When Life Gives You Lemons… Check your procedures

Man, I love the smell of avgas first thing in the morning!

Steve is doing a run-up of the Cessna182 for the first load of skydivers at 7 a.m. Us instructors will get to do one or two skydives before it gets busy when our first-jump students arrive at the DZ in a couple of hours.

There's a big group coming and it's a beautiful summer day for skydiving!

We've got a couple of classes running since we've got to get a lot of excited people out of the plane and under canopy before sunset. It's such a hoot to share this experience with first-timers!

By noon classes are finished and now it's time to suit up.

Not A Time To Improvise

I've got a bunch of guys ready to go. Five beefy 6-footers from the army base down the road.

Plus gear.

This load is heavy, and you can see the heat rise from the tarmac. Means that the plane will climb more slowly. But we're using the Cessna 206 - total workhorse with a powerful engine.

No worries…

And no cargo door.

The roll-up Lexan door is in the shop. I know I've got two parachutes, a main and reserve on my back, but still not crazy about flying without a door, especially when I'm in the doorway. But hey - it is what it is.

My guys are all seated on the floor back to front - seats are removed to maximize space in the plane, such as it is.

We taxi out to the runway. And I'm standing, as much as you can stand in a Cessna, leaning way forward over them to get as much weight as possible under the wings for take-off.

Hollywood, the pilot, completes his pre-flight checks and next thing you know we're rippin' down the runway at full throttle.

…And we're airborne - the ground is getting further away, and a lush view of farm fields in July is expanding below us. Never gets old!

Dealing With "Stuff"

But I'm the first to notice, since I'm in the open doorway. The engine sounds weird, and the plane starts to mush & lag. At this point we're well under 1000 feet up - a total no-go altitude for students to exit.

Since it's so much noisier up front in the cockpit close to the engine, it takes a couple of beats for Hollywood to appreciate what's going on. Popping up his Ray-Bans, he peels back one earpiece of his headset for a listen and starts to fiddle with the throttle…

At this point I'm trying, telepathically, to get his attention. We're barely four feet apart, but it might as well be a hundred. I don't want to make my guys nervous or panicky with the conversation I wish to have with the pilot.

Finally, he looks back. With intense eye contact we manage to communicate and concur that the engine has massively crapped out! Verified by the fact that oil & smoke are spewing out under the fuselage…

Hey, stuff happens even with frequently inspected & maintained planes. I let my students know that we're going to land.

We're close enough to the airport that Hollywood is going to go around and attempt to land on the runway. Doing turns means losing altitude more quickly. At this point with no power, the 206 is flying like a brick.

We might come down hard, so I want to hang on to something - remember that "no door" situation... My guys are good - I checked their seat belts and they're strapped in tight.

I step further forward and run my left arm through the yoke of Hollywood's emergency parachute rig, and put my head down on the back of his seat in case of impact.

For being so low, this approach seems to be taking forever!

I lift my head to take a peek over his shoulder, and all I can see is a windshield full of tarmac…

Nice story but…

What does this have to do with me, you ask?

Believe it or not, this is a story about the self-confidence and self-reliance that comes from having solid procedures, processes and systems.

So, in what happened above:

• The pilot has an “engine out” checklist to follow to prep for a landing, and he followed his procedures to the letter.
• I had to quickly decide if this was a “go/no go” situation for my students based on my training and steps that would have to happen to dispatch my students. (I could have bailed, but that would have been so uncool and entirely unprofessional…)
• My job was also to communicate with my students and keep them calm. And having mentally practiced this scenario many times kept me calm.

Had the pilot and I not had any of the above, and have them down pat, I probably wouldn’t be sharing this with you right now.

This is what you can expect when you have systems in place, especially in your solopreneur business. You can sidestep "the steaming pile" when things go wrong… You’re propelled to focus and avoid “shiny objects”.

You can stay calm. You know how you’ll execute your vision by following procedures and processes that you’ve created for the way you want to work and live.

And from procedures & systems, you have the ability to see things through to the end because you have clarity. Thus faster execution and results!

And?

Oh yeah, about the landing - Hollywood greased the plane onto the runway without even a bounce!

And I escorted my charges back to the hanger to debrief, and also to immediately get the guys who wanted to make their jump that day into another plane, and go up again to fulfill their dream!