Knee Jerks

Jose wrote:

Easily could happen to a Good Pilot. Even Good Pilots make mistakes.
Mistakes don't always kill; when they don't they are no less a mistake.
When they do, they are far less fortunate.

What is your definition of a good pilot?

Matt

What is your definition of a good pilot?

That which makes a pilot a "good pilot" or a "bad pilot" (or something
in between) falls in two categories - skill and judgement.

The skill side is self evident - a good pilot has mastered the controls
and responses of the aircraft to the point where it is an extension of
himself or herself, the bad pilot can barely keep the nose pointed in
the right direction. This can be a result of lack of experience, poor
training, or a number of other things but the result is that a bad pilot
can't control the airplane well.

The judgment side is more pertinent to the discussion we're having, and
I'd a "bad pilot" is one who routinely excercises poor judgement. While
this can come from inexperience, especially coupled with too much luck,
the primary culprit IMHO is attitude. The bad pilot is the one who has
the attitude that he (or she) knows it all. It is necessary to have
confidence in one's abilities (or one would never take to the sky!) but
the attitude that "everyone who disagrees with them is wrong" limits the
amount of careful consideration that is applied to flying. The bad
pilot =knows= they would never do something utterly stupid. The good
pilot realizes that it may well happen, and takes the steps needed to
prevent it from happening, and mitigating the results should he actually
=make= the stupid mistake that day. It is ingrained in the good pilot's
psyche.

The essence of "good pilot" "bad pilot" is "routinely". Every pilot
occasionally makes errors. The good pilot is less =likely= to, and is
more likely to realize soon enough that he has screwed up, and is more
likely to be able to recover.

But since nothing is guaranteed, a single unfortunate outcome of bad
piloting is not sufficient to identify a bad pilot. It is rather the
=pattern= of bad piloting, irrespective of outcome, that identifies one.

Jose
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote in message news60Jf.15117over.

But since nothing is guaranteed, a single unfortunate outcome of bad
piloting is not sufficient to identify a bad pilot. It is rather the
=pattern= of bad piloting, irrespective of outcome, that identifies one.



But Jose, a single failure in a flight rarely leads to a catastrophic event.
Let say Mr. Good missed that final tightening of the fuel cap. That's one
mistake that could lead to disaster. But since he is Mr. Good and does an
excellent scan of his panel he notices that the right tank is loosing fuel
faster than the engine could possible be burning it. So he makes the right
decision and lands the nearest airport, finds the problem and lives to fly
another day.

No let's look at Mr. Bad as he takes the same flight with the same single
mistake before take off. He doesn't notice the fuel burn rate is higher or
if he does he blames the gauge or makes the determination that it isn't a
problem and continues his flight. At some point he exhausts his fuel and
since he has spent most of the flight playing with his new Garmin 396 he
doesn't have a clue that there is a wide open field 1/4 mile behind him and
instead he tries to land on the highway in front of him where he catches a
powerline and plunges into a family of 5 on their vacation in a rented
convertable.

Two different types of pilots, one original mistake, two very different
outcomes.

Two different types of pilots, one original mistake, two very different
outcomes.

Statisitic of one.

Mr Good is =more=likely= to ...
Mr Bad is =more=likely= to ...

Good pilots sometimes have bad days. Bad pilots sometimes get lucky.

A good pilot, on a bad day, might not notice that the fuel burn is not
what was expected. It could be from simply miscalculating the number of
hours (subtracting seven from twelve and getting four), external
distractions (say, fighting turbulence the whole way, making the jiggly
needle hard to pin down), denied mental stress (recent problems at the
hotel for which this flight is a supposed antidote), or any number of
things that can cause a mistake on a bad day.

The unfortunate outcome draws attention to the possibility that the
pilot might be habitually careless. But it is not true that only the
habitually careless get bit.

Jose
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote in message
om...
Two different types of pilots, one original mistake, two very different
outcomes.

Statisitic of one.

Mr Good is =more=likely= to ...
Mr Bad is =more=likely= to ...

Good pilots sometimes have bad days. Bad pilots sometimes get lucky.

A good pilot, on a bad day, might not notice that the fuel burn is not
what was expected. It could be from simply miscalculating the number of
hours (subtracting seven from twelve and getting four), external
distractions (say, fighting turbulence the whole way, making the jiggly
needle hard to pin down), denied mental stress (recent problems at the
hotel for which this flight is a supposed antidote), or any number of
things that can cause a mistake on a bad day.

The unfortunate outcome draws attention to the possibility that the pilot
might be habitually careless. But it is not true that only the habitually
careless get bit.

If all or most of the causes of any given accident are because of a mistake
by the pilot then yes he is a bad pilot. He may have been just a bad pilot
that flight but the poor guy was a bad pilot that flight.

Your constant harping that pretty much can be summed up as "**** happens"
reminds me of the Clinton administration where the outcome didn't matter
only that they wanted to do good.

He may have been just a bad pilot
that flight...

Is he a good pilot if he makes lots of mistakes that never result in an
accident?

To me, the usefulness of the categorization "bad pilot" is predictive.
Prediction is based on a propensity to do something. Statistics of one
do not show a propensity. Although it calls attention to a pilot which
may belong to the class, it does not =put= that pilot in that class.

