to find another airport when your destination has a broken airplane blocking the only runway, or the fog has moved in to cover the field.  Buy yourself some time and figure you’ve just added more frequent flyer miles for that trip to Hawaii.  You can then smile when you find don’t need it, but have acquired 1 less gray hair by not needing to sweat over it.  And the good news…that fuel will be there for the next flight, so nothing’s been wasted.

So after I’ve considered all these various scenarios, I come to the realization that having full tanks for every takeoff is the best of all worlds. Fuel in the tanks relieves a lot of anxiety and IS a major component of flight safety.

Automation: Great for Finding the Right Airport

 Years ago, as a low-time pilot approaching San Diego’s Lindbergh Field at night in IFR weather, I managed to get lost by failing to follow the automation telling me where the runway was located and relied, instead, on my eyes…to lead me astray.  I made the common  mistake of breaking out of the clouds, seeing the city lights below me, and then, distracted from focusing on the instruments,  let my course wander and decided that the first airport I could see MUST be the right one.  Thank you, ATC, for preventing me from landing at Miramar Naval Air Station!

Finding the correct airport, particularly at night is tough to do visually…you need to rely on the instruments and then keep the automation in the forefront of your consciousness and NOT rely on the visual.  Here’s an example of when automation definitely wins over the manual mode.

Don’t relinquish the help that automation can provide you…until you KNOW you’ve found the airport…and the right one at that.  In good VFR weather,  ATC will push pilots to accept a visual approach to an airport to facilitate a higher acceptance/landing rate.  If you accept a visual approach too early, you assume the responsibility for your own separation and finding the airport. Don’t let your ego push you to tell the controller “airport in sight”unless you really DO have the airport in sight.  Their traffic services are good ones that can keep you headed in the right direction and safely separated from other traffic.

My recent airline landing in OGG (Maui) was full of queries from ATC asking, “don’t you see the airport?” I told them “No” and that we wanted vectors…just to make sure we had enough time to lose the necessary altitude and position the airplane on a stabilized approach.  Maui’s got a very short runway (for airliners with high approach speeds) which requires good concentration and no last minute scrambling…which can easily happen when you allow ATC to cut you loose (read: accept a visual approach) before you’re really ready, willing and able.

It’s easy to ID the wrong airport, particularly at night, when you’re tired or clouds obscure some or all of the surrounding terrain features.  Lots of lights can also confuse your brain and make what was easy to identify in the day, very tricky at night.…play it safe and use the automation…this is one time when it can be a life saver.

Automation: No substitute for Experience

The Asiana crash demonstrates that the easiest approach (usually visual approaches are considered to be less complicated than instrument approaches) isn't quite what it appears to be and is more complex than first meets the eye.

I was a manual pilot turned auto by moving to an automated airplane 10 years ago.  I spent time trying to figure out how to fly that manual approach into SFO using all that automation I’d learned to use, but I couldn't do it…it still required a lot of manual input and forethought.

In the case of the Asiana crash, we have a pilot trained mostly on automation now needing to switch to his manual skills, and probably recognizing this fact at the last moment.  This approach appears easy, but in reality it’s quite demanding and requires careful attention to many details, particularly the relationship between power and pitch in large swept wing jet aircraft. That is, when you decrease the power to idle, the airplane descends very rapidly and you need to increase the power BEFORE you think you need it in order to level off or decrease your descent rate.

Having flown this approach many times, I spent many hours trying to figure out how to fly it using the automation, since I was supposed to be using those modes as much as possible. It took me several visits to SFO, flying this same approach over and over, each time a little differently, to determine that I’d need to pay extra careful attention while descending on the final approach segment.  It took a good deal of experience to realize that the approach couldn't be flown in the auto mode…the airplane just wouldn't do it smoothly and quickly enough to be viable. 

One of the greatest traps is thinking that since the approach is a “visual” one, it’s going to be relatively simple.  When you’re tired and hoping for a simple ending to the hours of endurance aloft, it’s easy to overlook or ignore the fine details of this approach that happen very quickly as you near the runway. Namely, finding yourself quite high when you’re quite close to the runway and needing to do something about it promptly, not wait for the airplane’s automation to fix the problem.

