This week we discuss the endless "hide and go seek" for information in aviation.
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00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop SR73 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?
00:26
WallyMulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:28
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. As we are creeping into the summer and people are flying probably four more hours a day, Wally, than they have been through the fall and winter we have become very busy. Checkride backlog is immense and I think in general the aviation training has almost added about 50% since the fall and the spring and the winter because were flying about an eight hour day and now we're flying about a 12 hour day. So planes are breaking more, things are going to maintenance more. And because you're doing more checkrides, we continue to see and hear where people don't know how to look for the right stuff. And it feels like maybe we're playing a game of hide and go seek as we look for information that is not intended to be that hard to find.
01:18
Bobby Doss
Would you say a checkride, Wally, or just Aviation General is a closed book test or an open book test?
01:27
WallyMulhern
For sure it's an open book test. You know, there's an old saying that says, teach a man or give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish, you feed him for life. And you know, and you, you hear people talk about the acquisition of knowledge. I mean, that's why we go to school, that's why we read, we study to acquire knowledge, right? Well, the fact of the matter is that you're just not gonna, there's so much in flying airplanes, there's so much in any field, you're not going to know everything. I was talking to a gentleman the other day who is actually making a career change. He was a collegiate athletic director and he's making a career change. He's going to be a professional pilot. And were talking about that.
02:23
WallyMulhern
He said there's no way I know all the NCAA rules, but he says I have the ability to find them out in a hurry. You know, if, you know, this situation arises dealing with the ncaa, you know, he can find the information. And that's so important in this career. This, this activity called flying airplanes that we all do is, you know, in a perfect world we would know it all. You know, we would have it all at the tip of our brain, but we don't, I don't. I am constantly referencing materials. I mean, I'm in the middle of checkrides, looking at a maneuver and going, golly, what was the standard on that? And I'm pulling up the ACs. I'm okay, yeah, the standard is this. So we're good. Or maybe we're not so good, but being able to find the knowledge is so important.
03:24
WallyMulhern
I remember my first instructional flight happened on August 31, 1981. And went up and we flew for point seven, and the airplane was 2549 Alpha. It was a Piper Tomahawk, a PA38 112. And we finished the flight and were walking back into the FBO slash flight school. And my instructor said, okay, you need to buy two things right now. You need to buy a logbook and you need to buy the manual or the poh for the airplane. Probably the pih. Probably. So anyway, so for probably about $15, I walked out of there with two books and he told me, he says, you need to go home and read that book on the airplane and you need to know everything in there. And I said, okay.
04:16
WallyMulhern
And as I look over at my bookshelf, if we had video, you could see me looking over at my bookshelf. That manual sits on my bookshelf again, August 31, 1981. So that's almost 43 years ago I purchased that book and I still have it. And I, I, I can't say I reference it a lot because I don't do a lot of check rides and Tomahawks. I've done maybe two in the past many years. But I, I can, I think I can honestly say that I have never taken a check ride in an airplane for which I did not either own or have easy access to the manual for the airplane.
05:04
Bobby Doss
Yeah. So let's talk about, there's a wide range of books. Right. The, the POH doesn't do it by itself. Right. And, and maybe during a checkride, we reference that quite a bit. But in general, if we break down kind of quote, unquote, the reference material for a private pilot, we're not going to get into all the ratings and type ratings and stuff. But if I was going to reference something for my private pilot certificate, as I learned and as I entered my checkride, we would think about a handful of things and the list is actually going to be long. And what I try to tell People at the flight school a lot lately, and I think my position's changed over time. But flying is less about being in the air and more about being on the ground.
05:54
Bobby Doss
And of course, no one likes to hear that, but I can tell you that 90, I'd say 90% of. And you can gauge me here, Wally. 90% of the things that don't go right on a checkride are knowledge based. Even the things in the air are knowledge based. Right. It's. It's something that went wrong because they didn't understand or couldn't reference a piece of material, I. E. The checklist, the PoH, whatever that might be. So the list is a handful of things, but what. First, before we get in the list, what do you think that number is? Percentage of not good outcomes based on knowledge versus tactile skill.
