The culture

I want to fly in a culture where I am responsible for my own actions.

I am not my brother’s keeper, however when my brother dies I lose a brother.

I want to fly where the flying siblinghood does a bit more “keeping” in order that there are fewer spouses, siblings, children, friends and colleagues mourning dead aviators.

I want to fly in a culture where if something less than best practice is observed advice/counselling will be offered without judgement or censure then adopted without recrimination or ill grace.

I look forward to a culture that when there is the slightest question when on the ground or in the air one can confidently seek and will receive guidance without criticism or penalty. That guidance from friends, colleagues, instructors, Airservices, CASA, BOM to be the expected norm.

I want a culture where when non aviators overhear BBQ conversations they will hear something other than tales of near misses and disaster.

I want an airborne culture where by the pilot not flying is expected to intervene whenever less than best practice is observed and the PIC accepts.

I want to fly in a culture where volunteered guidance from friends, colleagues, instructors, Airservices, CASA, BOM is be the expected norm.

I want to fly in culture where by all the various aviation groups are united in presenting a positive image of flying to the community at large.

I want to fly in a culture whereby my impression of the various governing authorities is one of them working towards the promotion of aviation in all its myriad forms.

Why is it not so?

How can we make it so?

Iwant a culture where there is no back biting and no invalid criticism.

Yes... It isn't fair to criticise invalids. Nev

A popular hypothesis is that a group of pilots took off and flew into deteriorating weather until they lost visual discrimination between cloud and ocean, ultimately flying into the water with all on board dying.

Accepting that hypothesis; I posit that if any one of those pilots were contemplating the same flight as a solo venture the result would most likely have been different. The airlines invested heavily in modifying in-cockpit culture to address this problem. Light aviation has sadly failed in addressing CRM issues.

Virtually all of the posts on this and other fora dealing with similar events acknowledge that this has happened before, and by implication accept that it will happen again.

Surely there is some cultural adjustments that could and should be made with a view to reducing this toll.

What is it in our light aviation culture that prevents pilots immediately they realise all is not well from picking up the radio and seeking assistance?.

Is it fear of penalty or recrimination? Or a case of believing that so asking is an admission of guilt, incompetence or weakness? If so, we need a cultural shift away from blame allocation to one of assistance provision.

Does a PPL at their flight review need to demonstrate IF abilities to at least the standard required for the initial issuance of a PPL. ? If not why not?

Why do pilots in deteriorating visibility not call for assistance and get vectored to safer conditions?. The ultimate outcome may still be disastrous but at least all available avenues of resolution have been explored.

Presuming that the prevailing culture prevents this happening at whose door do we lay the responsibility for fixing it? CFIs, RAA, CASA, Airservices, aero club bar, or Minister Truss?.

Regardless it needs to be address.

The only thing uniting all those who “died doing what love” is that they are dead and more often than not needlessly so.

In my humble opinion I put forth the following

We must remember that most RAA pilots do not have a full-time occupation in flying and what are referred to as weekend warriors.

The training is a bare minimum, again in my opinion which hopefully get you back in one piece on a good VFR day. It is like teaching your children to drive on L plates, they pass a driving test and are then launched into the world by themselves with many different conditions and situations that they never entered into whilst learning. And yes of course they have a few pressures from their own friends (they don’t have human factors, which needs to be rewritten in my opinion common sense ) and they do make mistakes but like all parents you worry until they return. It is purely a numbers game statistics show that and governments accept.

This is the same in aircraft if we are sending adults mature or otherwise into the ether, once they have the cross-country endorsement that can now fly anywhere in Australia except in controlled airspace** and hope they come back in one piece. The first 200 to 300 hours flying I was brave bold and bullet-proof, but I had to learn and refine my skills, risk assessments, common sense in that time and survive. But here is the rub, what point and what costs in dollar terms do we deem they a RAA pilot is safe to do a cross-country with another life on-board with low hours (you define low hours). I totally agree with other people on the site that it is fine not to be my brother’s keeper and/or criticise every decision a person makes or to bring in some penalty from lack of experience, as we all know we have all made serious mistakes and have mentally prostrated ourselves and beat ourselves with the cat of nine tails that the gods of the air did not end us that day.

