The home field advantage disadvantage

That first flight away from home is a real corker. The excitement of a new adventure is palpable. The challenges of flying into new territories are many, but we are generally reasonably confident we can handle the tasks required of us.

Sure we may suffer a slight case of nerves. But who doesn’t when doing something new and different?

We plan. We prepare. We do our best to stay on our toes and keep the blue side up. Even more importantly, we determine our course and check it regularly to make sure we arrive at our intended destination. It would be embarrassing, at the least, to end up somewhere that could be described as “not so far off the mark.”

Whether this sojourn into new airspace is intended to satisfy the 150-mile total distance requirements of the private pilot training program or is the realization of a life-long dream to travel to some destination two time zones away, the basics are the same. We’re intentionally launching ourselves into a new experience that gives us just a bit of a concern about our capabilities — and we often do it without the support of a mentor, instructor, or more experienced pilot at our side.

Gulp.

The good news is we are almost universally successful in our quest. A few of us find ourselves a bit lost, or as the chief instructor at the flight school I got most of my tickets at would say, “momentarily disoriented.”

That situation is easy corrected, if not in the air then certainly when we find ourselves on the ground asking the somewhat humbling question, “Where am I?”

The real glitch in this early adventure-seeking behavior is not so much the flight outbound, although any one of us could be excused for thinking that might be the case. No, it is the trip home that presents the larger challenge.

When we’re homeward bound, that is the time when a sense of comfort seeps into our thinking. We relax a bit. Our guard comes down. We find ourselves believing our flight is a complete and thoroughly satisfying success long before our wheels actually touch down on the runway back home.

Something is happening to us that is not in our best interest. Yet the sense of passivity we are beginning to experience is so emotionally reassuring we allow ourselves to settle into it as if we were being allowed to rest our head on a soft, warm pillow. But this pillow has thorny spikes hidden beneath its frilly casing.

Familiar landmarks and checkpoints come into play, deepening our sense of ease, as if all is well with the world and nothing can shake us from our stable and secure garden pathway home.

Confirmation bias becomes a real hazard to us now. We see what we expect to see. We hear what we expect to hear. We continue on as if all is well with the world, even when our eyes tell us something is very wrong up ahead. We persist. We don’t question the issues that are becoming all too evident. We go on. Sometimes to our great peril.

Perhaps weather is our nemesis on this trip. The clear blue skies we’ve been flying through have filled with an ever-thickening layer of clouds. The ceiling drops from unlimited to very near your personal minimums. Then it sinks a bit lower. But we’re almost home, you reason. In 15 minutes I’ll be back on the ground. I’m almost there. I can scud run these last few miles. I’m home. I can probably do this.

Probably is problematic.

Of course, your home airport might be the issue hiding in the weeds. You know the location of the runways, you know the traditional entry points to the traffic pattern. Fuel may be running low as you make your way home with haste, ready to put your feet up and reflect with joy on your latest adventure. But did you check NOTAMs before you launched? Is the airport actually open and available to receive incoming traffic?

I’ve faced both these issues during my career.

Thankfully, I’m a coward. I don’t scud run. Ever. When the visibility dwindles and the ceiling drops below my personal minimums I find someplace better to go. My intended destination is just an option, not a mandatory landing site. If the weather says No Go, I don’t go. I’ve lived long enough to know that in a battle between Mother Nature and myself, I’m going to be the big loser nine times out of 10.

It’s also been my unfortunate experience to arrive in the pattern at my home airport only to find the aircraft in front of me landed badly. With its nosewheel collapsed, a prop strike was unavoidable, which led to a formerly fit flyer finding itself stranded on the runway for an indeterminate period of time.

This, at the conclusion of a cross-country flight with a student when our fuel was running low and my bladder was maxing out.

The specific situation was not foreseeable, but the basic result certainly was. Not everything works the way we expect. Our assumptions can very much leap up and bite us on the butt if we’re not careful to keep a Plan B in our pocket at all times. A well planned out Plan B that we can put into action at a moment’s notice, should the need arise.

At my home airport it isn’t unusual to see someone on final for Runway 23. A choice the pilot made because, let’s say, the AWOS reports the winds being 210 at 3. Whether a local or a transient, it’s a good bet that pilot listened to the AWOS, but never bothered to read the Chart Supplement’s Airport Remarks (formerly known as the AF/D). If they had they would know that Runway 5 is the preferred runway for calm and light winds.

Even at home or on our way home, 14 CFR 91.103 is valid: “Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight.”

That regulation is true and in force at all times and in all circumstances — even when we’re headed to or operating from our home base. The place where we feel most comfortable, and safe, and sure we know everything we need to know, even when we don’t.