06:36
WallyMulhern
I would say 80%.
06:39
Bobby Doss
Yeah. So it's a high number. It's more about the knowledge and the reference material. So as this is an open book world, as the checkride is an open book test, the information's out there. It's just hiding from you. And today we're going to teach you how to go seek it out. So the Pilot Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, the Airplane Flying Handbook, the Federal Aviation Regulations are better known as the FAR, the AIR, the AIM, the Aviation Information Manual, the PoH, the Pilot Operating Handbook, the ACS, which is the Airmen's Certification Standards. And they were all just republished and made available May 31, 2024. And then we're getting a little sketch on some of this stuff. But you have to know notams, and you have to know where those are live. You have to kind of be aware of the chart supplement.
07:32
Bobby Doss
Most of us are probably using an electronic flight bag now, foreflight being popular. We might use that to get some of our information. And the PoH has the same section, I think it's 1981, which where the FAA changed the sections in PoHs, and they all match now. But you should at least know the table of contents. Wally and I were joking when went to school, we actually used a index card system to find books in the library. I have a feeling kids don't do that anymore, Wally. But the table of contents is kind of what we grew up on, and we should at least understand the table of contents. So let's kind of run through each of these books and talk about the type of information we would find in them.
08:20
Bobby Doss
I can remember as a young pilot, my instructor would say, I can't believe you don't remember. 61 is the certification part and 91 is the operating part of the FAR. And I'm like, Jesus, how am I supposed to remember 400 parts of the FAR AIM right? And now six years, seven years, nine years later, I easily understand that part 61 and part 141 are the certification chapters and 91 and 121 and 135 or the operating chapters and there's many others. But I don't think pilots need to understand that at the private level. I think they just need to understand 61 and 91 if they're not going to a part 141 school. Would you agree with that for the, as it relates to the federal aviation regulations, Wally?
09:05
WallyMulhern
Yeah, I would agree and I don't, quite frankly, I don't think it's that big a deal that you maybe get the two confused occasionally. So what, I mean, if you're looking for how much nighttime I need to be a commercial pilot and you're looking in 91, you're not going to find it and eventually you're going to go, oh yeah, must be over in 61. It's just like, you know, moving to a new house. The, the first few times you drive to a new house, you might need a map or you know, plug it nowadays, plug it in your phone and at some point you stop doing that. You know, you can just get to your house. You don't, you don't need the reference. So you know, I think those, just by doing it, those things will come around.
09:57
Bobby Doss
Now I think the question early on here for maybe some of the listeners is well, do I have to have a current far aim Wally, when I'm in my checkride, if I don't have that book stack paper with you, are you going to be frustrated or disappointed with me as an applicant?
10:17
WallyMulhern
No, as the A paper. I mean nowadays with the ability for digital, there's, there is no excuse. I mean you should have the up to date information. I mean I, again, as I look over my bookshelf, I see a in older far am actually from 2014. But you know, the copy I have on my iPad is always the up to date version.
10:51
Bobby Doss
Right? So I think, I mean as soon as they print those books, they're probably out of date because something, yeah, probably changed. And if there is a digital copy that the FAA always provides, your tax dollars are paying for that. You should always have that at your fingertips. And I think a PDF is much better because man, it's easy to type in a PDF editor and say commercial requirements or commercial pilot and see a list of all the places and click and jump right to it. Right. It's also gonna be, if you're playing hide and go seek, that's gonna be a lot, way, lot faster way to find the information for sure.
11:27
Bobby Doss
But if we knew the regulations, the far, the Federal Aviation regulations are really the rules, then I think you can understand that the rules for operating and the rules for certifying are in those books. What's the likelihood that I would find, you know, airport markings in the federal regulations, Wally?
