Density altitude strikes again

Dylan Smith wrote:

On 2012-08-20, Dudley Henriques wrote:
On Wednesday, August 15, 2012 6:21:10 AM UTC-4, Dylan Smith wrote:
Never underestimate the power of denial.

Quite to the contrary, our interest lies more on the REASONS a
pilot accepts flight into error.

As I said: never underestimate the power of denial. I don't know the
experience or history of this pilot, but for a moment if we assume he's
taken off with this load and at this density altitude plenty of times.
He knows performance is bad, but he's climbed out fine but slowly.
But this time he forgot to set the mixture for best power, and never
realises it.

After he takes off and then settles back down to the ground, the power
of denial is this. "Oh, I've done this before, I must have just
tried to lift off too early". Then he's off the end of the airfield
but still over flat land. "It'll climb soon, it always has". His
mind is powerfully telling the possibly more sensible part of him
in a loud voice that it'll all come out OK in the end if we just press
on a little further, and to ignore all the signs that in fact things
will not turn out well, in other words, the power of denial.

There's probably some pschological term for this, but every day I
see people unable to resist the power of denial, that it happens to
pilots too is not unusual and we need to recognise it to stop it from
flying us into the trees.

It is quite simple. You identify a point on the runway where you quit
if not off the ground. This should not be before each flight, but
selected before your first use of the airstrip and adhered to come
what may. Ideally a board at the side of the strip marked with the
distance in yards from the threshold.

I have aborted many take-offs in this way, and the great thing is you
don't even have to think about it.