This week we discuss properly briefing an IFR flight.
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00:01
Behing the Prop Intro
Clear prop S73 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.
00:24
Bobby Doss
What's up Wally?
00:25
Wally Mulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:27
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. Got some good feedback on last week. A number of people talked about kind of the eye opening moments of hearing us talk about becoming a flight instructor. Hopefully you were able to listen to that if that's in your future and you want to become a flight instructor one day this week we are going to talk about instrument briefings. I know we've talked about it a couple times on past shows. The weather in Houston, Texas has been absolutely horrible. We have had the worst four or five days of rain that I've seen in a very long time. The airport was flooded, the big Runway has been closed because of flooding and nothing better to do than sit around and think about of a bunch of instrument work. So today we're talking about instrument briefings.
01:17
Bobby Doss
Wally, you talked about some phraseology that you use when you shoot instrument approaches in your professional world. Let's give a little preview about what we're going to talk about today.
01:29
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, well, when, you know, in my airline job we, a long time ago someone taught this to me and we say build it, bug it, brief it. And what do we mean by that? Well, build it, you know, if you have a FMC or a selectable approach in your gps, that's what we're talking about by building it. If we're on a vector to final. If you're in your typical Garmin, you might want to go ahead and activate vectors to final and set your range on your map so maybe you can see your inbound course. Bucket. What does bucket mean? Well, if we have the ability to set altitude bugs or airspeed bugs or anything else that we may have, maybe go around power setting, bug it and then brief it. You know, we are talking about briefings here.
02:34
Wally Mulhern
So you know, at that point in with the airline, you know, that's when you, you turn to the other pilot and say, okay, let's talk about what approach we're doing. And you know, typically in the airline environment the briefing starts with the arrival. We're on the so and so arrival and we're transitioning over to the ILS Runway 17. So you want to brief the arrival and the approach. But you know, again, in the local training environment that we're in, we're usually probably not dealing with an arrival.
03:12
Bobby Doss
And we're going to talk about a whole bunch of stuff today. Probably some good, some bad. The ugly check rides lots of stuff. But I think one of the sentiments that we want to talk about is the over the top briefing. The one that's got like way too much detail and probably wastes time and effort in the cockpit. Maybe over the top briefings to people that don't need to be briefed, share some best practices, talk about single pilot versus crew hodgepodge of things, but it's all about instrument briefings. And I think we're going to start off with kind of the world of single pilot resource management and maybe what a briefing or lack thereof might look like and what the ACS says versus kind of the crew and what constitutes a crew.
04:00
Bobby Doss
You know, I could see where I fly with a person that may be a rated pilot, maybe instrument rated. We work together as a crew. And then there could be something where you have, what you have in your professional world, Wally, that people are actually doing different jobs to execute the plan of attack, to brief an approach or to execute that approach. So let's start with single pilot. I think a world that we live in is a training world that is mostly simulated, that feels cruish, but really a single pilot. Wally, tell us a little bit about where your mind fits on the single pilot world in the training environment.
04:41
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I, you know, we. Every checkride I've given over the last seven or eight years has been for a single pilot. I have not given one crew checkride. And you know, as I look at the ACS for all the approaches and I'm using the new acs, which actually is effective the end of this month. You know, there's elements that say use single pilot resource management or crew resource management as appropriate. Now the airplanes we're flying are all single pilot airplanes. So there is no real crew to it. Now having said that, you know what constitutes a crew? Well, we can get real technical and say, well, an airplane that is required type certificated to have more than one pilot would be a crew.
05:40
Wally Mulhern
Well, I, I would say not exactly because I used to, you know, when I was a new pilot, I used to fly around with a really good friend of mine who was not a pilot. His name was Robbie. And he, I mean he probably had 30 or 40, 50 hours with me. And he almost became a crew member. And so I would, you know, I would communicate things to him that maybe I wouldn't communicate to just a passenger that I was taking somewhere, for instance, because, you know, he had been around. He, you know, when I'd call up approach and they'd give a squawk code, he would reach up and tune my transponder for me. So he was almost like a co pilot. So, you know, I treated him a little bit differently.
06:36
Bobby Doss
And sometimes I've heard where wives are that similar way. Right. They've flown.
06:40
Wally Mulhern
Absolutely.
06:41
Bobby Doss
Their spouse. They might be able to read a checklist or they might be able to do something as it relates to an iPad or do something meaning write down information that was read back by atc. Yeah, I think there's myriads of ways where crew members can be crew members. It doesn't always have to be that rated pilot. But I have been obviously a fly school owner with a lot of pilots around all the time that fly with me. I've been in flights and I just recently flew on my sixth anniversary of buying the Fly School, my ninth anniversary of the first flight I ever took on May 3rd. And the flight instructor that flew with me that day, I said, look, if there's an emergency, your pilot in command. And of course he agreed.
