Allowing a Passenger to Take the Controls

[flying4dollars]

If you consider fam flights, the instructor lets you fly for a bit. Common practice. If there was any question of legality, this practice would not be allowed.

[CpnCrunch]

Oh dear, the curse of avcanada strikes again.

I'm sure Doc, Cat Driver, and Colonel Sanders are really great guys and you do post useful stuff on here. However I really wish you would all stop shitting on newbies or anyone you believe isn't as great a pilot as you are. It's one of the main reasons why people keep leaving avcanada. Please just consider your posts before launching an attack on someone.

And I'm certainly not immune to saying stupid stuff myself. I recently got banned for launching an angry tirade about the drunks who allegedly caused a floatplane to crash. I thought they deserved it, but apparently one of the mods thought my comments were racist.

Point is: sometimes we all need to calm down and think twice before hitting that submit button.

As for asking stupid questions: people like me come to avcanada to learn. This forum is a really useful way to learn, if you can ignore all the crap. The problem is that a lot of people like BPF, Michael Peare and others have been forced off due to all the shenanigans here. Who knows how many student pilots have left avcanada after being roasted. I'm only here because I have a fairly thick skin and I'm anonymous, but I still get fed up with all the crap sometimes.

[fleet16b]

Exactly !

[Blakey]

Oh dear, the curse of avcanada strikes again.

I'm sure Doc, Cat Driver, and Colonel Sanders are really great guys and you do post useful stuff on here. However I really wish you would all stop shitting on newbies or anyone you believe isn't as great a pilot as you are.

As for asking stupid questions: people like me come to avcanada to learn. This forum is a really useful way to learn, if you can ignore all the crap.

Please don't take too much of what people say too seriously. We all get ahead of ourselves sometimes and we all have our own special viewpoint. It takes some time to sort the wheat from the chaff and there is a LOT of chaff!

Nobody is above getting a little shoe polish on their dentures! When I read this post:

Please remember at all times that you are PILOT IN
COMMAND and thus YOU are responsible for anything
that goes wrong during the flight.

Using your judgement as PIC. If you think it's safe
and it's legal, you can do it.

Not sure how the people above got their pilot licences,
frankly.

I was reminded of this thread and the turn it took as it progressed:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=78586&p=736998#p736998

We all have an off day from time to time. We can forget about our own little indiscretions when we are thinking of others and we all see ourselves differently than others do!

Relax, it's the Internet!

[cptn2016]

Jesus Christ...I didn't realize I accidentally titled my thread "Shit on Stupid Newbie Pilots' Skills and The Retarded Topics They Start, Despite Never Having Flown With Them Or Even Met Them". Guess that might've been a bit cumbersome though.

Several things:

-Yes, the ink is still wet on my PPL. Yes, of course, the majority of you posting here are better pilots and much more experienced. Don't worry, I won't lose sleep over it, and trust me, I know it by now considering how much you feel the need to tell us, so you don't have to keep bringing it up. Frankly, it's annoying. I just hope that maybe one day I can be as awesome as you. One day!

-So you think I'm overly-cautious. I maintain it's better than not being cautious enough. I'm curious to know how that says anything at all about my skills or confidence as a pilot? At what point did I ever say that I lacked the confidence in my abilities to let the passenger take a try at the controls? In fact I explicitly stated the opposite, that I'd love to. Please, at least if you're going to take the time to slam my abilities, or lack thereof, at least read my damn post. And maybe fly with me once or twice, there's a thought. Better yet, I'd rather not fly with some of you if you're gonna be goddamn brats the whole time. I'll take a 5 year-old instead.

-Not interested in challenging or changing my club's rules. Also not interested in breaking them. If you happen to be a member of said club and don't like the rule, you can go about changing it. It doesn't bother me.

-Damn, are some of you ever childish and petty. Did you stop maturing emotionally and intellectually the day your licenses were signed? Thank god I started this relatively later in life than most. Maybe we need to start a petty squabbles subforum. Mods? It really seems to be permeating every other thread.

-Now that we've all gotten that out of our collective systems, I was wondering if anybody had anything constructive to say regarding safety of a flight with passengers on board in case of pilot incapacitation, even though we all know that's completely impossible, and will never happen, and it's totally pointless to talk about anyway?

