On Being Hurried...
As I gradually obtain a very little experience, I am becoming sensitive to being hurried. There are two types of being hurried - on the ground and in the air. There are two agents that instigate the rush to complete - self imposed deadlines and those imposed by other people. They are all potentially deadly.
"Get there-itis" we should all already know about. This is caused by the pressure of events - the important appointment, the party, the train to catch. It can be imposed by passengers or subtly, by yourself and it can attack you both in the air and on the ground.
However, there are other forms I wish to mention because they can trip us up when we least expect it.
The commonest on the ground form is the hurried walk around caused by a distraction like a phone call, a "late" fuel truck or passenger, etc. but the effect is the same; we concentrate on what we think matters and miss things.
The one that is biting me at the moment is getting hurried in the air. I have spent a little time getting current again and specifically on high wing light sport aircraft that I am finding difficult to land in a crosswind because of their light weight and lack of momentum compared to a C172.
However I think i have traced a good chunk of that problem down to being hurried by instructors. It must be a real pain to have to sit in the circuit day after day and coax ham fisted idiots like me to perform. I don't have the patience to do it.
However what does not help is subtle, maybe even unnoticed pressure from instructors to do everything faster. This takes the form of demands for a tighter circuit, and what is especially annoying, the request for the earliest possible turn to base, which means that if you are not very quick with throttle and flaps you are going to arrive on final high, too fast, improperly trimmed and generally mentally unready to appreciate your situation.
This is not helped by the usual flying school requirement to add five to Ten knots to approach and threshold speeds….
The result is usually a very untidy arrival, float, bounce, you name it when an additional Thirty seconds on final would make things a lot more settled.
Of course we all want to do tight and efficient circuits, precise control of airspeed and attitude, etc., but that takes time to learn.
I wish instructors could perhaps put themselves in the students shoes a little more and try not to let their impatience show.
A further problem for inexperienced pilots is when they visit unfamiliar strips on their own and unconsciously try and do everything at the same hurried pace they were taught at YMMB. Luckily for me I only bounced once or twice and went around before realising that i needed to slow down and be far more deliberate in setting up my landings. However I still caught myself unconsciously responding to instructor pressure this month.
To put that another way,, Arkaroola is not Moorabbin, if you want to make it a five minute final, Doug is not going to bite you.