dutchroll

How is the publication of flight safety information articles on the primary causes of concern in GA accidents by transport safety investigators "unhelpful"? Regarding the order: it is specified on the first page that the order of this list is the same as the order of publication of the ATSB articles. I guess if people want to read something more into it they're welcome to, but I don't see why anyone should.

The list just is presented in the order of the ATSB publication series on "avoidable accidents". So the first publication they released happened to be the one on low flying. There could've been any particular trigger for drafting things in that publication order, but the publications are not in order of "percentage of accidents". It's just that those happen to be the 7 which are most concerning to the ATSB.

Agreed. Although just as the regulatory burden is not solving the problem, it's not the cause of it either. Agreed.

The key areas of concern published in the report are: 1) Low flying 2) Wire strikes (involving already known wires) 3) Poor management of partial power loss 4) Visual flight into instrument conditions 5) Fuel management 6) Over-reliance on experience to compensate for high risk activity 7) Visual flight at night If the only way pilots can understand how to address these safety issues is to reduce the regulatory burden, then we are in a lot of trouble! My opinion is that a lot of the regulatory burden is imposed because too many pilots are incapable of addressing these safety issues, or just unwilling to. Why else would we have high accident statistics in these areas? They have nothing to do with regulation, and everything to do with practicing sound airmanship and getting quality training.

I'm fairly convinced that avionics techs use 32 carat gold wire strippers and crimp tools. It's the only way I can make the billing sound right. I had a large Bankstown avionics mob charge me $300 for a cowl removal, which works out to about $60/minute labour charge (complex labour though......it involves undoing a couple of dozen machine screws with a Phillips head screwdriver and dropping the cowl off).

I suppose the "old" method would work but heck, if you're going to have a turn rate gyro in your plane, why not just get a modern digital standby AI? The method they show in the video vaguely resembles how we were taught "limited panel" flying, ie, flight with a failed AI. However at the time I suspect it was the best they knew about how to cope with that situation in that era. The big thing about staying in control in cloud is using whatever you have to control a) your bank angle and b) your pitch attitude. A turn needle will give you a hint as to your bank angle, and your altimeter will give you a hint as to your pitch attitude. The VSI has inherent lag, so trying to follow it is fraught with difficulty and danger. An AI of course gives you both the bank and the pitch instantly. The thing to remember is to make the corrections little ones, and to do one at a time. In instrument flying you spend 80%+ of your time scanning the attitude indicator and keeping it in the attitude you want for whatever you happen to be doing (straight & level, 20 degree bank turn, or whatever). Whatever is left of your time is for radially scanning the other surrounding flight instruments and ensuring they're indicating the desired performance, returning to the attitude indicator each time to make any desired corrections. It's hard work and requires intense concentration and scan discipline, but when you first fly an approach in anger and pop out of the cloud with the runway in front of you, it's a pretty good feeling.

Take the insurance payout. They had a lot more to lose than the planes. I'm doubtful they fully appreciate the nature of how microbursts work.

Having done many microburst/windshear training sessions in the simulator and studied a number of the accidents which have occurred I can confidently say that's one of the most f.....ing stupid examples of appallingly bad airmanship I've ever seen in my career. I have a descriptive phrase I use occasionally: "temporary pilot". That meaning "temporary" until they kill themselves being a show off.

It's always fascinating seeing people who have no insight into their own behaviour. The guy clearly has some "issues" he needs to work through with a counsellor.

I don't understand why some people get their knickers in a knot over this. If you have done all your homework in accordance with normal regs and principles, there's nothing to get upset about. I've been ramp checked once in 30 years of flying, and that was overseas by an FAA inspector. I've been breathalysed god knows how many times. I've been pulled over in my car and licence checked, breathalysed, registration checked, and safety inspected several times (have always passed on every item). I've had an insurance representative inspect my shed when I was organising a farm insurance policy. I've had building inspectors, plumbing inspectors, electrical inspectors all come around and do their stuff at home. I've had the local Council come around twice in a row to check that my property complied with the correct usage and zoning for my rates, then they still weren't satisfied so they went to the neighbour to confirm what I'd told them! Honestly, in day to day life, CASA are the absolute least of my compliance concerns!

I'd be very wary of drawing conclusions from that photo, especially given the reported severity of the impact. It's not possible to reliably distinguish impact damage from in flight failure at that distance from a single photo and either/or could result in what is shown. However a detailed close examination by experts certainly will.

Slow speed, yawing moment, and a bit of extra G at low level is not a very good combination......

