Safe operations are not guaranteed by the minimum 1 hour of dual and 1 hour of ground every couple years. Rather safety is a function of pilot skill and judgment on each and every flight. The flight review is an opportunity for a pilot to gain greater awareness as to how they might handle future flight ops safely. Most assuredly, even the best CFI in the world is not going to uncover every area of weakness, or hazardous attitude in a couple hours, or even 10 hours for that matter.

If a flight review was a CFI personally guaranteed signoff that one was good to go for the next two years, flight reviews would become very long, and very evil in short order. We’ve all heard of or experienced the checkride from a warm spot near the center of the earth. Ie, where in the pilot being evaluated is put in the pressure cooker, and is exposed to every possible emergency ever, all occurring at the same time, all the while being grilled on everything in the PTS, and every distraction known to man kind is then piled on top for good measure.

Granted, there are times and places where such may be appropriate. While a prep course for a 709 ride as a confidence builder comes to mind, such an approach to a flight review is counter productive. The reason being, is in almost any other case, going too hard core becomes a motivation killer, which then often leads to less recurrent training, which then leads to a less than safe pilot. The same can be said when it comes to sending students down rabbit trails for the part 91 portion of a flight review.

By the same token, an untailored 1 hour ground, 1 hour flight canned approach to a flight review is neither adequate nor appropriate. Sure, it might pick up a weak area here or there… but its like most anything. If you dont have a clue where a problem lies before you get started, its like searching for a needle in a haystack. You likely wont find it, and even if you do, it could well be the wrong one.

The FAA preaches tailoring the flight review based upon an initial interview. Likewise, they suggest the time frames be what they may. Ie, short of an already very proficient pilot, the 1 hour ground/1 hour airwork aspect is too short a time slot. Some pilots on the other hand, often view any attempt to go beyond the minimums as a way to bilk them out of money and a total waste of time.

In the past, when one determined such on the initial interview, it was common practice to advocate for the Wings programs, rather than a flight review. Today, being Wings is proficiency based, rather than time, it still may be more aligned with a students expectations than a flight review, but it is critical to be upfront in that regard. There will always be some pilots who will squak, no matter how much you preach safety or the benefits of training to a given level of proficiency.

One a positive note, it often burns off pretty fast during the day. On a negative note, it can form incredibly fast at night… and worse, it can be really hard to identify at night. In some cases, it may not be apparent until you are in the landing flare, when all of a sudden, visibility goes from near perfect to almost zero, at the worst possible time. In other cases, it can change from shallow fog, to a thick fog bank in a flash.

On another negative note… automated instrument systems often due not detect it, and worse, it usually occurs either right when ATC is going home, or shortly there after. Its interesting to note AMOFSG places it in group D, where sensors are considered difficult, expensive, unproven, or unreliable to utilize. Apart from the technical aspect, their is a political and economic one as well when it comes to sensors. Airliners, corp jets, and many multis engine a/c do not suffer the same adverse affects from MIFG due to their elevated cockpits… ie eye level is almost always above 2 meters, where as the pilots of many ASEL craft are stuck right in the soup. Ultimately, the lack of automation and sensor capabilities, means that if a METAR includes MIFG… it was observed by a human on the field.

Another fun part about MIFG, is that its not very predictable, rather its an issue of probability. Ie, if the dewpoint/temperature spread is wide, its very windy, and the sky is overcast, it is unlikely that any type of radiation fog will form, much less shallow fog. On the other hand, if winds are below 5 knots, temperature/dewpoint spread is under 6 deg F, the sky is clear, and the sun has recently set… it is more likely fog will form, and in many cases, a thick layer of radiation fog is more likely than shallow fog.

To add further insult to injury, shallow fog often randomly forms in agricultural microclimates surrounding a rural airports far from any weather observers. Some crops have much greater moisture retention than others, some have significantly greater total emissivity than others. The net effect is that some airports experienced drastically different radiative cooling properties and others much less so. While such make an accurate prediction of shallow fog difficult, it also meant that if airport A was socked in, more than likely a nearby airport B is clear.

It should also be noted that some airport industrial parks also lend themselves to localized shallow fog development more so than others. Namely decreased dewpoint/temperature spreads due to cooling towers and the like, combined with large surface areas of high emissivity (vacant bituminous parking lots) sets the stage for its development.

With that much gloom and doom… whats a pilot to do?

