Flying Right Seat

A freight pilot friend once astutely observed, "From the right seat, it may as well be a completely different airplane." His comment sprang from a discussion we had about the wisdom of non-instructor pilots offering to fly with student pilots, allowing the student to sit in the left seat and practice. The pilot would act as PIC, the cost of the flight would be shared, and there would be no need to pay for a flight instructor. When examining the relative wisdom of such an arrangement, pilots need to consider that when they move to the right seat they've entered bizzaro world. Without some training and experience in right seat flying, specifically landings, you've significantly increased the risk of something bad (read expensive) happening. If you've ever thought about getting instruction in right seat flying, here are some of the challenges in store for you and a few suggestions on how to cope with them.

Understand the Limits

Though most GA aircraft have dual flight controls, they are certificated for, and primarily set-up for the pilot-in-command occupying the left seat. With the lion's share of the flight instruments positioned for the left seat, the pilot in the right seat can feel left out. The altimeter, airspeed indicator, and turn coordinator can be mighty hard to see. Even if you can see the instruments, there's the problem of parallax: You aren't looking straight at the instrument so you have to learn to judge what a needle is indicating or when the ball in the slip indicator is centered. And you can forget the attitude indicator in many aircraft. Instructors in the right seat usually learn to visualize bank angles and use outside references for estimating pitch.

The ignition key or magneto switches and virtually all other switches may be beyond your normal reach when you're sitting right seat and a clear view of these switches is often not available. The left yoke may be in the way or the left seat pilot's hands or arms may block your view. The throttle quadrant often blocks the right seat pilot's view of the landing gear lever and the gear position indicator lights. About the only things you may have close at hand from the right seat are the circuit breakers, flap switch and cabin heat controls.

When sitting right seat, you're going to be operating the throttle, prop, and mixture controls with your left hand. Virtually every pilot finds this arrangement awkward at first. You may even experience the thrill of leaning the mixture when you meant to retard the throttle, though most pilots rarely make this mistake more than once! I've even seen a few pilots grab the correct control, but in a fit of confusion, move that control the wrong way - advancing the throttle when they meant to retard the throttle.

The best radio push-to-talk (PTT) switch set-up for the right seat is to have the switch located on the right horn of the right seat control yoke. This makes sense because the right-seat flyer needs to have their left hand free for adjusting the throttle, prop, mixture or to set the radios and GPS. So naturally many aircraft manufacturers put the right seat PTT switch on the left horn of the control yoke. This means the pilot must momentarily switch hands or reach across their body with the opposite hand anytime they need to talk to ATC. One plane I occasionally instruct in has the right seat PTT switch mounted on the far right edge of the instrument panel, which can make for some interesting contortions.

Aircraft insurance policies and flying club rules often specify that all flying is to be done from the left seat unless the pilot holds a current flight instructor certificate or has specific authorization. Some aircraft have equipment limitations, like the often overlooked limit on the KAP 140 autopilot that a pilot must occupy the left seat when the autopilot is engaged. With all these limitations in mind, it's clear that flying from the right seat is not as simple as sliding over.

Illusive Landings

For most pilots, the biggest challenge with right seat flying is landing the aircraft. I've lost count of the number of pilots I've trained to fly right seat, but most have been flight instructor candidates. A few have been private pilots who simply wanted to see what it was like to fly from the other seat. I've known several instructors who became so comfortable flying right seat that they actually avoided ever flying from the left seat, even when flying solo. Switching back and forth can be a humbling experience, but flight instructors should be flexible and practiced in flying from either seat. If you aren't an instructor and you don't get much practice in the right seat, factor that into your personal minima and currency requirements. Like most anything else in life, right seat flying is a skill that must be practiced to be maintained.

The majority of learning right seat landing problems are difficulty aligning the longitudinal axis (yaw) and maintaining centerline alignment during the landing flare. Pilots who are new to the right seat frequently apply too much right rudder during the flare and the result is side loading on the landing gear at touchdown. The most effective teaching technique seems to be briefing the pilot on the common errors and solutions, then coaching them with real-time feedback about their rudder input. After 5 to 10 hours of practice, most pilots find right seat landings start to improve.

