Downright Scary...

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...
What I am advocating is to ensure that any conversations or actions take
place
with the pilot, either directly or through channels designed for that
(such as
the Aviation Safety Counselor). Putting the passenger in the equation
will
only mess things up, as he or she is (generally) not in a position to
understand the nuances of the decisions being made.

With all due respect, Jose, you seem to be advocating a paternalistic
relationship between pilot and passenger, not unlike the paternalistic
doctor/patient relationship that was typical back in the days before the
importance of informed consent was widely recognized. Particularly in the
situation Jay described, the relevant factors are not particularly nuanced;
with ten minutes of study, the passenger would be able to understand the
situation better than the pilot did. No one has a right to keep the
passenger "out of the equation" in deciding whether flying is worth the risk
to the passenger.

--Gary

Hi Dudley,

I'm also a newly minted (2+ months) PP-ASEL (about 130 hrs). I've enjoyed
your posts, containing as they do the wisdom of experience and technical
competence, as well as a large dose of common sense. What boggles my mind
is the contrast between my attitude and that of Jay's guest. I won't
venture up in the air when there is any mention of thunderstorms, whether
it's "VCTS" on a TAF or "isolated thunderstorms" on weather.com. I've come
to flying at the relatively late, at 53 years. It's far more enjoyable than
I imagined, and I knew I would love it from years of playing with various
flight simulator programs. I want to be an old pilot, and I agree with you
that the best route to that end is always striving to make the right
decision. I agree with you that flying into a thunderstorm, with safer
alternatives (and almost any alternative is safer) cannot be the right
decision, even if the pilot and aircraft survive. I recently came across a
quote of Chuck Yeager's that "the secret to my success was that I always
managed to live to fly another day." It's something everyone in aviation
could emulate.

--Joe

With all due respect, Jose, you seem to be advocating a paternalistic
relationship between pilot and passenger, not unlike the paternalistic
doctor/patient relationship that was typical back in the days before the
importance of informed consent was widely recognized. Particularly in the
situation Jay described, the relevant factors are not particularly nuanced;
with ten minutes of study, the passenger would be able to understand the
situation better than the pilot did. No one has a right to keep the
passenger "out of the equation" in deciding whether flying is worth the risk
to the passenger.


With all due respect, you seem to be advocating a paternalistic relationship
between the passenger and the rest of the world, where "the people" end up
making decisions on behalf of you and I. By involving the passenger in your
attempt to save this pilot (and others) from himself, you undermine the
opportunity for the pilot to do the same thing himself. It is a bad situation
when the passenger is second-guessing the pilot on all his decisions, and that
is a likely future outcome of such an approach.

It is just as important that when a pilot makes decisions and takes action, he
does so with confidence and authority. (note - I am not advocating macho
foolishness). I have flown with pilots who make perfectly safe decisions, but
fly with so little confidence that they are unsafe. They may know what to do,
but they don't know that they know what to do, and thus they don't do it.

It is far better IMHO to allow the pilot to come to the realization himself,
and to learn the lesson himself, and to inform the passenger himself, rather
than have the pasenger do it for him. In the long run, that would be dangerous
and destructive too.

Jose



--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

"John Gaquin" wrote in message
...

"Blanche" wrote in message

.....charges of attempted
involuntary manslaughter.

"Attempted......... involuntary........ manslaughter"

Think about this.


Perhaps "Reckless Endangerment"?

"Joe Johnson" wrote in message
m...
Hi Dudley,

I'm also a newly minted (2+ months) PP-ASEL (about 130 hrs). I've
enjoyed
your posts, containing as they do the wisdom of experience and
technical
competence, as well as a large dose of common sense. What boggles my
mind
is the contrast between my attitude and that of Jay's guest. I won't
venture up in the air when there is any mention of thunderstorms,
whether
it's "VCTS" on a TAF or "isolated thunderstorms" on weather.com. I've
come
to flying at the relatively late, at 53 years. It's far more
enjoyable than
I imagined, and I knew I would love it from years of playing with
various
flight simulator programs. I want to be an old pilot, and I agree
with you
that the best route to that end is always striving to make the right
decision. I agree with you that flying into a thunderstorm, with
safer
alternatives (and almost any alternative is safer) cannot be the right
decision, even if the pilot and aircraft survive. I recently came
across a
quote of Chuck Yeager's that "the secret to my success was that I
always
managed to live to fly another day." It's something everyone in
aviation
could emulate.

--Joe

Hi Joe;

Congratulations on doing it, and doing it well. You'll never go wrong
with your attitude.
It's funny you should mention Yeager. I know how he feels about these
things. He has always had that wonderful ability to cut through the bull
crap and get to the meat. He has a great talent to state the obvious
common sense answer to the most perplexing of problems; sort of like the
guy who goes to the doctor, raises his right arm all the way up and
says, "It hurts when I do this".
"Don't do that", says the doctor. THAT'S Yeager to a tee!! :-)
Pilots who fly high performance airplanes for a living, especially those
who have flown them in situations where mistakes can kill, usually tend
to look at these issues the way I've stated them here.
From my point of view as both a professional pilot and as a flight
instructor, it's the ONLY way to look at these issues. In flying, as in
all endeavors where bad decisions can kill you, personal responsibility
is job one!!
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...
With all due respect, you seem to be advocating a paternalistic
relationship
between the passenger and the rest of the world, where "the people" end up
making decisions on behalf of you and I.

