Chair Fly
Whether working on your private pilot certificate, instrument rating, or going in for your ATP checkride, chair flying is an important technique that aids in both the mental and physical preparation for a flight. Like an actor's rehearsal the chair flight can aid in memorizing the script for the lesson, approach procedure, or performance and allows the pilot to practice before ever starting an engine - saving time, money, and improving safety!
Steps
- Decide what you're going to chair-fly.
- Is it a ground reference maneuver? A flow checklist? An instrument approach? A stage check? A checkride? Know what you're going to practice before you sit down and start. Have a goal for the practice session such as memorizing a flow check, knowing how you'll respond to an examiner, being familiar with the physical process for turns around a point, or knowing exactly when you'll lower the gear after a procedure turn. Picking a goal gives focus to a chair-flying session and helps you decide how long you need to practice.
- Chair-flying doesn't have to be a formal. It may simply be a mental outline of a flight to come rehearsed in your head until you are comfortable with the procedures you're going to perform and in what sequence they will be preformed in. In this case, know what level of mental preparedness you're trying to achieve.
- Pick a place to chair-fly.
- A quiet place with somewhere to sit is usually best and allows you to maintain focus while chair-flying. Be sure it is free of distractions. Grab any checklists, flow sheets, or instrument procedures you need for the rehearsal.
- If you have access to it, an aircraft flight deck is a wonderful place to chair-fly. Having the cockpit right in front of you adds a tactile level to manipulating controls, pulling out checklists, and running through procedures - allowing for the more rapid learning of physical tasks.
- In bed before sleep is a good place to mental chair-fly. Just before bed you can run through the next day's flight and what you're hoping to accomplish, dismiss any anxiety you might feel, and consider improvements from previous flights to be incorporated. The quiet time in bed may aid in the mental visualization of maneuvers as well.
- Clear your mind and begin.
- Chair flying works best when you pretend you're actually flying.
- Run through the procedures you're practicing exactly as they would occur in an actual flight. Move your hands to manipulate controls, press buttons, dial the GPS, extend the flaps, and any other motion you would actually do in the places that these items are located. It doesn't matter that they're just phantoms, your body will remember the general movements. Omit nothing, and try to incorporate realistic events that may happen on the flight in order to practice your response to them (what you would do if the wind shifted or died down while practicing rectangular patterns, or how you would respond if suddenly given an engine failure on an instrument approach in IMC conditions, e.g.).
- When a mistake has been made during a flow or mental procedure stop, go back, and re-do it. The rule of primacy states that a first experience tends to be the strongest. If you continually make a mistake while doing a flow check or procedure practice and don't make a strong correction to it you are more likely to repeat that mistake later when under the stress of a real flight.
- Finish well. When you feel you have accomplished your goal for the practice session, end it. There's no purpose in rehearsing to the point of total boredom. Frequent, short chair-flying sessions are more effective than long infrequent ones when it comes to cementing procedures.
- Repeat. Chair-flying can almost be done anywhere and is a suitable practice technique for use before every flight. It aids in your overall mental and physical preparedness in a variety of scenarios. Something you've rehearsed in your head beforehand is much less likely to catch you off-guard if or when it actually occurs.