First, if a METAR indicates MIFG at night, ie it was observed by a human at the field, landing at such a location in a small aircraft is likely to result in a go-around followed by proceeding to ones alternate. In fact, if temperature/dewpoint spread is that narrow, and the winds are light, the dangers of radiation fog forming are very real… and while an approach could be attempted with most MIFG occurrences, a thick fog bank would mean heading direct to ones alternate.

As one who has encountered MIFG at night many a time, the following was my basic procedure when conditions made its formation likely.

Check in with unicom, or any pilots in the area to see what the conditions currently are. Remember, AWOS does not detect it. Granted, often times it forms after everyone has left for the day.

Overfly the field above pattern altitude and look carefully at the runway lights… it they are not bright and clear, it is likely MIFG is present. Then again, I have had the fun of things changing from when I overflew the field to when I was in the landing flare.

If the landing lights appear even the slightest bit obscured or fuzzy, making a low pass is in order. First, such will serve to scare most animals off the runway… and secondly, the proximity to the runway, in addition to the landing light will make its detection easier.

Always assume if conditions are right, MIFG will form, and your visibility just before, or in the flare may go to near zero. Always, always be prepared for a go around and followed by proceding direct to ones alternate.

Ensure the runway lights are on full bright on base… you do not want to be in the flare, encouter MIFG, and at the same time have them shut down or return to low intensity.

The landing light, and strobes should be turned off on short final… there is nothing more disturbing than having the entire cockpit light up in flashing white lights, all the while you are trying to reconfigure the a/c for a go-around.

Likely said parent, and the parents so gung ho about lap children have never experienced moderate/severe turbulence, much less CAT (clear air turbulence). I dont care how responsible you are, or how strong you are… if you experience major turbulence, you will not be able to hold unto your child… or in the worst case scenario, in a crash, you wont be able to hold onto your child. Granted, CAT is rare, accidents are rare… and if it was just your child who might be seriously injured or killed, I could sort of see the responsibility aspect. On the other hand, if your child becomes a missile and kills someone else as well as dieing themselves… parental responsibility doesnt go very far.

It was also interesting to note the availability of child harnesses such that a under 2yr old can be secured to the parents safety belt. Which such most certainly reduces the issue of a child becoming a missile… I dont know how well such would work in severe turbulence if the child was on a tether, rather than being tightly secured to the parent.

Tailplane Stall Detection:

Tailplane stalls most often, but not always occur when flaps are being extended, or power is being added. One should also note, that if wings are picking up ice, the tail is likely to do so as well, in fact perhaps 2-3X as much as the wing… and sadly, its not visible to the pilot. In any case, if the potential exists for tail icing, one should be hand flying, rather than relying on the autopilot. Yoke forces are key.

Symptoms include

• Lightening loads.
• Difficulty trimming.
• Pilot-induced (pitch) oscillations.
• Buffets in yoke, not airframe. (The yoke pulls forward, sometimes smashing to the stop and can’t be pulled back; forces of more than 100 lbs. can occur.)
• Very sudden pitch-down, which can be unrecoverable on approach.

Do note, that stall warning systems can also end up iced over, and as such may not function.

Tailplane Stall Recovery

• If you just added flaps, and symptons of a tail stall occur, retract the flaps.
• If the yoke slams forward, it may be necessary to apply significant force to pull it back. In either case, as contrasted with a wing stall, the recovery action is the reverse, ie pull back.

In General

• pull back
• reduce power
• reduce flaps

Being tail stall recovery is the reverse of everything one is taught, its imperative to that one detects the yoke forces, rather than the airframe going mushy.

Additional Resources:

Actual Tail Stall Event
http://aircrafticing.grc.nasa.gov/courses/inflight_icing/related/3_2_3f_RI.html

Useful videos and data from Nasa
http://aircrafticing.grc.nasa.gov/resources/related.html

AC No: 23.143-1 “Ice Contaminated Tailplane Stall”

Aircraft Accidents where tail stall occurred

http://www.flightsafety.org/fsd/fsd_jun-sep97.pdf

10mar64 DC4 Slick Airways,.Boston-”Loss of balancing forces on stabalizer, due ice accretion,causing aircraft to pitch nose down too low to effect recovery…

15jan’77 Viscount,Skyline sweden,”ice on leading edge of Stabalizer causing flow seperation and Stabalizer…

06Apr58 Viscount,Capital airlines,Michigan,Undetected ice accretion on stabalizer,in conjunction with specific speed and configuration,caused loss of pitch control…

In the 70′s, service was what sold, regulated ticket prices were multifold higher than what they are today. However, the process controls and such to improve safety were still in development. Instead, the airlines relied on highly skilled people in nearly all areas of their operation. And despite that, the accident rates were much higher than today. Case in point, the crew coordination on theEastern Air Lines 401 crash. A highly experienced crew, albeit new in type, focused all their attention on a landing gear annunciator, while their plane slowly descended into a swamp.

