Pilot Tasks - What do you focus on too much, or find yourself forgetting to do?

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Grant Hoover

Filing Flight Plan
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Grant
During training and single-pilot operations:

What pilot tasks (radio comms, weather monitoring, etc) have you found yourself focusing on too much and turning into a distraction while flying?

Conversely, what pilot tasks (traffic scan, emergency landing location scan, etc) have you found yourself ignoring or forgetting more often than you would like?
 
Grant Hoover said:
What pilot tasks (radio comms, weather monitoring, etc) have you found yourself focusing on too much and turning into a distraction while flying?
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Letting the iPad take too much of my attention.
Grant Hoover said:
Conversely, what pilot tasks (traffic scan, emergency landing location scan, etc)
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Probably that.
 
Those ATC guys keep interrupting me while I'm trying to check facebook.

In all seriousness though, I've caught myself probably talking too much when another pilot or CFI is in the right seat. Most of the time these days my wife and kid are the only ones flying with me and they tend to fall asleep in the back so I think I get a little too excited about having someone up front to talk to about airplanes.

Another issue I've had to mitigate also revolves around family- very young kids sometimes start getting fussy at the wrong times. My audio panel has an "isolate" button that mutes everyone else's mic on the intercom and I've definitely used it a few times.
 
My pea brain focused too much on emergency landing options (to the point where flying wasn’t enjoyable.)

otoh it’s kind of a big deal (once every 8,000 hours or whatever)

then I met someone with 20 of them so I figured I’d worry about it never since I’ll never hit 8,000 hours, besides that guy had taken 19 for the team
 
Too much scan time on the attitude indicator in IMC. . .done the "wheel" thing, the "T" thing, even tried the "V" thing. Instrument rating 15 years ago and still catching myself.

Off-airport landing options - I gradually stopped looking over time. Someone did the math and a 4 place fixed gear single can be a "walk-away" on an average driveway. I start thinking about it again when off-shore or over the swamps and marshes.
 
Sundancer said:
Too much scan time on the attitude indicator in IMC.
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Unless you are literally fixating on it and not using the other instruments to verify its accuracy, it's hard to spend too much scan time on the instrument Rod Machado said years ago was the one professional pilots spend 70% of their time on.

I've seen the exact opposite problem more often: forcing some scan we heard about. Moving eyes around the instruments without taking the time to see what they say and distracting from other essential tasks.

(I actually saw and used the Machado statement the very first time I gave recurrent training to a pilot as a brand new CFII.)
 
Randomskylane said:
My pea brain focused too much on emergency landing options (to the point where flying wasn’t enjoyable.)

otoh it’s kind of a big deal (once every 8,000 hours or whatever)

then I met someone with 20 of them so I figured I’d worry about it never since I’ll never hit 8,000 hours, besides that guy had taken 19 for the team
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A gyrocopter pilot told me that he’s had 55 engine failures so far. He has one of the older type gyros with a pretty sketchy looking two-stroke. You’d think that after the second one he might want to reconsoder how he’s doing things.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Unless you are literally fixating on it and not using the other instruments to verify its accuracy, it's hard to spend too much scan time on the instrument Rod Machado said years ago was the one professional pilots spend 70% of their time on.

I've seen the exact opposite problem more often: forcing some scan we heard about. Moving eyes around the instruments without taking the time to see what they say and distracting from other essential tasks.

(I actually saw and used the Machado statement the very first time I gave recurrent training to a pilot as a brand new CFII.)
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Yep, CFII failed the AI (realistically) in a sim - took me too long to recognize the failure and sort it out. Not an issue for me on appraoches for some reason.
 
Grant Hoover said:
During training and single-pilot operations:

What pilot tasks (radio comms, weather monitoring, etc) have you found yourself focusing on too much and turning into a distraction while flying?

Conversely, what pilot tasks (traffic scan, emergency landing location scan, etc) have you found yourself ignoring or forgetting more often than you would like?
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Prioritize to reduce distractions.

Aviate. Navigate. Communicate.
 
Sundancer said:
Yep, CFII failed the AI (realistically) in a sim - took me too long to recognize the failure and sort it out. Not an issue for me on appraoches for some reason.
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Theory: Might be because your scan during the approach naturally moves to various instruments to capture the important interrelationships during a time when they are most important.
 
luvflyin said:
Doing to much other stuff while taxiing. Sure glad there was another pilot with me that time I……………:yikes:
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I'm sure glad that light post wasn't 6 inches taller.
 
RyanB said:
Letting the iPad take too much of my attention.

Probably that.
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rk911 said:
Agree. I stopped flying with my iPad for just that reason.
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To those saying the iPad taking too much of their attention - what do you feel like you're missing out on the most with your head in the cockpit too much? Traffic scan, upcoming weather, just a general discomfort with having too much "eyes down" time?
 
Distraction is whatever took my attention away from not being spot on with my altitude or heading (not looking directly ahead or at my AI). Basically everything, lol.
 
Eyes at the end of the runway when landing. Love flying with my wife because she always reminds me of that, and other things - best checklist ever! Cheers.
 
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