Eclipse 500

"Don Hammer" wrote

It is my observation and the NTSB's that it is the non-professional
pilots who lack the experience and singular focus of professional
pilots that find themselves victims of those accidents, through no
fault of the airframe.

If by "professional" you mean full-time pilot, then I believe this is your
opinion and not that of NTSB.

If by "professional" you mean a pilot who is well-trained, proficient,
well-equipped, and following sound risk management procedures, then yes, you
are correct.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan

www.flyimc.com

If by "professional" you mean a pilot who is well-trained, proficient,
well-equipped, and following sound risk management procedures, then yes, you
are correct.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan

www.flyimc.com


Richard,

I am in the business of consulting in corporate aviation and have for
the last ten years. As a company we own a Citation that we will soon
sell.

The point I am trying to make is even though some of us have as much
as 15,000 hours in jet aircraft, our focus is on the business we are
doing and not 100% flying. I can guarantee that none of us feel as
sharp as when we flew 400-500 hours per year and that was all we did.

We fly the Citation less than 100 hours per year and always hire a
full time contractor as PIC when we go. There is a time when the ego
has to stay home.

Are we well trained? - very
Proficient? - At 100 hours per year, not likely
Follow sound risk management procedures? - You bet

The issue is, we are dedicated to our business and that business is
not flying aircraft. Can we turn off that business when we get in the
cockpit? Again, not likely. If we flew full time our total focus
would be the job at hand.

By professional I mean someone that does it for a living. My fear is
that there are a lot of big egos with big pocketbooks and have their
deposit down that have no business flying around in a jet . All week
they will be cutting on people and think they are professional because
they went to school and can afford to make it to Florida on the
weekend.

Don

You say a number of things in your reply.

Are there people who can afford more plane than they can safely fly? Of
course.

Are there full-time professional pilots who are not appropriately proficient
or skilled to fly their planes? Of course.

The question I am asking here is about your comment about full-time vs.
non-full-time pilots. Are you suggesting that no one can be a safe and
proficient pilot without flying 400-500 hours per year? And are you
suggesting that the NTSB agrees with you in this regard? If so, I strongly
disagree with you on both counts; I believe you are over-generalizing to an
unreasonable extent.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
news:1120588811.57bca5da2d4bbba0ee41b1af085a611a@t eranews...

You say a number of things in your reply.

Are there people who can afford more plane than they can safely fly? Of
course.

Are there full-time professional pilots who are not appropriately
proficient or skilled to fly their planes? Of course.

The question I am asking here is about your comment about full-time vs.
non-full-time pilots. Are you suggesting that no one can be a safe and
proficient pilot without flying 400-500 hours per year? And are you
suggesting that the NTSB agrees with you in this regard? If so, I
strongly disagree with you on both counts; I believe you are
over-generalizing to an unreasonable extent.

I think he is saying your not going to be safe in a 400mph + plane. You may
be fine in a 200 mph but a 400mph jet is a different story.
--------------------
Richard Kaplan

www.flyimc.com

On Tue, 5 Jul 2005 14:40:13 -0400, "Richard Kaplan"
wrote:


You say a number of things in your reply.

Are there people who can afford more plane than they can safely fly? Of
course.

Are there full-time professional pilots who are not appropriately proficient
or skilled to fly their planes? Of course.

The question I am asking here is about your comment about full-time vs.
non-full-time pilots. Are you suggesting that no one can be a safe and
proficient pilot without flying 400-500 hours per year? And are you
suggesting that the NTSB agrees with you in this regard? If so, I strongly
disagree with you on both counts; I believe you are over-generalizing to an
unreasonable extent.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan

www.flyimc.com


I guess you don't understand what I'm saying or maybe I'm not clear
enough or maybe I am over-generalizing. I'm talking about high
performance aircraft and pilots that don't spend 100% of their working
life with them. I don't know about you, but given the chance, I'd
feel safer with the 100% pilot that fly's 400 per year than some
lawyer or business man that fly's for pleasure when he has the
opportunity, no matter how well trained and conscientious. I think
your insurance man as well as accident statistics would agree with me.
Hell - you may be God's gift to aviation and it doesn't apply to you.
I don't have a clue.

As to the NTSB, I was referring to their conclusions to the
certification review of the Piper Malibu after many came apart in the
clouds. They determined that the decisions made by the pilots to fly
through convective air currents caused the wings to come off through
no fault of the airframe.

Now I really don't know how many of those were flown by professional
pilots, but my best guess would be zero. Guys that do this stuff for
a living give CB's a wide berth or they cease to make a living at all.

