village idiot

Sad part is the owner lives by me. I'm embarrassed to say that, but it teaches me to be careful if a neighbor asks you to go for a ride. How does one judge whether a pilot is good or not on the ground? How does one avoid going flying with these village idiots? All I can think of so far is to avoid people with bonanzas.
 
johnny stick said:
Sad part is the owner lives by me. I'm embarrassed to say that, but it teaches me to be careful if a neighbor asks you to go for a ride. How does one judge whether a pilot is good or not on the ground? How does one avoid going flying with these village idiots? All I can think of so far is to avoid people with bonanzas.
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Luckily for you................. a Bonanza owner on a another fourm just posted this link for it's stupidity. I guess all Bonanza owners are not alike! :D

L.Adamson -- RV6A
 
Who You Fly With

My practice is to ask questions ahead of time, and to know exactly what we're going to do on the flight. I only rarely fly with people I don't know well, and I do it reluctantly (apart from the airlines, that is).

In particular, after reading some sad stories about confusion over who is the pilot in command, I've made it a practice to clarify that before take-off in those few times when I thought there might be confusion.
 
Seeing this clip reminds me of a Quote that is frequently espoused by one of the "old timers" at my airport.............."Aviation is a self purging occupation"
 
Well, I while this just shows that the PK (Probability of Kill) of Cumulo Granite is not quite 1.0 - I won't go around assuming that I'm the exception to the rule.
 
How to Judge

Unfortunately I don't think dangerous or inconsiderate pilots are limited to a particular brand of aircraft ;-)

Since you can't judge a book by it's cover, ensuring that someone is a competent pilot before letting them be PIC of a small aircraft you are about to get on can be challenging. Obviously first hand knowledge is the best first way to judge. Do you know from personal experience that the person is a good pilot, have they been flying regularly in the type or the specific aircraft they will be operating, is the plane well maintained, is the person healthy, are the weather conditions acceptable? If all of those are answered satisfactorily then accepting a ride is acceptable. If the airplane is unusual or advanced, add "can I fly this plane from my seat if something happens to the pilot."

Things become more challenging when you don't know the pilot, or don't know him/her well. In these situations you can only extrapolate from how the person presents, the condition of the plane, ask about his/her experience, see if anyone knows anything about how well he/she flies, etc. If you're not comfortable, decline the ride. If you do go and see something you don't like, say something. It doesn't have to be harsh, unless you feel your life is really in danger. Things like, "aren't we a bit slow, what's the stall speed in this configuration," or "is there a reason you aren't using the standard technique" would probably get the point across. If you don't like what you see, ask the person to take you back to the airport. If they are freaking out, offer to assume PIC duty until they regain their calm, or until the end of the flight.

I accepted a ride once from a successful medical professional. His plane was beautifully built, he presented as very competent and organized with a fair amount of flying time; but as soon as we lined up on the centerline for takeoff I could tell this was going to be a difficult flight. He completely overlooked crosswind takeoff technique and before I knew it he was yanking the plane off the runway to avoid the runway lights. Things happened quickly, but in hindsight I should at least have said something like "right aileron into the crosswind."



johnny stick said:
Sad part is the owner lives by me. I'm embarrassed to say that, but it teaches me to be careful if a neighbor asks you to go for a ride. How does one judge whether a pilot is good or not on the ground? How does one avoid going flying with these village idiots? All I can think of so far is to avoid people with bonanzas.
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Thank you antony

Thank you antony for your response. I like what you said and will keep it in mind when offered a ride in anything that could kill me.

johnny stick
 
Rides with unknown pilots.

Once at a local airshow a fellow offered me a ride in his nice-looking Swift. I accepted and he looked good on takeoff and climb. After settling in cruise he did a nice barrel roll, which is the max I wanted to see. Then without warning he did about a 6G pull up for a loop. The max G was past before I could get on the controls. I thought we were going to die. Very grateful the wings stayed on as there have been structural failures in Swifts. No G meter present, so am estimating the load - but do fly +6 and -4 regularly in the Pitts so prob within a g or so. The advice about flying with unknown pilots is good. Bill
 
Bill,

I had a similar experience with a guy that was receiving a flight review from me. When asked to perform steep turns (as part of the flight review) he immediately went to 90 degree turns to "show me what the plane can do" (it was another homebuilt, non-RV).

Needless to say, I was done at that point... :(

It has been said that it is all of our responsibilities as pilots to keep friends/other pilots in check. We should stand up and call out dangerous situations before they unfold. We all know that's easier said than done... as they say, "You can lead a horse to water......"

Fly safe. Have fun. Both can be done. :)
 
nervous passenger

dreamtime said:
... I only rarely fly with people I don't know well, and I do it reluctantly (apart from the airlines, that is).
...
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Even flying with the airlines makes me uncomfortable, I have to admit. I keep projecting positive thoughts to those kids up front steering the aluminum tube, hoping that they haven't brushed away the angel on their shoulder. :)
 
You gotta speak up!