11:50
WallyMulhern
Airport markings, Very unlikely. You know, that's not quite a regulation. Now when you, if you do buy the paper book or even the electronic book, the one I have, you know, it's a FAR AIM and the AIM is where you're going to find non regulatory information. I, I distinctly remember as a young pilot sitting at home one night with obviously nothing to do, and I, I picked up my FAR AIM and I started going through the AIM and just actually reading it, believe it or not. And I, I was amazed. I was thinking, wow, man, there's some good stuff in here. There's a lot of good stuff. And I, I remember that night. I remember thinking, man, this is a great reference material. And I started using the AIM a lot more prior to that.
12:54
WallyMulhern
I mean, at this point, I think I was a private pilot prior to that. Quite frankly, I didn't really use it a whole lot. I mean, my instructor talked about it, but I probably didn't really reference it very much.
13:08
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I think I actually the podcast is what made me use the AIM a lot more because there's so much good information out there as it relates to things that are important to us, things that are going to help us either navigate or go through the process of flying an airplane and getting to where we want to get safely. That being said, we have to understand what materials in which book and what we would use those books for. But I would think as a flight school owner, I see a lot of people with a FAR AIM because it's kind of designed to be that book, the printed copy of it being that reference material for the pilot. But you're not going to find everything in there.
13:48
Bobby Doss
And I think that's where the FAA published the Pilot Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, or what a lot of us call the P Hack and the Airplane Flying Handbook, which many of us call the afh. But those books are different. I think we both believe they should be one book nowadays, but I would say a lot of people are in the mindset of buying those books as well as reference material when they are training. I think you're either a tactile person, you like touch the book or you like the digital world. I'm a, I'm a person that probably has both because I like to be able touch the page, highlight things, mark the pages up. But the books are different and it would seem really simple.
14:34
Bobby Doss
But I think before we started recording Wally, we both said sometimes we're confused and even at our level of pilotage, we look in both and can't find sometimes what we're looking for until we get to the second version. You want to describe kind of how the books are laid out or what each book is really supposed to be doing for us.
14:54
WallyMulhern
Yeah, I look at the Airplane flying a handbook as almost a maneuvers guide. The pilot, the P hack, I look at as more of a. I can't think of a good phrase to actually describe it, but for instance, if I wanted to know how a vacuum system on an airplane works, that would be something that I might look at. The P hack or let's say I'm a young pilot and I'm starting to consider a multi engine rating and I wanted to read about multi engine aerodynamics. What's this? What's the big thing about vmc? I've heard all of this. Well, that's probably going to be in the Airplane Flying Handbook as it relates to actually flying the airplane. But having said that, I would say probably 30% of the time when I'm looking for something, I look in the wrong place.
15:59
WallyMulhern
So that's why we're saying, you know, in the digital world of most of these books being nothing more than a file on our computer or iPad, it would be, you know, most of the time we've combined the FAR and the AIM into one document and it makes searching really convenient. I wish somebody would combine the P HAC and the Airplane Flying Handbook into one document. And so we could, you know, you could go in there and you could type in soft field landing techniques or something and it would take you to the correct book.
16:42
Bobby Doss
Yeah, just real quick. The Pilot Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge table of contents is like Intro to Flying, Aeronautical Decision Making, Aircraft Construction, Principles of Flight, Aerodynamics of Flight Controls, Aircraft Systems. It's really the reference in my opinion for the pilot, how they would do the, how the pilot would do Things. And the Airplane Flying Handbook is Introduction to Flight Training, Ground Operations, Flight Maneuvers, Energy Management, Maintaining Air Traffic Control Takeoffs and departure climbs, ground reference, maneuvers. It's really the reference for the plane and how the plane does what it wants to do. So if that helps, great. The second, almost the second half of the Airplane Flying Handbook is really the transitional stuff, transitioning to complex aircraft, multi engine aircraft, tailwheel airplanes, turbo propellers, jet powered, etc.
