On Sunday, November 17, 2019 at 5:49:19 AM UTC-8, RR wrote:
Tom,Iam not sure I know what you mean by **** poor aitmanship. Do you mean poor stick and rudder skills? Someone that would be considered an inexperienced pilot? As noted, we dont realy know what exactly happend in most fatal accidents, as there are no survivors to interview.

The ones that hit home for me are very experienced pilots, who I asume were using their excellent stick and rudder skills but that could not save them. I believe in most of those cases, it was the erosion of personal margins that got them in trouble. For each one of those accidents I have added to my own margins.

The old saying The superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid needing to use his superior flying skills...

Airmanship is the ability to competently command an aircraft in all phases of flight, including flying, preparation and judgment. If you skillfully fly yourself into a box canyon and crash, you exhibited poor judgment, therefore poor airmanship. If you stall and spin an aircraft turning final, that's poor airmanship. If you take off w/o checking the weather an fly skillfully into a thunderstorm, that's poor airmanship.

Tom