Don't over think it!! It's all about flying common sense this week on BTP.
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00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop 773 Cherokee number two following twin traffic three mile final one trolley bravo makesford in Runway two five going four mile.
00:10
Nick Alan
This is behind the prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot Bobby Doss and his co host, major airline captain and designated pilot examiner Wally Mulhern. Now let's go behind the prop.
00:25
Bobby Doss
What's up Wally?
00:27
Wally Mulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:29
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. This is episode 121 I believe. And we're gonna call it, call this show flying common sense. We did a show, last show a couple weeks ago was about. A month ago, learning from your mistakes. Then we had a good guest on from the Thunderbirds and a few comments on social media and some instant messages and mail we got talked about some of the stuff from learning from your mistakes could be considered common sense. And we thought we'd flip some of that mistake making and turn it into common sense. Things that maybe will make you a better pilot. And we're going to break it down into really three sections. So general flying things that flight schools and CFIs can do to teach students may be slightly different than we do typically.
01:23
Bobby Doss
And then talk about what Wally sees on checkrides, that a little common sense might cure the problem to make your experience better on a checkride. Bunch of stories we're going to talk about, a bunch of little scenarios we're going to talk about. But let's talk about really one of the things we have a ton of listens on and that's atc. Wally, how important is it just to listen to atc? How much common sense does it make to listen to air traffic control when you're flying your plane?
01:54
Wally Mulhern
Well, there's that's imperative. We did an episode many episodes ago called two ears, one mouth. And the point was maybe, just maybe listening is more important than talking. And you can learn so much by listening. And when I say listening, I'm not just saying taking the words in and processing them. But, but what does that person mean? So, so Bobby, if you and I are going to eat lunch and we're sitting across the t other and you order a burger and fries and you're sitting there and you're two thirds of the way done with your hamburger and french fries and you got a pickle sitting on your plate and you haven't touched the pickle and I look across at you and I say, are you gonna eat that pickle? What am I really saying?
02:51
Bobby Doss
Eat it or I'm gonna eat it.
02:53
Wally Mulhern
Exactly what I'M saying is, can I have your pickle? Okay, you know, I'm not saying it. I'm not, I'm not. I don't just flat out and come and say, hey, you're gonna eat the. Can I eat that pickle? I'm gonna, you know, we kind of talk in code. So let's say you're flying along and air traffic control says, enter a right base Runway three six. Traffic is a citation on a six mile final. Okay. Enter a right base traffic's a citation on a six mile final. Well, again, assume that you're in a Warrior or 172, you know, 100 knot cruise type airplane. What's ATC telling you? They're telling you to, you know, kind of get going, kind of get out of the way. Now he's telling you that you're probably number one, but he's also telling you to, you know, to hustle. Okay.
03:56
Wally Mulhern
Don't do, obviously don't do anything unsafe, but you got to read between the lines. Or listen.
04:04
Bobby Doss
There's definitely many occasions where that happens. When you're in the air and you've told stories when you're going to Honolulu, you listen to the six aircraft in front of you all being told, you know, to do one thing and you're pretty confident that you're going to get the same information when you get to that point as well. Right. And that's pretty common sense. Ish. I think one that I talked about is a little bit more when you're on the ground listening, maybe the ground control, and we're lucky, we work at a pretty busy airport with ground operations. And as soon as I start the aircraft, I'm listening to ground and trying to build a picture in my brain what's going on the ground and what's going on.
04:47
Bobby Doss
If I'm able to listen to both ground and tower, kind of what's going on in the air, but specifically ground, if I hear someone saying, I'm at the south end of the airport and I need to taxi to the north end, I'm at the north end, I want to get on the Runway and go, I'm midfield and I want to taxi there, I kind of know I'm midfield. There's at least three bogeys out there in that airport environment that I've got to manage or get in the flow with. And I need to listen to where I'm going to fit. Because you don't want to cut someone off. You don't want to be surprised. There's a lot that can do for you on the ground and to participate in the overall system even though you're still on the ground.
05:33
Wally Mulhern
Right, right. You know, do we drive our cars differently on the road when it's a driving rainstorm than a clear day? I'd like to say the answer is yes, I know, I sure do. You're a little bit, probably slower, more cautious. And by listening and you hear that airplane's on the south end taxiing north, you know, it's like there's a little rainstorm out there. Hey, be careful. Maybe look to your left. Be be aware of what's going on. Expect to see that airplane coming from the left.