17:34
Bobby Doss
So it's really more about the actual physical aircraft while the Pilot Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge is more the stuff the pilot needs to reference to be a better pilot. But you would say, or I would assume you would say, Wally, those probably need to be available during the checkride if the student needs to look something up. Would you agree?
17:56
WallyMulhern
Absolutely. I would say the documents that need the most reference is the FARS and the poh. Because we're going to get in, we're going to start digging, you know, I'm gonna start asking, you know, I'm required to address three systems and we're going to do it in the, at least with me, we're going to do it in the terms of a flight. Okay, we're flying along and you get this syndication, well, what's going on? Or we're starting the engine and this happens. What are we going to do? And you know, maybe referencing the checklist is what I'm getting at. And how are we going to, you know, let then out? Then I'll say, well, let's reference the checklist and you know, we may talk about starting the airplane using external power. Well, what are we going to do?
19:09
WallyMulhern
We just going to get them to plug external power in? Is it a 12 volt system, 24 volt system? You know, are we going to plug it in and turn on the master switch and start the engine? Oh, wait a minute. Maybe we're not supposed to turn on the master switch when we plug in external power. Maybe we are. I don't, I don't know.
19:28
Bobby Doss
I think we say this, I think we say this a lot. Right. Where were you going to turn when you say you don't know something? It's going to probably be the checklist and then the PoH and the checklists are in the PoH. All of them are that the manufacturer had. But I'm sure there's probably a checklist that is with the aircraft as well from the flight club or the flight school or someone's made something or they bought something like Checkmate. We've referenced, you know, these third party condensed checklists in the past as well, but you need to know what's on that piece of paper. You need to know what's on that hard card stock and be ready to answer those questions. But that checklist is not going to have everything on it.
20:08
Bobby Doss
And external power is a great one because as a flight school we probably have to jump a lot of planes when it rains for four or five days. Those planes have to be powered by external power to get started. And it's shocking. A lot of people think if you plug that into that external port that the battery is charging. But that external port is designed to forego the electrical system, meaning the battery, and provide power directly to the system itself to start for the starter and the ignition switch and those sorts of things. So the battery is not even involved when that external power is plugged in.
20:47
Bobby Doss
And master switch off is one of the things that I think confuses a lot of people, that it's not every plane, but a lot of planes do not need or want the master switch to be turned on while you use external power. So in the PoH again, since about 1980ish, the table of contents has been the same. General limitations, emergency procedures, normal procedures, performance, weight and balance, airplane systems, handling, service, maintenance, and then supplements. And I think we did an episode a year or so ago on just the POH and all the information in it, but it's your reference for performance emergencies, checklists, normal stuff. And it's pretty simple. I, I hate to give too many shortcuts, but if you look in the poh, on about the third or fourth page, there's a performance section and we talk about it all the time.
21:41
Bobby Doss
You should have a wind gauge of what your plane's going to be able to do. And Right. I'm looking at a POH and it says performance specifications and it's like a, I'd call it a 5,000 foot view of the information for an airplane, this particular airplane. And it says speed, max sea level 126 knots. Cruise 75%. 124 knots. Ground roll 960ft. Total distance over 50 foot obstacle, 1600ft. Like, do you agree people should just kind of know that stuff?
22:15
WallyMulhern
Yeah, yeah. You need to have a rule of thumb. It's just like, you know, if someone says, hey, you know, I live in this part of Houston, you know, why don't you come over tomorrow afternoon? You know, right. Right off the bat I'm thinking, okay, that's gonna, that's about a 45 minute drive. You know, I, I have a, an idea of what it's going to take to get there. And, but a lot of times I, we don't, I don't see that. I mean, I'll ask questions on checkrides and people will dive into maybe the performance section and they'll give me a number that is just ridiculous. You know, you know, I'll ask them, you know, takeoff distance and they'll come up with, you know, 8,000ft. And I go, that, this, I thought that's maybe a bad example, but maybe they'll come up with 4,000ft.
