Organizational Skills Required During Instrument Flight

What methods do you deploy? How many folks use a kneeboard? What
kind of timer (analog or digital stopwatch) do you use, and where do
you put it? Where do you keep the charts, approach plates, and
scratch paper? How many people write down every clearance, heading,
altitude and frequency change? How do you keep from dropping your pen
(or pencil)? Is it on a string? Where do you put in when not in
use? Velcro? Your pocket?


I've read the books, but I just wonder how people cope in real life.
Rod Machado talks about using a clipboard (with extra clips on the 3
other sides) in his excellent training manual. This seems like a good
idea to me.

Steve
PP ASEL
Instrument student

First and most important rule: Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS)! The more complex
of an organizational method you have, the more likely it is to fail.

I do use a kneeboard, with a pen holder on it. On the kneeboard is some
scratch paper, and usually the enroute chart I'm using at the moment.
I have a digital kitchen timer on the yoke for timing approaches along with
a simple clip below it for holding the approach plate in use. That way,
I don't have to divert my eyes too far from my scan when checking the
approach plate.

Do I write down every single clearance? No. Not if it's simple, like
"turn left to heading 270, descend and maintain 5,000". I also don't usually
write down approach clearances because you usually know what approach
they're going to give you ahead of time, and the last thing I want do to
during the approach phase of flight is take my attention away from the panel.
That said, sometimes those approach clearances can get fairly complex and it
may be worth jotting down the pertinent info.

For departure clearances, I have a sheet of blank paper on which I write
"CRAFTS" vertically along the left side for "Clearance, Route, Altitude,
Frequency, Transponder, Special" that I can fill in when given my clearance.

Keep your cockpit clutter to a minimum, and keep things as simple
as possible. The purpose of cockpit organization is so that you can
focus on the important things, like flying the airplane.

-- Dane

In article . com,
wrote:
What methods do you deploy? How many folks use a kneeboard? What
kind of timer (analog or digital stopwatch) do you use, and where do
you put it? Where do you keep the charts, approach plates, and
scratch paper? How many people write down every clearance, heading,
altitude and frequency change? How do you keep from dropping your pen
(or pencil)? Is it on a string? Where do you put in when not in
use? Velcro? Your pocket?


I've read the books, but I just wonder how people cope in real life.
Rod Machado talks about using a clipboard (with extra clips on the 3
other sides) in his excellent training manual. This seems like a good
idea to me.

Steve
PP ASEL
Instrument student

On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 18:33:49 -0800, wrote
(in article . com):

What methods do you deploy? How many folks use a kneeboard? What
kind of timer (analog or digital stopwatch) do you use, and where do
you put it? Where do you keep the charts, approach plates, and
scratch paper? How many people write down every clearance, heading,
altitude and frequency change? How do you keep from dropping your pen
(or pencil)? Is it on a string? Where do you put in when not in
use? Velcro? Your pocket?


I've read the books, but I just wonder how people cope in real life.
Rod Machado talks about using a clipboard (with extra clips on the 3
other sides) in his excellent training manual. This seems like a good
idea to me.

Sure it is. Lots of pilots use the clipboard with great success.

Personally, I just put everything into a 3 ring binder in the order that I
will use it. The binder has a clip on it to hold the approach plate. I do not
use a kneeboard. I use the clock in the airplane for a timer. If things are
not in use they go in the pocket behind the right seat. I put approach plate
binders, en route charts, etc. usually on the floor between the seats.

I do not write everything down. Instead I use bugs to remind me of things if
I need it. I write down my initial clearance and sometimes the clearance for
approach if it is complicated. Otherwise, I have better things to do than to
stick my head down in the cockpit. What I do write down goes on a small
spiral notepad that fits in my pocket.

My ideal flying togs would have pencil holders on the shirt sleeve, like AF
flight suits have.

I always enlist the aid of the right seat passenger to help with paper
handling. It helps to keep them from getting board during the flight.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

wrote:
What methods do you deploy? How many folks use a kneeboard? What
kind of timer (analog or digital stopwatch) do you use, and where do
you put it? Where do you keep the charts, approach plates, and
scratch paper? How many people write down every clearance, heading,
altitude and frequency change? How do you keep from dropping your pen
(or pencil)? Is it on a string? Where do you put in when not in
use? Velcro? Your pocket?

In real life, I use the other seat as my desk. If somebody is sitting on
my desk, they get to hold charts, hand me things, etc. If I'm flying solo,
my flight bag goes on the seat with everything I need in it. That
generally means sectional or en-route chart, one or more book of approach
plates (I use the bound NOS books), and a small spiral notebook which I use
for copying clearances, and as a rough logbook. You can never have enough
pens, and at night, you can never have enough flashlights (I'm partial to
the 2-AA MiniMaglight.

