Opinion: Airmanship, Risk vs Reward

Formation Flying

In learning to fly the PC-9, one of the most memorable and enjoyable elements for me was formation flying. My favourite part of form was a phase called Close Formation (Solo) – Pairs. “Pairs” flying was where each trainee was flying solo, and we were in a paired flight with two trainees solo in one aircraft each.

The Flight

The purpose of this 1.3-hour Pairs Formation flight was to take off, fly to the training area where we would practice various manoeuvres and then return to Albany Airport. Stuart was my ‘form buddy’ and was nominated Lead for takeoff. About midway through the flight, we had scheduled a lead change, and I would fly us home for a visual approach.

To return to base from the training area, the procedure was to fly to an inbound arrival point about five miles west of the aerodrome, announce arrival (similar to a VFR Reporting Point), and then proceed to Albany Airport for an initial and pitch into the circuit. Stuart and I weren’t the only form pair in the sky that afternoon; two of our coursemates were also airborne in another quadrant of the training area. Our standing orders as a course were to ensure we had landed by 17:00 local time to avoid overtime fees incurred by air traffic control services. That meant wheels down by 17:00, or Air Force was billed for additional time.

Stuart and I had flown a successful sortie in accomplishing what we had briefed. I was taking us home and was about one mile away from the inbound arrival point, less than twenty seconds. We’d taken off late, close to 15:45, and the time now was approaching 16:55. At that point I heard the lead of the other pair on the radio announce that they were at the arrival point. I quickly decided to enter a 360-degree turn to delay our arrival by two more minutes while I tried to figure out exactly where the other pair were.

We rolled out of our turn and proceeded to the arrival point. I announced our intentions over the radio and shortly after heard the other pair announce they were at Albany Airport’s initial point, a few minutes ahead of us. By now the time was a couple minutes to 5pm, and Stuart and I applied full power to try to touchdown before the hour was up.

Stuart landed behind me at about two minutes past the hour. We taxied in, shut down, and signed the aircraft back in. As we did so, our faces still creased from the oxygen masks, our Flight Commander came over and asked us what time we landed.

“17:02, sir.”
“And what time were you supposed to land?”
“By 17:00, sir.”
“Yes. You were told to land by 17:00. You knew why, you should have landed by then.” The Flight Commander was not happy, and his look told me that any explanation I was about to give would be fruitless.

The Lesson

After our Flight Commander left, Stu looked at me with quizzically and asked why we flew the orbit and were subsequently late. I explained that I believed both our aircraft pairs were about to be at the same point, and I had not seen the other pair. With Stuart busy focusing on me as lead, and my planning our arrival, I wasn’t sure I would spot them within fifteen seconds while we converged at over 400 knots. An orbit deconflicted us and resolved the potential problem very easily. Stuart nodded, said it made sense, and not to worry.

Airmanship

I don’t know how close our pair came to the other. I probably had a sufficient buffer of time, given they were announcing their arrival when we were a mile away. Then again, we were on opposing bearings, so they may have crossed into our flightpath as they turned past the arrival point. Had we proceeded without an orbit, we probably would have made a very slick arrival as our four PC-9/As streamed in one after the other, all landing with a minute or two to deadline.

But we didn’t.

My decision cost us some kudos and inconvenienced my Flight Commander. I still stand by my decision because it was the safer option, but it wasn’t perfect. I missed an operational objective in landing late.

Did I apply good airmanship? Maybe. Competing priorities often have trade-offs, and an optimal outcome is not always possible in the real world. The risk of getting my decision wrong had a low probability but catastrophic outcome, which I weighed as the more important factor over the reward of getting our non-critical timing right. Balancing outcomes and evaluating probabilities is complex decision-making, or airmanship, relevant in piloting as well as other areas of work and life.