D. Patrick Caldwell on The Joys of Flight

When you start working on earning your private ticket, you're under the fortunate circumstance that you don't know anything. You're a clean slate. Every time you go fly, you learn something new and exciting while you build your piloting skills.

When you start working on your multi-engine, however, you focus almost exclusively on engine failures. In fact, you pretty much focus solely on the failure of the left engine (for most twin airframes . . . you'll know what I mean). When you start working on your instrument ticket, it's about 50-50.

You spend the first 20 hours learning to read new charts and approach plates. You get better at your communication and you get to talk a lot more. The next 20 hours you spend shooting approach after approach under various circumstances. Your instructor will pull breakers on you left and right. What if your GPS doesn't work? Your DME? Your AI or DG? Etc.

One of the exercises I did with my instrument instructor was to try to fly enroute and shoot an approach with a failed DG. He taught me a trick that really helped me and could help all pilots instrument rated or not.

Compass errors (oscillation, acceleration, and northerly-turning) make navigating by magnetic compass a royal P.I.T.A. Even if you fully understand compass errors and you remember your catch phrases ("overshoots north / undershoots south" and "accelerate north / decelerate south"), it still feels like navigating by trial and error.

Fortunately, there is in my opinion, a vastly better alternative. If you are making a heading change, take a look at your current magnetic bearing. Calculate the number of degrees between your current and target bearings. Divide that number by 3 and that's the number of seconds it'll take you to turn to your desired heading at standard rate.

I glazed over that so I'll go through a specific example. You're at straight and level flight heading 090. You want to turn to heading 180. That's 90 degrees to the right. A standard rate turn is 3 degrees per second so it'll take 30 seconds to make the turn.

To be sure, you'll still have to make a few course corrections here and there, but that will get you much closer than guessing what the magnetic compass should read at roll out. Also, there's a really easy way to calculate the time it takes to perform the turn. Take a look at your DG or OBS. Find your current heading on the card. If your OBS not in use, you can even turn it to indicate your current heading. Then, count the number of major divisions (30 degrees).

In the above example, there would be 3 major divisions between 90 and 180 (90-120, 120-150, 150-180). That's 30 seconds. Then, add a little more than 3 seconds for each minor division (10 degrees).

For example, if you're flying 065 degrees ENE and you want to turn to 340 degrees NNW, count 2 major divisions (060-030 and 030-360) for 20 seconds. Add to that 2 minor divisions (360-350 and 350-340) for another ~7 seconds (we can ignore the 5 degree half tick between 060 and 065 but if you're really concerned about it you can tack on another second for good measure).

Have fun. Be safe. Happy Piloting.