(Snowbird) wrote
once you remove "it's illegal" as a restraining factor,
how will you second-guess or sanity check your judgement?

I have a real problem with the idea that legality is a valid sanity
check on your judgment.

2) I try to use words very carefully. Where did I say anything
to the effect that legality is a valid sanity check on an
individual's judgement?

See above. I can't imagine how it can be read other than to imply
that legality is a valid sanity check on an individual's judgment.

FTR, I look at it this way. Legal is often a least common denominator.
There are a number of things which are legal, which aren't particularly
safe. Including, for example, instrument-rated pilots who aren't
particularly proficient flying IFR in IMC. But asking "is it legal?"
gives one a first-pass approximation, that someone somewhere thought
that under some circumstances, the operation one proposes wasn't
horrendously unsafe.

Well, sure. But the important question to ask is this - WHO was this
someone who thought so? What do we know about him? Why should we
value his opinion?

If some random person hanging around the airport thought that under
some circumstances the operation you propose wasn't horrendously
unsafe, would that mean anything to you? How about the reverse?

Your argument stands or falls on the assumption that because this
person works for the FAA writing regulations, that makes his opinion
somehow more valid than the opinion of a random person hanging around
the airport. That assumption is exactly what I'm disputing.

All we really know about this person is that he works for the FAA.
This generally means that he attempted to make a living in aviation in
the private sector, failed to do so, and is now working for the
government. Thus my initial reaction is to assume that his opinion is
going to be less valid than average, not more.

To take that a step further - it's not that I believe that having
personal flying totally unregulated is the ideal case. I don't
believe that at all, though I can make a reasonable case that it would
not be nearly as bad as you might think, simply by comparing it to
other activities. What I do believe is that the people (it all comes
down to people in the end) doing the regulating are so incompetent and
so unethical (see http://www.avweb.com/pdf/brinell_report.pdf for
examples) that their net impact on safety is negative, and that having
nothing at all, while far from optimal, would still be better.

There are arguably a number of things which aren't legal, but
probably are relatively safe. Such as, for example, a non-IR pilot
who is proficient and familiar with the system flying IFR in IMC.
But if such a pilot contemplates doing so, who *is* sanity-checking
their judgement?

Really, the same person who is sanity-checking the judgment of an
instrument rated pilot who got his rating years ago - he and nobody
else. As long as you go under the hood in bright daylight with a
safety pilot and do six full-panel ILS approaches and one hold every
six months, you're good to go. And the safety pilot need not even be
instrument rated or qualified in the aircraft. The point is that
legality does nothing whatsoever to keep the unqualified out of the
clouds. In the end, the pilot makes his own judgments.

As an aside, I recently did an ICC. I will note that the CFII/MEI was
ready to sign me off LONG before I felt that I had reached adequate
proficiency. Of course he was more than willing to fly additional
hours while I practiced - multi time is like gold to these guys - but
what that means is that even for someone like me, who does get
recurrent training and really meets not only the letter but the spirit
of the IFR currency regs, there is still nobody sanity checking my
judgment.

And if they are proficient
and familiar enough to fly in the system safely, why not get the
"sanity check" from the system? Why not bone up, hone up, take the
tests and do so legally?

Any number of reasons. Ones that I'm familiar with (these are all
real cases) include reasons like:

Not enough instrument hours for IFR checkride. I know LOTS of
instrument rated pilots who had about 5-10 hours solo actual before
the checkride, but are now rated.

Airplane won't pass pitot-static check - quite possibly because it
never had a static port. That's common for the earlier airplanes. On
low speed non-pressurized airplanes, it's simply not an issue, but the
rules are the rules.

Got ****ed off and didn't complete training. This is more common than
you might imagine, and is IMO mostly a reflection on the largely
incompetent CFII community. This is one of those 'personality issues'
that I've observed in those who have little or no formal education.

Most formal education has a high bull**** factor; if you want to get
the dergee you WILL learn to do what you're told, even when you know
it's pointless, and to do it on time and according to arbitrary and
often suboptimal procedures. Some people learn to tolerate it, and
some don't. Most employers prefer (and many require) college
graduates not for the degree content (a surprising amount, including
all major airlines, absolutely don't care what the degree is in) but
for the proven ability to put up with pointless bull**** and smile
while doing it.

Your question of "If you can do it, why not jump through the hoops and
do it legally?" is basically asking why everyone can't put up with
pointless bull**** and smile while doing it just because you can.

Michael