Page 18 - Volume 12 Number 12

Ask the Expert
Just Because You Can, Doesn’t
Mean You Should ...
Start a Descent to a Lower Assigned Altitude
by Tom Clements
At the completion of my instrument instructor checkride back in ancient times, I recall that I asked the experienced FAA Inspector an important question as he was typing up the completion paperwork: “What’s the most important thing I should teach my instrument students?”
“Situational awareness,” (SA) was his answer. I have concluded that he nailed it! If a pilot always knew exactly where he was and could pinpoint himself on any chart or instrument approach plate, then the rest of the instrument flying skills would come together more quickly, safely and correctly. Good old “SA” is the key!
That answer was given to me in the late 1960s. Most instrument training airplanes at that time had two Navcoms (one with a glideslope) and a transponder ... and the transponder only provided Mode A. It was quite rare to see DME. An autopilot? You’ve got to be kidding! An RMI? What’s that? With such rudimentary equipment, the challenge to be situationally aware was a mammoth undertaking for all but the most gifted students.
When I started as a ground and flight instructor with Beech Aircraft Corporation in 1972, I was exposed to RMIs (Radio Magnetic Indicators). “What a wonderful aid to situational awareness!” I marveled. Now, without
spinning any OBS knob, I could see exactly what radial I was on ... and usually I could see the radial from both VOR 1 and VOR 2. Wow! How cool is that?! Plus, the Beechcrafts in which I was instructing all had DMEs. With DME, even one radial was plenty to exactly position oneself with distance information.
And yet, many of the pilots I instructed still struggled to remain correct in their situational awareness. It is a depressing realization that about one in five students – most of whom were professional pilots getting paid to fly King Airs – would place themselves on the wrong side of the VOR station when I asked them to point to their location on the approach plate. They would confuse radials – which always go from the station, remember? – with bearings that usually go to the station.
If I gave this little sermon once, I gave it hundreds of times. It goes like this: “You can search all you want, but you will never find a little symbol of your airplane on
16 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
DECEMBER 2018