Reducing the Accident Rate

"smpharmanaut" wrote in message
.51...
mandatory continuing education for pilot license.

After I'd been flying for awhile, I began to notice a disturbing decline in
the proportion of my time spent looking outside (flying VFR). In retrospect,
it's easy to see how that could happen: there's no overt feedback to remind
you that you're doing something wrong when your eyes linger inside the
cockpit, so a bad habit of neglecting the exterior scan can easily creep up
on you.

I made a conscious effort to monitor and correct the problem. But I wonder
what other bad habits might develop unnoticed. I suspect that recurrent
training every two years is inadequate to catch such problems in a timely
manner.

One possibility, of course, is to fly with an instructor (or at least
another pilot) far more often. Another would be to compile an list of bad
habits that can develop in the absence of corrective feedback, and
explicitly monitor for them. Or perhaps it'd be beneficial to videotape
oneself while flying, and review the tape afterwards (perhaps showing
representative portions to an instructor) to watch for any lapses.

--Gary

I began to notice a disturbing decline in
the proportion of my time spent looking outside (flying VFR).


Try covering up most of the instruments. VFR you don't really need much.

Jose


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

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...

I began to notice a disturbing decline in
the proportion of my time spent looking outside (flying VFR).


Try covering up most of the instruments. VFR you don't really need much.

The problem wasn't that I was paying too much attention to the instruments.
Rather, I was starting to spend too much contiguous time on other tasks
(tuning radios to initiate flight following or open my flight plan; looking
at charts, etc.) with only a cursory glance out the window. I also noticed
that my visual scan would pause unnecessarily while I was talking over the
radio--kind of like drivers with cell phones, I guess.

--Gary

"Snowbird" wrote in message
om...
Call me a skeptic, but I feel this goes along with WINGS
seminars: it's 'preaching to the choir'

Like I've said before, apparently the opening line for CAA safety
seminars here in the UK is usually "For just turning up tonight,
you're 20 times less likely to suffer a fatal accident before I've
even said a word...ok, you can all go home now!".

Paul

Paul Sengupta wrote:

Like I've said before, apparently the opening line for CAA safety
seminars here in the UK is usually "For just turning up tonight,
you're 20 times less likely to suffer a fatal accident before I've
even said a word...ok, you can all go home now!".

So what can be done to encourage more use of the WINGs program (and other
forms of "post-certification education)?

I could be wrong - it's been a while - but I don't recall my primary CFI
recommending anything outside of "basic" training. In contrast, my CFII
was a real bear about WINGs programs, extra reading, and such. I bump into
him at a lot of these seminars, so he's taking his own advice.

I don't recall ever bumping into the younger "aviation career oriented" CFIs
- but I admit I've not been looking for the few I still know around here.

- Andrew

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
Paul Sengupta wrote:

Like I've said before, apparently the opening line for CAA safety
seminars here in the UK is usually "For just turning up tonight,
you're 20 times less likely to suffer a fatal accident before I've
even said a word...ok, you can all go home now!".

So what can be done to encourage more use of the WINGs program (and other
forms of "post-certification education)?

This is the question though. Some people are safety oriented, some
aren't. Those who aren't, those "statistics waiting to happen"...would
attending seminars change their behaviour?

Paul

Anyway, here's the question: how DO we reduce the accident
rate? How do we preach, not just to the choir, but to the
80-90% of pilots who *don't* attend WINGS seminars or other
recurrant training?

As a low time PP-ASEL, one thing that has helped immeasurably (believe it or
not) is reading the rec.aviation newsgroups.

It's an easy way to tap the pulse of GA.
It's also a great way to see what is important to and getting the attention
of more experienced pilots/owners.

Each time I get in the plane now, I can usually think of something I've read
here that helps me out.

Adam

"Snowbird" wrote in message
om...
Hi All,

Just got back from the national convention of my type
club (insert glowing comments about beautiful planes,
wonderful people, fun activities, helpful FBO here)

So here's a topic related to Jay's thread "Scary". At
the membership meeting, the club's Safety Director rightly
pointed out something many here have commented on: every
GA accident is "news" these days, and if we want to keep
flying (and keep being able to buy insurance) we pilots,
as a group, need to lower the accident rate.

