"Marco Rispoli" wrote
Between the hours of 50 and 350 you can find about 80% of all pilot-cause
accidents.

And probably 80% of pilots, too. Look around the airport. Ask people
you know (CFI's excluded - I'll get to them later) how many hours they
have. Betcha 4 out of 5 will have between 50 and 350.

After 350 hours there's a SHARP drop.

There's a sharp drop in the number of pilots, too. After 350 hours,
most pilots either go pro, or quit. Going pro at that point generally
means doing the CFI thing - getting into the right seat of a trainer
and going around the pattern. It's pretty hard to get hurt if you
never do anything.

The numbers that you're citing are pretty meaningless unless you know
the experience level distribution of the active pilots. The entire
killing zone conjecture is more than likely just bad statistics.

I am in the Killing Zone and I have a good 300 hours to go. 3 years in the
killing zone ...

Or one year. Or ten. All depends on how much you fly.

Statistics indicate that pilots that fly less often, crash more often.

I don't know that statistics are available to prove this, but I
believe it. Why? Because every aviation insurance company I've ever
dealt with believed it, and reflected this in the rate structure.
These guys have to be right most of the time to turn a profit. A guy
who writes a book just has to sound convincing. Guess who I believe?

It stands to reason that if you cover a plane that flies 20 hours a
year, that's a lot less exposure than covering one that flies 200.
But all else being equal, you will get a better annual (not per-hour)
rate if you fly your airplane 200 hours a year instead of 20. The
company that writes my insurance won't even talk to you if you have
the same make and model and don't fly it at least 60 hours a year, and
they're happier to see 160.

Well ... I am not ready. I don't why I am not ready and I don't know what I
am missing but at 75 hours I feel more uncomfortable than I used to feel at
50 or even 25.

You have a better idea of how much you don't know. Congratulations -
that's the first step on the road to learning. But you can't learn if
you don't fly.

At 75 hours I feel like crap in fact and the more I fly the more I see
things or think about things or consider things that I never thought about
before.

At 1700+ hours, the same happens to me. You can never know
everything, you can never be prepared for every possible eventuality.
That's the great lie of aviation training - you can't be trained for
everything and you can't be trained for the unexpected. What you
actually need is an aviation education - a way of thinking that
prepares you to solve unexpected problems and to anticipate situations
you were not specifically prepared for. Very little of that happens
at the private pilot level, because most students aren't interested
and most CFI's aren't capable. So what do you do? Well, you think
and you discuss. That's really what hangar flying is supposed to be
about.

REmember that time that i was in poor visibility? 10 miles? What if I had
lost an engine then? My first reaction at that time was to get closer to the
ground so I could see more ... and in fact I did. It did help ... but by
getting closer to the ground (flat ground ... safe) I was also giving up
precious altitude to glide to a safe spot ... and under me there was nothing
but trees.

I did think about it at the time but the idea of hugging the ground and
getting more visibility was more of a priority for me ...

And I think your priorities may have been correct. Flying around in
low vis puts you at increased risk of inadvertent cloud penetration
and possible loss of control. Compared to this, the risk of engine
failure may be smaller. No flight can be made risk-free; it is your
job as pilot in command first to decide how the flight can be
completed with minimum risk and then to decide if that risk level is
justified by the rewards of making the flight.

Then after the flight was over ... rational thought started creeping back in
and i started wondering what the hell was I thinking ... I had good
visibility anyway ... I was just uncomfortable in the haze and got
comofortable closer to the ground but traded safety for comfort.

Did you really? Was the visibility good enough? Then perhaps you
made a poor decision. Think you would have been the first? 90% of
pilots admit to having made more than a few bad decisions. The other
10% are lying.

Oh ... not a big deal I suppose ... the engine did work. The haze wasn't so
bad. I made it there and back.

But I dont' feel good about it. What I don't feel good about is that I let
my sense of comfort take over rational thought.

