Rules for the sake of Rules or Lack of Common Sense

[200hr Wonder]

There is a current thread about Seneca at buttonville always asking for the back track, or about SOPs requiring operators to not cancel IFR when the field is in sight and there are aircraft waiting to depart. Seems we are great at creating rules for the sake of rules. I have been to some flight schools with a rules list as long as your arm, seems to stifle the ability of people to instruct and teach good decision making. For example the other day I had the option of waiting for about 10 to 15 minutes to take off because of Nav Canada shooting approaches in there Challanger or take the runway with a bit of a tailwind and go now. The tailwind runway is 5000' I am in a 172, I choose the tailwind runway. How many CFIs would have reamed out an instructor for that decision? Thankfully not mine as he was on board and it was my check flight. The point being I gave ample consideration for length and conditions before I decided that taking a tailwind was acceptable. I used *gasp* common sense. Is there room in aviation for common sense? I know our school gives instructors a fair bit of leeway for that. For example we have no weather criteria other than VFR. We are after all instructors, students do have more stringent. We are left to decide if the weather is good enough to accomplish what we need for our students.

[Cat Driver]

Good discussion material 200 hour wonder.

It seems we are being forced to do things dummed down to the lowest common denominator.

At first it was not to bad however as this dumming down progresses we are at risk of making aviation more dangerous rather than safer.

By the way where do some of these idiots come from who institute these policies?

[Four1oh]

of course, you checked the book to make sure the performance of your airplane could handle a 5kt tailwind on that particular runway on that particular day. right?!

[Vonhugendong]

I understand you example and agree with your logic. However, with such a broad range of people able to become certified private pilots the rules need to be simple and leave little room for confusion. Your idea of common sense sounds acceptable, as is most pilots. But rules need to be set taking into consideration the “oh my fu*k*ng god I cant believe you figured out how to put your shoes on the right feet let alone fly an aircraft” kind of pilots. It is easier, and I am not saying it is right, to just say do not take off with a tailwind. Let’s face it, if you have money and time you can pretty much be a pilot. Until that changes I suppose I can understand why the rules need to be so devoid of common sense.

[sky's the limit]

It's a self perpetuating system.

Dumbed down rules/system and lax training standards, equal dumbed down pilots, and pilots who probably shouldn't be out flying in the first place. Chicken or the egg?

Of course litigation does little to help the situation....


stl

[TenForTwelve]

I for one admit I used common sense once or twice. I could be accused of not backtracking all the way to the end of a runway. 8 or 9 thousand feet rwy at an international airport, and I was in an empty twin otter. Did I really need the extra few feet?

USE YOUR HEAD AND THINK, THAT'S WHAT IT'S THERE FOR!!!

[SQ]

thank lord its good to read a thread like this one
when training for ifr here is the famous engine failure in the hold:
"engine failure = do your sigle engine go around - single engine landing check list
-why should i do a single engine go-around i'm not in the circuit?
- yeah but do it for the inspector"

but waht the f** would i look for blue line, gear up flaps up blabla
a donkey would be more inventive,

i don't have much experience but i'm sure there's a lot of things like this concerning red check lists

[xsbank]

Face it, if there was a lot of common sense in this industry, half of us would have gotten real jobs.

[sky's the limit]

Face it, if there was a lot of common sense in this industry, half of us would have gotten real jobs.

You win, thread closed....lol

Can't really come up with an argument there... Hey, what's that? Hmmm, my Wife just fell out of her chair.....


stl

[Cat Driver]

It's worse than we figured, two people voted no.

[sky's the limit]

So,

If 88% have voted there is "mostly" no common sense, who are we all talking about????


stl

[Over the Horn]

We don't need common sense when we've got SOP's & SMS because in the end its all PFM!!

[J Roc]

I do agree, occasionally you see pilots floating through this industry who use little or no common sense. Although, hasn't our industry gotten safer over the last 30+ years? Hasn't the advances in technology, CRM, SMS and SOP's helped us achieve these goals?

You hear people bash the use of SOP's quite a bit but I don't think SOP's are a hindrance, I think the improper use of SOP's is the hindrance.

SOP's are an excellent tool, when used properly by a well-trained crew. When used by a crew that can, based on experience and knowledge of their aircraft and systems, also think outside the box during certain situations.

As well, I've never come across a set of SOP's that required a flight crew to abandon all common sense, or conform to irrational thought. If anything, all the SOP's I've used, and most SOP's for that matter, should have a statement in there to the effect of..."The content of this SOP manual is a safe guideline to the operation of this aircraft, and in no way should interfere with the captains ultimate responsibility to operate the aircraft in a safe and efficient manner"

So for example, lets say you're flying an aircraft that has engine ITT limits of 760 in cruise and your SOP's list a company IIT limit of 700 in cruise. Does that mean you have to abide by your SOP limits when you're at max. weight and picking up severe amounts of ice?
I would say "NO"...and I can back up the decision I made with the above statement from the SOP's.
Based on my common sense and experience, it would not be wise to fly in those conditions at a reduced power setting. It wouldn't be safe nor efficient and I'm justified to do so.

