Paul the Overlord
Well Known Member
Hi Gang,
I'm a very cautious 1000 hour (500 in airplanes, 500 in ultralights) pilot. Maybe too cautious, maybe even a bit fearful of "the unknown". I have canceled flights because the violate my "rules". I have fairly conservative personal limits and never intentionally violate them. I'm always thinking about safety and try to train for emergencies. I have a personal "I'll never do that list". These are the big ones, and I'm sure there are many others. Here are some of the things on my list:
Never fly if I don't feel 100% physically/mentally ready
Always land with 1 hour of fuel
Never fly in/through weather that's even moderately bad
Never VFR into IMC
Never scud run
Never fly the plane with any "flight issue" squawks
I do not fly formation (Not trained to do so)
No acro... yet (although I would do loops/rolls with training)
Always standard pattern entry
Always use flight following on X-country/file
Never fly with unsafe pilots (I did this when I was a new pilot, never again).
With the recent crashes I think we, as a community, really need to help each other fly more safely. I wonder how many pilots would still be with us if they had a list like mine. I realize that some items on my list are things others do safely... so... *please* this thread is not meant to start a "well I do that and I'M safe" kinda thing, or to single out any one incident. What I'm curious about is what do you do? I don't want to read about any more people I know getting hurt/killed when it's almost completely preventable. One last thing.. and this is a tough one. Many of pilots tend to be type A, super macho, "I can do anything" kind of people. It does a great disservice to new pilots who look up to them. I have head so many stories about pilots doing dumb things in airplanes. At the end the pilot will kinda smile and behave as if they did something "cool" instead of realizing they did something stupid and were bragging about it. Again, not trying to ruffle any feathers... Tell me how you and I can be safer pilots. What's on your list?
I'm a very cautious 1000 hour (500 in airplanes, 500 in ultralights) pilot. Maybe too cautious, maybe even a bit fearful of "the unknown". I have canceled flights because the violate my "rules". I have fairly conservative personal limits and never intentionally violate them. I'm always thinking about safety and try to train for emergencies. I have a personal "I'll never do that list". These are the big ones, and I'm sure there are many others. Here are some of the things on my list:
Never fly if I don't feel 100% physically/mentally ready
Always land with 1 hour of fuel
Never fly in/through weather that's even moderately bad
Never VFR into IMC
Never scud run
Never fly the plane with any "flight issue" squawks
I do not fly formation (Not trained to do so)
No acro... yet (although I would do loops/rolls with training)
Always standard pattern entry
Always use flight following on X-country/file
Never fly with unsafe pilots (I did this when I was a new pilot, never again).
With the recent crashes I think we, as a community, really need to help each other fly more safely. I wonder how many pilots would still be with us if they had a list like mine. I realize that some items on my list are things others do safely... so... *please* this thread is not meant to start a "well I do that and I'M safe" kinda thing, or to single out any one incident. What I'm curious about is what do you do? I don't want to read about any more people I know getting hurt/killed when it's almost completely preventable. One last thing.. and this is a tough one. Many of pilots tend to be type A, super macho, "I can do anything" kind of people. It does a great disservice to new pilots who look up to them. I have head so many stories about pilots doing dumb things in airplanes. At the end the pilot will kinda smile and behave as if they did something "cool" instead of realizing they did something stupid and were bragging about it. Again, not trying to ruffle any feathers... Tell me how you and I can be safer pilots. What's on your list?