Mark James Boyd Wrote:
"I've told people the difference between a 2-33 and an ASW-20
is simple. Just take all of the built in safety for the
design and replace it with higher workload and
higher required pilot proficiency for the same level of safety.
As Bob K. is apt to say "it goes like stink." The
downside is the naked edge of safety vs. performance."


Okay...alright...I'm not trying to start a fight, but to claim that an
ASW-20 is the "naked edge of safety" leads me to believe that some
definitions are in order.
I don't own an ASW-20 but I have flown one, and I have to say they fly VERY
nicely. At no point was I left hanging on the brink of safety. I think that
comment is mis-representative of the machine, to say the least.

I guess my whole thought on this topic has not really changed from my first
posting. This weekend I thought about the fact that the way we are all
taught to fly, is mostly focused on "How-To" do the correct thing and that
basis makes it pretty difficult to deal with what to do when things go awry.
In many cases simple little snippets of information that you learn along the
way that you rely on when all the normal stuff goes to hell...Comments about
we ALWAYS do things this way or that way, generally lead to problems later.
We simply cannot teach all the variable adversities that one may encounter,
so we have to teach student to think and analyze and act to the best of
their abilities.

I had a truck driver once who came to work for me. My old truckdriver was
moving up within the company, so we had him take the new hire on the route
the first day to show him where to go...they borrowed my pickup truck
instead of the delivery truck in an effort to save some time. The next day
the new hire set out on his own and at 5 o'clock in the evening I got a call
saying he had hit a bridge and that my delivery truck was badly
broken...upon arriving I found my delivery truck torn into 4 or 5 major
separated components after having been driven under a 7ft8 clearance train
tressle ( the truck was 13ft 6" tall as opposed to the pickup truck which
cleared easily the day before) When asked what in the hell he was
thinking...you guessed it..."That's the way I was shown to go yesterday"
Full steam ahead 45 miles an hour...

Students can be like that, they take what is said far too literally
sometimes and I think that's why I believe that we ought to concentrate more
fully on addressing how they think. All too often, you see an instructor who
settles into his plan ie...rope break in the same place...pattern always the
same, you get to know fairly quickly what they want to see and it is then
easy to comply with... sorta the same way the Designee's are...I'm sure we
all remember the instructors two cents worth..." Okay when he asks you about
this, remember to say this...and oh yeah...don't forget to clear those
turns" I mean..there's the little "wink wink" that let's everyone in the
loop know you're okay and ready to pass...There really wouldn't be much
point to checkrides if instructors sent "maybe he'll be okay's" on to
checkrides.

We had a guy die at our airport last year. His own sailplane, nicer than
anything on the field. Everyone was a little in awe I believe. He took a
"familiarization flight" with one of our CFIG's in our Blanik, who said he
did great. We have a little one way, mountain strip and he self launched and
flew for 4 hours and when he came back, he was high and fast and screwed
things up horribly. He then proceeded to flail around indecisively, until
which time he stalled and spun in dying on impact. Everyone felt
horrible,his logbook revealed he had hardly ANY experience with his ship but
hundreds of hours in Blaniks. Nobody did anything wrong, but in the end, the
real issue is how do we keep it from happening again.

From my perspective, if I were an instructor, I'd be very keen on training a
student the way I wanted them to fly, but then I think the last 4 or 5 hours
would be spent on just doing things differently, and with an open mind, to
see how they react. Induce stress and see how they react. Tha,t after all,
is what I was referring to from my view on student training, making sure we
teach them to think adequately.

We have to teach pilots to think and analyze and act. With a decided eye
towards maximizing their odds for survivability. That's probably a whole lot
tougher than I am aware of. I'm not sure it's covered in the Practical Test
Standards or Airmans Knowledge Tests. But it is perhaps the biggest reason
to be dynamic in our training as opposed to static, which I believe to be a
major difference from teaching JUST to the PTS...and JUST to pass the
Exam...

JUST...my humble opinion.

I take my hat off to all you instructors who give tirelessly to this sport
and please, I hope you take my comments as they are intended, which is
constructive, not destructive.


Respectfully,



Steve.