Are We Still Learning…?
|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
When we were younger, the world seemed to move more slowly, leaving room for time, respect, and kindness. Our brains soaked in new information. Those were simpler, happier, and more joyous times.
During that era, I was boarding a commercial aircraft behind a father and his son, who appeared to be five or six years old. The cockpit of the airliner was still open, and the pilot and copilot were busy going through their checklist. The curious child poked his head into the cockpit and was greeted with a smile. He lingered there, mesmerized by all the knobs and dials, as the passengers behind him grew a little restless.
He tugged on his father’s jacket, looked up, and asked, “Are those pilots still learning how to fly?”
That brought a chuckle from the pilot and outright laughter from the copilot. The child was invited to stay in the cockpit if he wanted, and I went to look for my seat. After a while, the captain brought him back to his seat. His little face was beaming a smile that could light up a dark night, one that still lingers in my memory. And I often wonder if he became a pilot.
“Learning how to fly?” Indeed.
Learning isn’t simply a catalog of information, but an apprenticeship in reasoning and uncertainty. It involves detecting anomalies and recognizing patterns that help us understand the world around us. In aviation, shortcuts to understanding aerodynamics can end in bent metal and spilled blood. Training built on fragmented understanding can fail just as catastrophically in the cockpit. Convenience cannot replace cognition, nor can fluency become a substitute for understanding. Learning requires depth, time, and reflection.
There is a certain kind of learning that takes place before each flight. Checking the checklist item by item is ingrained in most of us during pilot training and throughout our flying careers. Why is it important? Why must it be followed?
The answers are simple. Human frailty has a way of wrapping itself around logic and reason. Repeating an engine-out procedure aloud, or quietly to oneself before takeoff, ensures it is the first thing recalled when things go wrong unexpectedly. That is the memorized emergency checklist.
The regular checklist serves a different purpose. It is designed to keep pilots from making preventable errors. For example, if the landing gear fails to extend, there is no need to rely on memory. Pull out the POH, slow the airplane, engage the autopilot if available, notify ATC, and work through the checklist item by item. Trying to recall the exact sequence of buttons, handles, and circuit breakers from memory may worsen the situation and create an emergency where one did not previously exist.
One evening, I happened to be watching the news when a short video appeared showing a boat exploding at the dock while the owner ducked for cover. What went wrong? The owner forgot to vent fumes from the engine compartment before ignition. One simple line on a checklist—vent the engine compartment before starting—had been missed. Trapped atomized fuel, mixed with oxygen and a spark, created violent combustion. A simple checklist item could have prevented the accident.
In a similar experience, I was on a commercial flight while listening to tower communications through my aviation transceiver. As the aircraft taxied into position and held short of the runway, a voice suddenly came across the frequency:
“Continental at hold short, check your flaps.”
The voice was a low, rumbling, all-business baritone that rang through crystal clear. Sitting in a window seat, I looked outside to confirm it was our aircraft being addressed. Sure enough, the wings were clean. No flaps or slats had been deployed.
Moments later, our pilot responded, “Tower, Continental XXX requests a short delay to go over the checklist.”
Five minutes later, the aircraft was properly configured, and we departed safely. Another tragedy had likely been prevented by an observant and experienced pilot in another aircraft behind us. Looking after one another, especially in aviation, is a good trait to possess.
A reminder of Delta Flight 1141 comes to mind. On August 31, 1988, the Boeing 727 crashed during takeoff from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport because the flight crew failed to properly configure the aircraft’s flaps and slats for departure. The aircraft lost lift shortly after takeoff, killing 14 people and injuring 78 others onboard.
That accident was not on my mind during the Continental flight, but now every time I fly commercially, my eyes instinctively glance at the flaps and slats during takeoff. We are, after all, human—frail and prone to error—and we desperately need the structure of checklists to keep us safe in our pursuit of flight.
What other things can go wrong? Many, it seems.
In a Mooney, approach flaps are commonly deployed for takeoff to improve wing efficiency. In a Bonanza, they are not needed because the wing is already efficient during takeoff, though the laminar-flow design excels in cruise. In both aircraft, the gear and flaps must be retracted after takeoff, or the indicated airspeed struggles to move beyond the white arc.
Who wouldn’t want to fly a Mooney, even if the starter had a few issues?
In a turbo-normalized Bonanza, the boost fuel pump must be turned off upon reaching cruise altitude or fuel consumption will rise significantly beyond planned values. Pitot heat must be turned on in icing conditions to prevent frozen instruments. The cautionary tales of Piper Malibu accidents related to pitot heat mismanagement are well documented.
Flying a pressurized aircraft without proper training and disciplined checklist use during all phases of flight can have serious consequences. We create preventative measures to protect ourselves, yet with experience often comes the temptation to trust memory over procedure. The hubris within takes hold and scatters the hard-won lessons in life.
We begin telling ourselves we are “too good” for this checklist or “better” than the mistakes that happen to other pilots.
Especially as instructors, we must resist impatience with the student who slowly reads each checklist line before touching the appropriate lever, dial, or switch while our own hands itch to shove the throttle forward.
Be patient.
The future cries out with warning: be patient.
Your life and that of your passengers may depend on it. Haste does indeed make waste of human life.
Each line on a checklist exists for a reason. Each item represents a preventative action designed to keep a flight from becoming a catastrophe. Use the checklist every time, no matter how many years or hours you have accumulated.
As that five-year-old once asked:
“Are those pilots still learning how to fly the airplane?”
Yes, indeed, we are.
- Friday Photo: New York on a Crisp Morning - October 16, 2026
- Transition Flights - September 23, 2026
- Friday Photo: Red Skies at Night - September 18, 2026
I know that I’m still learning. 25 + years of flying. I once learned inadvertently what the alarm sounds like when you try to land a 182RG with the gear up. Getting distracted in the cockpit, going under a cloud burst, in the traffic pattern, will do that to a pilot….Luckily I picked up on the alarm and figured it out.