One of the things that most impressed me when Justin first started his flight training (August 2001) was realizing how many different emergency scenarios student pilots are exposed to and taught to handle during their training. At no time during the flight outlined above was it "stressful" as the passenger; Justin did everything by the book and brought the plane in at the first indication of a potential problem. Probably the most important thing of all, he calmly kept his passenger (me!
) informed of the developing situation, so nothing came as a surprise.
Speaking of surprises and the importance of communication in the cockpit ... On the flight we took this past Saturday (August 10), we'd had a terrific flight over downtown San Antonio and then out to Hill Country State Natural Area and Medina Lake. As we came in for landing at San Antonio International Airport, everything about the landing seemed "wrong" to me (speed, distance from the runway as we dropped altitude, height above the ground on approach). Since landing is, as instructors drill into student pilots' heads, a
critical phase of flight, I keep my mouth shut on landing. So I kept my mouth shut as I fought the butterflies in my stomach... something I really hadn't experienced before on any flight with Justin (I missed out on some of his early training flights when he spooked
himself with abrupt maneuvers with the instructor.) Anyway, the moment we touched down, I asked him what was going on, as that was a "white knuckle landing" for me. He was surprised, to say the least.
No emergency. Nothing amiss! The reason for what felt like a completely atypical landing? The Air Traffic Controller (ATC) at S.A. International had given Justin a "wake turbulence advisory" on landing, since we'd followed an airliner in for landing and its "wake" was still fresh on the runway. The standard procedure to avoid wake turbulence is to do all the things Justin did on that landing -- alter your glideslope, so you're not flying in the same path/wake the larger aircraft in front of you created; touch down either further down the runway or earlier than your usual touchdown point, and so forth.
So much of flying is understanding the situations you may find yourself in and knowing how to handle them... and that goes for the passengers, as well as the pilot. If I'd known why the landing we were performing was so out of the norm of my experience, I'd not have had the uneasy feelings I did. Needless to say, Justin will be advising me (and any other passengers) the next time he's advised of wake turbulence and needs to perform such a landing. I think if I flew with him less, I'd not have been bothered by it as much... but since I'm starting to know how different maneuvers and actions (landing, take-off, turns, etc.) look and feel in the aircraft, I'm more aware when something's a "new" way of doing things... and "new" in the aircraft, without any frame of reference, doesn't necessarily mean "better".