06:11
Bobby Doss
Yeah, it just gives you information that you wouldn't have if you weren't listening. And then the sooner you're able to switch and listen tower while you're on ground, monitoring tower while you're on ground, you get an idea of what's happening, whether, hey, there's three planes in the pattern and this isn't something that I'm expecting private pilots to be able to do but I would think instrument rated pilots could start building that picture of the sky above them that, hey, there's, somebody's just been handed over from approach and they've been asked to slow down because they're going 165 knots overtaking a Cessna by a hundred miles, 100 knots or something like that, you kind of get an idea. There's some big stuff out there's some slow stuff out there.
06:56
Bobby Doss
I might be sitting at the whole short line for a while, waiting for my turn to go. It just, it just builds to your overall picture of what's going on around you and will make you a better pilot.
07:08
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, you can use, and you can use some simple math. 60 knots is one mile a minute, 120 knots is two miles a minute. And if you kind of know airplanes, you get an idea of their speed. If, if you're at the hold shoreline and they say hold short, there's a Cessna on a two mile final. Well, a Cessna is probably doing just a little bit over 60 knots. So that's about two minutes, maybe a little bit less. So I'm expecting to wait there maybe in minute 45, something like that. So if I got doors open, windows open that I'm going to close before I actually take off. You know, I have a, you know, a game plan. I have a game plan.
07:56
Wally Mulhern
Now sometimes the game plan changes but right now I'M thinking, okay, I got about another minute before I want to close this door or close the window.
08:04
Bobby Doss
Yep. Let's talk about some examples where were planning obviously for this show and were talking about flying fast and flying slow. I had an instructor, still an assistant chief at our school who helped me with my multi engine and I don't think I knew it was common sense until he told me, of course. And I, I was working on my multi engine rating, so I was pretty far down the road. He said when we started to descend into Austin one time, he's like, why are you descending so slow? And I thought I was, I mean, I was right between, right at the bottom of the yellow arc. And I thought, well, this is where I've been told to be. And he's like, well, it's calm day, it's clear outside, there's no bumps. Why aren't you in the yellow arc?
08:53
Bobby Doss
And it's like, well, that's the cautionary, you know, trying to act like a big badass that I was. That's the cautionary area. I don't want to get into that. And he's like, well, do you really know what that means? And we had this discussion and you know, he's like, air traffic control is expecting you to descend much faster than you're descending and they're trying to work you into traffic. Again, maybe they didn't say all that, but as a commercial multi engine pilot, you need to know that. And he said, get that into the yellow arc and unless we feel bumps, the POH says we're in perfectly normal operating conditions to be able to go faster. And I always took that as like this aha moment for myself where maybe we teach so much of the.
09:37
Bobby Doss
The most safe mechanisms about these aircraft that we don't get taught how to not push the envelope, but get in the, get into a zone that, where we need to know if it's uncomfortable, not because it's just painted yellow. Right. Does that make sense?
09:54
Wally Mulhern
Right, right. And, and that's another thing. I mean, we can descend these airplanes not in idle. Okay. We can just push the nose over and change the pitch of the airplane and get it heading toward the ground. And we can, we could descend fast. The only way to descend is not a slow idle descent. And, and you know, I'll just let the cat out of the bag a little bit. Something I see on check rides when we do a divert scenario. And, and when I give a divert scenario, it's not, hey, that airport over there has really good milkshakes. Let's divert over there. The reason I. I give a divert scenario. That'S an emergency, we need to get on the ground.
10:44
Wally Mulhern
Whether it be a physical issue with me or a problem with the airplane, a mechanical problem with the airplane, that maybe we got low oil pressure, high oil temperature. Right now the airplane is still running, but under those circumstances. We probably ought to get the airplane on the grounds. And so maybe going fast to that airport is the way to go.