I was planning to take someone flying aeros at Cessnock yesterday (Sunday). I suppose it comes as no surprise to anyone that we cancelled and stayed home? We also landed at Sydney airport on saturday morning at the end of a work trip before the worst of it hit, but still needed the wipers on "high" for landing! They shift some serious water off the windscreen when they're going that fast!

It's always interesting seeing the media hype, like the one recently where a 737 engine cowl had a hole patched with high speed tape and a petrified passenger took a photo of it. I had to explain to a non-flying friend that it's not actually normal tape like you get at Bunnings, it's a non critical structure, and the temporary repair is detailed in the manufacturer's repair manual and has been designed by professional engineers.

I shed airframe sheetmetal screws out of my Pitts almost every time I go flying (doing aerobatics)! When you're pulling serious load factors it happens. Someone ejects from a military display team and it makes news for a week. Someone ejects from a normal military training flight and it makes news for a night.....if you're lucky. A small piece of leading edge flap comes off a Blue Angels F/A-18 and it's a massive talking point for days. We get CDLs (Configuration Deviation List) on commercial airline flights all the time and no-one bats an eyelid! Example straight of the CDL Manual: "Slat End Filling - Quantity installed: 2. All may be missing. Approach speed, add 5 knots. Landing distance, multiply by 1.08." Sorry....no alarm intended!

It's hugely expensive running a military aerobatics team. They rarely ever use brand new frontline aircraft, as those aircraft are intended for their original purpose. However although the older variants are maintenance intensive, they're not necessarily any less safe than a brand new one out of the factory and they're certainly no less spectacular. Precision flying in an old F/A-18 is the same as precision flying in a brand new F/A-18.

Yeah what GPS has done for aircraft tracking is interesting.......and slightly unnerving. Years ago when we had inertial nav systems without GPS, you'd always fly past opposite direction traffic displaced by a nm or 2 due to the inherent inaccuracies. Nowadays if you're on a.main air route say from Sydney to Southeast Asia, you get opposite direction aircraft flying directly below or above, with absolutely no lateral displacement at all. Your cockpit passes directly under or over their cockpit. In fact with 1000ft RVSM separation, you can actually literally hear the roar of their engines briefly as they pass over you. I've occasionally looked at the other guy and said "just as well we're both smack on our assigned altitudes eh?" There's no longer any room for pilot or ATC error!

Engine diagnostics, testing and troubleshooting are best done on the ground if circumstances permit, as a general principle.

Most modern RPT aircraft have twin GPS (the larger ones also having dual or triple inertial reference systems) and ground base navaids are not required at all - not even for position updating. The inertial navigation system still computes its inertial position complete with drift etc, but that position is then disregarded in favour of the GPS position. It would only revert in the case of total (dual) GPS failure. Radio navaid updating the system these days is fraught with complications, such as the incident we had when a pilot decided to try the radio update procedure out of curiosity, but typed in the wrong navaid identifier, thus telling the aircraft it was a thousand miles away from where it thought it was. There followed frantic (and I believe ultimately successful) attempts to flush the update, followed by him swearing he'd never try that again. Some years ago on the old B767 before it was belatedly fitted with GPS, we got in trouble because the aircraft would auto-update off ground based navaids during the arrival sequence to major airports and start drifting off in all sorts of directions as it tried to figure out its accurate position compared to where the inertial system thought it was. The GPS equipped aircraft were dead on track all the time. It used to make life hard for ATC in the more extreme cases as these updating B767s randomly veered left and right of track depending on the navaid signal it was getting. I remember a couple of occasions where Approach called and asked "......, are you deviating around weather?" and I replied "Negative......just the aircraft doing its usual thing!"

RPT boys and girls already do. Qantas mainline (and I think its subsidiary airlines too) have been using iPad approach plates for several years. We can also legally fly an NDB approach if the NDB isn't working, but of course you need a certified GPS containing a navigation database to do this.

Totally agree with what you're saying. However modern day airline executives are usually accountants by trade. Something needs to happen that costs them (ie their company) a huge amount of money before they will invest in anything to prevent it.

The technology is there. The expense is significant though, so I think it's a while off. The ACARS system is routinely used in flight for obtaining weather reports etc, which is great as the data is received and automatically printed on the cockpit printer so you have an easily decipherable hardcopy just as if you'd logged onto NAIPS or whatever. I know of a few occasions in years gone by where we have been asked to "restrict" our use of the ACARS and instead attempt to use the old-fashioned method of tuning the HF radio and listening to Volmet broadcasts (with all the problems that sometimes involves) in order to save the company money. The ACARS will use the VHF ground station data network when it can, but when you're out of range, it defaults to satellite comms (if you have satcom fitted). Then it gets expensive. So there is certainly a cost issue among the airlines, and getting an airline to outlay money on systems like these on the off chance that it might be good for accident investigation when the aircraft already have data recorders is a pretty hard ask!

