Knee Jerks

Somebody, please 'hose' him down.

wrote:

There are far too many pilots who make the knee jerk statement that
fuel exhaustion is the mark of a bad or poor pilot. As you point out,
fuel exhaustion is not always a failure of the pilot to put fuel in the
aircraft. I've had a couple of incidents when my engine quit with a
fuel problem. It was a fuel system problem

I imagine you have to do a lot of extra talking when someone asks you if
you ever experienced an engine failure.

--
Peter

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

There are far too many pilots who make the knee jerk statement that
fuel exhaustion is the mark of a bad or poor pilot. As you point out,
fuel exhaustion is not always a failure of the pilot to put fuel in the
aircraft. I've had a couple of incidents when my engine quit with a
fuel problem. It was a fuel system problem.

Then, by definition, you did NOT "run out of gas." You had a mechanical
problem.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
There are far too many pilots who make the knee jerk statement that
fuel exhaustion is the mark of a bad or poor pilot. As you point out,
fuel exhaustion is not always a failure of the pilot to put fuel in the
aircraft. I've had a couple of incidents when my engine quit with a
fuel problem. It was a fuel system problem.

Then, by definition, you did NOT "run out of gas." You had a mechanical
problem.

That was kind of where I was headed. G

Jay Honeck wrote:

Then, by definition, you did NOT "run out of gas." You had a mechanical
problem.

This is similar to the concept that the only true cause of death is lack of
oxygen to the human brain.

Technically, an engine runs out of fuel (or gas, in your aircraft's case)
if fuel stops flowing to the engine. The list of reasons why it stopped is
long.

But seriously, my point was simply that the NTSB and other official
aviation safety organizations seem to lump what you are labeling as
"running out of gas" into a broader category.

--
Peter

Then, by definition, you did NOT "run out of gas." You had a mechanical
problem.

This is similar to the concept that the only true cause of death is lack
of
oxygen to the human brain.

Take it one more step, and I'm with you.

Running out of gas and crashing due to outflying your on-board fuel is like
brain death caused by purposefully hanging oneself.

Running out of gas and crashing due to a fuel system failure is like brain
death caused by a sudden heart attack.

Either way your dead, right? But one is far different than the other.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

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.