I keyed the mic, "Direct DUSTT, hold as published, maintain 3,000, EFC 0315, Nine Four Charlie." The world outside was dark and dimensionless. Pitch black, actually. It was a low IFR night and I was single pilot. The engine noise had just transformed from a relaxed purr to a roar as I executed a missed approach. During instrument training, pilots learn to expect a sensation of tumbling backward during a throttle up in IMC. I felt that sensation that night and responded as I was trained -- disregard the sensation and hunker down on the instruments. Even our own bodies lie to us sometimes. It's important not to allow that unusual sensation to cause hesitation during application of climb power. I was climbing, turning toward the missed approach fix, configuring things for the hold, cleaning up the airplane (retracting flaps and completing the after takeoff checklist), and I had no autopilot. I was task saturated. Suddenly, I stopped.
I've trained myself to do this whenever I feel the current workload is becoming overwhelming. I stop what I'm doing, put my non-flying hand on my leg, and just fly. I transition back to the flight instruments and reallocate my attention to attitude-instrument flying. "Am I sending the airplane to where it needs to go? To a safe place?" Anything else can wait. The most important thing is to keep the airplane in a safe attitude and positively under control. I have programmed a mental alarm of sorts that monitors how much of my attention is on flying the airplane. When that figure dips below the 75% range, the alarm trips, and I respond by suspending all tasks that don't directly involve flying the airplane. That night, I climbed to the assigned altitude, established on-course to the missed approach fix, and resumed other cockpit tasks only after I was straight-and-level. If the airplane departs from controlled flight, all those other tasks don't matter anyway.
During single pilot IFR operations, this type of thought discipline is especially important. Too many airplanes are lost to loss of control accidents in instrument conditions. Remember, if you don't fly the airplane, no one is. During high workload or task saturated situations, remember that the only thing that matters is to first stash the airplane in a safe place in the sky, nicely under control. There are some situations in instrument flying where there is simply too much for a single pilot to think about all at once. That's where workload management tactics, or task prioritization, comes in. We all know how many accident reports cite a loss of situational awareness as a cause or contributing factor. The most important aspect of your situation is always the attitude of the airplane and its position in space, particularly in relationship to terrain and obstructions. Although there are many other important situational elements to maintain awareness of, they are all secondary to this. The airplane must remain under control for any of those other tasks to even stay possible. Pilots have been lost when their attention was diverted from basic airplane control because they were fixated on another task or problem.
I recently completed an instrument currency session in a flight training device. The flight was approach intensive, as most instrument currency flights are. There were lots of rapid re-configurations, frequency changes, OBS resets, GPS tasks, and checklist duties. I was a busy pilot. I noticed my mental "stop and redirect" procedure was being used frequently due to the high workload. I'd be programming the GPS for the next approach and would suddenly and very deliberately move my hand away from the dial mid-rotation and put it on my leg. It almost always feels unnatural to do this. Often the GPS would be left with a flashing highlight on a selection screen. No matter, it can wait. It won't go anywhere. I needed to focus on flying and keeping the airplane heading in a safe direction.
This is my own personal workload management tactic that I've found to be very useful. It's effective at breaking a fixated thought pattern. If I feel that the GPS or finding a number on a chart is consuming too much of my precious attention--of which there is only so much of to go around--or that I'm becoming fixated, I break that thought pattern by forcing my hand to leg. It's a way of not letting my mind address anything at that moment other than flying the airplane. This procedure reminds me of Cesar Millan's, The Dog Whisperer, technique of touching a dog in a specific place on the body and making a "Sh!" sound when the dog is acting out. He's breaking the fixated thought process and redirecting the brain's attention.
I had a sharp flight student who I would occasionally challenge with task saturation. I wanted to see how he'd respond when the environment was asking too much of him all at once. I'd be barking commands at him and playing ATC as he was running checklists and flying. When the workload became too great, he'd begin to shed lower priority tasks and focus on flying. I was so proud when he'd ignore me and hunker down on the instruments. After he was sure he had the airplane under control, he'd begin responding to me. He reacted perfectly.
Pilot-in-command authority is more than just a term in the regulations. It's a mindset. It's an attitude. We have to be able to take charge of the situation, to be the "alpha dog" up there. When we are bombarded by too much input, we have to take charge by confidently selecting which tasks to focus on and which to address at a later time, and we must do this authoritatively. When we feel our minds losing situational awareness, we must recognize this and react by immediately eliminating distractions to flying the airplane. Get back to the rest when it's safe to do so.
We talk about resource management in flying. To me, resource management extends to the most valuable resource on the airplane, the pilot's brain. That brain has limited capacity. Too many demands can start to pull attention away from flying the airplane, and most of the brain's resources should be continuously attached to that effort. If attention starts peeling away from aircraft control, it should activate a mental alarm and that attention should be restored and re-attached to flying immediately. Be aware of where your attention is directed. Keep enough attention in the right places, that's what situational awareness is all about. If things start slipping, stop and just fly.
