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Is it an art? Or is it a science? If neither, then, what is anticipation? Some say it is desire; others say it is fear and still others maintain it is both desire and fear. And in this little playground, we shall play for the next few minutes.
The matador knows the potential of loss of life while the bull looks to gore the instigator.
Take a Matador who skillfully uses his red-colored muleta to entice the bull to charge. The bull is a dichromat and charges the muleta due to its movement and not its color. The matador uses skill to whisk it away at the last second to mess with the bull’s anticipation, ultimately tiring, to yield to the matador’s desire. Bullfighting is a dangerous sport with over 500 deaths in 300 years, with many more maimed and injured. In this case, both the matador and the bull have an immediate sense of “looking forward,” the matador with some foreboding of being mauled, while still having a large neurotransmitter release with the thought of fame on the other side. The matador knows the potential of loss of life while the bull looks to gore the instigator.
How does that relate to a pilot, you ask? You, are a pilot, or wanting to be one, right? Okay, so there you are flying on a beautiful sunny, blue day and the propeller is screaming without visual evidence of the three blades from the windshield and suddenly, a bird fluttering her wings visits the windshield view. What do you do? Indeed, what does one do? If you are aware of the birds’ nature in flight, their avoidance of such conflict, is to dive. Armed with that knowledge the pilot would be wise to pull aft on the yoke and climb away from a potential disaster. The pilot’s desire is to prevent a clash and the bird has a similar viewpoint. That desire is borne of a fear of a clash between the two.
Anticipation is a tricky trade between expectation and outcome. It is also a “timing” issue of sorts. What if you anticipate a rise in a stock price and invest heavily after your research with the expectation it will yield big dividends? And then, from some dark pool, raises the specter of a large stock sale invoked by a preprogrammed algorithm, and you are left holding an empty bag. There is an expectation and an unanticipated outcome! Similarly, a pilot expecting a routine outcome of reaching his or her destination without any reflection of a bad outcome and mitigation strategies, is the very antithesis of a prudent pilot.
So, there you are, flying at 6,000 feet with a nice tailwind, riding the wave of speed looking at the groundspeed hit the marks you have not seen in a while. All is good with the world. The sky is still blue and there is not a single pothole in the sky to bump you around. You look at the multifunction display and notice the groundspeed is slowing down to your true airspeed as if the wind has suddenly traded in for calm. No big deal, you murmur, “must be a lull” and soldier on.
Another hour goes by, and you glance at the groundspeed and now the tailwind has turned into a headwind, slowing you down even further. Your expectation is now hard at work trying to address your desired outcome. And it comes up wanting! What you do in such a case is simple. And that simplicity should be baked into your personality. Do you stretch the flight to get to your destination without losing the time to land, take more fuel, and then takeoff from a nearby airport? Or do you soldier on and continue? Think of this for a moment. It may cost you a heartache at best.
There are many riddles to the human brain, and they are mostly borne from experience. It is more the Lamarckian trait rather than the Darwinian trait. Nothing is baked in except when it is through experience. We address life through the lens of our living. We catalogue our experiences inside the small molecules of proteins in our brain. Some from our childhood stick permanently, albeit with embellishments. And most from out recent experiences. These sticky experiences reside in the temporal lobe of the brain and become a library in our cortex, pieces pulled in times of need invoked periodically for decision making. So, how does that help us as a pilot?
Quite simply (and here is where I put my hat as a flight instructor) recency of experience is primo in decision making! This catalogued data will guide us to anticipate properly, as you sit behind the controls of your Piper Arrow and fire up the engine to a roar, anticipating the demand to be lifted in space climbing up to the desired altitude. But hold on for a second. What if the engine decides it is not going to inhale the water in the fuel that you did not check? Or the oil that registered in the yellow arc on takeoff and two minutes later, there was none to keep the crankshaft and its journals, from turning and moving the connecting rods, pushing the pistons in the cylinders? Thus, not having anticipated this, because you fell into your confirmation bias established so long ago that all your takeoffs and never having a hiccup and believing this one should be no different, leads you into uncharted and potentially a deadly realm.
Checklists have a reason. Follow it like your life depends on it. Because it does! So, the anticipated climb meets a bad outcome as the engine coughs and spits and moans. What do you do? If you had memorized the Emergency Checklist of engine failure on takeoff and had a plan, you might walk away unscathed. What would that plan be? Perhaps knowing that a sudden loss of engine power loss leads to a decay of airspeed at the rate of 15 knots in two to three seconds and that means you only have two to three seconds to decide. Perhaps, prior to any departure, repeat the mantra (your emergency checklist) “I will push the nose down, center the ball (to remove drag) and glide at required glide speed for the weight of the aircraft.