Now that statement isn't saying "use the SOP's when they suit your needs", it's just saying that you're still in charge of this airplane.

I dug up a chart showing accident rates over a 30-year period and it shows that even with an increase in air travel we're still the safest mode of travel and getting safer.

Sorry for the long winded reply…. that’s my avcanada rant for the next 6-8 months...





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[Edo]

you cannot legislate common sense - unfortunately many people dont seem to breed for it either. I guess we are doomed.

[Alex YCV]

you cannot legislate common sense - unfortunately many people dont seem to breed for it either. I guess we are doomed.

Actually, the point of many of the rules and regulations is to simulate some form of common sense. In this case, it is the decent habit of getting all the runway you can to take off. Now, asking to backtrack for the last 13 feet, well...

Because common sense ain't common, they have rules. "You should always backtrack and get the most runway possible" and "you should always contact the tour before backtracking on a runway". The student applied them with no real application of intelligence (either "13 feet? You can live with out" or "just do it").

You get less accidents when you don't give people with poor judgement the chance to judge for themselves. Think of the silly backtrack request as the price for keeping this guy alive.

[SierraPoppa]

Because common sense ain't common,

Someone told me recently where he works they no longer call it common sense they now call it "rare sense".

I think they may have a point.

[CID]

I'm sure some of the rules are in place to protect the owner/operators. With the price of insurance these days, the operator sometimes is tasked with providing assurances that he/she excercises due dilligence in informing pilots of some "common sense" issues.

[shimmydampner]

You get less accidents when you don't give people with poor judgement the chance to judge for themselves.

Actually I would think you would get less accidents when you don't give people with poor judgement a pilot license.

[Mode C]

" operators to not cancel IFR when the field is in sight and there are aircraft waiting to depart. Seems we are great at creating rules for the sake of rules.

Well the reason might be the people making the rules.

TC did this to me yesterday in their citation. We've been heading for CYJT for 3 hours by now and there citation ends up overtaking us and going number one. So here we are in a PC-12 circling over the water while they do their approach and landing. They didn't cancel when they broke out and called final, they didn't cancel when they touched down, they didn't cancel when they taxied off the runway and called clear. Even when told by airport radio to call Gander Center to cancel and call clear of the runway they continued to taxi in until I called them on the airport freq and told them to CALL GANDER AND CANCEL SO WE DON'T HAVE TO HOLD!
End of Rant. it was a long day and I just wanted to land and go to the hotel... maybe get some food.

[grimey]

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How much of the decline is due to more reliable equipment, and how much is due to better pilots, though?

[Navajo-dude]

The reliable equipment has helped prevent some pilots who have no common sense from having accidents.

[xsbank]

Grimey, the advent of GPWS, windshear training and improvements in training in general has had a huge effect too. I have a slide around here somewhere that shows the improvement and uses my stuff to argue why airline's safety has improved. I'll look for it.

[Cat Driver]

Now if 703 operations could start matching 705 that would be great.

[Doc]

"You give someone an adjustable suspension, and they will adjust it, wrong." Colin Chapman

[200hr Wonder]

Grimey, the advent of GPWS, windshear training and improvements in training in general has had a huge effect too. I have a slide around here somewhere that shows the improvement and uses my stuff to argue why airline's safety has improved. I'll look for it.

Yes improved training, excellent. We have learned about wind shear, we have systems like GPWS, heck even SOPs are a great tool, I mean we can throw two pilots who have never met before into a plane and they can fly it effectively. However things as simple as, don't block the ramp are lost! Where I flew this summer, we would push our aircraft onto a narrow taxi way from a parking spot, hop in, fire up and taxi. This oblivious terd of a human would push out in front of us us, while our master was clearly on and our beacon flashing, and sit there for eons going through a pre-start checklist, oops then the student made a mistake, lets start again. ARRRRRGH shoot me, how about you wait 30 seconds, till we fire up, taxi 60 feet ahead, and you can then go through pre-start checklist 50 times for all I care.

Same individual, takes, of looks down, airspeed not alive and rotate! How does he get him self into this situation?!?!?!? I mean honestly. Lack of common sense. It was not written anywhere that if your airspeed is not alive to reject, but one would think it would be a good idea if you have sufficient runway to do so (and he did).

Same person again, lacking in common sense was taking a student up to finish up the PPL requirements for instrument training. My student in fact. Now my student is sharp, so I said be hard on him challenge him. Thinking that he would give the student difficult unusual attitude recoveries, maybe partial panel, no this wing nut does stuff that I will not even type here. Lets just say it was unsafe, and had his contract not been finished I would have seen to it he was fired from his job. But the thing is this person had an instructor rating! One you get someone who does not have common sense instructing how on earth are you going to have students who learn it.

I think the old saying holds true, make something idiot proof and we will just build a better idiot.