Single Pilot Resource Management

Single Pilot Resource Management is the art and science of managing all the resources (both on-boad the aircraft and from outside resources)available to a single pilot (prior to and during the flight). This will give you the tools you need solve in-flight problems and unforseen circumstances. As a single-pilot it is all on your shoulders, there is a reason airlines have two pilots, dispatchers and a huge support to those in the cockpit there is a lot of information that needs to retrieved and analyzed in each phase of flight.

Teaching pilots to identify problems, analyze the information and make informed and timely decisions is a diffucult task as an instructor, not just what to think but how to think. And how to think as a team when you are just one. Using all your resources before and during your flight to minimize the suprises and effectively deal with them

 "5Ps"

1. The Plan - or the mission of cross country planning, weather, fuel publications, etc
2. The Plane - squawks, maintanence, fuel, database currency, automation or the lack of
3. The Pilot - recognize the physilogical situation you are placing yourself at the end of a flight , IMSAFE
4. The Passengers - the non-pilot pax can influence your go-no decision.
   The pilot pax can cloud the PIC of a flight in critical situations (clarify, before the takeoff)
5. The Programming-Technically advanced airplanes drastically reduce workload IF you know how to use it.

Each of these areas consist of a set of challenges and opportunities that face a single pilot at key decision point during a flight. For example, pre-flight, pre-takeoff, hourly or at the midpoint of the flight, pre-descent, and (just prior to FAF for IFR) just prior to entering the traffic pattern. How many decisions have made at each of those?And how does that decision impact the next key point? With that in mind you can see the chain of events and the importance of managing the risks.

Power Point presentation on the above -easy to understand summary of SRM

Others thoughts on SRM

http://www.ehow.com/how_2168931_resource-management-single-pilot-flying.html

http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/inst_reports2.cfm?article=4983

http://www.geocities.com/cfidarren/r-spifr.htm

Where I found the above information

http://www.faa.gov/education_research/training/fits/guidance/media/RM_thorugh_SBT.pdf