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  #71  
Old 01-07-2010, 02:26 PM
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Buggsy2 Buggsy2 is offline
 
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Originally Posted by Toobuilder View Post
Using the data from your earlier post (below), I see only the first 3 (VFR to IFR) as "poor judgement" - all the rest should have been accomplished safely (i.e. without death or injury) with the appropriate stick and rudder skills.

VFR in IFR conditions - 3
Loss of Control on takeoff - 2
Los of Control on Landing - 1
Low Level Aerobatics - 2
Low Level Stall - 4
Formation gone wrong - 1
I'll make a try at this though others better qualified will respond.

* Loss of control, T/O or Landing: I knew a guy who wrecked an Ercoupe by landing long and running of the end of the (3000 ft) runway; plane flipped over and was destroyed, pilot mostly unharmed. Look, someone who can't land a Coupe properly should have the judgment to recognize that and do something about it: more instruction, fly with another Coupe pilot, just get more yoke time themselves.
* Low level Aero: sure, again, the airshow performers can do this "safely"...just like the airline pilots can safely handle bad IMC and icing because of their training and equipment. Us amateur, weekend-warriors should have a clue and not do that stuff. Low-level acro in an RV? Stupid, unless you're Bob Hoover.
* Low level stall: to generalize, may not be exactly lack of skill as lack of awareness. If you keep your airspeed (and AOA if so equipped) in the proper limit you won't stall. If you start making steep or skidding turns to "make the runway" and fail to keep track of airspeed, isn't that a lack of awareness and good judgment? The average skill but good judgment pilot will just go-around.
* Formation: yeah, we've all probably done this with our buddies. It's stupid to do with no training, and worse with no talking and discussing beforehand. Again, bad judgment.

Reminds me of a death certificate, which will list the immediate cause of death then the antecedent causes. Or, you may see news of a gunshot victim; what you don't know is the vic was a druggie involved in a deal gone bad.
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  #72  
Old 01-07-2010, 02:54 PM
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Toobuilder Toobuilder is offline
 
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And this is exactly why these discussions are hard to have over the internet - While I certainly agree that landing long and crashing has some significant elements of "poor decision making", it is the lack of stick and rudder skills that got him there in the first place. Therefore, the "cause" was failing to make the airplane do what was required. Using your logic (which is not wrong), the "cause" of the Ercoupe crash was the "poor decision" to remain a pilot.

While both are very important, we are pilots first, managers second. If you can not keep the airspeed right and touch down at the correct spot, "managing" the situation is not likely to help.
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Last edited by Toobuilder : 01-07-2010 at 02:57 PM.
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  #73  
Old 01-07-2010, 02:56 PM
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Ironflight Ironflight is offline
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Originally Posted by Toobuilder View Post
I've followed this thread for a while and have seen some pretty good advice mixed in with a bunch of... shall we say, not so good (adding 10 knots to the approach speed, for instance). Your post above has me pretty confused. Using the data from your earlier post (below), I see only the first 3 (VFR to IFR) as "poor judgment" - all the rest should have been accomplished safely (i.e. without death or injury) with the appropriate stick and rudder skills.

So before I insert my foot prematurely, can you elaborate?

VFR in IFR conditions - 3
Loss of Control on takeoff - 2
Los of Control on Landing - 1
Low Level Aerobatics - 2
Low Level Stall - 4
Formation gone wrong - 1
OK Mike, I'll go back and revise a few thoughts. I can give you at least a couple of the Low Level Stalls as poor flying technique (although when I read the actual reports, a couple of them stuck out as "how did you get in that situation in the first place?"), as well as the LOC's on T/O and Lndg (although taking off with conditions beyond what you are ready to handle is, in my book, a sign of bad judgment). But Low Level Acro and the particular Formation accident last year were defacto evidence of bad judgment.

No one is immune from bad judgment BTW, including myself, lest anyone think that I am trying to be preachy. The first step to avoiding bad judgment is to admit that it CAN happen to you, just as it has happened to countless other pilots, both experienced and inexperienced. Once we recognize our own fallibility, we can proceed from that point with a a potential for safer operations.