07:25
Bobby Doss
And we said all this on the ground long before we took off and we worked together. But he's going to be much more proficient than I'm going to be. Even if I flew every day, he's probably flying four times a day. I want him to be in charge and I don't want there to be any second guessing. So we were constantly acting like a crew and we did a shooting approach that day and we worked as a crew when we shot that approach. But I've flown a lot of single pilot imc and I can tell you I have, I don't think I've ever out loud said the words that I would be briefing that approach. It's more of an internal talk, but I do it the way I was taught to. Read the approach plate and make sure that I reviewed everything.
08:07
Bobby Doss
If you were alone in your Saratoga, Wally, flying to St. Louis, two minimums, what would you do? Would you say it out loud? Would you talk yourself? Would you brief yourself?
08:19
Wally Mulhern
No, I wouldn't. I would review it. I would review it very vigorously and I'd be, you know, I would know what the, you know, the inbound chorus, my missed approach point, whether it would be a decision altitude or an Intersection or time or whatever. And the, probably the most important thing that I want to know is my missed approach procedure. My initial procedure, is it Runway heading to, you know, to an intersection that's 12 miles out, or is it an immediate left hand turn back to where we came from or whatever. But I want to, I'm probably going to memorize that because if I have to go missed approach getting out of there and my first couple of maneuvers, if you will, I want to have, you know, in my mind.
09:15
Wally Mulhern
Now, having said that, my iPad is really close and that missed approach procedure is right there in front of me. So all I have to do is look down at it.
09:25
Bobby Doss
And this is where I think the training world becomes. I don't want to say hindrance, but something that we almost fall into a false sense of reality with. Right. Because when we're training and we're shooting practice approaches, how many times do we actually land to a full stop?
09:43
Wally Mulhern
Very few. Very few.
09:45
Bobby Doss
And how many times do we go missed A lot? Almost always. Yeah. And so we're almost planning to go missed. And in my training environment, when I was doing my instrument rating, it was always amended instructions. They were not what was on the approach plate. I think unless were shooting at an uncontrolled airport, a VOR Alpha approach or something that was simulated, an RNAV with a flight instructor pretending to be atc and went missed, I don't think I ever got to really shoot the miss. The published mist.
10:18
Wally Mulhern
Right.
10:18
Bobby Doss
There's always something else. Turn a heading of such and such, climb to such and such. And so you're writing that down and you're not relying on the plug plate as much as you're relying on the amended or the made up approach miss. And that could get us into a false sense of, well, I don't really need to read the plate. I'm gonna get something different. But in the real world, in the environment, single pilot, you're not gonna get that they're expecting you to make the approach and land. And when you don't, it's all on you. And I think I would probably fall into a sense of comfort thinking someone's going to give me some instructions when I say I'm going missed. I'm, I'm almost probably thinking they're going to tell me what to do, but I need to be ready.
11:01
Wally Mulhern
Well, I will say real world, you're probably going to fly the published mist almost never. At a controlled airport. At a controlled airport.
11:13
Bobby Doss
Okay.
11:14
Wally Mulhern
You know, I probably average one missed Approach every five or six years, you know, so it doesn't happen a lot. But when you do go missed approach, more times than not, ATC, you know, @ that place will give you, okay, turn left heading 2, 9 or 0, climb and maintain 3,000.
11:39
Bobby Doss
Well, and I'll say this, you're talking about big jets and big airports. Our listeners are probably somewhere in Iowa and maybe haven't even seen a tower.
11:49
Wally Mulhern
Right.
11:49
Bobby Doss
And if they're shooting something to minimums, they're not going to have that luxury. They're going to be reading that plate.
11:56
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, that's absolutely correct. So, yeah, the difference in non controlled and controlled airports is a, is. I mean, there's a big difference.
12:05
Bobby Doss
And I would even say, and I don't know because I've never had to do it, but if I was at Hooks, where we both fly out of, it's. If I were to go missed on a Saturday afternoon at 4pm and I was literally single pilot trying to come home from a trip, would they give me instructions or would I have to. I would change to approach and then approach would give me those instructions. Right. The tower's not going to change what I'm supposed to do.
12:31
Wally Mulhern
Very possible that the tower will give you an initial, you know.
12:36
Bobby Doss
Well, I guess they're talking to approach too.
12:38
Wally Mulhern
Right.