747 Piano Bar

Today, with a high degree of automation, process controls in design, manufacturing, operations, and service insuring high reliability, the high levels of skill needed in years past, as long as nothing goes wrong, is not really needed, at least not all the time. There in lies the problem, as long as nothing goes wrong. And the problem is exacerbated, by the temptation for the airlines, the government, and the employees, to rely more and more on process, and less so on skill, in order to minimize labor costs, and thereby maximize the revenue stream.

Over the next few blog entries, I’m going to take a look at these different groups, and changes over the years which have created potentially more broken links which can lead to an accident, despite vast improvements in process control. These issues are prevalent, not only in the airline world, but also in general aviation. They are systemic problems, and sadly short of returning to the days of regulation, are unlikely to be solved. The feedback provided by the free market system, while it can work, has such huge time lags, far too many people would die, or be seriously injured, before the constraints of the free market system could kick in, if they would at all due to secondary consequences.

I often wondered why private and commercial pilots had to jump hoops in order to fly a specific aircraft with insurance whereas the CFI would only need a cursory checkout to teach in such a plane. This excludes of course multi-engine aircraft where we need 5 hours in type. I think its the judgement issue.

As a CFI, we capture a lot of experience very quickly, much faster than just earning a rating, or flying from A to B. As quoted from cut to cure, which they quoted from Training.

“Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment”

And what does a CFI do. We teach judgement, and skill. Skill is pretty easy, we know the PTS, we know the manuevers, we understand rudimentary educational psych, and we can tailor our teaching to the student. It is a rare student indeed that cannot be taught the skills to fly, at least to the level called out by the private pilot PTS. But judgement is the tough one.

As far as teaching judgement goes, we use textbooks, sims, and scenarios to try and demonstrate proper and improper judgement. Our students put us in situations that prior to that, we never would have experience. The net result, is we have a ton of bad experiences due to our students lack of skill, which serves to increase our own personal judgement. We also take students out into MVFR, high density altitudes, and high crosswinds routinely, in other words, we fly with them when we personally would not choose to if it were just a personal flight. Its one of the ways of teaching them judgement, but it also serves to keep our skill and build our judgement. It is however critical, that, we ourselves down grade what we know that we can safely handle, such that if the student puts us in trouble, we still have a good safety margin to recover. This is known as CFI judgement, and for some amazing fact, at that point in time, it seems to come very quickly, just like the first time you solo a student. Every mentor will tell you; “you will know when the time is right”. Every newbie CFI can’t believe it, until it happens.

I guess judgement is the same deal that surgeons have to work with. They are finally getting decent simulators, (a rad friend from many years back had to build his own, some type of funky borescope deal back in the early 80′s). And with them, they can improve skills, but sims although safer than an airplane, still don’t cut it when it comes to judgement, just as cut to cure alluded to when they compare lectures and texts with actual experience.

Sure, in a sim, I can fail a students instruments, I can throw unexpected weather their way. I can fail an engine and create a host of troubles that would be way to dangerous to do with a live aircraft. I’ve experieneced getting soaking wet with sweat in a sim. It seems realistic, but its pretty hard to preload a pilots emotional and physical status. In the sim, there are no deadlines, no passengers that have to get to a meeting, no air ambulance patient that is in trouble enroute (one of the reasons, that its common practice not to let the pilot know whats going on back there). We also can’t we emotionally burden the pilot with family, work, or personal trouble that can impair their judgement, nor can we sleep deprive them, or make them sicker than a dog after eating a proverbial pilots vending machine lunch.

In a nutshell, about the only thing long term we really can do is to have our students set absolute limits, and then let judgement build on its own with in those limits. At least during IFR flight, the FAA’s limits are pretty cut and dried. Eg at DH, its go or no go, but the bigger issue is, what is the appropriate adder to DH for a newbie. What is the limit on fuel, what are the limits on sleep, what are the limits on forecast and enroute weather. And what happens when the young pilot just looks at DH, or VFR fuel minimums, or encounters ice, or rapidly deteriorating weather. Thats where experience enters in, and from that, is where judgment is born.

Gee, I sure wish if was as easy as the graphic in my first FOI, where they had a pitcher of judgement, and all one had to do was pour it into a hole in the students head.