TV Interview With Pilot From ADIZ Incident

But I don't understand why you leap to the conclusion that the student
*didn't* take an interest in planning the flight.

I'll agree with you that I did jump to that conclusion. Some of the things
that I do automatically when taking trips, I am sure other people do not do
at all. I should not begin to guess what type of prep the student pilot
did. I guess two pilots planning the same route could get lost in
unfamiliar territory and neither realize where they were. I would hope that
two heads and four eyes would tilt the odds more in their favor, perhaps
not. What irritates me the most is that Shaeffer hasn't shown us that he
understood the complexity of the area other than the Camp David P area.
That relaxed attitude would not be something that I would want a student
exposed to when flying in that airspace. Maybe more will come out and we
won't have to speculate, you make some valid points.

Jim

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
If they were willing, I think it would be of great benefit for a magazine
like AOPA's Flight Training to interview both of them and ask them
questions
from the pilots, students, and instructors point of view, rather than just
the news media interviewing them from the talking head "you almost got
shot
down and could have killed the President" point of view.

Agreed.

I guess two pilots planning the same route could get lost in
unfamiliar territory and neither realize where they were. I would hope
that
two heads and four eyes would tilt the odds more in their favor, perhaps
not. What irritates me the most is that Shaeffer hasn't shown us that he
understood the complexity of the area other than the Camp David P area.

Yup, that's certainly true. And he seems to have been off course by a good
45 degrees, which is hard to understand.

On the other hand, I once got 30 degrees off course when I plotted a course
while flying, and mistakenly subtracted magnetic variation instead of adding
it. If they did something like that, and also had a crosswind that was
different than forecast, and maybe had some unnoticed gyro drift and some
sloppiness in holding their heading (since the student was flying), and if
they had the bad luck for all those factors to align in the same direction,
and if their pilotage sucked and/or the landmarks were sparse until they
were deeply inside the ADIZ...

--Gary

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
I expect any student pilot passengers that ride along on cross country
flights with me to at least show the initiative and interest to figure out
where we're going, how long it will take, how we're going to get there,
and
if we stray off course could we end up running into anything or possibly
get
shot down by F16's. If they don't want to do the work at home, we can do
it

I think Gary and Jim both got good point, but definitely the real experience
of the student pilot is an important factor. If he doesn't know anything
about navigation yet, maybe its ok, but if he does, he should have shown
iniciative to try to see the flight plan and see what's going on. At least
whenI started doing crosscountries, I became very interested in the routings
to take.
Now as a pilot, I always try to contribute positively with the PIC, and I'll
even tell him that I think to do something is a bad idea if I really think
it is. I know I'm not the PIC, but still I have a responsibility with myself
and my family and my friend, the PIC, to try to help as much as I can. The
fact that I am not PIC doesnt mean that I am going to ignore whatever I
think its dangerous just because I'm not PIC.