23:25
WallyMulhern
Let's say, does that seem normal? And you know, a lot of times what I'll, the answer I'll get is, well, that's what the chart gave me. I go, but okay, forget what the chart gave you. Does that seem normal? Well, it seems a little high. Oh, I'm on the wrong chart. Okay, let me look at the right chart. And then they come back and they come up with 970ft. Okay. All right. Now that passes the smell test. I mean, and I say this all the time. If you go down, if you go to the local hamburger joint and you order a burger, fries and a Coke and the person behind the counter says that'll be $72, you know, unless you're in California or something, I think most of us would say $72 for a burger and fries and a Coke. That seems high.
24:21
WallyMulhern
You know, it doesn't pass the smell test. So, you know, we do have need to have an idea of what the performance of the airplane is. If someone says, hey, can you fly me to a city? And you have an idea, well, that city is 208 miles away. You know, in most of our single engine 172 warriors type airplanes, okay, that's probably going to take around two hours. And so when we do our calculations and we come up with five hours and 12 minutes, I think we need to look at things and say, wait a minute, that just doesn't pass the smell test for sure.
25:08
Bobby Doss
And if we get past the smell test and we've had this material with us, the question that I get a lot is, and it's kind of always a secret question, Wally, it's does Wally care if I use foreflight or my iPad? Does everything have to be paper or electronic? Is okay, what are your views on using Foreflight and using the reference material that's in Foreflight? For example, understanding things that are historically in the chart supplement that might be a little bit easier to find in Foreflight the hours or altitudes for a military area or restricted area. Are you okay if they use foreflight for that information?
25:49
WallyMulhern
Absolutely. And I would actually prefer it because as long as there are no little red numbers on foreflight, you know, is up to date. So I, I would actually prefer that.
26:05
Bobby Doss
It'd be pretty hard to keep up with paper materials as well as foreflight keeps up with the electronic materials. Right. I mean.
26:11
WallyMulhern
Right, right. We have a, a prohibited area just north of Houston, just west of Waco, Texas. And for those of you who aren't around here, if you pull up, you know, the sectional, you'll see just a little bit west southwest of Waco, Texas is a little circle and it's P49 and it's located in Crawford, Texas. And if you do a little research, you can figure out who lives in Crawford, Texas. But anyway, it's a prohibited area. And in most of my private commercial checkrides, I'll talk about that area, say, okay, we're on a cross country flight, we're at 6,500ft. Can we fly over this? And of course the answer almost 90% of the time from everybody is absolutely not. It's prohibited, we can't fly over it. And, and then the question begs to is what is the ceiling of prohibited area P49?
27:12
WallyMulhern
And you know, then, well, it goes up to 60,000ft, it goes up to 18,000ft. I get all kinds of answers. And really if you just tap on the circle at about 4 o', clock, it just pops up and it tells you click on P49 and it will tell you it's the surface up to 2,000 msl. So it's 6,500ft. We're fine flying over that. But that, you know, that's kind of stuff that you need to be able to reference in the airplane because by and large the cross country that I give to people does not have them fly over that. And you know, I, we start talking about the sectional and the chart and I said, okay, we're off course for whatever reason there was or some clouds. So we ended up deviating a little bit to the west and we're over here.
28:02
WallyMulhern
Well, how can we get this? So sometimes you're heading for something and you need to be able to find it pretty quickly and it's right there. It is right there. It's all you got to do is ask for it and the information is there literally there at your fingertips.
28:22
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I Need to figure out why that's not P43 because it would be. He was the 43rd president. So interesting on why that's not P43. I guess it was probably already taken, but that's at the end of the day.
28:35
WallyMulhern
Great thought.
