Sloppy Piloting

This group's own Rick Durden published an article in AOPA Pilot this month
entitled "Are you a good pilot?" In it, Rick raised many interesting points
about things that can affect good piloting.

Precision is part of being a good pilot, and it seems that good ones are
always striving for perfection, even though they know it's unattainable. As
pilots we are always one mistake away from bent metal (or worse) so this is
a good thing.

In my own flying, I strive to avoid the pitfall of becoming sloppy -- but I
have to confess that it's easy to fall into bad habits. When you've droned
VFR between Iowa and Wisconsin 500 times, it's easy to become sloppy about
altitude -- I mean, who cares if you're off by 100 feet? And heading?
Well, shoot, we're just following the magenta line on the display, right?
Sloppy.

Another example: Practice can make perfect, but repetition can also make you
forget things, over time. Mary and I were recently discussing the fact that
neither one of us could remember the precise V speeds for Atlas -- a plane
we've flown every few days for six years. They've all become automatic and
ingrained in our muscle memory -- but we'd have to look at the panel
placards to tell the exact speeds. Sloppy.

Interestingly, the definition of sloppy piloting has changed somewhat over
the years I've been flying. It used to be that you could spot a sloppy
pilot by the way they read a sectional chart; nowadays, many pilots don't
ever look at a sectional, and a sloppy pilot is defined by how much they
fumble with the knobs of their Garmin 1000...

As I'm typing this, I'm trying to remember the last time I opened my
sectional chart. With a Lowrance 2000c on the pilot's yoke, and a Garmin
496 in the panel, there is literally no reason for us to EVER open a
sectional anymore. Both of those instruments have far more information than
a chart could ever display -- yet I feel sloppy for not having opened my
paper map in the last dozen or so flights.

With two pilots on board, we have a good system to offset any inclination to
get too sloppy -- it's called "spouse pressure". For example, if I fly a
non-rectangular pattern, I'm sure to hear about it -- and vice versa. But
even after 30 years we can't read each other's minds, and -- especially
after a long lay-off from flying -- it's easy to develop sloppy thought
processes. Piloting requires linear thinking, and much of it is habit
developed over time, so it's the first thing to go when you haven't flown
much.

I'm interested in hearing what you do to combat the human tendency toward
sloppiness? Any tricks that you might use, or methods you might employ?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"