Double Vision

Ocular dominance, in my experience, plays an important role in a pilot's ability to maintain centerline and longitudinal alignment during the first few hours of landing from the right seat. For most people, their dominant eye is the same as their dominant hand: Right handed people tend to right eyed and left handed people are left eyed. Here's a simple test to determine your dominate eye:

With one of your arms extended and with both eyes open, align your thumb with some object that is more than 20 feet (6 meters) away. Close your left eye and if you see the object appears to remain aligned with your thumb, then your right eye is dominant. If the object no longer appears aligned with your right eye closed, your left eye is dominant.

I've taught right seat flying to at least three pilots who were right-handed, but who were left-eye dominant and these pilots seems to initially report more difficulty and feelings of awkwardness when transitioning to the right seat. Consider my unscientific representations of how ocular dominance might affect one's perspective from the cockpit. These photos have been exaggerated for effect, but illustrate the idea that significant re-learning is required when transitioning to the right seat. Pilots are often encouraged to look at the end of the runway during the landing flare and I suspect the reason this technique helps is because it reduces the parallax introduced by ocular dominance.

Left Seat, Left Eye Dominant

Left Seat, Right Eye Dominant

Right Seat, Left Eye Dominant

Right Seat, Right Eye Dominant

I move back and forth from the right seat to the left seat in a variety of aircraft, but this wasn't always the case. My first few years of instructing provided few opportunities to fly from the left seat, but when I did it always felt more natural. After thousands of hours of dual instruction given and years of flying regularly, I no longer think that much about which seat I'm occupying. Without significant experience and regular flying, switching back and forth would probably not be as easy.

Right-Brain, Left-Brain

There are popular beliefs about right or left brain dominance, also known as brain function lateralization. The usual claims are that right-brain people tend perceive and think in a more global, holistic, and creative manner. Left-brain dominance purportedly helps one excel at procedures and rational thought. There are numerous on-line tests you can take that claim to tell you whether you are left- or right-brain dominant, though I'm not sure how much use this knowledge will be if you decide to try flying from the right seat.

Barring physical injury or disease, we each use of both halves of our brains every day. While parts of the right hemisphere provide motor control to the left side of the body and vice-versa, aside from obvious processes like speech (which is usually localized in the left temporal lobe for right-handed individuals and somewhat distributed between the left and right temporal lobes for left-handed people), there isn't always a clear pattern of specialization between brain hemispheres for global thought processes. It does seem safe to say that learning to fly from the right seat will require you to use your brain in ways you normally wouldn't, that's why it's difficult, and it's probably a good thing.

The key to safe and successful right seat flying is to get training from an authorized instructor familiar with aircraft you'll be using. Remember that when you reach for a control or switch using either hand, focus on your intention, not on how awkward it may feel. Expect to become fatigued more easily during your first few hours of right seat flying for the simple reason you'll have to concentrate on things you'd normally do unconsciously. Exercising your brain by thinking and coordinating in a different way can be challenging. Don't be surprised if you feel a bit like a student pilot at first, but don't worry. Right seat flying gets easier with practice.

Jacobson's Ladder

Most new instructors start out by teaching student pilots almost exclusively. After several months of watching, correcting, and saving their students (and themselves) from various landing catastrophes, they may begin to wonder "Do I still know how to perform a respectable landing?" Now a seasoned instructor, I still find it challenging to impart the important skills involved in getting a plane safely back on terra firma. There's nothing like teaching a student pilot how to land an aircraft for putting a flight instructor back in touch with beginner's mind.

A crucial trait for flight instructors is being open to new ideas. Truth be told, every week we instructors stand to learn (or re-learn) something important from a pilot that we're supposed to be educating. Then there's the other end of the spectrum: Instructors who think they have seen it all and know it all. After giving hundreds or thousands of hours of dual instruction, falling into a rut is all too easy. And so I found myself feeling a bit skeptical when a student who had been wrestling with inconsistent landing performance introduced me to something he had found on the Internet. It's known as the Jacobson Flare.