11:11
Bobby Doss
Yeah, and I. I don't think that's something we teach necessarily. Right. I think we still teach procedures. And I think there. I think. I'm saying, as a flight school owner, there's some opportunity there for us to take this framework that we call scenario based training and make it a little bit more scenario based. I had a great opportunity that came up as were prepared, preparing for the show that we talked about. In my past when I was an instrument student, I had a lot of opportunity to fly at night, which was really good instrument training for me. And were flying at night one time, and I don't know what were doing on that particular day, but we checked in with the tower as were coming back, and the tower said, you got. We only have eight minutes. The airport's closing, we're mowing.
12:00
Bobby Doss
And it was notam'd or something, and we missed it. Maybe we didn't listen to ATC or something, but my instructor said there was zero hesitation. He says, my controls, we're getting back. And he pushed the gas all the way forward and kind of put the nose over a little bit so we get maximum rate of ground speed to get to that airport. And sure enough, we got in with seconds to spare. And he just. There was a different sense of urgency than there had ever been that I got to experience that I thought was really interesting. Like, man, I had no idea. There was no calmness to getting into a pattern and trying to make three right hand turns and do all the things that you do 97% of the time when you're a student.
12:52
Bobby Doss
We went right to the numbers and when you hear that occasionally direct to the numbers, we still probably all go a little bit of a bend and out and turn in. This guy went direct to the numbers. And we got on the ground in about seven and a half minutes. And that's the scenario that I think flight instructors could come up with on a regular basis. We all probably have an EFB on our leg that says ETA to your destination is 17 minutes. Is there Any way we can get there in 12, 13 safely? Like it's a good practice because.
13:27
Wally Mulhern
Right.
13:27
Bobby Doss
If you never practice it and someone is sick, you're gonna make a mistake because you've never practiced it. Make the mistakes during practice.
13:37
Wally Mulhern
You know, if you're driving down the road in a car and your passenger says. Having a medical situation that requires you. They wouldn't say this but they're having a medical situation that requires immediate emergency care. You're going to drive fast to an ER and if you can. Safely run a red light, you're probably going to run a red light. Okay, I think everybody listening here would say, yeah, I'm going to do that. I, I'm going to exceed the speed limit. I'm going to break the law. Okay, let's, let's just cut right to the chase, you know, and if, you know, if a police officer stopped you, he'd probably give you an escort where he would take the person with him. And you know, the fars tell us we can break the law to the extent needed to meet an emergency.
14:35
Wally Mulhern
Now I'm not, what I'm saying is, you know, if you need to divert and go to an airport, can we land straight in? You're darn right we can land straight in.
14:48
Bobby Doss
With the wind, Wally, with the wind.
14:50
Wally Mulhern
We can land straight in with a tailwind. You know, I wouldn't land on a 5,000 foot Runway with a 26 knot tailwind, but. I'd feel comfortable. Well, I'm not even going to give the number, but let's say you've got a 1-836-Runway configuration and the wind is 180 at 6 knots. Can we land Runway three six? Darn right we can. And, and it's probably something we ought to practice. So I'm not saying to the flight instructors to go find the local airport and land downwind when there are four airplanes in the traffic pattern. But there's going to be a day when you're over there and you're the only airplane and that's a great opportunity to say, hey, let's do a couple of, let's do a downwind landing just to show you if you get down there and things aren't working out, you go around.
15:44
Wally Mulhern
Okay, but this is something worth practicing. We don't want to, we don't want to try something the first time in a real life scenario.
15:56
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I had the opportunity with my instructors to do that and were pretty far out of Houston and at an uncontrolled field. And we had, we knew no one was in the area, no one was talking. We had flown the pattern the right direction a few laps. No one was out there. And we flew it where we got a couple of downwind landings. But it was like you said, four to six knots. It was not, it was not a situation that would have put us in any harm or jeopardy. But it, you can read the poh and see what, what you, what the distance would be with a downwind configuration. But until you feel it and see just how far you float and that you don't get on the ground like you're expecting, it's. It's going to be a different scenario.
16:41
Bobby Doss
You definitely don't want to experience that the first time when you're having an emergency. For sure.
16:45
Wally Mulhern
Right. You know, I think you go ahead.
16:50
Bobby Doss
I was gonna say you don't forget that thought. But you were gonna talk about the calling the place you rented the aircraft from. Under a couple scenarios that. It does seem like common sense when you say it, but probably isn't common sense when you're flying the plane.
