In article ,
"Viperdoc" wrote:


When giving rides to new pax, I brief them on the sterile cockpit concept,
and tell them unless there's another plane bearing down on us, or our own
plane has parts falling off or we are on fire, they should keep quiet.

When I bought the airplane the wife was "okay" with flying (she was an
avid skydiver" but not super comfortable. As time went on she began to
enjoy flying as much as jumping. As I built experience we elected to
start going "off airport" and expand our area of operation and
enjoyment. Now the wife became so comfortable she tended to chat all the
time. For me it became a little distracting -since being an experience
husband I know that not acknowledging something the wife says can have
dire results - yet I need to concentrate when sticking the 182 into a
short strip somewhere so I asked that she refrain from talking during
takeoff and landing. Well, one day we were looking for a strip I'd seen
another 182 go into. I found a new set of tire tracks that didn't have
any wreckage on either end (hey, he HE can do it I can do it) and
thought I'd found the 182 strip. It looked a little short but as I said
no wreckage so it must be ok. I did a low pass to check the surface and
during the pass the wife started to say something but cut herself off.
I'm thinking allright, she's going to comply!! G I went around and
came back to land. The strip was short - 540', shortest thing I'd ever
been on. I was kind of animated but she was ho hum about it. I
remember she'd started to say something so asked what it was. She then
pointed out that just to the south of this strip was another stip --
about 1100 feet long of hard packed dried mud. G Needless to say the
1100 strip was the 182 strip. I also amended my sterile cockpit ruling
so "if we're going to die" you can talk. G

We went on to work a lot of short stuff and had a great time with our
182...and never left wreckage anywhere.

Here's one of them: http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flypics/ghmidfinal.jpg