28:37
Bobby Doss
At the end of the day, four flights. Good for you. There are probably DPs that maybe don't still agree with that thought process. If they don't, it's. You need to be able to understand the information and know that where that information could be found. But I think that's a dying thought process, a fading thought process where paper and not using some of these electronic aids are not valid. I mean the FAA has announced some stuff recently where the electronic flight bag is just as legal as anything on paper. So reference your local area, make sure that you know what's expected. But I would be shocked if a DPE told you couldn't use foreflight or an electronic flight bag. That was up to date nowadays.
29:21
WallyMulhern
Now having said that, we are supposed to introduce systems failures on a checkride. And one of those systems that could fail is. Could be your iPad. So if you are going to use foreflight, you do need to have some sort of a backup. Whether it be foreflight on. On your phone, which may not be ideal, but it is a backup. Worst case scenario you could use it, whether it's a paper chart that you could pull out and use. So yeah, you do have, you need to have. You need to be prepared for a systems failure. And again, that system that fails could be your iPad. And you know, especially this time of year we have iPads overheating and many times on checkride. Oh boy, my. My iPad has overheated and it has shut down. Well, okay, deal with it, manage it.
30:19
WallyMulhern
That's what we're doing. We're managing systems failures.
30:24
Bobby Doss
Your iPad overheated in Houston, Texas?
30:26
WallyMulhern
Yeah. Yeah, not mine. Just. Just my applicants.
30:31
Bobby Doss
The, the true value of that for me in my opinion, the things that are truly dynamic. Right. Things that could be notam'd. Right. And you need to be able to speak to notams. You're responsible for everything on that flight whether it's a checkride or not. You need to know. I joke that today is a pretty normal day in Houston and our home airport has released some notams that as a flight school I probably get more of a push of those notams than the average pilot. But if Tom, Dick or Harry thinking about going to the T hangar today and pulling their Plane out taking off on the big Runway. They're going to be shocked when they turn that plane on and listen to adis because the big Runway is going to be closed for some edge mowing.
31:15
Bobby Doss
And it doesn't, it's just not a natural thing that the big Runway would be closed on a pretty day because normally it would be busy and a ton of jet traffic coming in and out. But that guy or girl is going to have to take off on the little Runway and if they need 4,000ft, they're going to have issues because it's not 4,000ft long. So NOTAMs being able to find those NOTAMs and four or flight or electronic flight bags are a great location, great use for those things. Let's talk about the B list. I would say we agree that this B list of places for reference where information might hide that we need to go seek out is probably not as really common. But I'm going to give a challenge to those of you out there.
31:59
Bobby Doss
And the first one that finds it and sends it to me. Bobby Behindtheprop.com I'll send you a free behind the prop T shirt in the coming week, first come, first serve. But if you find this answer, you'll have to use some more reference, I would assume. And you'll probably try Google, but Google's not going to be able to find it. And I'll have to do a little bit of looking here. But on the sectional around our airport, which is Kilo Delta Whiskey Hotel, you're going to find a number that is going to be on the airport kind of midfield in the sectional. It's going to have a. I'm trying to find it here in real time. I should have been better prepared. It's got a dash 138, 25. And I want to know what that 25 is.
32:56
Bobby Doss
If you can tell me what that 25 is, then I will send you a behind the prop T shirt. So again, it's David Wayne hooks Airport. It's 138 25. You can tell me what that 25 means. And to find that, you're probably going to need an aeronautical sectional user's guide. And that's a free document from the faa. Great document to have on your iPad. That will not be something you're going to find in a legend, but the legend's good information. We've talked about a lot of the handbooks, Wally. There's a weight and balance handbook, there's an aviation weather handbook. There's a risk management handbook, all of which should be used in this podcast would be four and a half hours long.
33:38
Bobby Doss
If we try to talk about all the advisory circulars that you would gain benefit from that would tell you some pretty important information. There's. We had Pat Brown on the show a while back and were talking about non towered airport operations, that there's an advisory circular 90, 66 that talks about non towered airports. If you really wanted to dive deep into how to operate at a non towered airport, that advisory circular would be very helpful. The FAA has a radio communications phraseology and techniques manual. Right. That's also kind of aim section 2, but lots of stuff out there that you could get really deep in the weeds on, but probably not what you need to have as an everyday pilot.