You are second-guessing your decision and discussing it with others.
That's part of what accelerates the learning process. Experience
isn't just what happens to you - it's also what you get out of it.

I'm all for rational thought, but don't discount the value of
listening to your gut as well. When you're uncomfortable, there is
usually a reason.

Having said all that - if the terrain was hostile you likely made a
suboptimal decision. OK. Don't do it again. Next time, carefully
weigh your options and decide what's the safest way to complete the
flight. You are not likely to make this same mistake again, because
you've beaten this one to death. Will you make others? Most
certainly. But if this one is any indication, they won't be too
terribly serious and you will learn from them.

Why am I uncomfortable? Is it because I never experienced so much haze and a
visibility less than 20 miles? then it's safe.

Maybe. There are real risks associated with reduced visibility,
especially for someone who is not experienced in it and not prepared
to transition to instruments if the need should arise.

There is no such thing as safe. There are only degrees of risk.

On the other hand, I think the risk you took was reasonable. Flying
at 2000 ft isn't a big deal. I would have happily done the same when
I had 75 hours.

The ground is what hurts. Low level flying is NOT the answer. Plenty of
telephone poles to smack into.

Sometimes low level flying is the only answer. Obstacles are a lot
less dangerous when you can see them clearly. You have to go VERY low
for telephone poles (and even cell towers) to be an issue.

So I land and one more cross country was over ... a few weeks ago. 4 hours
more on my log book.

And experience was acquired. You made a mistake. You learned from
it. That is what experience is all about. Would it have been better
to wait for blue skies to make that flight? You would have learned
little or nothing.

I am a paranoid flyer.

I have a cousin who is a physician with a professional insterest in
psychiatry. Once, on a visit, I took him and some other people
flying. The plane was parked outside, at an airport I rarely use and
whose line boys I really don't trust. Prior to our flight, I
carefully went around the airplane. I checked for dents that should
not be there, damage to the nose gear, fuel and oil levels, security
of stabilator, motion in the ailerons - a normal preflight for those
times when the plane has been out of my control. My cousin wathced me
carefully. Finally, I turned around and said "A certain amount of
paranoia is healthy in a pilot." He could not help but agree.

We were going to do the Hudson River tour, but wound up making only a
short flight in the vicinity of the airport. I judged the ceilings
too low and the visibility insufficient to fly 25 short miles to the
Hudson over terrain that wasn't all that flat and none too familiar.
Had I been more familiar with the area and flying a slower airplane, I
might have felt differently. I'm still not sure the decision was the
right one.

What I'm trying to tell you is that the paranoia never goes away - or
at least it should not.

Recently I found out about a failure mode in my airplane - a way that
sloppy maintenance on the flap system could kill me. It has killed
before. I'm not that concerned about it now - I've practiced the
recovery procedure and I am now proficient in it. Except that an
engine failure that occurs during the recovery procedure will be very,
very bad. But it could have been really ugly had it happened to me
unexpectedly. It was ugly for someone else. I've owned that airplane
for over three years and have logged over 600 hours in it, after
getting the best available training. Nothing is 100%.

I am sprouting eyes in the back of my head and I am
getting severly suspcious of anything out of the ordinary.

Good. You live longer that way.

This past weekend was beautiful.

But: the wind was 11 gusty 18 (which I can handle ... i handled 25 gusty to
35 direct crosswind at Linden. Nothign I want to do ever again ... but 7
knots of gust factor makes me mildly uncomfortable).

But: that weekend we were supposed to fly to cape may

But: I was supposed to fly with my wife and a friend of hers that I never
met before.

But: moderate turbulence on the way was forecasted

But: the plane we were supposed to fly (Piper 180) has a "limp" right shock
absorber and leaky breaks. Nothing I can't handle ... I can land without
breaks. I usually land well within 1000 feet of runway barely touching the
breaks.

All of the facts above, taken singularly would not present a problem for me.

