Mxsmanic wrote:

Jay Honeck writes:

The "complexity" of GA is a myth that has been foisted upon the general
public by the "big-watch" pilots who simply LOVE to flaunt how cool
they are under pressure.

No, the complexity of aviation--including general aviation--is a
reality, for better or for worse.

Just compare the instrument panel in just about any cockpit with the
instrument panel in just about any automobile, and this becomes
obvious. The most complex automobiles have roughly the same number of
dials as the simplest aircraft.

The lack of dials isn't really a good measure. My friends dump truck has
more dials than my Cessna. He drives on the same roads as my car. Does that
mean driving a dump truck is more complex than flying?

snip


Some pilots exaggerate the complexity of flying, just as some pilots
attach mystical significance to actual experience in a real aircraft
(as opposed to simulation). However, flying is still complex enough
even without these exaggerations.

It's also, BTW, one of the major reasons GA is floundering. Too many
people think they're not "good enough" to be a pilot.

It's only one of many reasons. The cost of flying in time and money
puts off a great many people, as do medical requirements and safety
issues.

Why? Quite frankly, too many of us love to portray the steely-eyed
God-pilot, laughing in the face of death and pressing on to our final
destination at all costs -- it makes picking up chicks easier.

Are there still women falling for that?

I wish.....


snip

This involved:

1. Pre-flighting the plane (a walk around, with oil and fuel checks)
2. Loading the plane
3. Starting the plane
4. Programming two GPS's
5. Taking off, and turning to course.
6. Climbing to altitude
7. Following the course (as if we need it -- I've done this flight a
hundred times) to Racine.
8. Land.


snip


Going there in a car involves:


What happened to checking tire pressures, oil and fuel levels, and lights?
Just because it's largely not done doesn't mean a "predrive" inspection
isn't a good idea. In fact, it's usually mentioned in the owner's manual.
You did read that didn't you?

1. Loading the car.
2. Starting the car.
3. Driving onto the highway and following the signs.

Which signs? Last time we went by car there were no signs that said
"Grandma's House". IOW, we had to navigate too.

You also left out the part where you had to apply skills/techniques like
merging, judging braking distances, and general car control at freeway
speeds.

4. Pulling into a parking place.

Judging by our lot here at work it's a lot tougher than you make it out to
be...... ;-)



As you can see, it's a lot easier than flying.

I agree it's easier but...... If we treated driving the same we treated
flying it would appear more complex.


I'll give you this: The TRAINING to become a pilot is difficult -- and
commercial piloting is, of course, a WHOLE different kettle of fish.
They must fly in all weather, into difficult airports -- whereas I get
to choose the times, places and weather in which I fly.

Training is obstacle enough already. And if flying isn't complex, why
is the training so complex and difficult?


I don't suggest that flying and driving are equal in complexity. I do think
that people tend to gloss over some of the complexity in driving, at least
in driving well. We drive so much that some of the skills needed become so
ingrained that we don't consider them anymore.

And to use training as the yardstick isn't fair either. Driver's Ed doesn't
include map reading skills, lost procedure skills, or anything else that
has to do with navigation.

Far less time is spent on regulations. Even less is spent on regulations
that have might have changed recently [1].

Pilots spend considerable time learning communications procedures.
Apparently the Drivers Ed equivalent has been eliminated altogether as I
haven't seen much proper use of turn signals in quite a while.

Emergency procedures do not get practiced. We are told to "steer into a
skid" but we never practice it. Same with threshold braking, even in todays
world of ABS it is still worth doing.

No (formal) mention of weather is included in Drivers Ed. Particularly,
there is nothing taught about ice and fog.

Systems are largely untouched. Pilots are taught about fuel systems,
electrics, etc. even though there is little they can do about them while
airborne. Besides knowing how to change tanks, there is probably little
value to actual flying in me knowing how my fuel system's plumbing minutia.

As the old saying goes, flying is much more intolerant of error than
driving. We tolerate bad driving, much of which is due to inattention, to
the point where we believe it is so much easier than something that
requires constant attention to be done well.

Perhaps if we started investigating car accidents and issuing final cause
and recommendations like the NTSB does we would cut down on them. Of course
that would make driving more complex.

[1] An example that illustrates the different mind sets that leads to much
of what this discussion is all about:

An intersection near us that was a two way stop was recently rebuilt as a
roundabout. A good idea since the traffic, both in and out of the
intersection, was about equal. The drawback of course is that few of the
drivers using it have the first clue about how a roundabout is supposed to
work.

If driving were treated the same as flying there would be a campaign to
educate the drivers in proper use of the roundabout. I drive in Europe and
so I know you're supposed to yield to traffic in the roundabout and signal
your exit from it. I get mad when I see someone miss-using it, but I really
can't expect folks around here to know this because there has been zero
effort to explain it to them.



--
Frank....H