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Another Safety Idea

Phil

Well Known Member
After I kicked off the 'Words of Wisdom' thread last night, I sat down with my wife and did some talking.

She is (much smarter than me) a PhD psychologist and her specialty is Situational Awareness.

She's not a pilot, but she does enjoy flying with me and she understands all the situational awareness aspects involved with flight. So, you can imagine with my passion for flying and her passion for studying, safety and situational awareness comes up in many of our conversations.

Last night, she came up with what I believe is the best idea I've ever heard to encourage higher levels of pilot safety and awareness.

It only cost $9.95 from Sportys and it's so simple.

The answer is a logbook.

She suggested that instead of only keeping one logbook with your flight details, you should keep two.

The first one would continue to be used the way we use them today.

The second logbook would be a safety logbook. You will use it to log every flight you make, but you use the comments section to note the mistakes you made on that flight.

- Didn't call for a weather briefing.
- Short on time, rush pre-flight.
- Didn't have an alternate.
- Pushed reserve fuel by 25 minutes
- Flew over IFR overcast because I knew the destination was clear.
- Didn't really look for non-radio traffic at the uncontrolled field.

You get the idea.

This doesn't have to be a book you share with anyone, except yourself.

If you're going to do it, you HAVE to promise yourself that you'll honestly evaluate every flight. It will be painful to be honest, but that's the idea. And it hurts even more when you put it in writing and log it.

Keeping this type of log will make you safer and it will change your behavior.

Not to mention, it can be really helpful to watch for trends. You'll be able to look back and see what items you tend to ignore or let slip through the cracks.

Just thought I'd share this idea with you and maybe some of you would like to adopt it. I plan on buying a second logbook this week.

Phil
 
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interesting idea, but!!!

Interesting idea, but I would want to make sure the second book burned in the post crash fire. No reason to give the feds and insurance wonks more ammunition than necessary.

Tim
 
tcone1 said:
Interesting idea, but I would want to make sure the second book burned in the post crash fire. No reason to give the feds and insurance wonks more ammunition than necessary.

Tim
I would have two books to fuel the fire :)
 
Notes to hang oneself by...

OR, how to have your certificate revoked, insurance invalidated, etc.

Better yet, don't make these mistakes to start with. Every one is preventable.

If you want to make a list of all the bad things you can do or that have killed someone, go ahead. Then use that as a basis for not doing stupid things. You can extrapolate out to new situations and know if it is risky.

You can call it "Things that can kill" with no reference to if you did any or not. You can always add to it as you read about problems.

Bottom line: Don't be a putz.
 
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Good Idea

I really like this idea, but instead of trying to cram all your thoughts into the comments section of the logbook, why not just make an excel spread sheet? I was trying to cram everything into the comments section of my logbook Saturday night thinking how there just isn't enough room in there.

-John
Dreaming of building an RV....someday :rolleyes:
 
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