Before going any further, let's get this out of the way: The Jacobson Flare is not a parlor trick. It doesn't involve a deck of cards or a pact with the devil. Jacobson uses the pilot's Eye-to-Wheel Height (or EWH, based on the aircraft type), the pilot's offset from the main landing gear (also based on aircraft type), the airplane's approach angle (usually 3 or 4 degrees), and simple geometry to determine visual references on the runway surface where the pilot can aim and begin the landing flare. One of Jacobson's documents even has an appendix that lists the calculations for several transport category aircraft as well as several GA aircraft.

I followed the link my student sent me, downloaded, and then read the various documents. And I watched the two videos, one of which clearly demonstrates the technique in a C172. I was intrigued, but still skeptical.



It helps to understand the dimensions of runway markings when choosing an aiming point and a suitable cutoff point (where the landing flare will commence, based on your aircraft type and descent angle). You can find some important details in AC 150-5340-1J: Standards for Airport Markings.  At most airports you will encounter one or more of three basic types of runways: Precision, non-precision, and visual. The markings and dimensions for each are shown below. Remember that there are airports out there with non-standard runway markings, so be careful about assuming the length of the centerline stripes, how tall the runway number are, or the length of the gaps between the centerline stripes.

The day after reading Jacobson's material, I had the opportunity to try out the technique with a fellow instructor who was doing some instrument currency work. On her first landing, she mentioned she had to suppress some of her normal landing instincts, but the landing was very good (7 out of 10, I'd say). We both felt skeptical until her second landing, which I would describe as a 10. Okay, interesting, but still too small a sample from which to draw any meaningful conclusions.

The second day I flew with an instrument pilot for an aircraft check-out flight. I explained the landing technique and he was game. His first landing was a 7 - not bad considering it involved an 8 knot tailwind component. His next two landings were a 9 and a 10 respectively. This was interesting considering he hadn't flown that particular aircraft type in quite a while.

The third day I flew with a student pilot and saw equally pleasing and consistent results. His normal, short field landings, even a power-off approach, were all 9s. He was excited and so was I. We switched to crosswind landings, his concentration wavered a bit, but the next two landings were a 6 and 7 (not bad considering a 15 knot direct crosswind). I mentioned that he had flared too high on one landing and he immediately recognized the problem and agreed. From an instructional standpoint, this is significant: Instead of a vague sort of Goldilocks process - "That flare was too low, that flare was too high, Oh! That flare was just right, do that again!" - Jacobson provides objective visual references on which the pilot can concentrate.

The past week has provided the most fun I've had watching people do landings in a long, long time. Yesterday, it was my turn to do a couple of landings - one normal, one short field. I don't mean to brag, but my first landing using Jacobson's Flare was an 8. My second landing was a short field effort. I not only touched down on the selected target, it was a very soft touchdown at minimum speed - a definite 10.

It's my considered opinion that pilots who learn to apply Jacobson's techniques can make consistently good landings, provided they know how to configure their aircraft and fly a stable approach at the appropriate airspeed. Pilots still have to develop and maintain a feel for their aircraft and learn how to handle crosswinds and gusty conditions, but Jacobson's procedure is very useful. And when you haven't flown in several weeks or it's your first landing in a new-to-you aircraft type, Jacobson's approach gives you something on which to hang your hat.

From a teaching perspective, there seem to be three main advantages to Jacobson's technique: First, it gives the pilot objective visual criteria for when to begin the landing flare, tailored to their type of airplane. Second, it provides visual cues to concentrate on throughout the flare. Every experienced pilot knows that landing performance improves when they are concentrating or, in the case of challenging conditions, they are forced to concentrate. Last, but not least, applying this technique will undoubtedly save the student time and money (not to mention the wear and tear on training aircraft).

Of course there are exceptions and limitations. It would be foolish to try to apply this approach to every possible landing situation. Simply watching a video will not teach you how to fly and land an airplane. Jacobson's material doesn't contain data for many newer GA aircraft, though I'm putting together a spreadsheet of measurements for some of the aircraft I fly. There are runways and landings surfaces that have no markings, including grass, dirt, and gravel strips not to mention bodies of water used by seaplanes. Anytime you try a new technique, it's wise to consider having an instructor along.

Even with these caveats, I'm excited to have a cool, new tool in my teaching toolbox. I can't shake this feeling of a kid in a candy store. As the instructor I flew with today said after her last landing, "Thanks, Jacobson!"