17:05
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, you know, one of the scenarios that we do on a commercial and a private is an emergency landing. And so we set up for a emergency landing off airport. Probably it may be on airport if we happen to be close. But, you know, a lot of times, you know, sometimes the applicant is unsuccessful and the. We're not going to make it. We are not going to make it in the field that they chose. And. You know, I, I will say to them, you know, as we debrief, I'll say, okay, if that were really that situation, what would you have done differently? And, you know, a lot of times they'll say, well, gee, I was too fast. I was 121knots coming down, and I couldn't get the flaps down because the flap speed is 120 knots. And I say, well.
18:02
Wally Mulhern
Imagine these two phone calls. Phone call one is to the owner of the airplane where you tell them, hey, the engine quit. And I tried to put it down in a field and I missed. And it's hanging in a bunch of trees. I'm okay. I was able to climb down the tree, but the airplane is 50ft up in the air hanging in some trees. The other phone call is, hey, we. The, the engine quit on the airplane. We had to put it down in a field. The airplane's in pretty good shape. I'm just fine. I think I probably over. Well, I know I oversped the flaps. I had to get the flaps out at 125 knots to help get the airplane down. Which phone, which one is probably going to go a little bit better.
18:52
Wally Mulhern
I think the owner of the airplane is going to deal with a airplane that's intact and on the ground with oversped flaps as opposed to the one that's hanging up in the trees. So. And you know, just from a standpoint of you making out, making it out alive, you're probably a lot better off making that out on the ground than up in some trees.
19:15
Bobby Doss
Yeah. There's no way we're suggesting doing these things in simulated scenarios, but having the wherewithal to think through the mechanism that would be common sense. In that real time scenario where you're having that experience for real. Don't sell yourself short that it has to be like the way you practiced it every time because it's probably inevitable that it won't be like you practiced it when that time comes. The other last thing I'll say about just normal flying or normal ground operations that the assistant chief taught me was the expectation of what the tower and, or the air traffic operations are thinking about when you're on the ground getting close to the whole short line. And I think it really opened my eyes.
20:03
Bobby Doss
We filed a lot of flight plans in the twin when I was doing my multi training and he just was like, you never switch over until we get to the whole short line. They're expecting you to switch over and say I'm ready to go when you're approaching the whole short line. And he was trying to tell me that approaching was when I had nowhere else to go. Like if I was kind of landlocked on my last little taxiway, you're either going to turn around and go back or you're going to, and you got to ask for that or you're going to get ready to go. And the tower needs to know you're ready to go for lots of reasons. But I found that as a something that definitely seems like common sense now, but wasn't making sense to me before.
20:42
Bobby Doss
And at our local airport, more often than not they say switch over when you're number one. What are your thoughts on that, Wally?
20:49
Wally Mulhern
Well, what they say at the local, our local airport is contact tower when you're number one. They don't, they don't tell you when to switch over. Okay. They say contact. And what a lot of our students interpret that to are like almost. I'd say 99 of our students interpret contact tower when you're number one is to switch over tower when you're number one. So you're sitting out there, you're number four in line. There's four airplanes ahead of you, there's four airplanes behind you, there's a long line of airplanes and you're moving up one at a time. And we're monitoring ground. And so we know of the airplane that's a half mile behind us, just called for taxi from one of the flight schools. No offense, but I don't care about that airplane.
21:40
Wally Mulhern
But what I do care about is what did they just give the airplane? That's three or four airplanes in front of us. They gave him Runway heading. Okay. The next guy, he got Runway heading. The next airplane, he gets Runway heading. Okay. Now I'm thinking, pretty good chance I'm going to get Runway heading. So I'm already planning for it. You know, if I plan to left turnout to go over here to this checkpoint, I'm already thinking, all right, we may go past that checkpoint because they may give us Runway heading. So you know, again, what's behind you. There's no rear view mirrors in airplanes. So really what's behind you doesn't quite matter. Okay, but what's in front of you does.
22:26
Bobby Doss
Yeah.
22:26
Wally Mulhern
So when they say contact tower one, number one, they literally mean contact. That there's no limitation as when you, as to when you can monitor tower. Now, if you're still in a area of the airport where ground control is doing a lot of controlling. Yeah, obviously stay with ground control. But if you read the aim, it talks. When do you know, that is one of the switchovers that you don't need to be told when to do it. When you go from ground control tower, when you're at the end of the Runway and ready to go, that's when you switch over.
