GA1372

Too eager to fly

Having finished building my plane and having had the familiarisation training, I had a few figures to get for the Permit to Fly application. I hadn’t got my tablet holder in place, so I securely strapped the tablet to the passenger seat with the screen visible. Preflight checks, take off, and transfer to [Airfield] Radar went smoothly.

The weather was generally clear, but with pockets of cloud and rain, just as the weather briefings predicted. I started various tests, recording the results of each with a photo as this was quicker and less head-down than noting sets of figures. Ahead, I saw a heavy shower, so I headed right to avoid it. [Airfield] Radar then called me to advise “[Parachuting DZ location] active parachuting”. I acknowledged, looked down at my tablet, and realised that, although I was still about five miles away, I was heading straight for the DZ. I altered my heading and continued the flight uneventfully.

In my post-flight debrief to myself, I concluded the following:

  1. If I’d had my tablet in its usual place, I would have seen the DZ sooner as part of my normal instrument scan.
  2. If I had not been in touch with a radar service, I may not have seen the DZ until dangerously close.
  3. Trying to convince myself that it wasn’t really a problem because, due to the weather, they weren’t actually parachuting, was foolhardy.

So a positive to take away is that I try to use a radar service if available, which helped. But the decision to fly with my navigation tablet in a non-standard place, whilst doing high-rate turns, variable-speed tests, and stalls etc with known weather pockets was not such a good idea; I’ll not be doing that again.

We commend the reporter for their frank and honest report; they didn’t need to tell anyone about what happened but their altruistic decision to do so provides us with the opportunity again to remind others about the need to make sure we don’t become task-focused at the expense of routine flying tasks.

Their report is also a good advert for talking to ATC, who were able to assist in avoiding the DZ. This is good practice whenever possible anyway, but especially if conducting activities such as getting test data when, despite being aware of the extra heads-in time, there is inevitably a degradation of capacity, situational awareness, and potentially lookout. In this respect, if you’re conducting such recording tasks in a multi-seat aircraft then also consider taking someone else in the cockpit to either record the information and/or assist with lookout whilst you concentrate on achieving the data points.

The reporter has identified many of the lessons themselves, and we concur that the issue of the tablet’s location was a part of the problem. We’ve commented before about fixing such devices securely in the cockpit in a suitable and appropriate location to be viewed easily, and CAA Safety Sense Leaflet 29 ‘VFR Moving Map Devices’ gives some additional thoughts on the positioning of devices and their prioritisation when using them as moving map displays.

The reporter’s lesson about assuming that the weather was too bad for parachutists should also be heeded because, as they comment themselves, this was a perilous assumption. Parachutists often jump in what some aviators would consider poor weather conditions but which are in fact suitable for parachuting. As a matter of good practice, conduct thorough pre-flight planning to note DZ locations and always route around them to avoid conflicts whenever possible, but especially if heads-in and recording information as in this case.

Dirty Dozen Human Factors

The following ‘Dirty Dozen’ Human Factors elements were a key part of the CHIRP discussions about this report and are intended to provide food for thought when considering aspects that might be pertinent in similar circumstances.

  • Pressure – Self-imposed pressure to get the task done.
  • Distraction – task-focus in recording test points and avoiding weather at the expense of overall navigational Situational Awareness.
  • Complacency – Assumption that parachutists would not be operating.
pressure, distraction, complacency