Why Good Flying Looks Boring

On the night of December 29th, 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was approaching Miami when a small green light failed to illuminate.

It was the nose landing gear down indication light and the crew needed to determine whether it was an indication issue or whether the gear had failed to extend.

The crew discontinued the approach and conducted a missed approach climbing to 2,000ft accepting vectors to the west to determine the position of the nosegear. In what followed, a series of troubleshooting actions were undertaken by the crew including cycling the landing gear and removing the gear indication light as well as sending the second officer into the forward electronics bay under the flight deck to inspect the nose-gear alignment indicators through an optical sight. Still, the position of the gear could not be positively confirmed.

As their attention narrowed onto this one malfunction and specifically reinstalling the landing gear light assembly which had become stuck, it is likely the pilot inadvertently applied a small force of as little as 6kg to the control column, perhaps while turning to speak to the flight engineer, which disengaged altitude hold and engaged Control Wheel Steering mode.

The descent was gradual enough to escape immediate notice. Although an altitude-alert chimed, it is likely that the crew remained occupied with the landing-gear indication light while the L-1011 slowly continued a descent and by the time the developing situation was recognised, there was insufficient time to prevent the aircraft from striking the Florida Everglades.

The investigation concluded that the crew’s preoccupation with the nose-gear indication had distracted them from monitoring the flight instruments and allowed the descent to go unnoticed.

The crew of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 had not stopped looking at the cockpit instruments, but they had become fixated on one in particular. They had become so focused on managing a malfunction that they had failed to manage the overall aircraft state.

Many lessons can be drawn from this tragic accident, particularly for instrument rated pilots where information must be gathered from various sources and integrated into a picture of the aircraft state without becoming fixated or overwhelmed.

This is one of the central challenges of instrument flying. Instrument flying done well is a continuous well-disciplined scan of all relevant instruments in the cockpit and interpreting from them a coherent single picture of the aircraft's state and trend.

It's a Matter of Attitude

The attitude indicator generally sits at the centre of that picture. It shows the aircraft’s pitch and roll—the attitude from which performance develops. Indeed, from the very beginning of flying training we are told, power plus attitude equals performance. In fact, looking outside and flying with reference to the horizon is one of the cornerstones of Visual Flight Rules (VFR).

Moving to Instrument Flying (IF) the outside visual reference is lost and pilots are reminded that the same outside picture is indicated inside using the Artificial Horizon or Attitude Indicator and they are taught to trust it. Other performance instruments add more information on the aircraft's state, just as they did when flying visually.

The Big Picture, One Instrument at a Time

These instruments, as with visual flying, are seen as supportive of the aircraft's attitude indications and reveal whether the selected attitude and power is producing the intended result. Airspeed, altitude, vertical speed, heading and navigation indications should not be interpreted in isolation. From the first flying lessons, pilots should understand how these indications relate to attitude and power. With a sound understanding, a disciplined instrument scan and a firm grounding in attitude-and-power principles, each instrument contributes to a single coherent picture of the aircraft's state and trend.

Stable IFR flying requires the pilot to accurately read each instrument in a particular scan as required for the phase of flight and interpret what they collectively reveal. The objective is to recognise the aircraft’s overall state, identify the developing trend and make the smallest appropriate correction to attitude and/or power.

Gain Control Theory

We've all seen a pilot who seems to be working overly hard in benign conditions to control the aircraft. Some pilots become viral memes to demonstrate "over-controlling" due to their aggressive and large control movements. To be clear, sometimes large control deflections are necessary, but when they are not, this type of flying is often referred to as “over-controlling” and it results from something we will now refer to as a “high-gain” motor control.

What “Gain” Means in Flying

The term gain comes from control theory in engineering and applied mathematics and refers to how strongly a system responds to an error. This, in an aviation context, describes the size and speed of a pilot's response in relation to the deviation being corrected and whether it's proportional to the required input.

Gain can be either low or high and is described below:

High-Gain

Unnecessarily large, reactive, corrective control inputs.

Low-Gain

Small, timely anticipatory or reactive control inputs.

High-Gain Flying

High-gain pilots respond aggressively to a deviation from the desired flight path often late with large corrections, almost as if they are wrestling the aircraft into submission. The control input is often a highly amplified version of that required, and another correction is therefore required and a feedback loop begins.

Some pilots recognise this type of control philosophy promotes instability leading to a higher pilot workload, large performance variations and reduced mental capacity to monitor, plan and assess. 

This type of flying often relies on performance deviations as the primary tool to inform errors and dictate control inputs. Vertical speed, heading, track, airspeed, altitude – each performance deviation is noticed and used to make immediate, aggressive and often excessive corrections and the cockpit becomes overly busy.