This 'n That

The past couple of weeks have been uncharacteristically busy for a flight instructor without a medical certificate, but here's a grab bag of items that some readers might find interesting.

Villa of the Basking Hounds



It's been four months since Rio and Taz came to live with us and there's lots of progress to report. At first, Taz was distant and enigmatic while Rio was fearful, underweight and, frankly, more than a bit neurotic. With patience, a regular exercise routine, obedience training, and some TLC these two have begun to blossom. Taz has revealed her playful and mischievous side. Rio, while still a bit thin, has slowly begun to put on weight. He's also become much calmer and no longer shakes at the slightest sound. In fact, he barely reacted to last night's fireworks.

Part of their transformation is due, in part, to regular romps at Point Isabel Regional Shoreline. Situated on the Northeastern shore of San Francisco Bay and just a few minutes drive from our house, Point Isabel is the nation's largest off-leash dog park with 23 acres of space. Here's a photo of Rio and Taz sitting atop a picnic table with the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Bridge and the San Francisco skyline in the distance.



We've very glad to have these two basenji in our lives and it wouldn't have been possible without Basenji Rescue and Transport and their dedicated volunteers. If you ever have an urge to donate to a non-profit, BRAT would be an excellent choice.

Lights On, Nobody Home?

For many years there have been two navaids at the Oakland Airport that have not been part of any instrument approach, yet they have been maintained and continued to operate. I'm talking about the CASES outer marker and the RORAY (AK) locator middle marker. I regularly flew with pilots who, while on the ILS RWY 27R, would announce the final approach fix when they saw the blue light flash on their marker beacon receiver. I'd point out, often to their amazement, that the outer marker was no longer part of the ILS and, in fact, wasn't part of any approach into Oakland.

CASES (5 DME from the OAK VORTAC) used to be the FAF for the ILS, but that was changed several years ago. The first change was to move the FAF to 5.5 DME from the OAK VORTAC, add the requirement for DME when flying the localizer-only version of the approach, and call the new final approach fix FITKI. If memory serves me correctly, that was about five years ago. A few months later, the FAF was renamed to CUVSA. The new FAF was located at 5.5 DME, yet the CASES OM at 5 DME continued to function. A few months ago, the FAA even issued a NOTAM telling pilots that the CASES OM would be out of service. Did they not know that it wasn't being used or is it part of some procedure not known to me and which is not published on the NACO web site? Or maybe they just forgot? Beats me!

The RORAY LOM also continued to function, something I'd periodically verify whenever I flew an aircraft that had a functioning ADF (which isn't often these days). I'd dial in 341 on the ADF, watch the needle swing toward the approach end of 27R, and hear the Morse code "AK."

Not wanting to rush to a decision or do something rash, the FAA has finally decided to decommission these two navaids.

Runway Re-Numbering

Astute readers know that the earth's magnetic field is constantly and (usually) subtly shifting. This can and has affected runway numbering schemes, which are supposed to be based on the magnetic direction of the centerline, rounded up or down to the nearest 10 degrees. At Tracy, runways 7/25 recently were changed to 8/26. And runways 16/34 at Davis University just became 17/35.

Now Oakland's RWY 27L and 27R centerlines have been 276 degrees for quite a while and I often had instrument students ask why they weren't 28L and 28R. I had to confess that I didn't know. Now it appears the process to renumber those runways may have finally begun. Again, you don't want to rush into anything ...

Draggin, in a good way

The two questions I answer most often are "Have you gotten your medical certificate back?" and "When will you get your medical certificate back?" I've toyed with the idea of having a button made that simply says "October." That way I could wear the button and when asked either of these questions, I could just point to button. I'm trying to not be impatient and mostly have taken my respite from PIC duties in stride, but I will be glad when this is resolved. It is a reminder to all pilots out there, young and old, to relish all of your flights because we are all just a medical exam away from losing our privileges.

So I decided that resuming the Citbria check-out I started over a year ago might be just what was needed to lift my spirits.



