Aviation articles by Garth Wallace

I discovered what I thought was the ideal pilot’s textbook, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Flying and Gliding."
This is what aviation needs," I said to myself, "a book that does not expound on theories; a text without wise explanations of things that work fine even if the pilot doesn’t know how they do; a reference devoid of righteous regulations; a manual of important things that help pilots stay alive."
And there it was, sitting on a sale table at a bookstore. I snatched it up, paid for it and dashed home to read.
It was not to be. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Flying and Gliding is an interesting manual but it’s not for pilots. The book contains 300 plus pages of history, theory, regulations and speculation, plus some snapshots into the corners of the sport and commercial flying. There is too much knowledge and not enough experience in it for real pilots.
The textbook I was hoping for would be more practical. It would fit in a pocket, float, start campfires, be nutritious, taste like chocolate donuts, open out to a polishing cloth and fold back into an airsick bag.

Garth’s Idiot Pilot Guide to Flying
Chapter One - Parts of the airplane
The book I bought shows a labelled drawing of a straight-tailed Cessna 150, the same airplane that has appeared in learn-to-fly texts for 50 years.
The 1903 Wright Flyer had its elevator on the front and no ailerons. Burt Rutan’s popular 1970s Long-Eze homebuilt had vertical tails on the wingtips and no elevator.
All airplane parts, including engines and landing gear, have been moved around by one designer or another. We’ve had flaperons, elevons, winglets, canards and stabilators.
Chapter One of my Idiot Pilot’s Guide would declare that the parts of an airplane are the designer’s business. The pilot’s job is to keep them flying, together, all the way to the destination.

Chapter Two - Aerodynamics
I taught theory of flight to ground school classes the old way. I stood at the front of the room holding a model airplane and a pencil. I described how an airplane pitches, rolls and yaws about imaginary axis.
The students fell asleep. I moved on to Bernoulli. The snores grew louder.

Pilots need to know two things:
1/ What goes up must come down.
2/ An airplane is called an "air plane" because it planes through the air. When it stops air planing, it stops flying. If a student doesn’t grasp that, take them up and invite them to stick a flat hand out the window and rotate it. They’ll either get the idea or break their arm trying.

Chapter Three - Navigating
The sub-title of this chapter in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Flying and Gliding is, "getting from here to there without street signs". It goes on to describe aeronautical charts, latitude and longitude, great circle routes, compasses and gyros. Are you a better pilot if you know that the chart is a Transverse Mercator Conic Projection?

I have two more questions:
1/ What’s wrong with flying by street signs?
2/ How many pilots prepare and navigate the way they did for their written exam and flight test?

The trick with navigation is knowing where you are when you start. Once you nail that down, do whatever it takes to stay unlost: follow roads or migrating geese and remember that moss grows on the north side of trees and rocks.
If you think you need charts, radios, computers and reference books, be my guest. Just don’t let them distract you from knowing where you are.

Chapter Four - From takeoff to landing
This section in TCIGTF&G covers documents, pilot medicals, the aircraft pre-flight, taxiing, takeoff, air traffic control, flight levels, collision avoidance and landing.

My book:
Documents - leave the paperwork to the washroom attendants.
Medicals - don’t fly if you don’t feel like it.
Pre-flight - Check the airplane to see if the previous pilot read Chapter One, "Keep the airplane parts flying together".
Taxiing - It’s a waste of time. Turn the airplane into the wind and take off.
Takeoff - airplanes love to fly, just add power.
Air traffic control - if you like to talk, buy a headset with a boom mike. If you like to listen, plug it into a radio.
Flight levels - fly low enough to navigate by the moss on the rocks and high enough to avoid colliding with the moss.
Landing - this is a sometimes turbulent marriage between pilot and airplane. It takes kindness, understanding, communication, a light touch and commitment. Never stop practising.

Chapter Five - About the Weather
TCIGTF&G tries to explain the theories of meteorology. If the met specialists at Environment Canada can not accurately predict the weather, what hope do pilots have? Why bother understanding information that is often wrong?

Just follow these simple rules:
1/ If you can’t see where you’re going, don’t go.
2/ It’s better to be down here wishing you were up there than to be up there wishing you were down here. I thank Transport Canada for this one.

Chapter Six - Air Regulations
How many pilots know all of the air regulations? Me either.
Garth’s guide to air regulations: If it’s not safe, don’t do it.

Here are a few other recreational aviation realities that would appear in my student pilot’s guide:

Rent or own?
If you buy more airplane than you can afford, then you expose yourself to payments, hull insurance, certified maintenance, hangar rent and the prospect of flying 500 hours a year to bring your costs down to the price of renting the same aircraft.

Building an airplane
Face it; some people should never bet their butt on something they built. Look at that shed you assembled from a kit. Would you fly it?

Owner maintenance
Are you someone who could maintain your own airplane? Think back to the last time you fixed your car. Did it run when you were done or did the garage have to come and tow it away?

Night flying
You are driving along the highway in your car at night. Now turn off your headlights. How comfortable does that feel?

Instrument flying
You are driving along the highway in your car in daylight. Now close your eyes. How comfortable does that feel?

Night instrument flying
See above and combine.

Lastly, my idiot pilot’s guide would have a plain cover. How many student pilots would walk into ground school carrying a large orange book with the word "IDIOT’S" in large capital letters on the cover? Maybe that’s why TCIGTF&G was on the sale table at the bookstore.

If you’d like to read about aviation, buy The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Flying and Gliding. If you’d like to learn more about flying, get in an airplane and take off.