Real-Life Application of the “3 Ps” model of ADM for Students and Instructors

You’ll recall that the “3 Ps” are PERCEIVE, PROCESS, and PERFORM. Specifically, we need to PERCEIVE how things are going, PROCESS what adjustments might be warranted, and then take actions to PERFORM those adjustments. It’s an iterative cycle, so after adjustments are performed, PERCEIVE their effects, PROCESS the new results to determine what next adjustments are warranted, and take actions to PERFORM those adjustments. Lather, rinse, and repeat continually until you’re safely back at the hangar with the engine stopped.

As many have, my student was struggling with patternwork. During takeoffs, the plane was banking right, and during landings, the nose was crabbing left. He needed to perceive the bank during takeoff and the crab before touchdown, process how to correct them, and perform the appropriate corrections. As simple as that sounds, these are high-stress critical phases of flight where attention is stretched thin, and after multiple laps, progress was stalled.

ADM applies to instructors, too, so my job was to perceive my student’s challenges, process how best to help him, and perform the appropriate adjustments, which were mostly verbal guidance, but for which I had to be prepared to jump in with control inputs before things went awry.

Starting with the bank at takeoff, with the nose pitched skyward, the horizon wasn’t visible straight ahead, so I had to teach him to PERCEIVE the bank through other means; I offered him multiple alternatives. I guided him to see bits of the horizon in the lower left and right corners of the windshield and the side windows. I explained how to use peripheral vision to compare the distance of each wingtip from the horizon. I highlighted how to recognize the effects of a bank in the heading change that was evident in the clouds slowly panning across our view. Finally, I showed him how to recognize a bank on the attitude indicator and the effects of the bank in the turning of the directional gyro and compass. Once he was able to perceive the bank, the processing of indications and performing of corrections became effective.

The crab at landing was trickier to correct. While the nose of our plane was pointed left, we were still tracking mostly down the extended runway centerline, which meant that a right bank was offsetting the left heading problem; we were unintentionally forward-slipping our landings (which works well enough until the moment of touchdown when it causes an undesirable sideload on the landing gear).

I had to determine which of the 3 Ps was the problem:

1. It could have been a PERCEIVE problem in which he was misjudging the aircraft’s heading, believing we were straight when we were actually crabbed. If so, he might have erroneously PROCESSed that we were being blown off the centerline (when we were actually flying off the centerline) and he might have PERFORMed a sideslipping bank to keep us on the centerline.
2. It could have been a PROCESS problem in which he perceived the heading error but erroneously believed that he could correct it with yoke input.
3. It could have been a PERFORM problem in which he perceived the heading error and intended to use rudder to correct it but erroneously applied aileron.

These three different potential problems each required different solutions, so we talked through the possibilities to determine which was the issue. It turned out to be a PERCEIVE problem, so I tried to help him recognize exactly where the nose was pointing. Our airplane, a Piper Cherokee, has a frame running up the center of the windshield, and we’d previously corrected a misconception that “straight ahead” was the extended line from his eyes (in the left seat) through that center spine. Although we’d moved his perception of “straight ahead” somewhat left of that center spine, it turns out we hadn’t moved it far enough. I had him reach his arms forward with his hands clasped together to identify what was directly in front of him, and we marked that spot on the windshield with a dry erase marker. On subsequent landings, I asked him to rudder that mark directly over the far end of the runway and keep it there. Once we had corrected his PERCEIVE problem, the processing of indications and performing of corrections became effective.

With his improved perceptions of bank and of heading, he was able to fly a few laps without my control inputs, and often without even verbal guidance.

By perceiving his problem, processing how to help him, and performing some creative guidance, he’s now better able to perceive banks and headings for himself, allowing him to accurately process errors and perform corrections. We’ll fly a bunch more laps with a goal of eventually erasing that dry erase mark, and we’ll also have to see how he does when a sideslip is actually necessary in crosswind conditions, but he’s over this hump and back to making progress towards soloing!