[lownslow]

-Now that we've all gotten that out of our collective systems, I was wondering if anybody had anything constructive to say regarding safety of a flight with passengers on board in case of pilot incapacitation...?

To some degree I'd say play the odds game. I trust when my medical is issued that the doctor believes I'm quite likely to continue functioning at the minimum level required to fly a plane for however long my medical is valid for. Outside of that just try to live healthy and listen to what your body tells you on any given day. If you think at a certain time you're more prone to incapacitation then just stay on the ground that day. Hell, maybe even go pay a doctor a visit if it's bad enough.

If your health is in general decline (getting way up there in years, for example), consider taking another pilot with you or if you always have the same non-pilot occupying the right seat maybe think about getting them a bit of formal flight instruction. Worst case just become a passenger and get someone else to fly.

In any case, the right answer is whatever one doesn't keep you worrying about the what-ifs.

LnS.

[Shiny Side Up]

The only point I would try to get across is be careful of the zeal of which one proceeds with this task. Remember that they are passengers, they're not crew. I would only ever bother with such training with someone I fly frequently with, which right now is no one (besides my students/customers to which they're learning to fly the thing anyways and its a moot point). Take a look around you when the stewardesses give the safety lecture at the beginning of a flight. Check to see how many passengers actually pay attention or actually pull out the little escape plan map. You can probably count them on one hand if there are any. One must realise that most don't care and aren't going to remember stuff you show them, they're incredibly trusting of anyone with a pilot's license to place their own personal safety in said pilot's hands.

Here's something to think about. Should you become incapacitated, if you are flying straight and level at the time and supposing you keep your seat belt's shoulder restraint sufficiently snug, you aren't going to do the "slump against the controls" that is largely movie fodder. The airplane will fly straight until it runs out of fuel, then it will enter a nice glide (assuming you had it trimmed nicely) which, unless you're flying in rough terrain, will likely result in a survivable crash, should they follow the simple instructions of keeping their own seatbelt tight in the possibility of a crash.

Remember that passengers will be of varying levels of ability and more importantly interest for this subject, so anything you impart upon them must follow the KISS rule. Also keeping in mind that many people probably will turn into a basketcase should there be what they may think is a dead body in the seat beside them. In a majority of cases, extensive excersise on this subject will only serve to scare them, upon which it becomes a moot point teaching them anything since they won't go flying then. Personally I think the damage that a lot of pilots do scaring their passengers needlessly with all sort of horror stories about airplane emergencies far outweighs the small ammount of lives that it actually saves. I would only generally impart more information on interested parties, but then again if they fly with you lots they should be able to pick up a lot by simple observation and will ask the important questions on their own. If they don't, then like most passengers on airliners, they don't care enough for it to make a difference come crunch time.

Take the onus upon yourself to keep your passengers safe.

[Meatservo]

Oh, for god's sake, you guys...

cptn2016, here's what you do. If the ink is still wet on your pilot's license, stay in the left seat of your plane. Take your friends and family for fun little short trips, and if your plane has dual controls, let them wiggle the wings and fart around with the rudder pedals at cruising altitude to see what it "feels" like. You have no business, however, teaching manoeuvres or letting people practice flying your plane close to the ground. Concentrate on teaching yourself to fly better, and over time, if your wife is a constant companion on your cross-country flights, hire an instructor, explain to him/her what you would like them to teach your wife to do, and they will do it.

No personal offense intended, but if you are a new private pilot, you are only just starting to be able to fly yourself. Work into it gradually and please don't teach other people to fly. That is a commercial service, provided by commercial pilots. It is a fun and safe thing to do to let a person "try out" the controls, or steer in a straight line under your direct supervision, and I recommend this practice in moderation as a nice way to share your love of flying with the people you are close to. But any "instruction" beyond this is best left to the professionals.

That's my advice, anyway. Nobody will criticize you for letting your son wiggle the wings or hang onto the controls for a few minutes.

[Doc]

Jesus Christ...I didn't realize I accidentally titled my thread "Shit on Stupid Newbie Pilots' Skills and The Retarded Topics They Start, Despite Never Having Flown With Them Or Even Met Them". Guess that might've been a bit cumbersome though.

