2012

[200hr Wonder]

Lets all work to make this the last post here and none in2012.

Fly safe, make good decisions and get home to your families safe in 2012.

[BEFAN5]

And we can accomplish this by reviewing our stall recovery techniques... Which against common belief in the last 4 years; does not involve pulling back! Back to the basics!

[Doc]

COMMON SENSE COMMON SENSE COMMON SENSE COMMON SENSE

Am I making myself clear? Use the above, and you WILL stay off this forum.

Are there any questions?

[robertsailor1]

Problem is my friend....Common sense ain't very common!

[Doc]

Problem is my friend....Common sense ain't very common!

Well, if you're flying airplanes, and you don't want to appear on this forum, you'd best fucken LEARN it! Because there are NO excuses for STUPID!!

Sooner some learn that......safer flying will become. Would you consider sharpening your chainsaw while it's running? No? Then you have COMMON SENSE! It really IS that SIMPLE!

[robertsailor1]

I hear ya but we still have airline pilots that haven't learned that to make houses small you pull back and to make them big you pull back further.

[Doc]

I hear ya but we still have airline pilots that haven't learned that to make houses small you pull back and to make them big you pull back further.

Perfect example. If pulling back fails to do the trick, common sense would dictate trying something different......like pushing forward. There were several more accidents than just that one. Almost all could have been prevented by using common sense. I defy you to come up with one that could NOT have been prevented by using common sense. From maintaing a positive rate of climb (common sense) to resisting the temptation to descend below the surrounding terrain (common sense) to uploading sufficient fuel for the mission (common sense) to pretty much any accident cause you can come up with. If you're doing something that isn't working, try something else. Common Sense.
Guys are forced to take courses on everything from de-iceing, to cockpit resource management, to pilot decision making......BUT nobody's paying attention. Nobody's using the "tools" forced down your throats by TC. Nobody's listening. Pilots are still pushing weather. Pilots are still flying fatigued. Pilots are still flying overloaded. WHY?? Because the lack COMMON SENSE. There is no other reason.

[trey kule]

Well, if you're flying airplanes, and you don't want to appear on this forum, you'd best fucken LEARN it! Because there are NO excuses for STUPID!!

I dont know about this Doc. I have heard dozens of them. Usually starts with "I thought"
or occasionally "I didnt think it would..."

The problem is we all do stupid things during our career. Sometimes we get lucky and learn not to try it again. Sometimes we get lucky and start to think that we are skillful..And, of course, sometimes we are not lucky. Personally, human nature being what it is, I find myself more tolerant with straight stupid nowadays. What I have a problem with is pilots that dont recognize stupid and think that becasue they got away with it that it was not stupid. And I have zero tolerance for willful stupidity.
Yes pilots will continue to push weather. Probably you and I are the only two pilots doc, who have never pushed weather limits...and quite frankly, I am a bit doubtful of you. We dont do it anymore because we learned the lesson the easy way...Scared the snot out of ourselves. Some pilots never learn that lesson.
Common sense has always been uncommon.

The problem the industry is facing right now, in my opinion, is ignorance and attitude. The trend that pilots can replace experience with more training is flawed. And putting inexperienced pilots in first officer positions never allows them to develop the required decision making skills, or simply re-inforce the basic lessons they should have learned. How else do you explain someone not lowering the nose when a plane is stalled.
They simply do not understand what a stall is...and when I read the instructional forums it makes me shudder.

My first rant for 2012

[BEFAN5]

Or we can just re-title ourselves.... Instead of being First Officer and Captain (hence; responsibility) we should be relabeled Programmer Level I and Programmer Level II. We all know the computer is the actual captain. We have become some dumb we need an airplane to tell us "umm no. You can't bank that hard".

[Meatservo]

Not all the dead on here got that way by being stupid or lacking in common sense.

[skybaron]

Not all the dead on here got that way by being stupid or lacking in common sense.

+1

Excellent point. Finally a remark made by someone with common sense.

[DaveP]

Well said Meat and sky.

Doc, I can respect a lot of your comments, but unfortunately all accidents aren't the result of pushing things or making a wrong decision or not paying attention in class. I had my accident too and I'm happy to be typing today but pure failures, anomalies, confusion or otherwise can paint the best aviator into a box regardless of experience or training. It's not just common sense.

Someday you might be in that box as well. I never thought I would be there myself....

All we can do is try our best to be safe or fly conservatively and learn from other accidents in order to mitigate the risk. We are only human (all with a different hard drive upstairs) and it's only a machine.

Dave.

[Doc]

Not all the dead on here got that way by being stupid or lacking in common sense.

You are 100% correct. No doubt about it, whatsoever.....however, far too many are.

And, I don't believe I even eluded to the fact that ALL accidents were the result of lack of common sense. But, a good dose of common sense will save far more than it kills.

[trampbike]

And, I don't believe I even eluded to the fact that ALL accidents were the result of lack of common sense.

Let's see...

I defy you to come up with one that could NOT have been prevented by using common sense.

BUT nobody's paying attention. Nobody's using the "tools" forced down your throats by TC

Yeah I guess you kind of did!