Giving someone pertinent information about their own safety constitutes
paternalism, or constitutes an effort to usurp their decision? How in the
world so?

In your initial post, you advocate witholding vital information from the
passenger because you disagree with the decision you fear she might
otherwise make (about her own safety); you don't think she could decide
competently (due to all the nuances) if she were given the information in
question. That's paternalism. That's usurping another's decision.

By involving the passenger in your
attempt to save this pilot (and others) from himself, you undermine the
opportunity for the pilot to do the same thing himself.

The point I keep making is that the passenger has a right to be "involved"
in saving herself. Her right to know what risks she's taking can't be
sacrificed due to a belief (whether accurate or not) that her husband would
respond better to a strategy that leaves her in the dark until and unless he
eventually decides to enlighten her. She should know the danger before her
next flight.

I'd also be concerned with trying to educate the pilot (or more
accurately, to re-educate him--he can't possibly have gone through the
private-pilot curriculum and the AIM without encountering strong warnings
about flying VFR into clouds, toward nearby thunderstorms). But that's an
entirely separate matter. The passenger is not an appendage to the pilot;
she's a distinct person with a right to make her own informed choices about
her own safety.

--Gary

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:JSmGc.14184$JR4.8572@attbi_s54...
She replied that the
controller had asked what their intentions were, since conditions were
rock-solid IFR with thunderstorms from their present position all the way
into Iowa City. She said her husband had announced his intention to land
in
Iowa City, and that the controller then gave them a vector towards the
airport.

I wonder why the controller agreed to vector a VFR plane 15 miles deeper
into the soup and toward thunderstorms, rather than in the opposite
direction. Does ATC just automatically defer to the pilot in such a
situation?

--Gary

Giving someone pertinent information about their own safety constitutes
paternalism [...]?

Sometime yes, sometimes no. Turn it around. You just came back from taking
passengers up for a ride, and some jackass goes up to your passengers telling
them how dangerous you are because you [fill in the blank]. To use one example
that spawned a long thread here, you landed at an uncontrolled airport without
saying boo on the radio, and you made a straight in approach. We can even add
to the mix the fact that your airplane is dangerous because it doesn't have a
transponder and this is a busy area, near class Bravo airspace (you in fact did
not enter airspace which requires a transponder).

Makes no difference in this example whether the dangers I'm citing are
equivalent to flying into a thunderstorm. The jackass can make it sound just
as reckless and can certainly alter your passenger's perception of you as a
pilot.

The jackass might even be right. You can get just as dead that way as flying
IMC VFR.

Are you grateful to that jerk for "not withholding vital information from the
passenger" so that they can "make an informed decision" before their next
flight with you?

I'd also be concerned with trying to educate the pilot (or more
accurately, to re-educate him-he can't possibly have gone through the
private-pilot curriculum and the AIM without encountering strong warnings
about flying VFR into clouds, toward nearby thunderstorms

I had an instructor - a CFII - ready to give me a lesson in an airplane whose
wings were not only covered with an inch of ice, but covered with the gnarly
results of an unsuccessful attempt at removing the ice by scraping it off. He
was from Florida, where they don't have much ice, and was newly transplanted to
the Northeast. Sure, all that stuff is in the AIM. Did he really get to be
CFII without ever coming across it? Was this one uneducable?

Go to the source - the pilot - not the passenger. Or have somebody to whom the
pilot will listen (like an aviation safety counsellor) approach the pilot.

Jose


--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

Blanche wrote:

I'd also wonder about the CFI that apparently did not impress upon
this newbie PPL about the dangers of Tstorms.

or about the minimum visibility and cloud clearance requirements for VFR flight.

George Patterson
In Idaho, tossing a rattlesnake into a crowded room is felony assault.
In Tennessee, it's evangelism.

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...
Giving someone pertinent information about their own safety constitutes
paternalism [...]?

Sometime yes, sometimes no. Turn it around. You just came back from
taking
passengers up for a ride, and some jackass goes up to your passengers
telling
them how dangerous you are because you [fill in the blank].

If someone sincerely believes I'm flying dangerously, I don't mind their
telling me and my passengers so. If they're right, then I'm indebted to
them. If they're mistaken, I can explain why to them and to my passengers.
If I'm right but my passengers don't believe me, then they might join the
50% or so of my friends who won't fly in small planes to begin
with--disappointing, but hardly tragic. Only if the objection were
completely frivolous would I have reason to be annoyed at the person who
raised it.(but their transgression still wouldn't be serious, or
paternalistic).

I had an instructor - a CFII - ready to give me a lesson in an airplane
whose
wings were not only covered with an inch of ice, but covered with the
gnarly
results of an unsuccessful attempt at removing the ice by scraping it off.
He
was from Florida, where they don't have much ice, and was newly
transplanted to
the Northeast. Sure, all that stuff is in the AIM. Did he really get to
be
CFII without ever coming across it? Was this one uneducable?

Probably not. It's one thing to have a record of years of safe flying, but
to forget something important that you learned years ago that hasn't been
relevant since then. The CFII just needs to review that particular material,
and also to develop the habit of periodically re-reading the whole AIM.
That's quite different from deliberately flying into clouds and
thunderstorms right after getting a PPL.

But I have no strong opinion as to the educability of Jay's pilot either. As
I said, my point is just that the passenger's right to be informed is a
separate matter.

--Gary