Accidents, working on the rate

[delusional]

It seems to me that the FAA should change their focus from enforcement of a lot of the draconian regulation to emphasize safety.

I think a lot of pilots avoid interaction with ATC or other agencies due to fear of some sort of enforcement, when in fact they would be safer by engaging with those resources. How do we change those minds?

 

[BPoletti]

It might be necessary for the FAA to pull some of their own teeth. There has been such a fear of the FAA because of all the regulation and threats of getting a ticket pulled, that everyone stays as far away from them as possible. As I stated above, they need to change their emphasis.

 

[Russ McCutcheon]

People have been using aspirin and its chemical relatives to mitigate pain for thousands of years. In 1971 a scientist published a paper finally explaining the mechanism associated with aspirin's obvious efficacy. By 1971 the causes of headaches were still mostly not very well understood. But none of that stopped people from using this intervention to fix what ailed them before the causes or the mechanism of the treatment was well explained.

We already understand enough about the causes and circumstances of air mishaps to be able to mitigate them. What we need to do is just figure out which kind of aspirin works best, and then use it. We need to move away from the accident microscope and on to the study of the safety and efficacy of various interventions.

And before someone objects that "this will just limit our freedom", please answer me this: The airlines had a hideous safety record back in the day, but they figured out (with some help) how to fix it and to a fare-thee-well; which freedom did they sacrifice in doing that?

Don't get me wrong; I've read thousands of NTSB finding summaries, and I recommend the same to all, including passengers, and I like numbers and statistics as much as the next flyer, but we need to graduate from navel-gazing to solving the problem.

What will fix us? If you say "nothing, it's hopeless" you are wrong. If you say "giving up our freedoms" I don't think that is either necessary or helpful in this case.

Answers, please!

The part you?re not getting is that the airlines is a handful of large companies that control many flights/airplanes and crews, there mission is to complete all those flights safely and they have the control over their many crews and there equipment, so the management of one company can impact the safety of thousands of flights a year, for the better or the worse, these days they are doing a good job, they also have huge interference/interaction with the FAA/NTSB etc. to help facilitate there good record, this is all because they are responsible for thousands of lives each day, lives who paid and have a very reasonable expectation to get there in one piece.

General Aviation has thousands of individual owner operators each one responsible for his piloting and training and his airplane, each single individual responsible for his single flight that day, which by the way he only decided to take 5 minutes earlier with no particular path or goal in mind other then to go for a flight to see the country side or do some acro or grab a hamburger. You get the idea,,,, we are not the airlines,,,, what has worked for them would be very expensive and intrusive and the end of Private GA.

 

[John Clark]

The part you?re not getting is that the airlines is a handful of large companies that control many flights/airplanes and crews, there mission is to complete all those flights safely and they have the control over their many crews and there equipment, so the management of one company can impact the safety of thousands of flights a year, for the better or the worse, these days they are doing a good job, they also have huge interference/interaction with the FAA/NTSB etc. to help facilitate there good record, this is all because they are responsible for thousands of lives each day, lives who paid and have a very reasonable expectation to get there in one piece.

General Aviation has thousands of individual owner operators each one responsible for his piloting and training and his airplane, each single individual responsible for his single flight that day, which by the way he only decided to take 5 minutes earlier with no particular path or goal in mind other then to go for a flight to see the country side or do some acro or grab a hamburger. You get the idea,,,, we are not the airlines,,,, what has worked for them would be very expensive and intrusive and the end of Private GA.

As Russ noted, trying to make GA operate like a Part 121 airline would be expensive, intrusive, and impossible. But, there is a lot to learn from the level of safety achieved by the airlines. The basics are the same, training, flight planning, established procedures, and checklists to name a few. The big difference in airline operations is that one is being regularly tested and observed. Because of this, stupid can be fixed, the pilot, dispatcher, mechanic, or whoever, that repeatedly fails to "play by the rules" can and will be fired. I haven't seen a lot of GA pilots fire themselves for stupid moves.

John Clark ATP, CFI
Retired Part 121 Captain/Chief Pilot
FAAST Team Representative
EAA Flight Advisor
RV8 N18U "Sunshine"
KSBA

 

[delusional]

John, I too think we can learn some from the airlines even without sacrficing the awesome freedoms we enjoy at present.

Russ, I do not think the airlines soltuions are ours, clearly. If I did I would just say so and save some typing. My idea is more complicated and nuanced, so probably doomed. But surely you don't believe real progress on ga safety is impossible, do you?

 

[Russ McCutcheon]

John, I too think we can learn some from the airlines even without sacrficing the awesome freedoms we enjoy at present.

Russ, I do not think the airlines soltuions are ours, clearly. If I did I would just say so and save some typing. My idea is more complicated and nuanced, so probably doomed. But surely you don't believe real progress on ga safety is impossible, do you?

Real progress in GA safety impossible? Well yes and no, first question is do I think our record is ok the way it is? Yes I do, yes there are accidents and deaths but not that many, and not enough to warrant any wide spread interference from the Feds. So it ends up being up to each individual pilot to take from there experiences and the experiences of others any information that they think would make them safer pilots, some are better at it than others and some don?t want to be safer, well not buy your standards any way, they already think they are safe enough, this guy hear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o40_MzuKIGA He probably feels safe enough doing what he is doing and it looks like he is probably within the rules and not harming anyone but it might be outside what you think he should be doing, I think it?s great to watch and if it went wrong well he was free to do this and maybe the rest of us learn something but we should not be judged by the feds for it if it went wrong. As for me, I?m a safer pilot now then I have been in the past because I?ve done the things in this video in younger years but now I?m older, wiser, have a great wife and two kids to raise and I just stopped flying like this. How do we make all the pilots have the same good judgment we have, how do you give them years of experience without them surviving those years like we did? I think things like what Van is involved in can help but he should not be extorted by the feds as he is being in my opinion to try to bring about changes in EAB pilots. Will safety programs etc. make any difference, I don?t know, I don?t think so. This Tree Top Flyer dude is a highly skilled pilot who likes risk and the feeling of speed carving down the river, he knows the risks, someone telling him won?t change what he is doing, he can?t be helped, just like I could not be helped, I had to come to it on my own for my own reasons, this guy is not going to be the dude that stall spins on base to final, this guy is the one that takes a bird in the face or hits something he did not see. The guy that would stall spin on base to final might be able to be helped but only if he recognizes he needs the help and gets the help/training.

In the end we all have to be excellent pilots and use excellent judgment, I don?t know, that?s a lot of pilots to bring together to the same way of thinking when they all have different skill levels and goals and different risk tolerance, it seems difficult maybe impossible.

 

[delusional]

Russ, he's on floats, right. Seriously, that is a thoughtful response and yes, I respectfully disagree. I didn't watch the whole thing, but he clearly would be in some danger if the fan stopped.

Yup, I admit that that pilot is probably posing less danger to himself and the general public than a lot of drivers driving badly or just too fast near pedestrians. Unfortunatley, I don't think we have the luxury of that standard any longer. But I don't think it's about taking away the fun, either.

What if there were some additional training that each pilot could choose to survive which would significantly reduce the risk of a mishap? Would you do it and would you suggest or even coerce less experienced folks? I don't know what that training would be, but unless you can show that that is somehow impossible, I think we have to try to discover what that training or other intervention might be.


I bet some in the airlines said that a huge leap in safety was impossible, as well.