With performance parameters constantly being corrected rather than an attitude held, the vicious cycle seems never to end. The pilot feels task saturated and very rarely ahead of the aircraft.

Low-Gain Flying

Low-gain control begins not in the hands, but in the informed picture the pilot builds before the hands move.

Low-gain pilots tend to anticipate deviations early applying minimal, proportional inputs allowing the aircraft to respond. They accept small temporary deviations in favour of keeping the aircraft stable and settled promoting large-picture trend monitoring and corrections. This type of flying has been demonstrated by many skilled pilots through history who have a sound understanding of aircraft control.

Rowland White in his book Into the Black wrote of Joe Engle who was an American astronaut, aeronautical engineer and commander of two Space Shuttle missions:

“Engle was a low-gain pilot. Like Charles Lindbergh or Chuck Yeager, he barely moved the stick, anticipating the need to do so and making small, necessary corrections in plenty of time. His inputs were smooth and progressive, never snatching at the controls.” Rowland White, Into the Black

This description aligns closely with what many experienced pilots today would recognise as experienced aircraft handling. The aircraft feels stable. There is no over-controlling. The pilot is not chasing the aeroplane — they are guiding it. Many pilots choose to complement this method with a light grip often using index finger and thumb to manipulate the controls allowing the fine sense of the fingertips to provide feedback to the pilot.

Low-gain doesn't mean passive or hesitant, rather it means using no more control input than the situation requires and allowing the aicraft time to respond.

An Illusion of Precision

“So what?” I hear some saying. It’s just two different styles of control. Yes, however the impact of a high-gain control philosophy can be dangerous and result in high pilot workload and instability of the aircraft that I have seen degrade safety margins, particularly at high-stress phases of flight.

Undoubtedly, high-gain pilots are not trying to be rough. On the contrary, they are usually conscientious, motivated, and keen to “stay on profile” and “fly accurately.” The problem is not the intent; it is understanding what target performance is required and what attitude and power is required to achieve and maintain those targets.

How Do High-Gain Control Habits Develop?

Although high-gain flying can be a natural tendency for some, it often emerges under high-stress situations, where the pilot focuses on controlling concrete performance indicators to “make the numbers right.” This type of behaviour is especially common in pilots with significant home simulator experience. More importantly, for many pilots, high-gain control habits are not inherent at all but developed and reinforced in the way they are trained.

This often happens subtly as a student is told by their instructor to “watch the descent rate” rather than hold a specific attitude. A student is told to “watch your tracking” rather than reminded to focus on holding a consistent attitude or wings level to maintain constant heading. As a result, a student’s attention is not on maintaining stable pitch and roll which are largely responsible for stable performance. Over time, a student absorbs the lesson that “Any performance deviation is bad, any deviation must be fixed right now.”

The unfortunate part of training that promotes high-gain inputs is that this type of student is often praised for “being on top of it.”

IFR and High-Gain Performance Flying

High-gain flying becomes particularly apparent and dangerous in flying Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) where performance flying and the resultant high-gain control manipulation reveals a pilot’s deeply established habits.

IFR flying undoubtedly demands precision, but it will punish poor technique. High demand phases of flight demand stability to avoid exceeding tolerances. These phases of flight reward anticipation and punish late, overly reactive control inputs. When a pilot shifts focus from attitude primarily towards chasing performance numbers, high-gain flying results.

Instead of thinking “This pitch and power combination produces the outcome I want,” the pilot now thinks “I need this speed, this heading and this rate of descent – I will move the controls aggressively to correct.” Pitch excursions become larger, lateral control becomes less precise, the instrument scan becomes random instead of disciplined, and the attitude indicator loses its rightful place as a primary reference.

Reinforcing Sound Control Habits

Many pilots don’t know that they are high-gain pilots and even when they do become aware through instruction, on check or training flights or when reviewing a video of themselves flying, the habit is so strongly ingrained it is difficult to fix.

As counterintuitive as it sounds, good flying often feels boring. The controls are often still. The aircraft is stable and settled. The pilot has time and mental capacity available for planning and threat management — not just keeping the numbers right. And the numbers are right more often because the premise of control was setting the correct attitude that resulted in the right numbers. The old saying “less is more” has rarely rung truer.

When pilots stop chasing numbers and start commanding attitudes, flying becomes smoother, more predictable, far less fatiguing, and more importantly safer – particularly under the demanding requirements of IFR environments.

If this article has caused you to reflect on how much you move the controls, that’s a good thing! These habits are learned and they can be unlearned.

What are your thoughts?