Follow the checklist like your life depends on it.
Under 1,000 feet, your best bet in a Mooney would be straight ahead with only slight left or right turns as an option. If you have the wherewithal at the time, switching the fuel tank, pushing the mixture in (if it is not already to the wall) and turning on the fuel boost pump might save the day. However, above 1,200 feet if all previously noted elements fail to turn on the engine, pull the prop back all the way and enter a 45-degree banked turn. Try the impossible 180 degree turn back to the airport (which is more like a 270 degrees) or perhaps aim for a field near the airport. If there is nothing but a forest of trees, then use the canopy and fly the aircraft at maximum endurance speed (slowest possible airspeed while in control) with gear and flaps down flying the fuselage in between the trees so the impact is absorbed by the wings and the gear.
So how does a pilot use anticipation for better outcomes? Among the examples above, a simple, but very effective method of learning anticipation is in cruise flight.
You are flying your Cirrus SR22 for a $100 hamburger. Hand fly the 60-90nm trip. Trim the aircraft to level flight as best you can. Now pull the throttle back two inches. You should anticipate what happens next! To maintain level flight at the same altitude, you would need to retrim, so do it smoothly, slowly, and simultaneously with the power reduction. Similarly, turning left or right leads to a loss of the vertical component of lift that will warrant either an increase in power at trimmed airspeed or a retrim of the aircraft as the airspeed decays from the loss of lift. These simple anticipatory mechanisms keep you in the game of flying safely.
Pilots should anticipate what is to come when chaning configuration.
Periodic assessment of the cylinder head temperatures will warn of impending issues related to the engine as will the fuel pressure, fuel flow (fluctuations), and oil pressure. Any warning must never be ignored. The engine monitor is “electronically anticipating” for you and you must anticipate your future too.
On a 25-minute short IFR flight one evening in the very busy New York Airspace, I was being vectored in a G36 Bonanza. The last vector was a 080 heading with the winds from 250 degrees at 32kts at 2,000 feet. I powered down but still was skipping along at 170kts. ATC was busy with the heavy iron lining them out 20 miles out in a conga line to the ILS into Newark Airport. The next vector to me from ATC for the base leg to the RNAV Runway 22 to Caldwell Airport. I zipped through the approach course and ATC called back to reverse direction to re-intercept. The GFC700 Autopilot was performing magnificently while I was winding the HDG bug. I pressed the APR button, and nothing happened. The aircraft was doggedly flying through the localizer.
For the APR to function, its 3D mode, it must be on the NAV (or GPS) or 2D mode. As the wind was strong enough, and ATC once again was going to blow the vector, I disconnected the autopilot and turned 100 degrees to intercept the signal, just when ATC asked if I wanted to redo the approach, I told ATC that I was “established.” He cleared me for the approach and off I went to land safely. The problem exposed in this flight was the button-pushing sequence and the ghost in the machine that demands the correct sequential button-pushing. My anticipation of intercepting the final approach course with total reliance on the autopilot would have ended up with another 20 minutes of aimless vectored flying, avoiding aluminum and some hills in the clouds and in the descending darkness of the twilight of the evening.
It’s important to understand the “buttonology” of our advanced avionics.
In our modern aircraft equipped with glass and sophisticated autopilots, flying the aircraft requires pressing the correct buttons in the correct sequence and pressing the button in the wrong sequence or at the wrong time leads the autopilot to ignore the demands of the pilot. Always be ready to hand fly the aircraft. And practice hand flying the approaches for proficiency and for such eventualities. Do this in VFR conditions to gather experience in the correct button pushing sequences.
Clearly, from the foregoing discussion, we have come full circle on anticipation. One starts with the idea of a desired future outcome by modifying present behavior. This can be termed anticipatory behavior–adjusting current behavior to prevent future problems.
How do we help modify our personal anticipatory behavior?
- Use Checklists
- Always have a Plan
- Heed to Trend Deviation
- Trust Intuition
- Follow the FAA Rules
- Anticipation - December 11, 2024
- Turbulence - October 14, 2024
- Our Overton Window - July 1, 2024
Greetings sir!
I can’t wait to read it again and again!!!
Magnificent project to undertake and proffer in a manner that deposits it – to us vested participants as “user friendly/easy understanding”.
You gifted me with a bucket full of hay to “chew the cud on”.
This one is a keeper for sure.
Once again, standing ovation.
Bravo !
Encore!
Best regards
Mario