Teaching cockpit management
I'm an EASA CRI, so all of my instructing is of existing qualified pilots. Some of them are current for e.g. a biennial or some differences training, a large proportion are lapsed coming back after a break. What a great many of them have in common is shockingly bad cockpit management. Bits of paper of various sizes all over the place, a chart stuffed wherever it'll fit occasionally folded to the right area, pens poorly secured, kneeboards that might not fit the cockpit they're trying to fly (A4 kneeboard with a stick anybody?). Not all, but a large proportion.
To add to the fun, an increasing number of people use electronic devices in the cockpit, which I think it would be very wrong for me to prohibit, since they'll certainly pull them out and start using them as soon as I'm not around - so it should be included in their flying.
My take on it is this...
- If they're already using their own system for cockpit management, which keeps the area reasonably FOD free, they can always go to what they need, it provides a clear trail of information for the whole flight, and they integrate it all together with a good lookout and management of the aeroplane: brilliant, let them carry on, perhaps make the odd suggestion of improvements.
- If they're a complete cockpit disaster (which is probably a third of the people I fly with) initially impose my personal system, which is fairly straightforward of the major bits of paper (PLOG, checklist, airfield diagram, approach plates, notes, etc.) secured together with a treasury tag in the corner on a single kneeboard that fits the cockpit, pens in a good clip in the kneeboard - any electronic device using information co-ordinated with that, and so-on and so-forth: probably very similar to what most of you use. Give them carte blanche to vary from it SO LONG AS THEY CAN DEMONSTRATE THEIR SYSTEM CONTINUES TO KEEP A CLEAN AND CONTROLLED COCKPIT (and of course means they always have whatever they need immediately to hand).
My experience is a bit variable with this - a lot of pilots, particularly mid-hr PPLs can be very resistant to attempts to get them to maintain some good cockpit management principles, which frustrates both me and them.
Can I ask the old and bold - what's your approach to teaching, or improving cockpit management? It seems, to me, to be a topic very little talked or written about.
G