23:04
Bobby Doss
And I know it is at our tower, and I bet there, I bet it is at all. But maybe super big towers, big airports, but they're like six feet from each other. They're, they're going to know, hey, I can't get that plane that's at the end of the Runway. Oh, I'll ask him. I mean, it's a group of people. They're working together in the greater system.
23:22
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, absolutely. They're very, very likely in that same tower.
23:29
Bobby Doss
Cab.
23:29
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. You know, another thing that, this is another comparison I've used. So you know, when a young kid is in school, at some point they learn multiplication tables. Okay. I think at least they did when I was in school. But I hope kids are still learning this today. At some point. They're just learning, and they're just memorizing that three times three is nine, okay? They're memorizing that eight times six is 48, okay? And. But if. If all they do is memorize those numbers, but they can't apply that to practical use, what is the point? So, you know, when I was in school, you know, a typical math test, we would have all these math problems, and maybe at the end there would be two or three word problems. And everybody always hated the word problems.
24:30
Wally Mulhern
And I always loved the word problems because I thought, this is where the rubber meets the highway. This is the reason we're doing it. You know, if the Jones family is a family of four and they're going on a picnic, and whoever is packing the lunch for the picnic wants to pack two Twinkies for each member of the family. You got to be able to go four times two is eight. And if I'm going an extra two, maybe. But. You know, you got to be able to apply that four times, too. And I. I feel like we're losing that common sense in. In flight training now. The. The apple, you know, what I see is the applicants can do the maneuvers very well. I mean, I can't. Well, I. It's been a while since I've really had someone struggle with steep turns.
25:30
Wally Mulhern
They just go out and do the maneuver. Now where they do struggle is when I give them something that's totally out of the box. Okay, this is going on with the airplane mechanically. This is what's going on right now. We're simulating this. What are you going to do about it? And I don't have a clue. And of course, what I'm giving them is, you know, trying to get them to divert. You know, if we've got a low oil pressure, high oil temperature situation, we need to be aiming to a place to land the airplane. Hopefully we can make an airport, but we're going to aim towards the airport and always keep a plan B in our back pocket of a field or a road or something down below us. But do we want to go to that airport fast?
26:18
Wally Mulhern
Do we want to go slow? Do we want to keep the power where it is? I mean, me personally, if the engine is still running and we have indications of an issue, I'm not going to change the power. I'm not going to add power. I'm not going to take it away. I'm just going to keep it. Exactly where it is. I had a scenario on a checkride where the young man. We were taking off out of an airport to the. To the east, and we're climbing. And then I look over, and all of a sudden we had no fuel pressure. But the engine was still running, and it was a Piper. So we had a fuel pump. And I turned the fuel pump on, and I said, okay, checkride's over. We've got an issue. We're just gonna head back.
27:05
Wally Mulhern
We headed back to our home airport, and at this point, we're about 30 miles away, and we maintain altitude. I said, look, we're gonna just stay at this altitude until we are right smack dab over the airport. And were pretty high. I want to say we're about 5,500ft. So we just flew back at 5,500ft. We had to get clearance to go into the Bravo, and we got over airport and. And, and circled down and landed. And it. We did have a fuel pump issue. But. You know, every scenario is a little bit different. So we got to. You know, when you walk in the door of a flight school, they may tell you, we're going to teach you everything, you know, you want, everything you need to know to become a professional pilot.
27:56
Wally Mulhern
But they don't say that you still need to use common sense when you fly airplanes. And I think sometimes that goes out the door.
28:07
Bobby Doss
You know, if we migrate to the teaching component. You know, our chief has been a part of our school for almost 30 years now, maybe has been 30 years, and in some form or another, the one thing he talks a lot about is energy management. And, you know, we hear high or low, fast or slow when we talk about that. But I think he talks about a little differently from just managing the energy of what's possible with that plane. And I'm not sure I. I think he does a really good job of it. I'm not sure the rest of us do a great job of teaching that energy management to our students, because we talk about pitch and throttle and airspeed and climbing and descending, but we're not really talking about energy.