Paul
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  #74  
Old 01-07-2010, 03:40 PM
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Toobuilder Toobuilder is offline
 
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Paul,

I don?t think you?re being preachy, and I certainly am not immune to bad decision making in the cockpit, but I do think we are missing the true causes of crashes. This would not itself be a problem, but if we focus on the wrong cause of them, we get the wrong solution. See, I?m one of those people who hear of someone killed by falling off a roof and disagrees? For it was not the fall that kills, but the massive trauma after hitting the ground. So it is with that frame of reference that I hear of the ?sure fire? fixes for aviation accidents and shake my head. Stall on base to final turn? Conventional wisdom seems to be ?Just add 10 knots? and avoid the whole problem! Sure, until you land long and run off the end of the runway. Why not practice some stall identification and recovery? Why not learn to use your feet and keep the ball centered? That would actually solve a problem.

Although both are vitally important traits to have, I would suggest that basic airmanship goes a lot further than good decision making, yet we rarely push that. Funny how we so often advocate adding more rules and limits in an attempt to insulate us from the unknown, yet we wonder why people crash when the unknown arrives and we can?t handle it.

I think that it is great to discuss accidents and try using these tragedies as learning tools, but I also think that as adults, our decision making skills are pretty much set in stone. What is NOT set in stone is our stick and rudder skills, so I think the emphasis should be to get out there and fly ? put yourself in an ?uncomfortable? situation often enough that it becomes comfortable. In other words, push your limits until you find new limits.

That?s how to get safe.
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WARNING! Incorrect design and/or fabrication of aircraft and/or components may result in injury or death. Information presented in this post is based on my own experience - Reader has sole responsibility for determining accuracy or suitability for use.

Michael Robinson
______________
Harmon Rocket II -SDS EFI
RV-8 - SDS CPI
1940 Taylorcraft BL-65
1984 L39C
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  #75  
Old 01-07-2010, 04:13 PM
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JonJay JonJay is offline
 
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Default We all lack judgement, we choose to fly!

One could argue, and several have with me, that every time I fly my machine my judgement is suspect. Ha!
From well before the point of start up, every action all of us take in our airplanes has some form of decision making or judgement involved. Managing our decisions becomes better with training, currency, and education. That can not be argued!
Even a "no-fault" mechanical failure can have a good out come, or a bad one, depending on the judgment and decisions followed.
We tend to look at these things as right, or wrong. They did the right thing, and lived, or the wrong thing, and died. I dont think it is that black and white and the NTSB reports are merely opinions of findings and statements of relative fact, observed or deduced. They tell part of a story, to the best of thier ability.

If I never flew below my glide range to the nearest airport, never took a route that would not allow me to make a forced landing in a field or airport, never flew in changing weather, my judgement would be much better. But I dont. That would take the fun out of it. So, I make a decision that is not the safest I could make. Is that poor judgement?
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  #76  
Old 01-07-2010, 04:56 PM
B25Flyer B25Flyer is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JonJay View Post

If I never flew below my glide range to the nearest airport, never took a route that would not allow me to make a forced landing in a field or airport, never flew in changing weather, my judgement would be much better. But I dont. That would take the fun out of it. So, I make a decision that is not the safest I could make. Is that poor judgement?
Jon,

My answer to your question Jon is no. You have recognized the risk, evaluated it, compared it to the reward and made a decision. That is a textbook risk mitigation strategy. The last step (that you are probably already doing) would be to seek out ways to mitigate the risks you accept.

Many people operate under the illusion that they are skillful enough and the RV is good enough that flying is safe. They are unwilling to acknowledge the risks associated with flying, and especially the kinds of flying that we typically do in RVs.

My entire objective with this discussion is to cause people to acknowledge the risk in the flying we do. Decide which activities are worth the risk. Stop doing the ones that are not. And seek ways to mitigate the risks in the ones we choose to do.....

Everybody says they want to read accident reports to learn from other people's mistakes. Ask any CFI what the FAA definition of learning is, "Learning occurs when a change of behavior takes place."

Put it in that context and people are less excited about learning because nobody wants to change their behavior.

Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal
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  #77  
Old 01-07-2010, 05:05 PM
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Ironflight Ironflight is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Toobuilder View Post
I think that it is great to discuss accidents and try using these tragedies as learning tools, but I also think that as adults, our decision making skills are pretty much set in stone. What is NOT set in stone is our stick and rudder skills, so I think the emphasis should be to get out there and fly ? put yourself in an ?uncomfortable? situation often enough that it becomes comfortable. In other words, push your limits until you find new limits.
I'm sorry Mike, but we are going to have to agree to disagree on this - one of the most important parts of my jobs is training my people to make and use better judgment on a continuing basis. Improvement in judgment is measurable and verifiable. It comes with experience as well as mentoring.

I will not argue that airplane handling skills aren't important - they are, and need to be improved as well. But if you are convinced that you can never learn better judgment, then you are selling yourself short. The limits that you push do not have to be physical - they can be mental as well.