All of my previous tailwheel time was in a 152 Aerobat Texas-Taildragger conversion and I was fortunate to have Ben Freelove as my inital tailwheel instructor. Ben liked to refer to the 152 Texas-Taildragger as the "Scare-o-bat" because of it's occasionally hair-raising takeoff and landing characteristics. By comparison, the Citbria is well-mannered and stable with plenty of rudder and aileron authority.

My instructor for the recent Citbria flights was Jeff Reeder, a seasoned banner-tow pilot who's flown a variety of tailwheel aircraft. Jeff put me through the paces, which culminated in the trifecta: Multiple successive landings on Oakland's 27L - the first a wheel landing on the left side of the centerline, the second a wheel landing on the right side of the centerline, and a three-point landing to a full stop with 2000' of pavement still remaining.

Mountain High

Lastly, here are some photos from a recent mountain check-out flight I did for a former student to Reno-Stead. The winds aloft were fairly calm and we only saw some light turbulence over the Sierra Nevada.





Later this week I'll post a review of ReadyProcs, a slick application for downloading and viewing terminal procedure charts. Until then, here's wishing you a pleasant summer and safe flying.

Needs Work

Merced Castle Airport used to be a base for B52 bombers and the ramp area was (is) huge. I haven't been there in a while, but the bomber parking area used to be lined with large blast fences. The 11,000 feet of runway is longer than most, with overrun areas on each end. I flew there several years ago with a student pilot for a cross-country instructional flight. My student did a nice landing, but missed the first turn off. The next turn off was several thousand feet down the runway and the taxi back to the air museum was excruciatingly long.

When it was time to leave, I jokingly observed "Heck, the ramp is deserted. We could just point to the west and takeoff right here!" We got a good laugh out of that one. Taking off or landing on a taxiway or ramp is something helicopters do regularly, but not fixed-wing aircraft. In an emergency, you can of course land anywhere, but this knowledge didn't prepare me for what I saw a week ago at a nearby, non-towered airport.

I'd arrived with a pilot doing a high-performance checkout with the intention of practicing landings. There was one other airplane in the pattern, so we joined them and the first two times through the pattern provided just the training opportunities that we needed. Then things got busy. Two other aircraft joined the traffic pattern. The common traffic advisory frequency was busy, but everything was going smoothly and I had a good mental picture of who was where. That's when ... it happened.

We'd just started our crosswind turn when we heard a new aircraft announce that they were on short final for the runway exactly opposite what the rest of us were using. Now in theory, all runways are active at a non-towered airport, but going against the flow can be dangerous and needs to be carefully considered and coordinated with other aircraft operating at the airport. I turned and saw the aircraft on short final and was shocked to see an aircraft departing the opposite direction. Each aircraft made a comment on frequency and Mr. Wrong Way said something about how they were "just practicing emergencies." This led me to the conclusion that an instructor was on board, but where did they come from? They seemed to just appear in the pattern out of nowhere.

Mr. Wrong Way made another comment that they saw the opposite direction airplane and that everything was fine. We'd turned downwind and were paralleling the errant aircraft as it offset away from the runway. Mr. Wrong Way passed within 100 feet of the departing aircraft as it climbed out. Mr. Wrong Way continued, overflew the ramp, touched down momentarily on the ramp, and then took off. As he became airborne, he overflew the fuel island and numerous parked aircraft. He continued his opposite direction upwind, overflying houses in violation of the local noise abatement procedures. After his first two radio calls, I never heard another. He departed the pattern and disappeared.

Two days ago, while in the run-up area, I witnessed a Lancair that was told to hold short of the runway by the tower. The pilot actually crossed the hold short line and held between the hold short line and the edge of the active runway. An aircraft passed right by the Lanceair and landed, so I turned to my student and commented "You just witnessed a runway incursion." As the landing aircraft continued its rollout, the Lancair must have really been chomping at the bit because he began to creep onto the runway, a full 10 seconds before the tower told him to position and hold. The tower controller never said anything and, due to the distance between the tower cab and the hold short line, he may have not realized that the Lancair was on the wrong side of the hold short.