34:23
Bobby Doss
When we get in a big debate at the school, there's probably a letter of interpretation that the FAA has released and those become valuable in those scenarios about really what does it mean or what's the FAA's interpretation. But it's just not made it to the regs yet. Right. And I doubt you've ever had someone produce a letter of interpretation in a checkride. Wally, is that a true statement?
34:46
WallyMulhern
I don't think so.
34:47
Bobby Doss
There you go.
34:48
WallyMulhern
Not yet. Not yet.
34:49
Bobby Doss
So thousand in not that big of a deal. Not, not the important document, but we call that the B list. There's a million little reference materials out there. We would both agree that Google's your friend, but Google's not a hundred percent accurate. I actually gave some information yesterday to someone that wasn't accurate because I was reading someone else's summary of a big document and they made a mistake. So while it might be a way to help you find where stuff is, it might not always be exactly accurate. True statement.
35:23
WallyMulhern
Yeah. I think Google is an excellent reference to find the information. In other words, if you're, if you're struggling, you're going, golly, where, where in this book are the oxygen requirements? Maybe Google far oxygen requirements. And it's probably going to lead you to Part 91, wherever, whatever the particular reference is, then pull out your FAR and pull up 91 DOT, whatever and go from there. You know, I wouldn't ask Google what are the oxygen requirements? Because you may get, you know, some somebody's website and the information, you know, maybe just flat out wrong. But the other thing is it may be outdated. I mean you may get a website from 2004, you know, 20 years ago and the information has changed. So use Google to find the reference and then go to the reference, if that makes sense.
36:35
Bobby Doss
Any parting tips, Wally, for people on a checkride and the information that may be needed to be found that they're gonna have to seek out?
36:44
WallyMulhern
Yeah, well, I just, you know, you're not going to know everything, but being able to know. Being able to find the information is what is key. So many of us, as instructors, we do, we just want to teach the information. We want it. We want the student to know the information. As students, we study, study. And maybe, you know, maybe studying. For instance, if you're looking at the poh, if you're going to study the poh, maybe something that would be really accurate, really good to study would be the table of contents, just so you know, what is available in the PoH? In other words, we. What performance charts do I have? Do I have a performance chart in my POH that references landing distance with no flaps? Some airplanes do, some airplanes don't.
37:40
WallyMulhern
And it would be nice to know, no, I don't have that in this airplane, or I do have this in this airplane. But, you know, it's just important to be able to find the information. I just. I remember a young man a couple of. A couple months ago, were talking about a no flap landing in the particular airplane because this airplane had no flaps. I mean, electric flaps. And so I said, okay, if we have a total electrical failure and we're coming in with no flaps, how much more Runway we going to need? And. And I look over and he's got the far aim out. He's looking for landing performance. He's looking for a percentage of extra Runway he needs for this particular airplane in the. In the far aim. And I'm, you know, as a head scratcher, he never found it. He finally.
38:37
WallyMulhern
He finally ended up in the PoH and he got the answer. But, you know, I was a little bit perplexed. I'm thinking, golly.
38:50
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I know there's A couple of 172s, I think, in our fleet that don't require flaps on either the soft field or short field. Right. And I would. My parting tip would be if you put in 10 degrees of flaps and the DP says, are you sure that's correct? You might want to go look that up somewhere before you finish the answer to that question. Because there are variances. And while that seems crazy in a 172 versus a 172, it is the case. It's design characteristics. And the manual says, use them and not to use them. In different scenarios. So you should be able to reference that material and find those answers. And it will make you a better pilot. It will make you a safer pilot.
39:33
Bobby Doss
And as I truly believe, it's more important to be on the ground learning that stuff than in the air learning that stuff. And no matter which one of those you are, make sure you stay behind the prop. Thanks for listening.
39:46
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 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.