The Next Few Minutes Are the Ones That Count in the Clouds

For an owner flying their own airplane in instrument conditions, the advice comes down to time: keep your attention on what the airplane will be doing in the next stretch of the flight, not on what it just did. That matters most when the autopilot and flight director are doing the flying and the pilot is watching. The skill being described is anticipation, meaning you already know the next turn, level-off or mode change before the panel shows it. The well-run IFR cockpit, whether it is departing out of Naples or descending into Aspen, belongs to the pilot who is a few steps ahead of the airplane.

With reporting from Flying.