28:51
Bobby Doss
So that's a common sense thing that I hear all the time from my chief, that I would challenge everybody out there listening to. Work on it with whoever you're working with in your flight training to really understand how to manage the energy of that aircraft. Because, in essence, as a pilot, that's really what you're doing.
29:10
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
29:11
Bobby Doss
Other things that I think are common sense that we. We don't teach because they're not, I don't. They're not in the syllabus. I doubt anyone's ever going to put them in a syllabus. The far aim doesn't say you have to be required to know the aeronautical knowledge is not how to put the cap on and off of an airplane, how to put the fuel nozzle into that airplane and how to pump gas into that airplane. But the reality is if you want to be a pilot and you're going to fly general aviation, you're going to have to put gas in your airplane at some point. So make it common sense and have your instructor teach you how to put gas in an airplane. Make sure you know how to put gas in an airplane.
29:51
Bobby Doss
If you don't have a credit card, you're probably not going to put gas in an airplane when you get to a remote destination. So make sure you have a credit card. There's no one to pay these places nowadays, it's all electronic. And then take gas out. You got to take gas out if you're overweight. That's the only way you can solve that problem or kick your girlfriend or boyfriend out of the plane. But more than likely you're going to take fuel out of the plane to solve 6 12, 18 pounds of issues. Right?
30:22
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. And back to the fuel thing. I think it's, I think it'd be really easy to say, wow, I've got a, the air. My airplane said a really nice hangar. They do, they pull it out for me. All I do, I got to do is call them and say hey, I'm leaving at 10 o'. Clock. I'd like to get the airplane topped off. And, and you could make the argument that I'm never going to go to an airport that doesn't have full service fuel. Well that's fine and dandy until you are coming home and you look out on the wing and you realize that the fuel cap is gone.
30:55
Wally Mulhern
You say you're in a Piper and, or you're in a Cessna and all of a sudden you're looking at fuel gauges and you realize that the right fuel tank is empty and you've only got, you know, 18 gallons left instead of 36 gallons. So now it's oh geez. My only option is to stop at little airport up here and guess what? They don't have full service fuel. It's self service fuel. So that's something that we've talked about in previous episodes but I think most of us take it for granted but it's something that you need to do. You need to know how to do that.
31:36
Bobby Doss
Yeah. And the other thing we talked about was with strange airports. Right. And I don't. I think we at our school are in a dilemma where we go to the same four to five airports all the time. Tried to come up with many ideas on how we can expand that, get to a dozen or 15 different airports. You start getting into a time constraint and distance restraints and other things like that. But we're not doing our students very much justice if they've only been to four airports. And I think it's important that you show private students and then specifically instrument students what it's like to be put in a situation where they're at a strange airport. They don't really know where to go, how to get to that. Terminal procedures chart and understand what's what that airport offers or doesn't offer.
32:27
Bobby Doss
What is a different approach? If I've never shot an approach, can I really shoot that approach? Can I read? You know, I know I can shoot the Navasota approach that I haven't almost memorized. I don't know if I could shoot an approach into Midland, Texas, because I've never looked at the approach plate, but I hope I can. But we need to challenge each other and try and do those things.
32:49
Wally Mulhern
Maybe it's a good idea for the student pilot to see the instructor pilot go into an airport to which the instructor pilot has never been to. Hey, you want to go to Airport xyz? Yeah, let's go. I've never been there before. Let's go.
33:07
Bobby Doss
Yeah, that's. That's definitely a tactic that I'm trying to incorporate the school for sure, because there's plenty of options and there's ways to make it happen. We've probably landed at a bunch of them, but we probably never stopped either. Right. Be nice just to go in and stop and understand what services they have and what all is available to you. Let's talk a little bit about checkrides. You definitely see common sense leave the airplane. Sure. On checkrides, but let's talk about that diverting one and some of the common sense that you look for there and just replay that if we have to. But talk. Talk about common sense on checkrides and where applicants aren't meeting the mark may.
33:49
Wally Mulhern
Well, I, you know, I give a scenario where they do have to divert and whether it be a medical thing or an airplane issue. You know, I want to see them point the airplane toward the new airport and you know, if you're flying along and you know the airport is to the east, let's say we're, you're, we're flying north and we know the airplane is to the east. Well, as strange as it sounds, you know, let's turn the airplane to the east first and then let's look in the gps. Let's not go five miles to the north or five miles out of the way. You know, that's about two and a half minutes at our airplane speeds. Let's aim toward where we think the airport is. You, you probably have a pretty good idea.
