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Almost Upside Down At Night

With all your flight training, there will be times when you get the idea that your instructor is mean or do not know what they're talking about-perhaps not in such a bold way, but it will happen. This brings me to a story I have of a night cross-country with a student.

The flight itself is a pretty simple and safe for night flights. The flight is from Mesa Falcon Field to Wickenberg, Arizona. I have personally put this trip in my syllabus for many reasons. I've gotten in many arguments with directors who worked for me on this plane. Several of them refused to make the flight, and instead ended up taking the students down to Tucson. As far as I am concerned, this defeats the purpose of the night cross-country. After a big lit up the main road in between two bright cities not expose you to the actual situation, can happen on a night cross-country.

Do not let your instructor take you to an easy-to-find destination lit up like New York City. Go somewhere that is pretty hard to find, at least for you, not your instructor. Yes, you want to be sure the instructor knows where he lands in the event of an engine failure, but you must be an aircraft that can get you into a little bit of trouble if you are not alert.

Back to my story.

I will call the student John. You know that I am totally against the use of all these high-tech stuff for private pilot training and even instrument ratings. Remember what the job number one of the pilot is? Yes, fly airplane! I have already said that it would take you about 500 hours before you have this other important houses in your internal memory. Even then, a difficult situation to be a struggle between many parts of your brain simultaneously.

John called me this afternoon about his night. We have checked the time and the end of the call, John announced that he had just received his new Garmin 95 latest and greatest GPS unit and asked if he could bring it forward. You probably know me pretty well by now and know exactly what my answer was: "No."

John showed up at the airport with his cross-country planning and flight plan filed, and ready to go. Before we went out of office, out came the shiny new Garmin box. "Fred, you should check it out… This is the new Garmin 95, top-of-the-line latest and greatest…" It was back in 1996. Garmin was a no-name back then and was just about to enter the market.

"Please, please, please can we take it with us?" After all the begging, I finally gave in. Deep in my mind somewhere, I had a little smile and a voice just said, "Okay."

Before John himself began his pre-flight, he put his new Garmin 95 on control column. I knew right then that we were in for a good time! I told John that he could not turn it on until we got out of Phoenix airspace, which is right where it begins being nice and dark. He said: "Okay, no problem."

We went out and west as planned. John was on the money with all of his checkpoints and times. Flight Plan opened at the right time. He was getting an A + in this phase of the ball game. We got about five west miles of Deer Valley Airport, where it begins to be nice and dark. (Again, do not do one night across the country when there is full moon, it's nice to see the big bright moon from 4500 above the ground, but it does your night skiing easier. If you make your first night flight as a licensed pilot with your girlfriend, go for it-it's the safe thing to do.)

John looked at me with those puppy eyes and asked, "Can I turn it on?" At this point, I just looked at him and said, "Yes." The little voice in my head spoke to me again, "Now is the time for the real lesson to begin."

John turned on the new greatest gift to humanity. Screen came on and he said: "Look, Fred, is not this great? It tells you everything!" The little voice in my head said, "Yes. Right. It tells you everything except what your # 1 job in an airplane. "

John kept playing with his new toy. I learned way back in 1989 that there are times when the flight instructor job is to shut up and let the students go. This was definitely one of those times.

At first, John had it under control. He was in his line on the screen and was okay, but I knew that sooner or later, it was going to distract him from his number one job. . . Yes, fly airplane!

A little over, and John decided to start playing with the screen options. I knew now that the big lesson had begun, so I just sat there. Slowly, his account began to go up and down, not much in the beginning, but I knew it was just to get worse.

I looked at John, and his head was down looking right at the GPS. By the way, was the time frame for this entire lesson probably less than a minute.

John continued to look down and said, "Hm, I can not find the screen I am looking for." I just sat there. Slowly he began a right turn, only a few degrees bank, heading straight into the mountains. The plane began to slowly lose altitude as right-hander started to get steeper. There was no horizon at all, so John had no idea what was happening. Fortunately, he was one of the students who took my aerobatic option before solo, so he was familiar with extreme unusual attitude. But not at night.

Slowly but surely, had the plane into the dreaded graveyard spiral at cruise power setting. I waited and waited in the hope that the sound of the wind howling across the airplane would give him a clue, but nope, he had been trained to do many times, but he did not pick it up.

The plane kept going into a steeper bank. If it had been days, I would have let him get up and down, but not at night. Finally it was time to open my mouth. "Anything wrong?

John looked up, and the string of four-letter words began to flow. He got the plane under control. Power back wings and nose level level. But he was still heading in the quickest way to meet God, right into the mountains a few miles north of the very dimly lit highway I count as my emergency landing spot.

I said to him: "What can you see before you? "" He replied: "Nothing." I said, "So that means …?" I got the answer: "I'm flying straight down in the ground. "This response was pretty much correct; with his new position, he was flying straight into the hills. When we lost about 1,500 feet, our height was perfect for the great smack.

I raised my voice slightly and said, "If you can not see anything, you're in trouble. Find some candles, start climbing, and head in that direction."

John got the plane under control, turned the GPS off and we had an uneventful flight to Wickenberg and then home to Falcon Field.

When we came back with the ground, John said: "I think I am going to learn to fly before I worry about the GPS." He also asked some night unusual attitude training. I would also highly recommend this.

Then again, the little lesson is fly an airplane! John got distracted from the job as his little GPS. If you insist on use this stuff, you know how to use it and not try to learn it on the plane, especially at night!

So far disorientation passes, it can happen very quickly, and when it happens, it will not be pretty. It happened to me in actual instrument conditions. I had all my ratings and it still took a few minutes before blood pressure went down.

Just remember this little unusual position checks you should be able to repeat the bar when you're about to fall on the floor:

Airspeed High, Or: "I Hear the Wind Howling Outside the Plane"

1: Power Back
2: Wings Level
3: Nose of Airplane level
4: After Plane under control, then bring the power back on and get back to your height and position

Airspeed Low:

1: Nose Forward
2: Wings Level
3: Once you have your nose on the descent attitute, then add power. Why? If you can not remember, go back to "Spin Spin or not, that is the question" chapter.

If you're on a dark night, you'll be fighting that attitude indicator. Get some exercise at night, unusual attitudes. Then come back a few weeks later and do it again until you automatically respond, especially after some time gone.

Make sure you go somewhere that is not easy and make sure it is on a dark night.

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