What is monitoring and why bother?

If you are a professional airline pilot, then flying becomes almost like driving a car – in other words, it becomes almost a routine. However, flying is still much more complicated than driving and there is obviously more “monitoring” involved when flying a plane. However, what is really meant by “monitoring” and more importantly, how and what do you monitor as a pilot? Furthermore, why bother to “monitor”?

To answer these questions, two entries on Airline Command attempt to answer what is monitoring and why bother to do it. The writer begins the first entry by going back to the basics by using the ANCM (Aviate, Navigate, Communicate, Manage) acronym and P4 (Plane, Path, People, Parts) acronym as a framework to explain what monitoring is or what it should be. In the second entry, the writer explains that monitoring is an active skill and the primary task to be performed by the pilot and all of the crew.

Of course, these two entries are meant for professional airline pilots and crew flying planes that are much more complicated than the planes flown by private pilots. So to all private pilot who are reading this, what is your definition of monitoring and how do you do it?