I can take gusts. I can take turbulence. I can take a relatively long cross
country. I can take strangers in the plane. I can take limp landing gears
and leaky breaks.

One at a time.

Two of the above would make me think twice.

All of them togheter are WAY outside of my envelope.

Please keep in mind that none of the things were really THAT bad. I knew
that. 11 gusty to 18 is nothing. I have done it plenty of times and the
Piper 180 is VERY stable in crossiwinds (I used to do this in the 172 all
the time which is a lot worse). My wife's friend flies in puddle jumpers all
the time and according to her she can take any weather and she is not scared
at all.

The brakes are leaky but I don't generally use brakes other than if I am in
a hurry to get out of the runway in case people need to land.

I can land on one wheel (keeping the limp wheel off the runway for a bit)
and my landings are generally soft (especially lately).

But all of these factors just made me stop in my tracks and just say No.

I am reading this book and I am thinking: am I taking this too seriously?

Am I refusing to fly when it's perfectly safe to do so?

Am I being too careful?

But the most pressing question that is gravitating my mind is: am I
"damaging" my experience by avoiding danger and risk and thus never learning
how to deal with it? Is it wise not to push the envelope at all? Wouldn't it
be wiser to push a little bit more and just learn how to deal with the
problems? I mean ... you gotta see the problem and solve it in order to
learn anything and if I am too defensive of a flyer ... I will never learn.

Give all of the above considerations ... should I have flown last weekend
instead?

I am still thinking about this ... and i don't know that i have the answer
... yet. And I don't know if I will have the answer out of the killing zone
... at 400 hours. Or 1000.

Everything you say makes perfect sense. You've made excellent
arguments for both decisions. Both the risks of the go decision
(gusty crosswinds plus weak gear plus bad brakes plus factors likely
to degrade pilot performance) and the risks of the no-go decision
(limiting your expereince by avoiding the edges of the envelope) are
very, very real. There is not a damn thing I can tell you about this,
with my 1700+ hours of experience, that you have not already
considered. We can discuss the fine points of the risks, but for 75
hours I think your asessment is very, very solid.

Are you taking the book too seriously? Yes and no. The 50 to 350
hours thing is bogus, because the statistics are bogus. Sure, that's
the steep part of the learning curve - but with solid training there's
no reason you should not get through that. You've been taught to
handle 25G35, so odds are your handwork is fine. You're asking all
the right questions, so there's nothing wrong with your headwork.

Frankly, I don't think you made a bad call on that trip. Too many
little things that weren't right. I think I would have made the same
decision at your experience level. Would you have made it? Probably.
And maybe you would have caught a gust at just the wrong time and
thumped on the gear, and the weak oleo would have chosen that time to
blow an already leaky seal or Schreder valve and collapse, and with
weak brakes you would not have had the control to keep it on the
runway in the crosswind. Or worse, those weak brakes could have
locked up - asymmetrically. Had it happen once - took everything I
had to keep it on the runway. I had over 1000 hours then. Rental
planes are mostly junk, and I won't tell you never to fly one that's
less that perfect (else you would never fly) but why stack the odds
against yourself by taking a plane with known deficiencies in
conditions that will maximally aggravate those deficincies?

Does this mean you should never push your envelope? Not at all. The
risk of not learning because you never leave your comfort zone is very
real. But from where I'm sitting, it sounds like you're making
reasonable choices. Yes, you're sweating them all and second-guessing
every one of them after the fact, but that's healthy. It's
accelerating your development as a pilot.

The risks of flying small airplanes are very, very real. The drive to
the airport is the safest part of the trip, not the most dangerous.
We lose one in 2000 of our number to crashes every year, and nearly
every one of those pilots launched confident that he would return to
earth safely. I can't tell you this is safe.

What I can tell you is that from where I'm sitting, with over a decade
of flying behind me, it sounds to me like you're thinking this through
- and that has to count for something.

Michael