34:46
Wally Mulhern
You know, I think it's about 90 degrees or 100 degrees. So point the airplane over there now plug it in and fine tune it. You know, I've had many, well, I won't say many, but a few medical diversions in big airplanes and boy, when I hear. Unconscious not breathing, performing cpr. We're getting out the aed. That airplane is turning now. Now you know. Of course we need to coordinate with atc, but yeah, we're declaring an emergency. We're going to Phoenix. Now. There'S no dilly dallying around when it comes to a human life or you know, if the airplane is compromised, we may be deal with a bunch of human lives for sure.
35:40
Bobby Doss
We, I know you've told the story and we'll, we'll wrap up the day with this and recap on the show. But where does common sense leave the window in the oral exam as it relates to weight and balance and fuel and some simple calculations there.
35:57
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. And let me just go back to the actual divert scenario. Let's say you are diverting. Do we need to fly over midfield, enter a right teardrop to enter a left down into the, to the Runway that is the wind is favoring. No, we don't, we can go straight in, we can do whatever we want. All those. And we're talking about non controlled airport obviously. But you know, if it is a controlled airport, the ATC is going to work with you and they're going to move everybody out of the way and they're going to tell you to land straight in. So even if it's a non controlled airport, you know, especially if you're practicing this and there's nobody in the pattern, I mean that's a perfect scenario, a perfect training scenario to say hey, let's go straight in.
36:41
Wally Mulhern
We're going to land downwind with a three knot tailwind. But getting back to your recent question about in the oral, you know, I give them an out of weight scenario, and I, I ask what the weight is, what our takeoff weight is going to be, what our max takeoff weight is going to be. And then I say, okay, let's say my friend shows up, and my friend weighs X and we add X to what weigh, and we are now max takeoff weight plus a little bit. And my question is always, can he go? And I'd say 98% of the people say no. And we're the airport that we're going to land with. And again, we're in a warrior type airplane. We're going to land with 22 gallons worth of fuel. And maybe we're 18 pounds overweight.
37:41
Wally Mulhern
So we can't take off three gallons and land. You know, and take off 18 pounds. And now we're going to land with. I think I said land with 22 gallons. Now we're going to land with 19 gallons. And that's what I'm getting. And usually I'll query them a little bit. I'll say, oh, geez, that's bad. That's too bad. I don't think, I don't want to go unless my friend can go with us. And then the applicant will usually say, well, we could do this. I said, well, why didn't you say that initially? I mean, why don't we try to become mission oriented? And we've used that phrase on this podcast more time. You know, a lot is mission oriented, you know, and the mission, it just isn't flight training. Because in flight training, there's always something we can do on the ground.
38:32
Wally Mulhern
We can always cancel the flight ig, there's a cloud in the sky. Let's just cancel the flight and do ground. Because we got to do ground anyway. All right? And it. So it becomes very convenient for us. But how about instead of flying to where the cloud was, why don't we go to the other way? Because there's no clouds over there. Oh, yeah, geez. We can, we can change things up a little bit.
38:55
Bobby Doss
Yeah, there's a lot of pieces of common sense that would make being a pilot easier, make it safer, and hopefully we've shared some of that with you today. If you have a checkride in the future, short future, make sure you know that the DP wants you to use common sense and really put a practical spin on what you're trying to get done for the greater good of the plane and the people and safety, not just the only cautious answer is going to be the best right one. We talked a little bit about flying the common sense around, listening to the radios. Listening to the radios when you're on the ground, thinking through kind of building that picture of what's in the air around you. The yellow arc is your friend on calm days without turbulence.
39:44
Bobby Doss
And then we talked about some things maybe the CFIs listening could teach. Pumping fuel, taking fuel out of an aircraft, energy management, etc. Until next week or two weeks from now. As always, fly safely and stay behind the prop.
40:04
Nick Alan
Thanks for checking out the behind the Prop podcast. Be sure to click subscribe and check us out online@bravetheprop.com behind the Prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Creator and host is Bobby Dossier. Co host is Wally Mulhern. The show is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening and remember, fly safe.