On another flight, in the traffic pattern at a nearby towered airport, we were told to extend downwind and follow an experimental aircraft that was inbound on a base entry. My trusty PCAS was mounted on the dash and it alerted us to an aircraft well below. That's when we saw the experimental, inbound on a base entry at about 200 feet AGL, overflying a refinery and, from my perspective, it just barely cleared the tops of the cracking towers.

I recently witnessed several other stupid pilot tricks, but I won't belabor the point. As an instructor, I've never claimed that I've seen it all, but I used to see these sorts of antics once or twice a month. My perception is that this behavior seems to be on the rise and it makes me wonder.

The GA community is, by and large, self-regulated. There aren't many FAA "cops" out there, giving tickets and keeping us honest, Most of the time, self-regulation works just fine. Pilots tend to avoid dangerous behavior because they don't want to get hurt, or worse. When their aircraft gets into a dicey position, a healthy pilot feels uneasy, they may even feel fear. These feelings are good because they tend to keep us from doing dumb ass things. That keeps us from bending planes and it keeps us alive.

More than a few pilots out there seem to lack this healthy perspective. I've given instruction to a few pilots who never seemed to feel fear and their inappropriate reactions to risk scared me. Instructors and experienced pilots need to continue to set a good example, but that might not be enough. Keep your eyes peeled because Mr. Wrong Way and his bretheren are still out there and they seem intent on being selected out of the gene pool. Don't let them take you with them.

No Free Lunch

I'd been wrestling with this post for several weeks, never quite satisfied with the results. Then I happened to read this post. I guess great minds travel in the same rut, but here are my thoughts on the topic.

There's a classic argument that pilots, instructors and examiners engage in about the relationship between pitch, power, airspeed, and altitude when flying a fixed-wing, powered aircraft. There are basically two camps: One says that power always determines altitude and pitch always determines airspeed. The other camp counters that power always determines airspeed and pitch determines altitude. Many pilots, instructors, and examiners tend to be very attached to their pitch/power argument, some to the point of religious fervor. A few months ago I read an article by a respected instructor that again made the claim that one, and only one, explanation was correct. If only life were so simple.

Aircraft pitch (and the resultant angle of attack) plus power equals performance is often all that can be agreed upon. I tread lightly when entering this debate by emphasizing something very uncontroversial.

Pitch and power are intertwined: If you change pitch you'll likely have to adjust power and vice versa.

The reason we can't come up with a universal answer is because a lot depends on the details: Your aircraft's weight, power loading, wing loading, configuration, and phase of flight. Given that most aircraft designs are inherently stable, most of the work that a pilot or flight crew does is manage the aircraft through transistions and changes in equilibrium between the four forces of lift, weight, thrust and drag.

With enough money you can make anything fly, or so the old saw goes. Substitute energy for the word money and the saying is still true. For fixed-wing aircraft, energy is usually (but not always) a combination of chemical energy from an engine generating thrust with a propeller, the potential energy of altitude as well as the aircraft's velocity (airspeed).

Engine power can be increased or decreased within operating limits and the amount of thrust generated will vary with environmental factors.

Lift can be increased by increasing airspeed, but the speed is limited by the amount of power available and the structural limits of the aircraft.

Pitch can be adjusted up or down to control lift, but too much pitch will result in a stall and in some situations may overstress the aircraft.

When deciding whether to adjust power or pitch, I encourage pilots to consider their aircraft's current, total energy picture as well as the safe operating envelope for the airframe and the engine.

There is no free lunch in aviation - except for ground effect, when you buy your flight instructor a burger on a long cross-country flight, and the free cookies and popcorn served at your local FBO. A wing generating lift is also producing drag. Engineers like to describe different two different types of drag - induced and parasite. Induced drag results from the production of lift. Parasite drag is ... well ... a drag - something we have to tolerate. Induced drag is simply the cost of doing business if you want to generate lift.

Flying an approach to landing is a complex energy management task and this is where the pitch-for-airspeed camp and the power-for-airspeed camp tend join the battle with great zeal. Most of the folks who say power-for-airspeed, in my experience, either used to fly pretty large aircraft, are currently flying pretty large aircraft, or are hoping to fly pretty large aircraft in the future. On the other end of the spectrum are pilots who were taught by their primary instructor that the best way to slow a light aircraft during an approach to landing is to increase the aircraft's pitch attitude. While this technique does indeed work (and sometimes is the best way), it's seldom a successful strategy for tracking a glide slope.

