800# Gorilla sitting on the couch....

[B25Flyer]

There seems to be a Gorilla sitting on the couch that no one seems to want to discuss.....

Stein alluded to my safety presentation in the Stall Spin thread and given that the recent past has been a little deadly, I thought I would accommodate his request and share one of the premises of the presentation that I give to Warbird audiences... We have a horrible safety record in the Warbird community and several years ago I was the Stand-Eval Chair at the CAF when we had a rash of accidents that threatened our insurability.. We had to do something and it fell in my lap. We had a safety standdown. Started annual safety training for all CAF pilots and I ended up taking it on the road. It applies equally to the RV world....

Before anybody gets wrapped up in the details of some recent fatal accidents, lets think about how we, as pilots, react to accidents. Let me be clear, this is not a thread about the details of the recent accidents.

Wilbur Wright wrote a letter to his father in 1900 that said a deliberately accepted risk was safer than ignoring or denying the risk. So lets talk about the Gorilla.... RV flying is dangerous. The bull**** we tell our spouses that the most dangerous part of flying is the drive to the airport is, just that, bull****.... John and Martha King call this "The Big Lie." If we can't be honest about this basic fact, then we are doomed to continue killing our friends or ourselves.

Flying, the way most RV pilots do it is dangerous. Formation is dangerous, Acro is dangerous, spontaneous low level flying is dangerous. You can tell yourself that you have it all figured out, and the way you do it, is not dangerous..... Hogwash... It is dangerous... in 2008 there were 10 fatal accidents in RV's... Does anybody think that is an acceptable number? For that number to change, we can't wish it down. Behavior must change... Some will want to look at the accident reports, but the problem is how we do that.

We read accident reports and look for the one thing that we don't do that the subject pilot did, then we feel vindicated and say, "There, see, that guy did XXX, I don't do that, therefore, I don't have a problem." Instead we should read accident reports and say, "That guy was smart, sane, and as good or better pilot than I am and he got caught, why couldn't that happen to me?"

Nobody ever got out of bed and said, "Today is a good day to kill myself in an airplane." Read accident reports looking for the links in the chain that you have done, or the mistakes you have made, instead of looking for the link that you perceive to let you off the hook.....

What this is about is behavior modification. Only if we are honest with ourselves about the risks inherent in our flying will we change behavior. That is hard to do.... My wife has been working on me to put the seat down for over 20 years and my compliance is still fairly low by her standards....

Once we honestly acknowledge the risks, then we can develop strategies to mitigate them.

That goes like this:
Identify the risk.
Rate the risk.
Rate the reward.
If the risk out weighs the reward stop.
If it doesn't, brainstorm ways to reduce the risk.

If we are entirely honest with ourselves about the risk versus reward, then like Wilbur Wright, we can accept the risk for what it is, or change the behavior.... Only then will the statistics change.

Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal

[Sam Buchanan]

Excellent post, Doug, thank you for taking the time to write.

There is something about RV aircraft that prompts good pilots to do stupid things. Our reputation and pilot population has suffered as a result.

[Bill Dicus]

An eloquent post Doug. Could your safety curriculum be ported to the RV community easily? And have you been successful in reducing warbird accidents? Thanks again. Bill

[Geico266]

Originally Posted by B25Flyer

Once we honestly acknowledge the risks, then we can develop strategies to mitigate them.

That goes like this:
Identify the risk.
Rate the risk.
Rate the reward.
If the risk out weighs the reward stop.
If it doesn't, brainstorm ways to reduce the risk.

If we are entirely honest with ourselves about the risk versus reward, then like Wilbur Wright, we can accept the risk for what it is, or change the behavior.... Only then will the statistics change.

Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal

Great post Doug.

[N941WR]

Originally Posted by Bill Dicus

An eloquent post Doug. Could your safety curriculum be ported to the RV community easily? And have you been successful in reducing warbird accidents? Thanks again. Bill

Doug,

Great post! Can it be ported to GA, not just RV's?

While I was president of my local EAA chapter my biggest fear was that we would have an accident. Lucky for me our chapter is very helpful with inspections, first flight prep, etc. but we don't do much with regard to continuing flight operations.

Thanks again!

[fl-mike]

Originally Posted by B25Flyer

Instead we should read accident reports and say, "That guy was smart, sane, and as good or better pilot than I am and he got caught, why couldn't that happen to me?"

That's exactly what I think when I hear about some of the RV accidents, since almost everyone has more experience than me.

Originally Posted by B25Flyer

Nobody ever got out of bed and said, "Today is a good day to kill myself in an airplane."

Well, actually some have (9/11 and the kid in Tampa come to mind)

Thanks for the post.

[GAHco]

I really liked the comments about "There, see, that guy did XXX, I don't do that, therefore, I don't have a problem."

I for one have had the above attitude, which can only be said while one is STILL alive.

Now that that has been said, many of us will need to clean the back of our ears off, wash our faces and re-define what being a great pilot really is.

We need to think of safety as a necessary skill set and recognize it as a required personal asset for all pilots.

Do we fly differently when our buddies are watching, than when our Wives, Mom's, or children are watching?

Has the Jiminy Cricket in any of us expired, remember his motto, "Let your Conscience be your Guide."

Let us all live to fly another day. (safely)

[SteinAir]

Originally Posted by Sam Buchanan

.....There is something about RV aircraft that prompts good pilots to do stupid things. Our reputation and pilot population has suffered as a result.

I think this quote can also be attributed to Rozie....(I can't remember if it was him or Younkin that said it, but I believe one of them did - the beers clouded my memory)

"We all lose about 50 points off our I.Q. when we strap on an RV....so it's even more important to THINK"

...Or something along those lines. I'm paraphrasing of course, bit the sad thing is that it seems to be more and more true.

Cheers,
Stein

[Phil]

That post is soooooo over due.

I'd also argue there's a handful of former pilots that are still with us (non-fatal's) but inactive because of injuries sustained doing stupid things.

Quite honestly, I read a lot of RV related accident reports and I almost always say "That was stupid". Dead or alive, stupid seems to be the word I always use to describe the accidents.

What a refreshing does of reality! I think I'm going to print that one off and tape it on the inside cover of my logbook.

Well done.

[the_other_dougreeves]

Originally Posted by Phil

Quite honestly, I read a lot of RV related accident reports and I almost always say "That was stupid". Dead or alive, stupid seems to be the word I always use to describe the accidents.

I've had a few take-offs and landings where I said "Well, that was stupid." We're all going to do stupid things, the trick is to not do really stupid things and to learn from our stupid mistakes. If we want to be perfect, well, we ought to give up because we're not going to be. As others have noted, we need to focus on evaluating, controlling and accepting risk.

TODR