Actually, that'd make a pretty humorous thread. Pretty classic really. Probably a good learning tool?
Cheers

[C-GKNT]

...

-Not interested in challenging or changing my club's rules. Also not interested in breaking them. If you happen to be a member of said club and don't like the rule, you can go about changing it. It doesn't bother me.
...

cptn2016,

You belong to a club that has a clear (but ?unreasonable?) rule against something you want to do.

Summary...
- The rule is clear
- you are unwilling to break it (no arguments from me here)
- you are not interested in trying to change it

IMHO, the conclusion is clear... NO there is no "out of the box" solution to your issue.

Not trying to be difficult, just not sure what your question is.

Glenn

[xysn]

The airplane will fly straight until it runs out of fuel

Perhaps you are saying this tongue in cheek but I'm pretty sure if I ignored the controls, even in a well trimmed plane, eventually an updraft would bank the wings resulting in turn and eventual spiral dive.

[Shiny Side Up]

The airplane will fly straight until it runs out of fuel

Perhaps you are saying this tongue in cheek but I'm pretty sure if I ignored the controls, even in a well trimmed plane, eventually an updraft would bank the wings resulting in turn and eventual spiral dive.

I'm never tongue in cheek. Most light planes are reasonably roll stable. The Cessnas in particular will right themselves unless they get past the thirty degrees of bank range, and then they have a tendancy to roll into the bank if left alone rather than roll back out. Go ahead, try it on your sim or in your airplane. In some of the speedier singles this is less true though and more readily roll into a spiral dive with less prompting. If the turbulence is sufficiently drastic to put the airplane uncommanded into a more extreme attitude, I would doubt that a marginally trained user would have much ability to get it back to straight and level than the airplane's own tendancies to do so. Keeping in mind that with airplanes with worse stability characteristics are going to be an even greater handful for the slightly trained pilot, the point of all our "emergency training" work diminishes quickly. We're talking probablities here.

Incidentally, check this out.

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/p ... b-5929.htm

Go down to "TSB Final Report A08O0233—Uncontrolled Descent into Terrain"

We might have a thread about how to minimise your chances of incapacitating yourself while you're flying airplanes which might be more productive if we could get it across to some people.

[xysn]

Go down to "TSB Final Report A08O0233—Uncontrolled Descent into Terrain"

22 hours awake. Incredible. I couldn't fly a kite after that.

[Shiny Side Up]

What's more remarkable though is that an airplane without pilot input results in a relatively good odds of survival crash (in this case 66.666% repeating of course). Note that the airplane in the diagram makes a right descending turn, just as it would if it was probably trimmed slightly nose heavy as many private pilots are want to do. It never gets really out of control and makes a lot of turns hitting the ground well before it gets into graveyard spiral territory. Who here thinks a passenger would have been able to do better should they have seized control at any moment in the latter part of the descent, especially in the dark?

[Lost Lake]

What's more remarkable though is that an airplane without pilot input results in a relatively good odds of survival crash (in this case 66.666% repeating of course). Note that the airplane in the diagram makes a right descending turn, just as it would if it was probably trimmed slightly nose heavy as many private pilots are want to do. It never gets really out of control and makes a lot of turns hitting the ground well before it gets into graveyard spiral territory. Who here thinks a passenger would have been able to do better should they have seized control at any moment in the latter part of the descent, especially in the dark?

Wow that's better odds than some pilots have trying to control the airplane in the approach. Maybe more pilots should just let the plane land itself. Less accidents.

[iflyforpie]

In some of the speedier singles this is less true though and more readily roll into a spiral dive with less prompting.

Not necessarily.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber

Note that the aircraft recovered itself from a unrecoverable spin, and was later returned to service.

[Shiny Side Up]

Wow that's better odds than some pilots have trying to control the airplane in the approach. Maybe more pilots should just let the plane land itself. Less accidents.

Well now you're being silly, though you might be correct if it was placed against the survival rate of controlled crashes vs uncontrolled crashes. I think the Colonel's Tale of Two Commanches applies here? The point being that an airplane crashes relatively well on its own compared to when it has the intervention of a poorly trained, panicked or inattentive passenger at its controls.

Note that the aircraft recovered itself from a unrecoverable spin, and was later returned to service.

I rest my case.