SURPRISE YOURSELF

UPSET TRAINING TO PREPARE PILOTS FOR THE UNEXPECTED

- JULIE BOATMAN

I remember flow states, during times of stress in the airplane, when time slows down just a bit—enough to help me manage a given situation deliberately and appropriately.

THERE IS NO FLOW TODAY.

Flashing back to two days ago, I recall a comment that has lodged in my mind, and I work hard to apply those words to the situation at hand: “It’s just a position in the sky that you have to deal with.”

So says Mike Burke, instructor for Prevailance Aerospace in Chesapeake, Virginia, as we’re finishing up the first ground session of a threeday upset-prevention-and- recovery training course that I’ve signed on to; UPRT trains pilots to recognize and recover from unusual attitudes and aircraft upsets. We would be preparing to head out to the airplane to start into it, except for the scuds of what was once Hurricane Isaias trudging across the airport.

The syllabus calls for three instructional sessions, each followed by an hourlong flight in one of the school’s Extras—a 330 or 330LX. Fortunately, I’m in a class of one, and the training is designed to flex for just such occasions because the UPRT flights need to be flown in good VFR conditions, with enough ceiling, visibility and cloud clearance for the tasks ahead.

We soldier ahead through the second ground session. By the time we begin tackling the third, the weather has cleared to CAVU. Vanessa Christie, founder and president of Prevailance Aerospace, helps me strap into the seat-pack parachute we’re required to wear for the aerobatic maneuvers ahead. Though I’ve put on my own pack dozens of times, the company takes the extra precaution of assisting its customers in the move, to ensure that it’s on just as tightly as it needs to be and to help pilots get into the front seat in what may be a relatively unfamiliar situation.