Changing from steady state flight to descent takes time and that means miles. If you don’t start descent at the very precise moment it’s allowed, you end up being higher and higher than you should be, requiring more and more skill to get the airplane down to the proper approach slope.  Not only do you have to know when to start down (and how steep to  make the descent) but you need to know when to arrest that descent so you can regain that desired 3 degree path to the runway.  All this data needs to be considered long before you begin the approach so that you’ll be ready and have the airplane properly slowed and configured for that last minute rapid descent rate to the runway.

I've found it’s important to be skeptical of any seemingly easy maneuver.  At SFO, I would continually ask myself WHY there was no automated visual approach to Runway 28L, while Runway 28R has a very precise automated approach path that utilized a curving flight path and a normal descent rate.  But 28L is another story; the only automation I found useful was the basic wing-leveler and heading select mode of the autopilot and then it was iffy at best.  Mostly I’d disconnect the autopilot and use the visual slope indicator (VASI) next to the runway threshold to judge my descent for the last portion of the approach.

As they've said for so many years:  Aviation, like the sea, is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.  This appears to have been a case of several of these factors joining forces at just the wrong time.

Automation: Use it appropriately

The buzz this week is a report stating that the FAA finds pilot’s manual flying skills may be rusty due to excessive reliance on automation.  Although I can agree with some of their findings, I’m more concerned about the issue of when to use which mode?  I think the bigger problem with automation is when to turn it off and fly manually?  Or, just as important, when should you turn on the automation and let it do the work the system was designed to do? 

So how detrimental is our generation of automated airplanes (or better said, the automated pilots) to themselves and the traveling public?  When should we, as pilots, switch from automatic to manual flight…or vice versa?  That’s the real question.  The appropriate use of the technology and deciding when it’s best to use one mode or the other can be tricky, especially when you've been trained to use all of the newest automated features. 

I consider myself an inter-generational or semi-automatic pilot.  I was raised on manual flying, but taught to use the autopilot to help me do my job.  About 10 years ago I transitioned to the Boeing 757/767 which has the advanced automation features (lateral and vertical navigation integrated with the autopilot) which now concerns the FAA. It’s easy to flip switches, but the real concern is knowing when to take over and use our manual piloting skills, honed through years of experience, to do what the automation seems reluctant to do, won’t do, or can’t do quickly enough.

Automation works extremely well to relieve heavy and ongoing workload situations which require constant monitoring of multiple inputs.  Automation is designed to fly the airplane smoothly and change modes with the least amount of fright-inducing pitch/power changes.  I recall doing my simulator training on go-arounds/missed approaches one afternoon, then riding on the real airplane later that evening which had to do a go-around for real. As a passenger, I was impressed with how smoothly the plane transitioned from descending flight on the approach to adding power smoothly, transitioning to a climb on the pull-up to complete the go-around or escape-the-ground maneuver.  The automation did a great job which ensured safety and passenger comfort.

 

The issues of when to implement, and how to best utilize automation has always been a concern.  I recall flying the mostly manual MD80 from 1988 to 2003 and hearing lots of stories about the problems with “automation obsession” which could easily distract a pilot from that most important of all jobs, flying the airplane.  “Click it all off” they told the pilots flying automated airplanes. If it’s not doing what it needs to do below 10,000 feet, you need to have your head up and looking around, not buried in the button-pushing process of trying to make the Flight Management Computer (FMC) do its thing.

Several other questions come to my mind as a transitional pilot, given my inbred suspicion of too much automation:

Do younger pilots, trained with more video games and simulators have a tendency to use it more or perhaps too much?  Do they use it when it's not appropriate based on growing up in a highly automated world?

Are they concerned about someone thinking they can’t hack the automated flight regime, can’t push all the buttons correctly? Or maybe they really don’t know how to make the automation do that complex departure?

Are they appropriately suspicious of what the automation is telling them? Do they back up the use of the autopilot with their own on-going assessment?  That’s where experience comes in.  We have a saying when the automation is doing something weird which can be a real trap:  “Why did it do that?  What’s it going to do next?”  I like to have a good plan in mind for what I’m going to do next if the automation doesn't do what I think it should.  Does everyone think this way? If not, why not?

Why do they turn it off early on an approach, when they perhaps should leave it ON?  Most landings I see performed by younger co-pilots are manual from 1000' down to touchdown.  I, on the other hand, mostly let the autopilot fly the airplane down to 200’, THEN I turn it off and replicate how the autopilot was flying, which I watch very carefully, just waiting for it to do something I don’t like so I can take over manually.

We DO have a choice of when to use automation and the key is to use that choice wisely.

NBC Nightly News: On Autopilot