Aeronautical Decision Making…. Under Pressure

It is one thing to lead a student through an intellectual discussion on Aeronautical Decision Making, but entirely another for that same student to put those principles to use under pressure in the real world. One of my core philosophies about aviation safety is that a single good decision can make up for a number of technical mistakes and be the key to breaking an accident chain.

Let’s look at instrument approaches flown in actual IMC as an example. There are any number of events, whether in the control of the pilot or not, that can negatively impact safety at this critical phase of flight. The number of examples is nearly infinite—maybe a programming mistake is made, or ATC provides a poor intercept, or weather worsens—the list goes on and on. The bottom line, however, is that for nearly every factor which increases risk, there is a good decision that we can make to mitigate it.

Here are a few cases in point:

1. A pilot is conducting an ILS approach. All looks well until he realizes that he has passed the outer marker without intercepting the glide slope. Frantically, he looks around and realizes that he left the autopilot in GPSS mode. He hits the APR button, which seems to arm, but the plane doesn’t descend. Now he’s more than a mile and a half past the marker, too high, and ATC just told him to contact the tower. What would a good decision be in this case?
2. A pilot is set up for a GPS 27 approach at PDK, and he can tell that the controllers are very busy. He’s only 10 miles from the field when ATC reports that a new ATIS is now up, and that the ILS 20L approach is now is use. As the pilot starts to pull up the new plate on the CMAX, he is instructed to turn left, intercept the localizer, and maintain best forward speed. What could be done in this circumstance?

One of the best benefits of training at the SimTrain facility is that the student can be placed in real world scenarios which force real world decisions. The positives and negatives of each choice are no longer discussed in abstract, but are experienced first hand, providing immediate feedback and valuable experience.

We hope you’ll come see us—we are always more than happy to provide terrible vectors, bad weather, and equipment failures galore. More importantly, we hope to provide you a sense of empowerment in the cockpit—that you are always capable of making that one great decision that can save your life.

Joe Davis

Chief Pilot
P&C Aviation
www.PandCAviation.com
(877) 588-2664