Safety & Training - RAAus are you listening?

[Stearman]

I am rather surprised there has not been more reaction to the fact not all our flying schools are being inspected.

 

Sort of gotten lost in discussion of hours to train & what instruction cost. Just to chime in on that I know of schools regularly taking 60 hours to get a pilot certificate done. On the other hand an interstate friend had a school tell him they would have him solo in 5-6 hours.

 

 

[turboplanner]

I am rather surprised there has not been more reaction to the fact not all our flying schools are being inspected.Sort of gotten lost in discussion of hours to train & what instruction cost. Just to chime in on that I know of schools regularly taking 60 hours to get a pilot certificate done. On the other hand an interstate friend had a school tell him they would have him solo in 5-6 hours.

I'm not; I've mentioned the potential penalties over and over again, and given actual case details where people in other sports have lost their future.

Unfortunately there's an anti safety culture; an 'it's not going to happen to me" attitude that needs to come crashing down first.

 

It's just a matter of waiting for the case.

 

 

[Roundsounds]

I'm not; I've mentioned the potential penalties over and over again, and given actual case details where people in other sports have lost their future.Unfortunately there's an anti safety culture; an 'it's not going to happen to me" attitude that needs to come crashing down first.

It's just a matter of waiting for the case.

When you've got the ops and tech managers investigating accidents, attending coronial enquiries and developing new rules they simply do not have the time to attend to FTF inspections.

 

The accident investigation process should be dealt with by an independent organisation, this would free these people up to promote the sport and address what is likely the cause of a high percentage of the accidents - flight training. Under a proper Safety Managment System you cannot have the people responsible for a department investigation incidents which may have been caused in part by the dept they head.

 

 

[poteroo]

Even professionally there is a wide range of times that it can take a pilot to get checked to line. Sometimes as large as x5.

Agree. Time-to-solo is one such number that seems to be taken as an indicator of either a student pilots' genetic ability to fly, or, the instructors' unfortunate inability to 'teach'. It's a much more complex process.

 

I'm doing more and more GA to RAAus conversions. The time it takes for these, (to reach a safe solo competency), varies from 1 to 6 hrs. (and that's on what I'd say was a very easy-to-fly aircraft). Not surprisingly, those pilots with more hours, and more currency cope best.

 

In terms of safety consciousness: the variation is great. Some older pilots have a most impressive airmanship/safety approach while a few are living in the kick the tyres and light the fires era. Recently qualified pilots generally follow the book insofar as preflights, checklists etc - but without experience, they miss a lot of the 'airmanship' qualities that experience brings. We have to build their competencies by on-the-job learning: which is the proven way pilots really learn.

 

happy days,

 

 

[turboplanner]

When you've got the ops and tech managers investigating accidents, attending coronial enquiries and developing new rules they simply do not have the time to attend to FTF inspections.The accident investigation process should be dealt with by an independent organisation, this would free these people up to promote the sport and address what is likely the cause of a high percentage of the accidents - flight training. Under a proper Safety Managment System you cannot have the people responsible for a department investigation incidents which may have been caused in part by the dept they head.

Possibly true, but they had potential access to around 9000 volunteers and plenty of those are skilled.

 

 

[facthunter]

Time to solo...? How much do you teach and how well, or do you just cross off the syllabus/sequences till solo is possible and let them go? Students are very variable. What's the rush to solo? At that stage of their learning dual is about the only time they WILL learn. What if a "situation" arrives due other traffic, a mechanical event (door unlatches), weather event (if it's an area solo.). If they know a bit more, is that a problem? How big a chance do you take with their ability? IF there is an incident are you as the instructor , prepared to have scrutiny of your decision. How risk averse are you?

 

Some students learn easily and can think outside the square early. They have the necessary situational awareness. Greaser landings don't necessarily a good pilot make, at that stage. They might be fluking them based on a numbers based technique that won't work in all situations.

 

CONTROLLED FAQ landings are better with the pilot responding to the situation as needed. Finessing can come later, with more time under the belt. We place too much emphasis on landings. It's only a small part of flying. Nev

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I have to agree with Facthunter - I was very fortunate to have an ab-initio instructor that was more interested in teaching me to fly than getting me my licence post haste. His view was better to get in some of the other things that can happen such as x-wind landings, efatos, etc as well as well understood other things such as handling in-flight fires and identifying carb icing before that first solo so if the unexpected happened, then I could handle it. I recall rocking up to YMMB for a solo training area flight on a foul weather day, but within limits of a PPL and the CFI expressed reservations about letting me go. I badgered him a bit and he finally agreed to let me go if another instructor (jet jock hopeful) deemed me OK after a dual flight first.

 

In the training area, the engine kept on dropping revs and the instructor pointed out I left my hand on the throttle and inadvertently was throttling back. I suggested trying carb heat, but he said it wasn't required. The engine drop and throttle up happened a third time, after which I insisted application of carb heat as I made sure my hand was feather-touching the throttle. Needless to say, there was a drop in revs and a bit of a cough before it revved well above where it was previously.

 

Back to the circuit and the first landing was safe and the instructor pointed out my aileron positioning was a little off; second circuit, he called a full stop and let me go on my own. Other studes were disappointed being left on the ground that day.

 

I am certainly no flying ace nor skygod, and I wouldn't even attempt flying in that wx at the moment given my currency/recency (little rusty at the moment - waiting for the next shareoplane). But my instructor ingrained what flying was and we weren't watching a clock to go solo.

 

 

[craigL]

Re high vis, it's a cheap and easy way of making a strong but superficial visual statement that you are taking safety seriously. Most accidents happen once you're in the aircraft, when high vis is totally irrelevant. And most are due to pilot error or engine failure.

 

What would be much more useful would be better quantitative studies of safety factors. E.g. statistics on accident types by aircraft model, engine type, correlations with initial training location, conditions, etc., which are unavailable in a high level form (you can only get raw accident data, which would take an impossible amount of time to compile statistics from). This could be done by making the data accessible on line for high level complex database queries so conclusions could be crowd sourced from the data.

 

 

[slb]

Re high vis, it's a cheap and easy way of making a strong but superficial visual statement that you are taking safety seriously. Most accidents happen once you're in the aircraft, when high vis is totally irrelevant. And most are due to pilot error or engine failure.

and yet they did not hand any out to their maintenance people who are outside the aircraft.

 

When you've got the ops and tech managers investigating accidents, attending coronial enquiries and developing new rules they simply do not have the time to attend to FTF inspections.

They are not sending out those who completed the Accident and Investigation course at Canberra in 2009. Equally qualified, but never used.