Aero-Tips!

A good pilot is always learning -- how many times have you heard this old standard throughout your flying career? There is no truer statement in all of flying (well, with the possible exception of "there are no old, bold pilots.")

Aero-News has called upon the expertise of Thomas P. Turner, master CFI and all-around-good-guy, to bring our readers -- and us -- daily tips to improve our skills as aviators. Some of them, you may have heard before... but for each of us, there will also be something we might never have considered before, or something that didn't "stick" the way it should have the first time we memorized it for the practical test.

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Aero-Tips 09.15.06

I overheard a Mooney on frequency one cloudy, rainy afternoon. Its pilot was near Butler, in western Missouri, headed eastbound toward St. Louis. Ahead, the Truman MOA (Military Operations Area) was "hot", probably a quartet of Air Force Reserve A-10s from Richards-Gebaur AFB (readers familiar with the area now know this happened a long time ago) practicing bomb runs, or maybe some St. Louis-based Air Guard F-4s (okay, now everybody knows) jinking around in air combat maneuvering.

Kansas City Center alerted the Mooney pilot to the hot MOA and asked if he wanted clearance around the north or the south to avoid the airspace. Either re-route would add maybe 30 miles to the Mooney's flight if began right away; the closer the Mooney got to Truman MOA, the bigger angle needed to deviate... and the longer it would take to get around.

The pilot responded, rather tersely, that he wanted to go straight along the airway to St. Louis, and he would not accept a turn to avoid the Air Force jets. Center replied that the airway he was on does not exist through the MOA when it was hot, and that he had to have a new clearance because the route he was cleared temporarily did not exist. I could hear the frustration in both voices as the exchange continued, until the Mooney pilot, intent on flying in poor visibility through a hot airspace, between fast and wildly maneuvering airplanes painted specifically to be difficult to see, exercised his option to cancel IFR and fly VFR through the hot MOA.

The pilot of this Mooney showed contempt for the authority of the air traffic controller, the airspace designers, and the Air Force. To his credit he did exercise his right to fly VFR and assume responsibility for seeing and avoiding the Air Force jets (who may or may not be able to see and avoid him while pursuing their mission). But this example -- "I'll do what I want regardless of what you or the rules say" -- illustrates what the FAA calls the "anti-authority" pilot.

Don't tell me what to do

The FAA says this attitude is found in people who do not like being told what to do. They may be resentful of having someone limit their freedoms, and may disregard rules, regulations and procedures because they "don't apply to them". Taken to extremes, the anti-authority attitude can lead a pilot to make unsafe choices, forgetting that rules, regulations and procedures are often made as a result of accidents.

A good thing?

But the anti-authority attitude can sometimes be a good thing, too. Who among us would fly at all unless we bucked the "authority" of public opinion, which by and large insists flying is extraordinary unsafe. And consider the pilot being vectored toward rising terrain in the clouds, or told to remain clear of airspace on a route that keeps him/her over freezing water in a single-engine airplane. Maybe we should replace the term "anti-authority" with the phrase "healthy skepticism", and turn it into a tool that keeps us safe by double-checking authorities just as they and their rules double-check us.

Aero-tip of the day: Look for signs of the anti-authority attitude in yourself. Use it to your advantage -- to employ healthy skepticism -- but don't let it lead you to make bad decisions just to avoid deviating from what you want to do.

FMI: Aero-Tips