There seems to be a train of thought from some RAAus circles that actually shutting the engine off is good training because it will prepare you better (presumably for the "sound of silence") if it really happens. I totally disagree with this. The single biggest shock, I believe (from experience), when you have an emergency of any type is when you are the one who is responsible and who has to do something. When an instructor is sitting next to you, there's always that thing in the back of your mind: "oh well he can take over if we really get in trouble". It's the same type of psychology at play when, for example, you first do solo stalling or spinning. Nagging away is this thought of "well it's all up to me to get out of it now - no-one to help me, so I better remember the procedures". I think people are way over-estimating how much the style of training which is the topic of this thread will prepare you. The issue is how you're going to deal with it when you're on your own and have no-one to turn to for advice or who can take control. That's the single biggest psychological hurdle, not whether the engine is stopped or turning. That is absolutely true. So training should not be focused on trying to modify a "possible" (but relatively unpredictable) behaviour, but on drilling in the right techniques and procedures which the pilot can turn to in order to survive when he's on his lonesome and it goes wrong. Because when the crap hits the fan, it's generally true that pilots will revert to whatever procedures have most thoroughly stuck in their mind from training.

Yeah there are many valid concerns about how practice engine failures are conducted, and as always, evidence of past practice is not necessarily a good thing. Another example which springs to mind is that you haven't declared any sort of emergency. Therefore people aren't necessarily going to get out of your way. What if during the course of your "practice glide" to the airfield you then need that power suddenly.....only to discover it isn't there because you turned it off? That's in addition to the engine handling issues highlighted by Schiff. I see a number of negatives with potentially significant consequences, but no real demonstrated positives or training outcomes (just personal anecdotes) to switching it off in a single engine aircraft at all, and especially at low altitude.

A fixed wing aircraft is a fixed wing aircraft. Sure, recreational aircraft are a bit lighter than GA aircraft, but so what? The training principles are, for the most part, the same or very similar. Engine failure consequences are the same, except maybe in some cases your chosen field could be smaller (except consider something like a Husky, a certified GA plane which lands on a 20 cent piece) or your glide ratio might be better (not necessarily though). Here are some words from Barry Schiff. 28,000 hours in 335 aircraft types. Author of more than 1500 flight articles in 90 aviation magazines, inductee of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) National Flight Instructors Hall of Fame, holder of every available FAA Instructor Rating, recipient of AOPA's L.P. Sharples Perpetual Award, France's Louis Bleriot Medal, etc etc etc: The method used to simulate an engine failure is somewhat controversial. An instructor has four choices. He can (1) close the throttle, (2) lean the mixture to idle cutoff, (3) turn off the magnetos, or (4) turn off the fuel supply. Which of these methods would you recommend? As far as the engine is concerned, it is best to lean the mixture to idle cutoff while leaving the throttle open. This is because an open throttle permits the cylinders to fill with air and cushion engine deceleration, which reduces internal stresses during the simulation of a sudden engine failure. Pulling the mixture control, however, actually shuts down the engine. Although this may be perfectly acceptable to the pistons, crankshaft counterweights, and other engine parts, it may not be in the best interest of those on board the aircraft. This is because the engine might not restart on demand, and the practice approach to a forced landing would suddenly become a genuine low-altitude emergency. A practice power-off approach to a farmer's field usually is terminated by a full-power climb to a safe altitude. But if the engine has been genuinely shut down during descent, it will become quite cool. A quick restart and the application of full power at such a time is unhealthy for any engine. (Powerplant manufacturers also caution against conducting simulated engine failures during extremely cold weather because of the additional wear and tear this might create.) For similar reasons, neither the magnetos nor the fuel-selector valve should be used to simulate an engine failure. (Turning off the fuel supply to fuel-injected engines is particularly hazardous because these engines can be difficult to restart following fuel starvation.) Experts at both Teledyne Continental Motors and Textron Lycoming agree, therefore, that closing the throttle is the best way to simulate an engine failure in single-engine aircraft. (Simulating engine failure in a twin will be discussed later). Good to know that RAAus is apparently better informed than Barry Schiff! Here's the full article, including his discussion of FAA accident statistics following simulated engine failure...... Sample Chapter - Flying Wisdom, Proficient Pilot 3 by Barry Schiff