Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you. — Alex Haley

“But Susan, it’s not supposed to do that. It’s supposed to …” The left-seat pilot and owner of the airplane then proceeded to tell me, in impressive and impassioned detail, how the autopilot was supposed to capture the approach course set into the freshly installed moving map navigator and track it smoothly down the glideslope to decision altitude. He had hired me to ride along that day, first to conduct an instrument proficiency check and then to help figure out why the new equipment wasn’t behaving as expected.

I had been watching carefully. I had no doubt the pilot was doing everything right in terms of programming the equipment, which I knew well from experience in other airplanes. But repeated approaches at the same airport followed by similar attempts elsewhere produced the same undesired result. It was increasingly clear to me that the two electronic siblings in the panel weren’t getting along. We were witnessing the squabble resulting from an older autopilot that simply couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take instructions from the upstart navigation newcomer.

I subsequently consulted an FAA pilot colleague who also happens to be an avionics engineer. He confirmed my theory that my pilot friend’s problem was akin to the issue most of us have experienced with desktop computers and other electronic devices: new gadgets and new software don’t always work well on older platforms. The best help I could offer my pilot friend was to follow the advice that author Alex Haley so deftly offers in the quote above: Accept reality. Stop fixating on what you want it to do, or what it is “supposed” to do. Figure out what the equipment does do on a consistent basis and adjust your expectations and your actions to match.

Reality Rules

Haley’s advice is certainly in line with the know-your-airplane theme of this issue, and I have shared this concept with lots of “Frankenplane” owners and pilots. As my flying club discovered when we made a relatively simple upgrade a few years ago — installing an ADS-B transponder — the process of integrating the new item was not all that simple. First, the installer had to do some United Nations-style translation and mediation just to enable basic gadget communication and peaceful co-existence. But then the members of the club had to get acquainted and comfortable with the way our new equipment performed old functions. It was helpful to read the instructions — something we humans are oddly reluctant to do — but probably none of us really “knew” the airplane as it was now configured until we had logged a few actual flying hours with the new box. I would add that, since a fully functional transponder is absolutely critical in the Washington DC Special Flight Rules Area, we had ample incentive to ensure that we really did know how it works.

The rationale for this issue’s know-your-airplane focus goes way beyond new equipment, of course. We are all familiar with stories of pilots who averted engine or electrical failures because they knew what “normal” indications are, monitored carefully enough to spot something in the not-quite-right category and — a critical step — accepted and acted on those indications. Also familiar are the stories of how those critical seconds of “this-can’t-be-happening” disbelief can paralyze a pilot facing mechanical malfunction.

As Malcolm Gladwell, a favorite author of mine, observes in his new book Talking to Strangers, humans have an astonishing capacity to filter and rationalize inconvenient facts so we can accept something we want to believe is true. Just don’t let that habit follow you behind the controls of an airplane!  (FAA Safety Briefing – JanFeb 2020)