When you, a non-pilot, are sitting in the right-hand seat of an Auxiliary air facility and the pilot is no longer able to fly the plane, how do you get the plane on the ground safely?

That will no longer be the terrifying question to face in the future for Auxiliary aircrew, thanks to a program that has been developed by a quartet of District Seven Auxiliarists from the Auxiliary Clearwater Air Squadron.

Called the “Fly, Land and Live” program, this new Auxiliary training will eventually offer all Auxiliary air crew (including Observers) the training on how to get their planes on the ground safely at a suitable airport if the pilot can no longer fly the plane.

Auxiliarists Andy Skiba (Flotilla 9-10), Carolyn McDermott (98), Ed Smith (98) and Zeke Thomas (98) began with material from the Airplane Owners and Pilots Association “Pinch-Hitter” course, which deals with the same scenario. With their combined decades of experience, thousands of hours of flight time, and familiarity with the Auxiliary air program, they significantly enhanced the training, and made it Auxiliary-specific.

For those unfamiliar with how the Auxiliary Air Program works, the Auxiliary routinely files air-patrols with a crew that may include one qualified pilot. The person in the co-pilot’s seat may be aircrew or observer rated. Most often, that person does not have a pilot’s license and may never have received hands-on instruction on how to take over the controls, find an airport and successfully land in the event the pilot-in-command were to become disabled.

“Fly, Land and Live” addresses this problem with an all-day multi-media training experience.

Team-teaching trainers instruct on flight fundamentals, utilizing carefully crafted PowerPoint presentations, and illustrate in real time utilizing flight simulation hardware and software. While one trainer instructs, for example, how ailerons work and what they do, another trainer “flies” the simulator Cessna and shows what ailerons do in flight.

After learning the basics of flying, students are taught what to do from the moment their pilot becomes disabled to the time their plane safely rolls to a stop on a runway.

After lecture and demonstration, it’s the students’ time to “fly”, utilizing realistic simulator hardware, Microsoft’s “Flight Simulator” software, a high-speed computer linked to a video projector, and scenarios carefully crafted by the Instructors.

Stage one of hands-on with the simulator is basic flight maneuvers and landing. Then it’s time for emergency simulation!

One Instructor serves as an “Air Traffic Controller”, guiding the student Auxiliarist through the steps necessary to bring the plane home safely.

Typically, approximately 2/3rd of the students successfully land the “aircraft”. Not all land on the runway and a few suffer a little bent metal, but in a real emergency, any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

Other students on their first emergency landing join the elite company of the “Angel Club”, a dubious group created especially for the training.

For those awaiting or having completed their turn on the simulator, there is a mission scenario, where students in groups work through a mission that includes a disabled pilot.

Students have been ecstatic about the training.

“I learned more Saturday in six hours than I did in all the air observer classes,” one student remarked.

“The best training program I have attended in my 7 years with the Auxiliary”, another said.

“Even though I’m an angel now I just wanted to say from the big landing strip in the sky Saturday was superb!” concluded another.

Thanks to this course, there should be less reports from the latter air station, as more and more Auxiliarists in the Aviation Program learn to “Fly, Land and Live.”