My observations come from being in the industry and spending the best
part of 35 years in corporate jets. I think I have a different
perspective (maybe not a correct one) than a light aircraft flight
instructor.

I'm sure the whole field is full of wanna-be's that would just love to
fly a jet and because of the low price will be able to afford them.
Having been-there-done-that for most of my life, those are the ones
that concern me. GA has take some big hits lately in the press, but
you haven't seen anything yet until a VLJ with another big ego
Kennedy-type guy goes smoking through a rather large house in
Westchester County, NY. Enough political pressure from the class-envy
masses and we'll all have to park our toys.

Nuff said!!!

That puts things into a bit of perspective but let us clarify this a bit
more.

First of all, let us talk about high performance piston singles. No doubt
there are pilots with poor judgment there. But there is no way you can tell
me it is not possible for a businessman who takes piloting very seriously to
fly a Malibu or P210 or other high performance piston single 100 hours per
year to a professional and highly acceptable level. I reject the argument
that someone cannot do this well because he has other things on his mind --
if that were the case then we should ground airline pilots going through
divorce and we should also ground all airline pilots this year since they
all have huge financial stress. Along these lines, there is no NTSB or
other document that has ever suggested a 100-hour per year pilot who attends
recurrent training cannot safely fly a Malibu - no such document exists.

Yes, I am a light aircraft instructor. I also fly a high performance piston
single for personal trips. I fly over 400 hours per year. It so happens I
am also a physician. Yes, I believe I fly to professional standards. And
I know lots of my students who are entrepreneurs or partners in various
professional practices and fly 100-150 hours per year and whom I would
entrust to fly my children. And I know such pilots whom I would prefer not
to fly with. Each case is different -- let us not generalize.

As for the new light jets, I will say upfront that I do not have experience
with jets so I will to some extent defer to your judgment. It certainly is
intuitively understandable that the skills to fly at 400 knots are quite
different than those to fly at 200 knots. I do have lots of concern
regarding how a piston pilot will be able to step-up to such jets; perhaps
it will require an extensive mentoring process by which a new VLJ pilot
flies as copilot for a year or so after buying such a jet. Perhaps you can
suggest other training and proficiency standards. I suspect the "dropout"
rate for new VLJ pilots will be a lot higher than for new high performance
piston pilots. Set the bar as high as you want but I think it is quite
unfair to overgeneralize and say de facto that a 100 hour per year pilot
cannot be professional in flying a VLJ; set your criteria based on
performance, not by an unrealistically high minimum number of annual flight
hours and certainly not by some stereotype of who you think is qualified to
be a pilot.


--------------------
Richard Kaplan

www.flyimc.com

On Tue, 5 Jul 2005 21:52:24 -0400, "Richard Kaplan"
wrote:

That puts things into a bit of perspective but let us clarify this a bit
more.

First of all, let us talk about high performance piston singles. No doubt
there are pilots with poor judgment there. But there is no way you can tell
me it is not possible for a businessman who takes piloting very seriously to

Yes, I am a light aircraft instructor. I also fly a high performance piston
single for personal trips. I fly over 400 hours per year. It so happens I
am also a physician. Yes, I believe I fly to professional standards. And
I know lots of my students who are entrepreneurs or partners in various
professional practices and fly 100-150 hours per year and whom I would
entrust to fly my children. And I know such pilots whom I would prefer not
to fly with. Each case is different -- let us not generalize.


Love this forum for the conversation it stimulates.

I have two physician friends that are pilots.

#1 - Great pilot. Owns a homebuilt Glassair and a glider. No ego.
You have to ask him what he does for a living to find out. Flys maybe
150 hours a year. I'd go to the moon with him. Takes flying very
seriously.

#2 - Scares the hell out of me. Owns a Bonanza and will probably
partner with another on an Eclipse if he lives long enough to get it.
Flys about 250 hours a year commuting to his other house and boat.
Eat up with the god syndrom and makes stupid decisions in most
everything he does except when he's cutting on someone.

#1 and possibly guys like you don't worry me a bit. My concern is
until the VLJ's come out, all the #2's killing themselves in light
aircraft have been off the public radar screen. As soon as that
starts happening in jets things will not be the same.

Think we have beat this to death. Good luck and keep the blue side
up.

P.S. Sometimes there is truth in humor. One of my favorites -

The three most dangerous things in aviation are -

1. A doctor in a Bonanza
2. A baseball player in a Citation
3. Two flight instructors in a Cessna 150

Have a good one.

So in the end we agree... there are good and bad apples in every bunch.
Judge each by its merits and do not generalize.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan

www.flyimc.com