I silently pointed at the throttle. I watched in my peripheral vision as Steve vacantly stared at my finger, then at the throttle. The airplane sluggishly climbed and the airspeed began to decay. "We need full power," I said using my patient flight instructor voice. Steve advanced the throttle from three quarters to full; he seemed flustered and I could sense his frustration.
Steve was a student of mine (the name has been changed to protect the innocent). Steve and I were practicing power-off (approach to landing) stalls this day early in his primary training. I noticed that each time he would initiate the stall recovery procedure Steve would be reluctant to immediately and authoritatively advance the throttle lever to full power. I wondered if I had conditioned him too heavily to never jam a throttle forward. Steve was a bright guy, though, and I knew he understood the procedure and the significance of applying full power immediately during a power-off stall recovery. So what was the hang-up? I had seen this tendency before in other students and even in myself during my early training stages years ago. Clearly the problem wasn't lack of knowledge or comprehension. Something else was holding Steve back from executing the recovery properly.
This led me to reflect inwardly on human confidence, which directly relates to the actions we take in the cockpit. When a person feels uncertain of their abilities to perform a task a slight (or not-so-slight) hesitation can be observed in their actions. It feels uneasy and unnatural for this person to take charge of the situation and take authoritative action. This tendency can be seen frequently in students during initial training. When a student's confidence level is low it inhibits him or her from taking concise, deliberate action. This is something that must be worked through in order for the student to become a successful pilot because exactly this type of action is continuously required while commanding an aircraft. I thought I could help Steve overcome his hesitation during stall recoveries and other maneuvers by having a discussion on the ground with him about deliberate action.
I challenged Steve to become self-aware and monitor his actions closely during flight, and if he felt himself begin to adjust the power, raise the flaps, run a checklist, or respond to air traffic control in a fuzzy, unclear or unsure way to stop what he was doing and think about what needed to be done. "Anytime you flip a switch, move the throttle or mixture, touch the flap handle, or key up the mic it should be for a deliberate reason to accomplish a necessary task," I said to Steve. "If you find yourself hesitating with uncertainty before you flip a switch or change the power setting, stop. Set your hand in your lap and put your brain to work. Make a plan to accomplish what needs to be done and execute that plan, then put your hand back in your lap until it's time to do it again," I said. After a little coaching Steve was making huge progress and began taking much more deliberate action during stall recoveries and other maneuvers. His proficiency grew as did his confidence.
Focus on taking only one type of action in the cockpit: deliberate action. Uncertain action should be left for deciding what to have for dinner after the flight. When you catch yourself hesitating on your way to perform a task (gear down, flap setting change, fuel pump off, frequency selection, etc.), stop. Bring your brain back into the game and figure out what exactly needs to be done, then do it and nothing more. This forces you into a mode of uncluttered thinking that breeds good decisions and good airmanship. It also reduces the amount of mistakes you'll make. I like to play a game with myself where I imagine that every tiny move I make whether it be a control pressure on the yoke or rudder pedals, a power adjustment, manipulating switches, or anything else involving my hands or feet is being recorded electronically and monitored by a competition judge on the ground. After I land I'll be required to justify every move I made by providing a legitimate reason for the action. For instance, if I was high on approach I reduced power one hundred RPM. Still high? I reduced another fifty RPM. If there were any additional extraneous power changes that couldn't be explained points would be deducted. This promotes a culture of deliberate action and only the clearest thinking. Think about how an autopilot flies. It takes only the action it calculates as being required for the present circumstances, no more, no less. Humans can (and should) fly like this too.
Some pilots never learned this. In fact, I once saw a statistic that indicated the majority of airline crews fail to utilize full and immediate control input during unusual attitude recovery simulator training, even though that's exactly what the situation calls for. Certainly it takes discipline to calm a noisy mind, especially during times of emergency. But calm minds thinking clearly do a better job flying airplanes, and tolerating only deliberate action during flight helps to reduce human error and improve flight safety and efficiency.