12:38
Bobby Doss
So they're handing me back off to approach at that point, probably for sure. Right. So let's talk about some best practices because I hear a dozen different ways to best at something at the flight school on a daily basis. But there's a number of different ways that I was taught to brief approaches, to talk to myself or think through approaches. And I did a little research before we started recording. There are a lot of acronyms out there on how to brief an approach.
13:08
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
13:08
Bobby Doss
And I'm gonna share my favorite one and then I'm gonna share my new favorite one after my research and we'll talk about some of them. So I learned wires and I learned something that was called abc. And I love abc. ABC is my thing. I'm simplistic. I don't think I miss things. But A is for ATIs, B is for brief. The approach. C is a kind of squared thing. It's for checklist and communications. And I really feel like I kind of get that all covered in that process. So I love abc. It's really good. And I'm gonna share my new favorite one after that. But we found a lot of them. Wire or wires is probably really common. It's weather instruments, radios, environment. S is normally for switches. I, I think that's more complicated and maybe I'm a simplistic guy.
14:02
Bobby Doss
Which one do you hear the most, Wally, or do you hear one more often than not?
14:07
Wally Mulhern
You know, I will say that quite frankly, I don't ever hear anybody say the acronym. What. What is very typical though, on an instrument checkride where you're. We're going from one approach to another approach is forgetting the atis. And it just happened today. We were going from an uncontrolled airport to a controlled airport. And I told the applicant, okay, we're going to go to Airport xyz. So let's, let's call up approach, tell them we would like this approach to Airport xyz. And he literally called up approach and told them we wanted this approach. And of course, the first thing approach said is if advise when you have information. Bravo. So now we're in a little bit of a rough place where we're listening to approach and trying to pick up information. Bravo.
15:09
Wally Mulhern
So we got two conversations going and while the ATIs is going, approach is calling us. And it was manageable, but it wasn't as pretty as had he just gotten the ATIs and then called approach and said, hey, we have information. Bravo. Because, you know, they're going to ask that. So, so you know that I do see that a lot as people forgetting to get the ATIs. Now, you know, you could make the argument, well, we just left from that airport and you know, it's an hour and a half later. I know, I know that the weather hasn't changed significantly, but there could be a Runway closure. You know, there could be an odom that the, the approach that we are wanting is not available due to whatever.
15:57
Wally Mulhern
So yeah, you need to get that, that atis and you know, that ought to be the first thing.
16:06
Bobby Doss
So in our research, we found a lot of acronyms and we're just going to throw out a few of them for more funniness than anything or something you may pick up and be your favorite one that I saw because I like ABC was abbc, which was ATIS Build Bug Brief Checklist. We also found airbag, which I think we both kind of like. Actually. Airbag was. Is ATIS install the approach radios, which would include source, course, frequency and identify. B would be brief the approach. A would be approach checklist and G would be go around. And I think one thing that we talked a lot about as were planning for this was that the go around component is really what's missed in a lot of these checklists.
16:56
Bobby Doss
So we liked Airbag because it had that g. And I tell Wally my new favorite one is abcg. I'm gonna start using ABCG for myself because I probably don't brief the go around as well or as often as I should. And I think it's an important component that would make my flying better or make me a safer, better pilot. By including the go around component in a lot of my briefings to myself and to others, if I'm in a crew environment, I.
17:26
Wally Mulhern
That is definitely something that we don't do a great job at is not just the go around procedure. In other words, where we're going to go to this intersection and enter the hold, but the actual profile of what we're going to do when we go around. Okay, if we go around, max power, maybe carburetor heat off flaps to 20 or whatever, and you know, I'm going to pitch up to climb out at 85 knots. And I'm just making up these numbers.
18:04
Bobby Doss
Sure.
18:04
Wally Mulhern
But I remember, you know, my father talking to me years ago, and he was a young airline pilot at Eastern Airlines to give you an idea of how long ago it was, and he, I remember him telling me he was getting checked out in a new airplane. And I don't know where they were going, but they're going from point A to point B. And I mean, this was real old school, very old school. And he said, the Czech pilot or the instructor handed my dad the approach plate and he said, okay, I want you to memorize this. And of course, it was paper plates back then. And so my dad looked at it and then he handed it back to the instructor and the instructor said to him, okay, what's the missed approach procedure? And luckily my dad said, I knew it.