I totally agree 4000% that any RAA pilot and for that matter any GA private pilot who has ANY problem or is unsure or has doubts of any kind with the operation of his aircraft due any reason including weather, failing light, whatever, should have no fear whatsoever of getting on the radio to ATC or other pilots in the area for help without any recrimination or penalty from Casa whatsoever. Casa is here to serve us at one level, yes they do a good job with commercial and that is a whole different can of worms dealing with commercial pilots pushing heavy Tin and hundreds of passengers.

Today flying schools are having problems getting new students from what I read in the forums on this I assume is due to the state of the economy and disposable income people have in the most. So of course a student rolls up and says how much is this going to cost for licence for me to be able fly ANYWHERE in Australia. But what is safe for the person sitting next to them.

To refresh some memories, back in the dim dark ages of which I was a part of, we had people buying Wheeler scouts, pterodactyls, etc with two axis controls, which included wing warping, underpowered, flat out speed to stall speed of 10kts difference was good back then, not allowed to fly over 300 feet, not allowed to cross a road. How did they learn to fly? They were given a bit of verbal advice, but in essence they were self-taught and hoped for the best, and the amount of deaths and crashes reflect that. The departments attitude at that time who I spoke to face-to-face said “they have every right to kill themselves we can’t stop that, but you also can’t have two seat trainers”.

But now we have new toys, toys that can climb at a 1000 feet a minute or more, cruise at 120 or 130 kts, some in the pipeline going faster, still speeds are up, weight is up, and I thought I’d never have to say this, you actually have to learn to fly to slow these things down because now we have flaps and retractable landing gear and constant speed propellers.

Yes I would like also to see in my personal opinion, night flying in the new toys that can, and controlled airspace which some of us can do now including myself with the GA background and second licence. But not all want and that is ok too.

You can now fly for example Melbourne to Cairns in two days with some of these new toys, or across Australia which is a whole new kettle of fish.

Having gone off topic slightly but to give you a wide range of what is available that we can fly now and considering we are needing new members to share in our addiction of flying and of this training level given. I state again the Casa including ATC be prepared to help any pilot who deems or is unsure or is in trouble and requires help or advice to be able to call without fear of prosecution or being belittled as a radio call could save their lives otherwise it will always be us against them.

So besides the Casa fear of prosecution of stuffing up which is human nature which must be sorted out sooner or later by the RAA, do we need to rethink the categories of licence we hold in the training syllabus?.

For example, in GA you are not taught on an aircraft with a retractable undercarriage constant and speed units and must progress up after your PPL for example.

For example

CAT 1. Rag Wing - not being rude to our fellow pilots of Rag wing aircraft

CAT2. Example Light Wing type aircraft and others that cruise up to 100 kts

Cat3. Aircraft over 100 kts with all the bells and whistles

This may also cause friction with some flying schools that may not be able to offer a one-stop shop especially if controlled airspace and other things become available to us.

I have run out of time and please forgive any typos or spelling as I did this by using Dragon dictation voice to text.

I agree with a lot of your comments. Some of our aircraft do have a good capability to fly far.

Hours published to attain a Certificate etc, are only minimums. You have to reach a set standard. Having the (endorsements) should cover the required extra skills where a pilot wishes to go that way. You have to be proficient on the newer plane, so each time is a complete review.

Long trips require a lot of planning. How well you do that makes a big difference.

All pilots start as a novice. I suggest making your BFR a good time to INCREASE your skills by arranging some sequence that is something a good pilot should do well and training to get a good standard on it, as part of it. ( Or just do the dual, anytime, if you feel you may be a bit unsure of your standard). Ask your instructor to evaluate how you are going, objectively. Sometimes one doesn't really know what the standard is, and you need another opinion. Try to set a high standard for yourself and evaluate all flights, post flight. It's really up to the individual to do this. IF you build it into the system with mandated assessments, it would be unnecessarily onerous and expensive.Nev