But yeah, I hear you, it's true that it seems that the majoriy of the accidents (based on the reading of the last 3 years of TSB accident reports) could have been easily avoided. Althought it's very easy from a chair to read and think "heck, why the hell did this dude go and do such and such stupid things??".
We weren't in any of theses cockpits, and it's not because in the past we took good decisions or reacted well to some emergencies that we will always do. I'm sure there are many dead pilots that were confident (and were justified to be) in their skills and knowledge, but happened to get into a situation that lead them to take their first and last real mistake in a cockpit.

[Cat Driver]

Common sense is directly tied to " limits ".

Aerodynamic stalls are defined by limits.....angle of attack limits.

Decision making should also have limits defined by your own skills and ability to think ahead of where you are and where you want to go.

Remaining accident free is enhanced by never getting to your to your own limits.

And only experience will hone your ability to learn where and what your limits are.

Unlimited aerobatics training was probably the only place I could exceed my limits because with proper altitude to recover from a loss of control it was safe.

During my training I lost control quite often by pushing beyond the limits......very interesting situations but safe as long as you had sufficient altitude to get the fuc.er back under control.

[flyinthebug]

Well said Meat and sky.

Doc, I can respect a lot of your comments, but unfortunately all accidents aren't the result of pushing things or making a wrong decision or not paying attention in class. I had my accident too and I'm happy to be typing today but pure failures, anomalies, confusion or otherwise can paint the best aviator into a box regardless of experience or training. It's not just common sense.

Someday you might be in that box as well. I never thought I would be there myself....

All we can do is try our best to be safe or fly conservatively and learn from other accidents in order to mitigate the risk. We are only human (all with a different hard drive upstairs) and it's only a machine.

Dave.

Much like DaveP, I too had my accident. Im grateful that im alive to type this reply as well.

Doc, as you pointed out in another thread, we usually agree. On this one, we dont. You know the details of my crash. The several "comedy of errors" that all had to occur in sync, to make me fall outta the sky. Me, a guy who preached flying heavy on fuel all my career...even took guff from TCA over telling my pilots that being 50 lbs overweight was ok as long as it was GAS...fell outta the sky and could not get fuel pressure. Hmmm.. My friend, im calling you out on this... do you believe my accident was a lack of common sense? Knowing all the details that you do, what do you believe was the cause of my crash?

It cost me 22 broken bones and a lost flying career that i LOVE. But I think we both know, it can happen to anyone at anytime...and even when you`ve dotted your I`s and crossed your Ts.

I would love to never have to read a thread in this forum ever again. Maybe one day human beings will find a way not to have accidents. Until that time comes, forums like this will sadly remain active.

We can take precautions, follow the regs, not push wx and do it completely by the book...and still, we will end up here discussing how or why it happened.

Yes Colgan and Air France should learn when pulling back doesnt work, try pushing forward! I also agree Doc that many accidents are 100% preventable. I also concur that many accidents are a result of a lack of common sense. Its just not something we can paint with one brush. There are so many other factors that lead up to an accident. In my personal case... I did it ALL by the book, and still fell outta the sky?. So its not always a lack of common sense my friend. Sometimes its as simple as circumstances.

Rant over... now back to your regular scheduled programming.

Fly safe all!

[Liquid Charlie]

Yes - lets hope 2012 is a better year --

I think we all need to go back to accident 101 and realize that the swiss cheese model and human factors is in play most all of the time -- when the old spidy sense starts to tingle - the hair on the back of your neck is standing up or you are just uncomfortable - just get the fu_ck out and rethink the whole thing from a safe vantage point -- I have sat and watched guys start to come unglued due to overload and realized I have been in the same position - the mind is not working right at that point - you need to de-stress and the only solution to that is to get back in your comfort zone -- see -- all common sense but under stress we lose it

And yes as mentioned above all accidents may not be preventable but we must work on the areas that are - I have had 2 in my career - first at age 16 -- my fault and later a maintenance issue - not my fault -- I was lucky -- walked away from both -- and yes - a much smarter and lucky man --

[5x5]

As a society we are getting so much into backcasting and looking for the reasons behind everything that happens, we loose sight of the fact that the event happened in real time. Decisions that get made in the midst of confusion, pressure and conflicting demands are often easily criticized in the calm, unhurried time after the result has been demonstrated.

A typical TSB investigation takes months and months to complete, with interviews, analysis, expert consultation, rewriting and revision of their conclusions and on and on. All this time dissecting a decision or action that took mere moments to occur.

Sure, better training, more experience and the magical “know when to say no” may have helped had it been in play before the fateful event. But it wasn’t and we can’t go back and put it in place. To come at any discussion with a predetermined mindset that anyone who is unfortunate enough to have an accident is an idiot, or poorly trained, or lacks common sense just isn’t right.

Look at accidents to see how the future can be modified to perhaps help reduce the likelihood of a similar future occurrence – not to criticize or chastise the person(s) involved.

And I do sincerely hope we have much less to read in this forum in the coming year.

[robertsailor1]

Good judgement comes from good training followed by "lots of experience", often the latter is in short supply. Training itself in my mind will not do the job. Certainly agree with the other poster that its easy to be an armchair quarterback when you have nothing but time. I remember they used to say that TSC took months to figure out what happened in a few seconds.