Paul
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Editor at Large - KITPLANES Magazine
RV-8 - N188PD - "Valkyrie"
RV-6 (By Marriage) - N164MS - "Mikey"
RV-3B - N13PL - "Tsamsiyu"
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  #78  
Old 01-07-2010, 06:10 PM
terrykohler terrykohler is offline
 
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Default Superior Judgement

Hmmm, isn't there some expression about "using superior judgement in order to avoid having to call upon superior skills"?
As an instructor, I feel fairly confident in my ability to teach good mechanical skills. As Paul suggests, we're also charged with teaching good aeronautical decision making skills. The really difficult challenge comes in assessing these two important elements, especially in a limited time frame. For example, it's pretty hard for even a stranger coming to me for a BFR to hide poor stick skills. While I can try and drill down to assess their ADM skills, I really can't be exactly sure about things like attitude, willingness to take risk, etc. , especially during an evaluation that only lasts a couple of hours.
Perhaps anyone willing to fly a high performance plane built in a garage already has a high tolerance for risk. Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe the accident reports suggest that this is the part of the pilot population that needs the most sharpening of stick skills, as Mike suggests, and the most sharpening of ADM skills, as Paul suggests. I'm all for that.
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  #79  
Old 01-07-2010, 06:23 PM
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Ron Lee Ron Lee is offline
 
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I will never have the training and skills of a military trained pilot...an airline trained pilot or a Bob Hoover. Regardless, I honestly believe that I am a very safe pilot. Why, because I make up for all that expensive training with better than average judgment.

I have on rare occasions been too high/fast on final. Poor airmanship? Maybe. But it is easy to go around. Judgment

I often use the term "weather wuss" in my trip reports. That is because weather remains a major factor in long trips. Even that area has been improved slowly with experience.

I documented how I improved my abilities in this post:

http://tinyurl.com/5mphdw

I still think that the main problem is judgment. Regardless, if we could reduce RV fatalities 50% think of how many more fathers/husbands would stay around.
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  #80  
Old 01-07-2010, 07:07 PM
David-aviator David-aviator is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by terrykohler View Post
Hmmm, isn't there some expression about "using superior judgement in order to avoid having to call upon superior skills"?
As an instructor, I feel fairly confident in my ability to teach good mechanical skills. As Paul suggests, we're also charged with teaching good aeronautical decision making skills. The really difficult challenge comes in assessing these two important elements, especially in a limited time frame. For example, it's pretty hard for even a stranger coming to me for a BFR to hide poor stick skills. While I can try and drill down to assess their ADM skills, I really can't be exactly sure about things like attitude, willingness to take risk, etc. , especially during an evaluation that only lasts a couple of hours.
Perhaps anyone willing to fly a high performance plane built in a garage already has a high tolerance for risk. Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe the accident reports suggest that this is the part of the pilot population that needs the most sharpening of stick skills, as Mike suggests, and the most sharpening of ADM skills, as Paul suggests. I'm all for that.
Terry, CFI
RV-9A N323TP
Teaching aeronautical decision making skills in this non structured environment of genera aviation is next to impossible. People do whatever they want, frequently without consequence, and the only time their ADM skills are improved is if they survive a really scary event. How many times have you heard the comment "I will never do that again".

In a structured flying environment, much decision making is not that, it is following established policy, procedure or regulation. There are times when that policy, procedure or regulation become an issue if it does not fit a particular situation that is out of the ordinary - and that's when ADM kicks in and even then it is not a learned thing, it is more dependent on experience and sometimes raw skill. Later introspection into such a decision may lead to suggestions on how to not do this or to do that, but much of it is fleeting and difficult to quantify. It is like writing policy that accommodates common sense.

Getting back to the flying we do here; yes, there are cowboys with locked down mind sets that are screwing up the accident statistics and they may be much of the problem. But without doubt, so is lack of basic flying skills. Anyone who unintentionally stalls an airplane is not spun up, period, and that comes from being out of touch with the cockpit. In this day of high operating costs, family obligations, and other financial and time constraints, it is a problem. Some of the guys showing up at OSH fly 20 hours a year and much of that time is to and from the event, it is apparent in the tension of their radio calls and their extreme nervousness in the air.

I wish I had a simple answer to this and the GA cowboy issue because some of these flights do end up not good. Maybe it is an overall ADM issue - like I should not be doing this or what am I doing here? Perhaps such a question does pop up just before the cowboy augers.
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