I returned home from a quick jaunt to the grocery store the other night to find my mailbox had been assaulted. It’s a good-sized steel box on a solid steel pole. It’s built to take a beating, which it did through no fault of its own.
Initially I was surprised to see the oversized door hanging open. Very strange, I thought. When I sauntered over to close it, I found the mounting pole now stood at an odd angle. About halfway up the pole, right about at bumper height, there is some slight damage.
Somebody hit my mailbox with their car.
Now, let me be absolutely clear about this. My mailbox is not located in the street. It’s near the street. Close enough that my mail carrier can reach it without dismounting from their vehicle. But it’s not in the roadway itself.
This means that someone, a human being, who was driving a motor vehicle, wasn’t able to keep their car on the pavement. They took a short side trip into my yard where their bumper encountered my mailbox. The mailbox lost that contest. Fortunately, the damage was slight thanks to the sandy soil of the nation’s great sandbar known as Florida.
The experience compelled me to reflect on those early days when I was learning to drive. I was just 13 years old when my dear old granddad let me routinely drive the nine miles into town and back again in his Plymouth Duster. It was a heady time for a young man like me. Chauffer duty was a real treat. It was also the safer choice since granddad was blind in one eye, hard of hearing, and often a bit tipsy by noontime after a few rounds with the bottle.
I learned basic lessons quickly that have stuck with me through the years. Keep all four tires on the pavement. That’s a big one. Avoid allowing the vehicle to stray to the other side of the double yellow line. That’s saved me a lot of heartache and expense, too. Perhaps most important of all, put a premium on the amount of time I devote to looking out the windshield.
Pretty much everything that can hurt me is out there in front of me somewhere. At least most of it. What little might come hurtling from the sides or the rear come into my scan as well, as appropriate. Keeping the car on the road, in my lane, and within the speed limits defined by the signs posted along the way has gone a long way toward keeping me whole and out of trouble.
The basics can be transferred to almost any endeavor, flying included.
Who among us hasn’t had a flight instructor in the right seat repeating the words, “right rudder” over and over again? I heard that refrain quite frequently when I was a new student pilot. I nearly used the phrase to its ultimate limit when I was the CFI in the right seat. And I will acknowledge with a bit of humility that once, just once a CFI giving me a flight review threw that term out for me to consider when I’d lost focus for a moment.
It can be argued that the airplane will fly just fine with the ball out to the right. And it does fly. Not as smoothly as it should, though. Being uncoordinated is not something I’d be inclined to be proud of. But it happens to the best of us now and then. Those of us who care put that little extra bit of effort in to correct the issue.
A thousand small corrections made throughout the flight keep me from having to make one really big, scary correction under less than desirable circumstances.
It’s the little things that can get you. Being a little slow. A little uncoordinated. Just a bit distracted. Slightly off the centerline on approach. In weather that’s below VFR minimums, but not so much below that a super sharp guy like me can’t handle it.
That’s what we think. Right up until the moment where it all starts to go wrong. Problematically, the time between when things start to go wrong and the time when your lights go out can be measured in seconds.
My mailbox will survive. I’ve righted it. The scuff on the mounting pole doesn’t lower property values much in my neighborhood. And I suspect the scratch or small dent in the perpetrator’s vehicle is a slightly embarrassing reminder to someone that checking their texts at that exact moment might not have been the best course of action.
My greater concern is with pilots young and old, newbies and experienced alike, who get a bit sloppy with the basics. The folks who fly final at 60, or 73, or 82 if they’re really in a rush to get on the ground. An erratic speed profile can very much lead to unanticipated problems or even airframe damaging landings more often than one might think.
Putting it down somewhere on the runway has become the goal for some I’ve flown with. The centerline doesn’t seem to make much of an impression on them anymore. An attitude that puts their mains dangerously close to the soft sod, gopher tortoise holes, standing water, or tire damaging debris that lurks just off the hard surface.
Occasionally I’ve flown with someone who operates the throttle with roughly the same vigor my granny put into her butter churn. That makes for an uncomfortable ride in more ways than one might expect.
Having a plan, sticking to it, and keeping your head in the game is a great way to increase the likelihood that our flights work out well. Perhaps our passengers even climb out singing our praises.
I’ll take a “nice landing” over a “what the hell was that” any day. By paying attention to the basics and making them the solid base I build my flight planning and execution on makes the former a far more likely compliment than the latter. A phrase I hope to never hear again.