I say both camps are right, in a way. Here's why.

When teaching approach to landing in heavier, propeller-driven aircraft (with greater wing and power loading), I encourage pilots to first reduce power and trim to get the aircraft to a speed where landing gear and flaps can be safely extended. If your aircraft has a retractable gear, just extending the gear will create enough drag to start a descent. Adding flaps in some aircraft designs (Cessna singles) causes the aircraft to pitch up while in others (Beechcraft) it causes a pitch down moment, but this effect is usually momentary. In this first phase of the approach to landing, some might say I'm squarely in the "power for airspeed" camp.

Continuing an approach to landing once the gear and some flaps are configured, the goal is to "go down and slow down." Losing altitude and slowing the aircraft's speed are at cross purposes from a total energy standpoint, so what's a pilot to do? This is where some might say I switch sides and encourage pilots to think "configuration, trim, power:" Continue to configure additional flaps for landing, adjust pitch for the desired approach speed, and then adjust power if you need to increase or decrease the rate of descent.

The reason I switch camps is that after you have configured the landing gear and flaps, further power reductions can result in spectacular descent rates in heavier aircraft. This where turbo-prop aircraft can do some amazing approach antics, especially if there are no passengers on board to worry about. With piston engines, making a habit of drastic power adjustments is generally considered to be a bad practice and can reduce the longevity of those engines (something many air traffic controllers don't seem to understand or care about when they vector you to a slam dunk approach). The good news is that once you've done an initial power reduction and landing configuration in a heavier aircraft, you probably won't need reduce the power much to continue to the descent at a manageable airspeed.

The situation is different in most light, fixed-gear, single-engine training aircraft. The wing loading is so low in these aircraft that you may find yourself in a situation where you've configured all the flaps, removed all or most of the power, and you still can't get the desired rate of vertical descent without gaining air speed. This is where increasing the aircraft's pitch to a slower speed or entering a forward slip to landing are the only ways to effect a higher sink rate and control airspeed. These two techniques are the last resort after you have reduced power and configured the aircraft: They should not be the first tools out of the box.

The last thing to keep in mind that it takes time for control inputs, power changes, and configurations to have an effect on an aircraft. Flying an aircraft through a sea of air is different than having tires in contact with the ground where you get prompt changes in speed in response to throttle and brake inputs, so flying an aircraft takes more planning and imagination.

When you reduce an aircraft's pitch to level off from a climb, for example, the aircraft won't accelerate immediately, so the reduction in pitch and power usually can't be immediate. Yet I often see pilots climb to their target altitude and then abruptly pitch the aircraft to a level attitude and reduce power without considering their complete energy picture. The aircraft must first accelerate before the angle of attack can be reduced and it takes power to accelerate. A smooth level-off from a climb requires finesse, attention, patience, and above all, the ability to visualize the equilibrium change the aircraft is undergoing.

Leveling off from a descent with pitch alone will not work if you want to maintain the same air speed you had in the descent, yet I frequently see pilots reach their level off altitude in a descent who simply pitch up without considering the need for power. These pilots pitch up to arrest the descent, airspeed decays, and then they seem baffled a few seconds later when they are having trouble maintaining altitude. Again, the key is energy management, a concept of the aircraft's total energy picture. Finesse, anticipation, and patience are helpful, too.

Airspeed changes in level flight are another problem area and this is one of the few times where judicious use of trim can help maintain altitude while increasing or reducing power. What I often see is pilots whose trim inputs are more appropriate for spinning a roulette wheel or "Wheel of Fortune" than flying an aircraft smoothly. Airspeed won't change immediately, so changing power and then gradually trimming the aircraft is the more efficient technique.

The truth is there is no simple answer to the pitch/power/airspeed/altitude debate. I encourage pilots to be skeptical of simple answers. Rather than basing your flying on simplistic platitudes, why not develop a concept of total energy that will enable you to fly smoothly and to anticipate the need for changes is pitch and power? In the air, anticipation is a more successful strategy than simply reacting with brute force and understanding your total energy picture is far better than any simple rule of thumb.