I don't even bother thinking of the many times when I landed with
either a helicopter or airplane on fumes and sweating it out the whole
way. Stupid? Nope... just a professional working the best way I can
under trying conditions.


I'd have to assume this is military or life-and-death missions. If not, I'd
question your risk/reward equation.

Jose

Jose
Well, you are polite about it and I appreciate that! If you think
about it, every time a pilot takes off it can very quickly turn into a
life or death situation. I've experienced 18 actual emergencies in
flight that I can relate to and have entered in my logbook. Most were
mechanical failures of some sort and I'm thankful that only one person
aside from myself was ever injured in the process....


The way you had phrased it (and the context in which you replied) made it seem
as if flying an airplane on fumes was just a routine part of professional
flying. I'll grant that the more one flies, the more one runs into the edge of
the envelope simply due to greater exposure. This is true for mechanical
failures that are not the pilots fault as well as for errors in judgement by
the pilot in question. More flying, more chances to make errors. Fact of
life.

The comment however appears to portray a cavalier attitude, and this raised my
eyebrow. You make a reference to "trying conditions" leaving it to our
imagination what they may be - what conditions would lead you to continue to
fly on fumes. I can think of a few (ocean crossing with unexpected headwinds,
fuel leak over mountains, bombing or rescue run in wartime, stuff like that), h
owever in most cases landing at the nearest airport to fuel up long before the
one becmes reliant on Lady Luck would be indicated. Not doing so under those
circumstances would have been called "stupid" in the accident investigation,
no?


To this point I have tried to make a calculated decision for
any given flight and if it was risky I did even more thought
to determine if it could be done safely.


We all do that. In my case, when the outcome (though lucky) takes me too close
to the edge, I do not treat it as "just a pilot working the best way I can..."
I ask myself "what the #$* was I thinking??" and analyse the answer.


....Yet I have made over a hundred free fall parachute jumps and see
no particular danger in that as long as I pay attention to my
equipment and conditions.


What would your reaction on rec.parachuting be to somebody who said that he
can't even count the times he's landed with a chute that lines missing, holes,
or in (too) high winds? (I've only jumped once, back before Lake Elsinore
flooded the airport, so don't really know the edge of that envelope)

It is that to which I was reacting.

Jose


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