18:58
Wally Mulhern
And so he kind of looked like a shining star there. By knowing the missed approach procedure, that might be the most important thing on that approach plate, is the most missed approach procedure. What are we going to do if we get down and we don't see the Runway? Because, you know, where are we? On an ILS, you're 200ft above the ground. On a, you know, a Cat1 ILS, on an RNAV approach, maybe you're three, 400ft above the ground. You're close, you're close. And as long as I've got altitude, I'm all right, but down at 200ft, you don't want to be fumbling around. And I see that. I mean, on an instrument checkride, you are going to do a missed approach. One of the approaches is going to be to a missed approach.
19:47
Wally Mulhern
And I can't tell you how many times we're flying to the airport to do our third pro. The approach. Third approach. And you know, the applicant says, wow, the airplane's just not performing very well. And. And I'll just say, yeah, it's not. And. And then sometimes that will be followed by, there's this weird vibration too. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh, the flaps are still down. You know, something like ten minutes across town.
20:25
Bobby Doss
Made it five miles.
20:26
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
20:30
Bobby Doss
Well, I do want to share one of the funny ones that I found. And, and maybe it's your wheelhouse one. If you're listening out there, and if you are, you're better than me. But it's supposedly, it's pronounced Raymond Warts and it's W R A M O R T S. You might have to rewind and listen to that again. But it's weather, Runway, approach type, minimums, overshoot, radios, timing and speeds, or special instructions. Now that to me, Wally, kind of leads into the next segment of maybe over the top talking or over the top doing it. Maybe that's the way somebody has to think about it. But let's talk about what is the DPE expecting from me on a checkride as it relates to briefing an instrument approach? I'm assuming on an instrument checkride.
21:26
Bobby Doss
What is that DPE evaluating me on as it relates to me briefing the approach?
21:34
Wally Mulhern
Well, I'm looking at the acs and there's nothing in the ACS about briefing an approach.
21:39
Bobby Doss
What is the acs, Wally? What is that?
21:42
Wally Mulhern
Airman certification standards. It's.
21:46
Bobby Doss
That's the open book.
21:47
Wally Mulhern
It's the test. It's the test. And there's nothing in there that addresses briefings. It, it, as I said earlier, it says use single pilot resource management or crew resource management as appropriate. Now, I'm not part of the crew as a dpe. Not your co pilot. Okay. You know, I've. I've had people say, can I just drop my apple pencil? Can you reach down and get that? Well, I can do that because, you know, a 10 year old can do that. So, you know, I'm fine with reaching down and grabbing your apple pencil, but, you know, I'm not a crew member.
22:34
Bobby Doss
And so you're saying that if I was on an instrument checkride today, and you weren't giving me the checkride. And I did not brief the approach to the DPE, but I shot the approach and I did the ATIs and I, I did all my checklists and I went missed and I did the right miss. That the DP can't hold that against me, that I didn't talk him through the approach.
22:58
Wally Mulhern
No, I didn't say that. I said, I said I wouldn't, I would not. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think we have come up with this. I don't want to say expectation. I mean, that's what everybody does. I'm not saying it's right. You know, everybody wants to brief the approach. I, I will say this. If you're going to brief the approach, then brief it. In other words, don't just read stuff, you know, make sure that the person that you're trying to breathe is getting it. You know, I like to say he talked a lot but didn't say much. And we've all heard that. I mean, we've all heard, you know, people go on and on. And at the end of it, you're thinking, well, okay, I didn't get anything. I didn't learn anything from this.
23:58
Wally Mulhern
So some of the briefs I get, you know, on approach briefings, they just go on and on and boy, they get down in the weeds, you know, all kinds of things that, you know, who cares?
24:17
Bobby Doss
Yeah. And so I guess, and again, you don't know every DP in North America, but if someone was to sit down with a DP or they were going to do a check ride, how would you maybe advise a applicant to address the briefing with the dpe? Would it be appropriate if I said, hey, I know we're going to shoot a number of approaches today. Normally I talk myself through the approach. Do you want me to talk you through the approach to demonstrate my knowledge, or is that kind of over the top quirkiness before a checkride as well?
24:50
Wally Mulhern
I would say so. I'd say just keep doing what you're doing with your instructor. You know, if probably your instructor is having you brief it and it's your instructor's way of knowing that you know it. But having said that, tomorrow, when you're now a newly minted instrument pilot, if you're flying your mother somewhere, you know, I guess I would say, are you going to brief your mother? And maybe you are.
25:21
Bobby Doss
Probably not. Probably not. But it might, I might talk them through what to Expect like, hey, we're above the clouds now. You're not gonna see anything for a while. I've got everything on these screens. Don't worry, we're gonna be fine. I'll be talking to atc. I might, but that would be much more of a realistic brief. That wouldn't be. Mom, the date on this approach plate is valid, right? Mom, this is an ils. You know, I think part of the training environment has created this, I won't call it a monster, but this mindset that we do it this way because we're learning how to do it in reality. If my wife was with me and were flying to Fayetteville, Arkansas tomorrow, I don't think I'm going to talk my wife through the approach.