The kneeboard thing might make sense in a single-seat fighter, but I don't
fly single-seat fighters.

I used to have nice little Radio Shack timers that I would velcro to the
yoke. Now, I suppose I've gotten lazy and/or spoiled, but I've got
count-down timers built into the GPS I use, but most of the time I don't
even use a timer, since the GPS tells you when you're at the MAP, and draws
you a picture of every hold and procedure turn that you can just follow the
purple line. If I really do want to time a minute, I usually find the
easiest thing to do is glance at my watch, and just keep going until the
same number of seconds is showing in the display as the first time. Does
any of that meet some PTS-inspired concept of best practices? I have no
idea, but it's what I do in real life and it seems to work.

Charts (be they a sectional or an en-route) tend to get wedged into a
corner of the windshield.

I write down my initial clearance, and any re-routes I get in the air.
Assigned headings just get dialed right into the heading bug (whether I'm
using the AP or not). For altitude assignements, I'll generally just turn
the #2 OBS to it (i.e. for "climb and maintain 5000", I'll twist the OBS to
050).

I use a spiral bound notebook, 5.5 by about 8 inches -- it's easy to
tuck a pencil in the spring. WX info on the top of the sheet, flight
plan under that, clearance under that. Ilist frequencies in a column
down the extreme right hand edge, fixes with eta, ata, and time over
destination down the left hand side. Clearance modifications are
recorded as they are given, and approach details make it easy to refer
to. You won't find yourself wondering if you were cleared to 3000 or
2000 if you see a down arrow and 3000 written there.

The notebook has a rubber band around it, that holds maps, calculators
and so on. You simply don't need to have a lot of paper active in the
cockpit, this system is a reasonable starting place for you to develop
your own way of doing it.

The neat thing is each notebook sheet records the details of a flight
much better than your log book entry will, and a full notebook, with
its 60 pages, can hold easily a hundred flights. I use the back pages
for FSS phone numbers, flight plan forms, that sort of thing.

No kneeboards for me, at least half my flights are business related
and I don't want my suit pants to look like I had something strapped
to the leg.

Try it even VFR, it works just as well, and you'll notice how easy it
is to take notes and the like. You'll probably organize the pad
differently than I do, but once you decide on how you want to record
things, do it that way all of the time, it will, I promise you, make
things a lot easier as you gain experience.

Figure out a better way and then tell us about it!


wrote:
What methods do you deploy? How many folks use a kneeboard? What
kind of timer (analog or digital stopwatch) do you use, and where do
you put it? Where do you keep the charts, approach plates, and
scratch paper? How many people write down every clearance, heading,
altitude and frequency change? How do you keep from dropping your pen
(or pencil)? Is it on a string? Where do you put in when not in
use? Velcro? Your pocket?

I've read the books, but I just wonder how people cope in real life.
Rod Machado talks about using a clipboard (with extra clips on the 3
other sides) in his excellent training manual. This seems like a good
idea to me.

Steve
PP ASEL
Instrument student

On Feb 18, 9:33 pm, wrote:
What methods do you deploy? How many folks use a kneeboard? What
kind of timer (analog or digital stopwatch) do you use, and where do
you put it? Where do you keep the charts, approach plates, and
scratch paper? How many people write down every clearance, heading,
altitude and frequency change? How do you keep from dropping your pen
(or pencil)? Is it on a string? Where do you put in when not in
use? Velcro? Your pocket?

I've read the books, but I just wonder how people cope in real life.
Rod Machado talks about using a clipboard (with extra clips on the 3
other sides) in his excellent training manual. This seems like a good
idea to me.

Steve
PP ASEL
Instrument student

The fewer things you have with you in the cockpit, the simpler
everything becomes. Leave everything in your flight bag but somewhere
within reach, and grab only what you really need. In a training
environment our students are trained as if every flight is an
emergency, and to be prepared for the worst. Nothing wrong with that,
but you have to decide the correct balance of things to carry for each
flight to minimize clutter and workload.

I clip the weather and flight planning printouts to the kneeboard.
That also doubles as my scratch paper. Attaching a string is a good
idea, but I have never done it. I carry one pen for multiple things
(signing logbooks and such), so tying it to the clipboard would be
inconvenient.

My wrist watch serves as the timer if I ever need one. I don't bother
timing the approach unless the weather is near minimum. All my charts
stay in the bag, and I only rip out the pages I need. For the most
part, the NACO chart book stays in my flight bag (which could be
outdated), and I fly with individually printed approach charts.

