The new Fork Tailed Doctor Killer

I had an interesting event years ago with an owner of a light twin who took
off from FXE to go to PMP, just after lift off, reach down to pull the gear
up, stopped and said, "you know what, It's only 7 miles to PMP, I'm just
going to leave the gear down". Ok, sounds ok to me. There was a quick call
to PMP, two turns later and we are downwind. He does a GUMPS check and
RETRACTS the gear. I said to myself, this is going to be interesting. He's
trying to slow the airplane down but hasn't put it together that he just got
rid of a lot of drag. He turns final, still over speed, and I ask him to
do another GUMP check and he misses it again. Halfway down final I tell him
to call the tower and tell him we are going around. He does, initiates a go
around procedure and this time, on climb out, realizes the gear is already
up. What a surprise look on his face. So after we got on the ground and
started talking about this, we wondered what it was that he was actually
training himself to do. He was not correlating gear up - take off, gear
down -landing. Nor was he correlating "three green - gear down". All he was
training himself to do was to "flip the switch into the other position". We
talked about using rituals in order to reduce accidents, like when you take
off, bring the gear up, no matter how close the next landing will be. I
also have never heard of one of my students land gear up since I teach 3
checks. 1 full check list before pattern, 2 enter pattern GUMPS list, and 3
short final say "three green".
--
Regards, BobF.
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...
Roger wrote:
On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:41:05 -0400, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Roger wrote:
On Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:49:23 -0400, Dudley Henriques
wrote:


And multitasking. Why is it that approach always manages to squeeze a
5 minute transmission into 20 seconds telling you what to do for the
next 15 minutes right at the outer marker when you are busier than a
cat covering crap on a marble floor and hauling dirt two miles. This
can be particularly interesting if there is only one ILS, it has a
tail wind of 20 knots and you have to circle to land WHILE departing
traffic is going the other direction.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
This is all true, and leans heavily into the IFR experience for all
airplanes, especially the high performance aircraft.
What I had in mind was much more basic; the getting out there and
practicing with the airplane in the area where a lot of the accidents
actually happen.....basic flying.

Agreed. If the pilot is proficient enough to do the approaches,
holds, and other *stuff* dished out by ATC around the airports (IE
maneuvers under a heavy work load) the cross country part should be
easy.

I would think the majority of accidents occur while maneuvering near
the airports regardless of whether the pilot is flying a Cessna 172 or
a Cirrus SR-22. Things just happen faster and the workload is higher
in the high performance stuff.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Something our human factors accident workgroup came up with early on is
the tie in between accidents and a breakdown in the basics somewhere in
the accident chain .
On the face of this statement, this might seem obvious, but it's amazing
how this link shows up under scrutiny in every accident involving human
factors.

--
Dudley Henriques