26:08
Bobby Doss
I think probably 50 miles from Fayetteville, I, I'm going to have a really good idea what approach I'm going to request if I get the option or I'm going to know what the winds are and what I think I'm going to be flying at the airport that I'm going to and I'm going to probably pull up that RNAV or that ILS and talk myself through it. Make sure I'm in my mind ready for all those things. I'm going to do. My ABCG now I'm going to do. I'm going to plan to listen to ATIS when I can hear it. I'm going to think through the approach or brief it to myself. I'm going to be ready with my checklists and my communications.
26:39
Bobby Doss
They're going to be all programmed correctly and then I'm gonna know my go around and that's maybe something my wife won't know ever happened.
26:47
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. You know the, the KISS method. KISS stands for keep it simple Stupid. You know, I'm a big subscriber of that. You know, I know we're not talking multi engine airplanes here, but I'm just gonna use an example. I've got a lot of multi engine stuff going on this week so I'm gonna hear lots of briefings and I hear some of the most detailed briefings of what we're going to do if we take off and we lose an engine. And boy, they go in all kinds of details and the briefings are all over the place again, it's nowhere in the ACS does it mention the requirement for that.
27:33
Wally Mulhern
My briefing for my multi engine students, which I have had a couple of multi engine students over the last couple years for our takeoff briefing is if we're on the if and this is assuming that we lose an engine. If we're on the ground, we're going to stay on the ground. If we're in the air, we're going to stay in the air. And that's it. That is it. That's the KISS method of my multi engine takeoff briefing.
27:59
Bobby Doss
And you know, that's pretty important because not everyone knows that. Right. Not everyone thinks that's simplistic and that maybe gets people in trouble. So next time I fly the Twin with or without you, I'll make it that simple because there's really not much more to it. Right, right. That's, that's really maybe stay above redline. I don't know. But even then that's probably pretty much assumed or considered.
28:24
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah.
28:25
Bobby Doss
So don't overdo it on your checkride. I think, I think there's probably a DP out there somewhere that maybe wants the 30 bullet brief, but that's probably not the norm. As Wally said, reference the acs. It's not necessarily part of the ACS standards, which means it's not required, but you might be asked to demonstrate some part of it. So be prepared. But anything to wrap up Wally on instrument briefings?
28:53
Wally Mulhern
No. And you know, when you were in a crew environment, it's a totally different set of rules. I mean, you definitely want to make sure you and your flying partner are on the same page, you know, and literally on the same page. I mean it's a lot easier now with electronic flight bags. But back in the day, you know, we always made sure that we had the same approach plate. The, the correct revised approach plate. You know, I'm ILS to Runway 8 left 71 2, dated 10 January of 24. Oh gee, I've got 9 September of 23. Okay, well you didn't update your jeps like you were supposed to. But anyway, and again with but you know, I, I, there have been many times where I've had a first officer briefing and approach blade.
29:48
Wally Mulhern
And, and I'm looking at it, the one I have, and it's like this doesn't make sense, you know, and usually it starts out with we're doing the ILS to 35 left. The inbound course is 350 degrees. Localizer is 110 15. And I'm looking at my localizers 109.7. And I go, oh, wait a minute, I'm on the wrong approach plate. So you know, we, we caught it. We caught it pretty early and we're able to get on the same page. So. Yeah, again, but when you, when you start flying in a crew, you're going to be trained. You're going to be trained how that particular operation wants you to brief the approaches and all that. So you know, what we're getting right now in our 172s are our warriors, you know, may not be exactly realistic.
30:48
Bobby Doss
Well, I know that many of you listening have dreams of flying bigger jets and not just 172s and warriors. And I'm gonna promise you that the fundamentals you set while you're in your training environment are gonna stick with you for years to come. You should take Wally's advice and know you're gonna learn a different way one day, but do it the way you're doing it now. Make sure you're working as a crew when you have that opportunity. And, and understand that maybe it's not in the ACS to do the full briefing and kiss. Keep it simple is probably one of the best things that you can keep in mind as a new aviation acronym. And as always, when you're flying an approach or briefing an approach, stay behind the prop. Thanks for listening.
31:35
Nick Alan
Thanks for checking out the behind the Prop podcast. Be sure to click subscribe and check us out online@brave.theprop.com behind the prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Creator and host is Bobby Doss. 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.