I went out to fly one day. The weather was perfect, absolutely clear,
no wind. I got the plane preflighted and ready to start. A little
voice kept saying, "Don't fly." I'm not at all prone to such things
but a multi thousand hour instructor once told me that the most
important instrument in the airplane is behind the pilot's belt
buckle. I decided to sacrifice the day to the air gods in honor of
that advice.

The next pilot to fly the plane had the engine fail and deadsticked it
to a landing. I certainly didn't have the experience at that point to
have pulled that maneuver off successfully.

--

Roger Long



"Jere Lull" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Roger Long" wrote:

Another important skill for the coastal pilot is seeing. Well,
yeah,
not many blind people in the game. But seeing is not just watching
the
pictures your eyes throw up on the screen of your consciousness and
waiting for things to jump out at you. The signals your brain sends
back to your eyes are at least as important as what your eyes send
upstairs.

Nice series.

Another part of seeing is to listen to your "inner voice". All too
often, when something doesn't seem just right, it's time to look
around
for why. A couple of times, that's interrupted a rollicking raft-up
just
in time for us to split up and get separate anchors down before a
squall.

Minor little thing that came to mind as I was reading: Every once in
awhile, I'll notice I'm "accidently" steering off course, the bow up
to
20 degrees off of intended course, then find I'm correcting for a
current I wasn't consciously aware of. I'm probably automatically
"ranging" whatever's in the water against the shoreline.

After a dozen years in this boat and 600+ daytrips in the area,
quite a
few of the tricks like that I'd learned over the years have gone
into
"autopilot". Makes life easy for me, but hell on my wife as I try to
improve her skills. When she asks why I would tell her to point a
bit to
port and I can only say "because it feels right", she gets
understandably testy.

It's nice to see someone else's explanations. Might help my
instruction
next season.

--
Jere Lull
Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD)
Xan's Pages: http://members.dca.net/jerelull/X-Main.html
Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/