Buzzing Fatality

After I completed my training, by 300 hour 20 year old instructors, (who
taught me soft field for my flight test, while admitting that they had
NEVER landed on anything other than a surfaced runway) I went to a
Northern BC bush pilot with over 20,000 hours and asked him to give me
some lessons.

And on the other side of the globe, I'm doing my current bush pilot training
with Arthie Hearne, a 76 year old pilot that has spent his life flying in
the Australian outback. I agree, pilots should be taught how to land
properly on all sorts of fields. The number of high time commercial so
called pilots that can't land on his main bush strip which is 1000 metres
long when they drop out to visit and wind up going round and heading to
another strip and driving..... let alone the shorter strips. I'm learning
this so I can then fly out of my back yard with the (almost?) level 330
metre and the downhill take off (that on landing runs uphill into the side
of the mountain!) 250 metre one way cross strip that I'm building. Artie
likes the one way strip! We have walked it together and have had a good
discussion on setting it up right. I can imagine doing the same thing with a
300 hour 20 year old instructor!

He taught me what precautionary landings were. Forget the
curriculum BS of inspecting the field from 500 ft. We got down to 3 feet
(2nd pass after checking aerial obstructions) and held it while all the
time looking left - not ahead - over a rutted abandoned dirt strip! We
did short field landings where my old instructors would have been
calling Mayday.

You should try doing them in Australia! First you have to get upside down!

We did shortfield takeoffs that scared the crap out of
me.

Ain't it grand being in control! And can't you get some get up and go
happening while roaring along at full throttle dodging between the
trees!!!!!! Artie just thinks I'm trying to kill him! At least I haven't
ground-looped it!

We did landings that he called just regular landings, on logging
roads and fields, and in wet soil!

That's going to be interesting, and something I'll have to perfect. My red
mud driveway swallows my car after an inch of rain! Will have to irrigate my
strip and get a good strong layer of couch grass so I can use it on the wet
days where the clouds are high enough not to hide my friendly mountains.

Then I switched. I am now taking my
IFR with a 15000 hour jet first officer. So different - don't let the
passengers know that you are climbing, don't let them know that you are
banking - and definitely don't let them feel the landing. And as a
juxtaposition, I am also having some advanced lessons from an
ex-military aeerobatic formation flyer.

I'm going to do mine with 4 times Australian champion Mal Beard. But for my
current flight plans, the IFR isn't so important. (unless it's marked on the
map with a black line with lots of little cross lines!) I'm looking forward
to the day when I can get my landings that smooth.

So I believe that at my current 325 hours, even though I am still very
green by Henriques.Whitt/Gardner standards I have sufficient expertise
and training to be able to comment on this topic.

Even with my little 60 hours, I reckon I can add to the discussion.

And I maintain, Why would we condone buzzing?
It is stupid
It is irresponsible
It is dangerous
Why the hell would we expect anyone to teach how to do it safely?

One day when I get my low level waiver, I'll be able to enjoy the thrill of
doing it in control! Of course, they'll probably take my little bit of paper
of me when I fly backwards and upside down under Story bridge!

This reminds me of the old discussion on formation flight.
Why do we want to fly close enough to someone who is not trained in
formation flight so that we can wave to him?
We just saw him 20 minutes ago, and we'll see him again in 10 minutes
when we land.

We don't need to bloody wave to him from 20ft wingtip to wingtip!

No need to wave to the planes, I'll be waving to the cars on the bridge!

I am seriously starting to doubt whether it's me that is missing
something, or everyone else!

Either way, I'll just keep doing it my way

Me too!

;)

Peter