Distractions, Casualness, and my Final Flight
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There’s a story about a retired drug-sniffing dog walking downtown with his owner, confused that, all of a sudden, what used to be significant was no longer of interest. That’s how I felt about those annoying little mistakes on the final flight of my career, knowing there would be no future flights in which to correct them. Nor would it make any difference, because there would be no future flights.
But this flight did give me the opportunity to experience those common accident chain links, emotions (think IMSAFE), indifference, and low situational awareness. Fortunately, I had a sharp CFI along with me, but there’s a lot of backstory to what I observed in me—a very safety-conscious pilot and safety researcher.
The background story begins in April, 2024 at age 74, with a total knee replacement that completely destroyed my physical fitness. I did make it to Oshkosh on the airlines, but I barely survived Oshkosh as my knee recovery was way behind schedule. A “really bad” spine, to quote my spinal surgeon, didn’t help. Right after I got back, I had a devastating case of vertigo from a loose crystal in my inner ear, clobbering balance. Two months later, that was gone, finally, just in time for emergency gall bladder surgery. And a month after that was an NSTEMI heart attack, no procedures required, but again, taking my fitness back down to zero. There were three minor procedures as well, so over the course of ten months, I underwent six general anesthesias.
In other words, by the time final flight rolled around, my 76 year old body had been aged considerably by medical misadventures. My monthly flying hours dropped off then, too, and the heart attack meant that I could no longer fly PIC.
By the time final flight rolled around, my 76 year old body had been aged considerably by medical misadventures.
I didn’t recognize it at the time, but there were enormous adverse psychological factors at work from all the medical misadventures, exacerbated by the second medical rejection from the FAA that gave no specific reasons. Availability of CFIs to fly with me was a problem, and petty airport politics didn’t help, either, as my original CFI was no longer allowed to fly with me for specious reasons unrelated to me personally. The decision to quit flying after 53 rich and rewarding years and sell my amazing RV-9A didn’t help my state of mind, either.
Meanwhile, the airplane was in the shop for its (annual) condition inspection, part of the sales agreement, and that process was slow and getting slower. Since I had 900+ hours in the plane, it made sense to me to fly the first flight post maintenance (with a CFI, of course).
Then there was the weather that day. My CFI was only available in the morning (good weather, no airplane), and then the weather went to pot. That afternoon, the weather was forecast bad, but, as is typical, I paid attention to the forecast but went to the airport anyway because the clouds might not be listening to flight service.
The long and short of it was that when I went for my final flight, accompanied by a sharp CFI, my psychological health was in an IMSAFE feeding frenzy—one I didn’t recognize before takeoff, even though I checked.
On departure, the weather was about 2,500 broken with excellent visibility and a cell to the northeast moving south. It didn’t look particularly convective, but there was enough moisture about that things could develop quickly. We headed north towards patchy blue sky and maybe higher clouds, confident that we could watch the weather on ADS-B and race it home if we had to.
On that first leg, I felt great. I was very much enjoying being in the air and observing scenery I seldom flew over, relishing smoothness and precision consistent with my hours and ratings, at peace, flying with an ease and grace I seldom achieved. Really nice.
Steep 360° turns have always been a challenge for me, and I have truly mastered them several times in my career. But not recently. Nevertheless, I told the CFI what I was going to do and hauled the plane into a nice, steep bank. I didn’t do any of that annoying spot on the windshield stuff, I just hauled the plane into the bank, pulled to get what felt like the right amount of G, and sat there.
My “technique” for this was to keep the G force constant, modulating it with stick pull. From time to time I did sneak a peek at the instruments: 58° bank, altitude variation +60’/-20’. I’d never used this screw-the-ACS standards approach before, but it was satisfying. When I figured I’d gone around enough, I rolled out, realizing that I had complacently ignored my entry heading. But I was flying for fun, enjoying it, focusing on holding altitude, the real challenge, and who cares about rolling out on the correct heading.
“Impressive,” said the CFI.
But I did realize that the skill exhibited on the flight to date had lulled me into complacency. It wasn’t dangerous, but I had not entered the maneuver with any real thought of what I was doing on entry or, consequently, on exit. Complacency #1.
Dutch rolls are a specialty of mine. I regularly do glacial Dutch rolls at 1°/second until I run out of rudder to keep the plane straight, a challenging maneuver, and then recover at that same rate – much, much harder – and immediately do the same the other way.
I also do Dutch rolls, full aileron deflection, to 60° bank each way. The challenge here is to apply full aileron deflection quickly but smoothly, as the non-aerobatic RV-9A nevertheless has a brisk roll rate of 60° second. Smoothness is the trick here, and smoothness can make for an impressive maneuver.
Not this time! Just like when I demonstrated the maneuver to one clumsy-footed pilot who started his attempt by stomping on the rudder, I gave the RV-9A a big boot full of unnecessary rudder before I came to myself and flew the maneuver as it should be flown. Then it was impressive, but I was seduced by my earlier flying proficiency and just started the maneuver without thinking about it. Complacency #2.
When we got to our destination airport for traffic pattern work, I challenged the CFI to explain how it was possible to fly the traffic pattern at a constant angle of attack.
The trick is to increase speed in the turns so that the same AOA gives more lift, i.e., more G, to turn the plane. I’d done it once before, but this time, forgot that the trick is to fly bank and follow that with airspeed. 19° of bank is 1.2 G which requires 10% more airspeed. I tried to follow the AOA guidance and got tripped up by sensor dynamics and noise, shame on me. I didn’t think through what I was going to do; I just somehow started doing… something. Complacency #3.
(The other technique for a constant AOA traffic pattern is flat turns. Yes, I know…)
On one of the landings, I flared a little too high and held the plane off with the nose a little too high, and the plane did a full stall landing like I used to do in Cessnas. I’d never done one of those in the RV-9A, as that high a deck angle obscures the runway, so my normal landing is deck angle limited. But I did one here, not really paying attention in the flare, just along for the ride. Complacency #4.
Actually, I’d encountered that lack of awareness before in my career, once when I was full of prescription don’t-fly meds but the CFI agreed to fly with me anyway so I could write a pilot report. The whole flight was beautifully flown until the landing, when sensory overload took over and I zoned out, right in the flare.
The other time this happened was on my first flight after spinal fusion surgery. Everything was perfect until the unusual attitude, when I zoned out. Second unusual attitude was no problem, and I was ready to fly PIC again.
This day, there was additional curious psychology at work. The airplane being sold, but payment not yet received, this was my planned last flight, piloting the airplane. The goofy psychology was when I made these complacency errors, I knew there would be no next flight in which to recognize and correct them. In fact, there would be no next flights at all, so whether I corrected them or not seemed not to matter.
Since I had no medical for this flight, I had a CFI along as a safety net. Perhaps having him along emboldened my sloppy attitudes for these events.
The takeaway from all this was how easily complacency occurred when I was too impressed with what a good pilot I was and I dropped situational awareness in my hubris. Helping set up these occurrences was massive but hidden psychological pressures of all sorts, plus fatigue.
One last set of lessons learned that I won’t be able to use myself, but at least I can share them.
And what’s next for me, without flying? I have no idea, but I’m trusting God, just like I trusted Him through all my medical misadventures.
“Trust God. As if you had a choice.”
- Distractions, Casualness, and my Final Flight - July 1, 2026
- Visual Angle of Attack Indicators and Systems Engineering Theory - April 14, 2025
- Final Thoughts on the Base to Final Turn - January 31, 2025
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