Your constant harping that pretty much can be summed up as "**** happens"...

That's not the point of my harping. The point is that, using statistics
of one to label somebody with a moniker that is presumed to have
predictive value is erronious, and wrong thinking leads to wrong acting.

Jose
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote in message
m...
He may have been just a bad pilot that flight...

Is he a good pilot if he makes lots of mistakes that never result in an
accident?


No he is a lucky Bad Pilot.


To me, the usefulness of the categorization "bad pilot" is predictive.
Prediction is based on a propensity to do something. Statistics of one do
not show a propensity. Although it calls attention to a pilot which may
belong to the class, it does not =put= that pilot in that class.


If you show me a pilot that regulary breaks the rules, ignores safety
concerns and does things that most of us in this forum would catagorize as
"Bad Pilot" tricks. Then that pilot is more likly to have an accident than
someone that most of us would catagorize as a "Good Pilot"

Your constant harping that pretty much can be summed up as "****
happens"...

That's not the point of my harping. The point is that, using statistics
of one to label somebody with a moniker that is presumed to have
predictive value is erronious, and wrong thinking leads to wrong acting.


Entire industries are based on doing just that. I deal with workers'
compensation insurance on a daily basis so I will give you an example from
that arena.

For a given type of work let's say masonry there is a given "manual rate"
for each state. Let's say that rate is $10/$100 of payroll or 10%. If you
have two companies both open for business on the same day. A little while
after the two companies have been in business for over a year and have a
claims history and organization called the NCCI is going to assign to each
company a Experience MOD rate. This number for a company that has performed
equal to the average company in that business will get a 1.0 mod rate a
company that has done worst than the average will get a MOD of say 1.1, a
company that has done better will get a mod of say 0.9. The total premium
the company will pay for the next term is then the manual rate times the MOD
rate.

Let's say are two make believe companies have a history now and company A
had 10 injuries that cost the insurance company a total of $100,000. Company
B only had one injury but it was a big one and cost $100,000. One might
thing that when the MOD rate was calculated for these two companies that it
would be the same. Well guess what? One would be wrong. Company A with a
bunch of injuries would be considerably higher because in comparison they
are a more dangerous place to work and statistics show that there will
sooner or latter be a large accident that costs more than the little
injuries combined plus the little injuries will still be there.

Company B on the other hand doesn't have little injuries and statistics show
that it might be years if ever that they will have another big accident.

Jose wrote:

What is your definition of a good pilot?


That which makes a pilot a "good pilot" or a "bad pilot" (or something
in between) falls in two categories - skill and judgement.

The skill side is self evident - a good pilot has mastered the controls
and responses of the aircraft to the point where it is an extension of
himself or herself, the bad pilot can barely keep the nose pointed in
the right direction. This can be a result of lack of experience, poor
training, or a number of other things but the result is that a bad pilot
can't control the airplane well.

Well as defined by whom?


The judgment side is more pertinent to the discussion we're having, and
I'd a "bad pilot" is one who routinely excercises poor judgement. While
this can come from inexperience, especially coupled with too much luck,
the primary culprit IMHO is attitude. The bad pilot is the one who has
the attitude that he (or she) knows it all. It is necessary to have
confidence in one's abilities (or one would never take to the sky!) but
the attitude that "everyone who disagrees with them is wrong" limits the
amount of careful consideration that is applied to flying. The bad
pilot =knows= they would never do something utterly stupid. The good
pilot realizes that it may well happen, and takes the steps needed to
prevent it from happening, and mitigating the results should he actually
=make= the stupid mistake that day. It is ingrained in the good pilot's
psyche.

Who defines good judgement?


The essence of "good pilot" "bad pilot" is "routinely". Every pilot
occasionally makes errors. The good pilot is less =likely= to, and is
more likely to realize soon enough that he has screwed up, and is more
likely to be able to recover.

But since nothing is guaranteed, a single unfortunate outcome of bad
piloting is not sufficient to identify a bad pilot. It is rather the
=pattern= of bad piloting, irrespective of outcome, that identifies one.

But if a bad pilot by your definition flies without incident for 50
years, is he/she still a bad pilot?

Personally, I'll stick with the results based definition. I'd rather
fly with the "bad" pilot who has never had a crash than the "good" pilot
who averages a crash a year. :-)

Matt

Well as defined by whom?

As defined by whoever will be applying the definition.

We can legitimately disagree thusly on whether or not this or that pilot
is "good" based on our own evaluation of "well". But my point is that
the point is not "how good..." but rather, "how consistently good". To
be a "good pilot" (a term with predictive value) one must be
consistently (though not perfectly) good, and to be a "bad pilot" one
must be consistently (though not perfectly) bad.

Who defines good judgement?

Ditto

But if a bad pilot by your definition flies without incident for 50 years, is he/she still a bad pilot?

Yes. He's damned lucky, but I still wouldn't fly with him.

I'd rather fly with the "bad" pilot who has never had a crash than the "good" pilot who averages a crash a year. :-)

Well, a crash a year due to bad piloting (or perhaps consistently bad
choice of aircraft) is no longer the "statistic of one" to which I
object. But a test pilot who flies all sorts of different wierd
homebrew designs all the time for a living, and =only= crashes once a
year, is proabably a damned good pilot.

Jose
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.