Impaired Pilots

Jay,

I think I know who you are talking about, he ALWAYS sounds like that
(confused). There aren't that many around Moline if he was local.



"Robert Briggs" wrote in message
...
Jay Honeck wrote:

The first call we heard from our Cirrus pilot was him asking approach
if he was "headed in the right direction for Rwy 5?"

... responded "Raaaahger, come to a heading of threeee waaaaaahn
zeeeeerrrroo, Ceeeerrrusss November XXXX..."

Then, at the next call, our hapless pilot ... announced waaaay too
slowly and deliberately that he "haadd the aiiirporrrrt in sight, and
woulld like vectors to Runway 5."

By now it seemed pretty clear that (a) the guy didn't know which
direction Rwy 5 faced, and that (b) he was impaired in some fashion.

Let's see, now ... 310 for Runway 5 with the field in sight looks
like a reasonable approximation to a right base leg.

However, I'm not actually a pilot, so I may be *way* off here. :-)

I think I know who you are talking about, he ALWAYS sounds like that
(confused). There aren't that many around Moline if he was local.

No way to know if he was local.

But, damn, if he was local, he sure sounded like he didn't know where the
runway was...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

What you describe may not be a chemically induced impairment, but
possibly a speech impediment or psychological condition.

I had a friend who is a gifted engineer but has a speech impediment
which causes him to talk in a halting, varying inflection manner.

What you describe may not be a chemically induced impairment, but
possibly a speech impediment or psychological condition.

You know, I honestly hadn't considered that.

He sure sounded impaired to us -- and the non-standard radio terminology was
certainly peculiar -- but what the heck. I suppose he could just speak
differently than us.

Or, he was loaded.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

CO poisoning?

On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 05:44:52 GMT, "Jon Woellhaf"
wrote in
ofr7d.291644$mD.256881@attbi_s02::

CO poisoning?


Hypoxia due to altitude exposure?

Jay Honeck wrote:

What you describe may not be a chemically induced impairment, but
possibly a speech impediment or psychological condition.


You know, I honestly hadn't considered that.

He sure sounded impaired to us -- and the non-standard radio terminology was
certainly peculiar -- but what the heck. I suppose he could just speak
differently than us.

Or, he was loaded.

I have to say that the notion of vigilanties flying around looking for
trouble bothers me tremendously. MYOB.

On 1 Oct 2004 07:43:48 -0700, (Jay Honeck) wrote:

snip

The fact that he was flying a $300K airplane seemed to eliminate the
possibility that he was just a nervous student flying into controlled
airspace for the first time, but I suppose it's possible.

Several students at my field learned in SR20s or SR22s. Most of these
Cirrus were owned by their student pilots.

There's a local pilot that has a disability. His speech is affected by it.
Dave
68 7ECA

Jay Honeck wrote:

On a flight to Galesburg, IL last week, we were utilizing Quad Cities
Approach for VFR flight following. Being a Thursday morning, we
pretty much had the airwaves to ourselves, with the exception of a
Cirrus driver who was coming in to land in the Quad Cities.

The first call we heard from our Cirrus pilot was him asking approach
if he was "headed in the right direction for Rwy 5?" What caught our
attention, aside from the non-standard radio lingo, was the fact that
he was doing a PERFECT Truman-Capote-on-qualudes immitation.

This seemed a bit odd, but the controller cooly assigned a vector to
the pilot -- to which the Cirrus pilot slowly and way too deliberately
responded "Raaaahger, come to a heading of threeee waaaaaahn
zeeeeerrrroo, Ceeeerrrusss November XXXX..."

Mary and I started laughing, thinking that the guy surely must know
the approach controller, or something. It wasn't a southern accent
the guy was using, but rather a Robin-Williams-pretending-to-be-stoned
voice, with that added little Capote-ish lilt that absolutely NO ONE
could be using in a natural way.

With no witty response forthcoming from our severely under-worked
controller, however, we started to suspect that perhaps our Cirrus
driver wasn't playing with a full deck.

Then, at the next call, our hapless pilot, sounding like a cross
between Huckleberry Hound Dog and Foster Brooks, announced waaaay too
slowly and deliberately that he "haadd the aiiirporrrrt in sight, and
woulld like vectors to Runway 5."

By now it seemed pretty clear that (a) the guy didn't know which
direction Rwy 5 faced, and that (b) he was impaired in some fashion.

The fact that he was flying a $300K airplane seemed to eliminate the
possibility that he was just a nervous student flying into controlled
airspace for the first time, but I suppose it's possible.

The last call we heard was ATC switching him over to tower, to which
he again responded in a sleepy, slurred, non-standard way. We just
shrugged, and proceeded on to our destination.

The episode brought a few questions to mind:

1. When does a controller assume that a pilot is impaired? What
mis-steps are required, or what actions must be observed, for ATC to
presume impairment?

2. What would ATC actually *do* about it?

3. If I, or another pilot, witness an obviously impaired pilot, are we
legally (not morally, which I think is easily answered) required to
actually *do* anything about it?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 11:56:23 -0400, dave
wrote:

There's a local pilot that has a disability. His speech is affected by it.
Dave
68 7ECA

snipped Jay's message....

I've heard that guy. In fact I hear him almost every Sunday, usually
late in the afternoon. He sounds like he's about 95 years old. More
importantly than that, he sounds like someone that really loves
flying. He may sound impaired but you can "hear" him having fun when
he makes his calls. His radio calls are always accurate and
informative. I hope he can keep flying as long as he wants to. I
certainly hope that he is never grounded because someone doesn't like
the way that he sounds.
Rich Russell