We had a two ship (Arrow, Twin Commanche) flight to Haiti from Tennessee. I got put in the right seat of the Arrow instead of the left front of the Twin Commanche. I was NOT a happy camper.
About 30 miles out of Port-au-Prince ATC ordered us to go down to 2000 ft. and the lady driving the Arrow obediently started down to the assigned altitude. I was a low time pilot (newly minted instrument ticket) at that time (25 years ago). She started down thru the clouds which made me VERY nervous. I decided that it was time to speak up. I said, "Don't do that" and lightly tapped on the yoke to get her attention. She wanted to know "Why?" as ATC had cleared us down outa 8000 to 2000. I said that there are 7000 foot hills around the entrance to P-o-P and you want to go down into this mess? "Why?" "Because they have NO RADAR and the peaks are at 7000 around our destination!" "But why not? They cleared us down". Read my lips, "NO RADAR!!" It finally sunk in and we stayed at altitude until visual decent at P-o-P airport.
Once we landed I was still a bit steamed about having to sit in the right seat and not the left and then having to countermand the PIC rather forcefully to keep us out of the rocks. After relaying what happened to our flight leader, he turned to me and said, "Dan, I put you in the right seat because she was more experienced flying IFR in the states but once in the Caribbean I knew from having flown with you that you had the experience and chutzpah to keep her out of the rocks no matter what."
That was 25 years ago but it's still as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday. If you are not comfortable with what is happening, you HAVE to speak up. Your life depends on it.
 
There is no lesson to be learned here

People have to see a video to know that flying in a valley in IMC is poor judgment with a high probability of death?

It is instructional and eye opening.

I suspect that the damage was from vegetation.
 
Haiti Flying

JDanno said:
We had a two ship (Arrow, Twin Commanche) flight to Haiti from Tennessee. I got put in the right seat of the Arrow instead of the left front of the Twin Commanche. I was NOT a happy camper.
About 30 miles out of Port-au-Prince ATC ordered us to go down to 2000 ft. and the lady driving the Arrow obediently started down to the assigned altitude. I was a low time pilot (newly minted instrument ticket) at that time (25 years ago). She started down thru the clouds which made me VERY nervous. I decided that it was time to speak up. I said, "Don't do that" and lightly tapped on the yoke to get her attention. She wanted to know "Why?" as ATC had cleared us down outa 8000 to 2000. I said that there are 7000 foot hills around the entrance to P-o-P and you want to go down into this mess? "Why?" "Because they have NO RADAR and the peaks are at 7000 around our destination!" "But why not? They cleared us down". Read my lips, "NO RADAR!!" It finally sunk in and we stayed at altitude until visual decent at P-o-P airport.
Once we landed I was still a bit steamed about having to sit in the right seat and not the left and then having to countermand the PIC rather forcefully to keep us out of the rocks. After relaying what happened to our flight leader, he turned to me and said, "Dan, I put you in the right seat because she was more experienced flying IFR in the states but once in the Caribbean I knew from having flown with you that you had the experience and chutzpah to keep her out of the rocks no matter what."
That was 25 years ago but it's still as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday. If you are not comfortable with what is happening, you HAVE to speak up. Your life depends on it.
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Dan, interesting (and frightening) story. I lived in Haiti for three years in the mid-80s. Got to do some flying out of the Port-au-Prince airport. It was pretty spectacular flying around those mountains. Thanks for reminding me.
 
P-au-P airport

David,
As you recall the airport at P-au-P was in a horseshoe valley with mountains on three sides and the ocean on the open end. To go from P-au-P to Cap Haitien required a climb from sea level to 10,000 ft. MEA (as I recall) immediately after takeoff. The Arrow had to circle and circle and circle ad infinitum to gain enough altitude to make it up to the MEA. I did it once in a Lance that was not loaded to max. and it did go straight up to the MEA but I had to do some canyon flying to keep from circling. It was severe clear and no wind so it was quite safe to do so. The Twin Commanche would blast right off of P-au-P and right up to MEA without any circling and at full gross. Pretty good for 2x160 hp. and no turbos!
That was before Loran C even and we had to navigate via NDB once you left Miami area. NDB to Bimini and then NDB to Great Inaugua. Most of the time you had to give your waypoint info to a passing airliner who would forward it on to Nassau Radio or Miami. You had to stay up against the Bahamian chain and not drift over to the west as that's where Castro's Migs lived and they were NOT shy about using them, either. The most lasting skill learned was in fuel management. Do you remember the newly refurbished Piper Chieftan that was lost on its first trip from MIA to P-au-P? Guy ran it out of fuel 10 minutes short and ditched in the ocean, Ah, those were the days.
 
Speaking up is very important for everybody involved. Sometimes softly other times at a yell.

Once, when inspecting a Cessna Centurion owned by some (edit)I discovered the cotter key for the castellated nut for the trim had rusted and fallen out. I took one of the owners and pointed to the obvious, basic inspection and gruffly told him that this kind of thing was HIS responsibility. I refused to inspect the plane the following year and let somebody else do it.

If I had missed this and the nut had fallen out while one of the (edit)was flying, the (edit) owner would have hauled me into court! Another reason why I quit inspecting.
 
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RickWoodall said:
So you take your friends flying...you do some dumb stuff and almost kill everyone. Then, you post it all on youtube so the world can see how dumb you are too. Amazing.
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And you leave enough of your registration number (N653xx) that anyone with a little time on their hands could easily narrow you down to one of the 2 Bonanzas that start with that number and eliminate one of the two because there's a pic of it online and the color scheme is different. ;) Not that I really care all that much if they want to kill themselves - come to think of it, those are exactly the kinds of people I'd rather not have to deal with. I suspect Darwin will do us all a favor before that guy's flying career is over.
 
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