So how? I have a great deal of respect for this man. He's
a stand-up guy, a pilot with breadth and depth of experience,
and a long-time CFI. But his "solution" is to have a one-day
course, associated with the National Convention, in which
pilots pay a hefty fee ($100-$200) for 'recurrant training'
done by "national names".

Call me a skeptic, but I feel this goes along with WINGS
seminars: it's 'preaching to the choir', to a large extent.
Maybe 10 or at most, 20% of the membership makes it to the
conventions. The ones who would pay to take this course
are, like the pilots who show up at the WINGS seminars,
those who have already made a mental committment to recurrant
training and who, if every safety seminar in the country
became extinct, would "roll their own" out of books and magazines
and discussions with pilots and CFIs they respect.

Most of the pilots who are taking off without proper respect
for DA or flying into ice/tstorms/IMC or buzzing their buddy's
house, I think, aren't coming to these things. Maybe I'm wrong?
Maybe they come, and think "oh, well, only ignorant low-hours
pilots have trouble when they try to run cows around with their
plane, I'm a super-skilled high-time pilot so *I* can do it just
fine" (insert analogous phrase about other activities)?

Anyway, here's the question: how DO we reduce the accident
rate? How do we preach, not just to the choir, but to the
80-90% of pilots who *don't* attend WINGS seminars or other
recurrant training?

Cheers,
Sydney

The NTSB report

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2003/ARG0302.pdf

is informative.


Stencil the following into the center of the yoke at the next annual
inspection

"watch your fuel amount, mixture, carb-heat;
keep out of bad weather;
anticipate the wind;
watch your airspeed...
.....and you will avoid a lot of the preventable accidents".

"Snowbird" wrote in message
om...
Hi All,

Just got back from the national convention of my type
club (insert glowing comments about beautiful planes,
wonderful people, fun activities, helpful FBO here)

So here's a topic related to Jay's thread "Scary". At
the membership meeting, the club's Safety Director rightly
pointed out something many here have commented on: every
GA accident is "news" these days, and if we want to keep
flying (and keep being able to buy insurance) we pilots,
as a group, need to lower the accident rate.

So how? I have a great deal of respect for this man. He's
a stand-up guy, a pilot with breadth and depth of experience,
and a long-time CFI. But his "solution" is to have a one-day
course, associated with the National Convention, in which
pilots pay a hefty fee ($100-$200) for 'recurrant training'
done by "national names".

Call me a skeptic, but I feel this goes along with WINGS
seminars: it's 'preaching to the choir', to a large extent.
Maybe 10 or at most, 20% of the membership makes it to the
conventions. The ones who would pay to take this course
are, like the pilots who show up at the WINGS seminars,
those who have already made a mental committment to recurrant
training and who, if every safety seminar in the country
became extinct, would "roll their own" out of books and magazines
and discussions with pilots and CFIs they respect.

Most of the pilots who are taking off without proper respect
for DA or flying into ice/tstorms/IMC or buzzing their buddy's
house, I think, aren't coming to these things. Maybe I'm wrong?
Maybe they come, and think "oh, well, only ignorant low-hours
pilots have trouble when they try to run cows around with their
plane, I'm a super-skilled high-time pilot so *I* can do it just
fine" (insert analogous phrase about other activities)?

Anyway, here's the question: how DO we reduce the accident
rate? How do we preach, not just to the choir, but to the
80-90% of pilots who *don't* attend WINGS seminars or other
recurrant training?



The NTSB report

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2003/ARG0302.pdf

is information.

Out of 1900 accidents:
The leading cause is power problems 500.
Weather as a factor in about 360, but only about 120 or so "IMC", most
others are wind, carb-icing, and density altitude.
Over a 100 accidents were fuel management.

So the message is not long...have it stenciled into the center of the yoke
at the next annual:

"Watch your fuel amount, mixture, carb-heat;
Do not fly into bad weather;
Anticipate the wind;
Watch your airspeed
.... and you will avoid most preventable accidents"

Apologies for the double post.

Got an error saying post was rejected by server and it disappeared. When I
re-composed and re-posted, the old one reappeared as posted okay...