Sunday, March 26, 2017

Pet Peeves

I did a flight review for a friend of my husband, Jeff, yesterday and Jeff said the friend asked if I have any pet peeves. When I first thought about it I didn't think I have any... but then, when I thought more, I realized I do.

  1. Centerline, centerline, centerline. Taxi, take off and land on the centerline!! Why? because if you can't stay on the centerline how will you stay in the middle of a narrow runway when there's a strong crosswind. Not to mention you just look much more professional. Our airport had a plane crash at night one night, he landed ok but, as far as I can tell, he failed to maintain directional control, let one wheel drop off the runway and ended up cartwheeling down the runway. Fortunately the pilot and passengers survived. But if he had landed on the centerline, there's a much lower chance of that happening.
  2. Taxi speed. Taxiing is not a race. There's no reason to taxi at 20 knots or with full power while dragging the breaks. Seriously people. Take it easy, these planes aren't designed to handle well on the ground.
  3. Coordinated flight. I'm sorry, I don't care how much right rudder it takes that you aren't used to using. Fly coordinated. For one thing it feels almost sickening when you fly uncoordinated. Who wants to feel like they're slipping or skidding sideways all the time? More import if you want to kill yourself, fly uncoordinated and stall a plane. Instant spin. And I'll bet money if you're a pilot who routinely flies uncoordinated you will not be able to recover from a spin quickly. 
  4. "Pinching the runway" a very common issue, the pilot is flying a distance from the runway and reduces power to start the landing process. Immediately the plane starts veering towards the runway... after which the pilot turns base and overshoots final. 
  5. Don't call in over a waypoint when you are nowhere near it. This happened to me today. My student and I were directly over a waypoint at an altitude. Another plane called in over the same waypoint and at the same altitude. In this case I knew that plane was well behind us because I knew where it took off from, when, and we were flying a much faster plane. Fortunately the tower realized there was a faster and slower plane and which was which. 
  6. Probably my biggest pet peeve. For Christ's sake, fly a heading! Pick one. I don't care what it is... just pick a heading and fly that way. It drives me nuts when private pilots just cannot maintain a heading. They flop all over the sky!

Yeah, I have my pet peeves. I'm sure every pilot and CFI does. What are yours?

1 comment:

  1. Great blog! Adding to my favorites on my Flight Journal Blog

    Pet peeves....
    pilots who try and get wx info when checking in. I roll my eyes and say out loud, to myself, check the darn AWOS, ASOS or ATIS!
    pilots who don't check NOTAMS
    idiots that yap on guard
    ....and the list can go on.

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