Editor’s note: This is the final installment of a two-part series on flight energy management, describing what it is and how we can use it to enhance safety. The first part ran in November’s issue.
Loss of control in-flight (LOC-I) has become the safety issue du jour, and justifiably so. According to the NTSB, between 2001 and 2011, over 40 percent of fatal fixed-wing GA accidents occurred because pilots lost control of their airplanes. Takeoff and climb, landing and maneuvering are regarded to be the flight phases in which pilots are most susceptible to LOC-I, as the bar graphs on the opposite page detail. And LOC-I almost always results from pilot error. We can lose control whenever we expect too much of the aircraft or expect the aircraft to do something it can’t do. For example, attempting to fly with too much load factor while turning from base to final in the traffic pattern precipitates a stall, and is a major factor in the ways pilots lose control.