I don't write everything down. Squawk codes and radio frequencies get
loaded into the stack right away as I am reading them back to the
controller. I only write down stuff that the controller starts with
"advice when ready to copy". If an instruction is too lengthy and I
happen to miss something, I can always ask it to be repeated. It
doesn't happen often enough to worry about hogging the frequency.

Don't forget the flashlight. I have yet to find a good way to keep it
from getting lost. It is too bulky to attach it to a string but it is
too small to keep from rolling off into a crevice.

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote:
Don't forget the flashlight. I have yet to find a good way to keep it
from getting lost. It is too bulky to attach it to a string but it is
too small to keep from rolling off into a crevice.

Flashlights come in two styles.

Style 1 has a wrist lanyard attached to it. These get hung over a horn of
the yoke.

Style 2 has no laynard. These get lost under the seat.

I like the tip about using OBS #2 to hold altitude assignments! As
far as the flashlight goes, I have one that hangs around my neck on a
lanyard. I don't bother timing my approaches. With 2 GPS units and
associated situational awareness, timing is a waste of time.

--Dan



On Feb 18, 8:50 pm, "Andrew Sarangan" wrote:
On Feb 18, 9:33 pm, wrote:





What methods do you deploy? How many folks use a kneeboard? What
kind of timer (analog or digital stopwatch) do you use, and where do
you put it? Where do you keep the charts, approach plates, and
scratch paper? How many people write down every clearance, heading,
altitude and frequency change? How do you keep from dropping your pen
(or pencil)? Is it on a string? Where do you put in when not in
use? Velcro? Your pocket?

I've read the books, but I just wonder how people cope in real life.
Rod Machado talks about using a clipboard (with extra clips on the 3
other sides) in his excellent training manual. This seems like a good
idea to me.

Steve
PP ASEL
Instrument student

The fewer things you have with you in the cockpit, the simpler
everything becomes. Leave everything in your flight bag but somewhere
within reach, and grab only what you really need. In a training
environment our students are trained as if every flight is an
emergency, and to be prepared for the worst. Nothing wrong with that,
but you have to decide the correct balance of things to carry for each
flight to minimize clutter and workload.

I clip the weather and flight planning printouts to the kneeboard.
That also doubles as my scratch paper. Attaching a string is a good
idea, but I have never done it. I carry one pen for multiple things
(signing logbooks and such), so tying it to the clipboard would be
inconvenient.

My wrist watch serves as the timer if I ever need one. I don't bother
timing the approach unless the weather is near minimum. All my charts
stay in the bag, and I only rip out the pages I need. For the most
part, the NACO chart book stays in my flight bag (which could be
outdated), and I fly with individually printed approach charts.

I don't write everything down. Squawk codes and radio frequencies get
loaded into the stack right away as I am reading them back to the
controller. I only write down stuff that the controller starts with
"advice when ready to copy". If an instruction is too lengthy and I
happen to miss something, I can always ask it to be repeated. It
doesn't happen often enough to worry about hogging the frequency.

Don't forget the flashlight. I have yet to find a good way to keep it
from getting lost. It is too bulky to attach it to a string but it is
too small to keep from rolling off into a crevice.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Feb 18, 9:54 pm, Roy Smith wrote:
"Andrew Sarangan" wrote:
Don't forget the flashlight. I have yet to find a good way to keep it
from getting lost. It is too bulky to attach it to a string but it is
too small to keep from rolling off into a crevice.

Flashlights come in two styles.

Style 1 has a wrist lanyard attached to it. These get hung over a horn of
the yoke.

Style 2 has no laynard. These get lost under the seat.


How about flashlights attached to your head? Or your headset? I
tried one of the LED "headlights", but it gave me a headache after
awhile. It was sure was convenient though! Does anyone use the neck
lights, seatbelt lights, ballcap lights, and even tongue switch lights
they advertise in Sportys and Spruce?

On Feb 18, 10:59 pm, "Dan" wrote:
I like the tip about using OBS #2 to hold altitude assignments! As
far as the flashlight goes, I have one that hangs around my neck on a
lanyard. I don't bother timing my approaches. With 2 GPS units and
associated situational awareness, timing is a waste of time.

--Dan

Except when you need the OBS #2 for navigation! It sounds like GPS
navigation is now the norm. One of the planes I fly has a GNS-430,
but the other just has 2 old fashioned VOR's. Plus of course my
Lowrance 2000C, which I use for situation awareness only. But since
I'm still a student, I don't bring along the portable yet. I don't
think the examiner would appreciate it.