TV Interview With Pilot From ADIZ Incident

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
That was when the flight became MY responsibility, even though I was not
PIC
and was just a passenger, I became PIC and relieved him of his
"responsibility". I called center, filed IFR, flew the rest of the way
home, shot the approach down to about 800 ft AGL. Everybody agreed that
was
better than flying 300 miles following the interstate at 800 agl.

Sometimes it pays to do what you can instead of just what is required.
The
concept of PIC does not relinquish another person from the responsibility
they have to themselves and their family. The PIC is in charge of the
flight, no doubt, but I'm still in charge of me and when my
responsibilities
to myself and my family conflict with another persons responsibilities as
PIC, I'd rather be prepared to offer the PIC alternatives.

Cool story! Good thing you were prepared and capable!

I certainly agree that it's a great idea for any passenger to provide
redundancy to the best of his or her ability. I just don't think it's
warranted to criticize a passenger for choosing not to on a particular
flight. Evem a pilot passenger might just choose to take a nap instead.

And (as I elaborated in another post just now), I don't think there's much
evidence that this student *wasn't* taking full interest in the flight. He
was doing all the flying; and he and the PIC have stated that they both did
pre-flight planning of their route (between the Camp David ADIZ and the DC
ADIZ). But they somehow got extremely lost while trying to follow that
route.

--Gary

Jim Burns wrote:

Along those lines.... I had a friend, a PPL, non instrument rated that had a
172, infact, he was the influence that got me interested in flying. Fully
capable of doing the PIC job, over 1000 hours at the time, I never had a
reason to doubt it, until one trip.

After I got my PPL and then my IR, we and our wives took a trip together,
his airplane, he as PIC for the whole trip. However, I also planned it,
both ways, there and back, and carried my charts and plates along "just in
case".

Before our trip home, he got the weather and filed VFR. I also got the
weather and noted the FA at home called for increasing cloudiness and
lowering ceilings.

We took off and headed out. The weather was just as forecast. Ceilings
started to come down, so he descended. Up ahead it was obvious that a lower
layer was also coming in below us. His solution?? "We'll just stay here
(VFR) between layers then circle down over the interstate and follow it
home." He couldn't hold altitude within 500 feet while we were between
layers.

That was when the flight became MY responsibility, even though I was not PIC
and was just a passenger, I became PIC and relieved him of his
"responsibility". I called center, filed IFR, flew the rest of the way
home, shot the approach down to about 800 ft AGL. Everybody agreed that was
better than flying 300 miles following the interstate at 800 agl.

Sometimes it pays to do what you can instead of just what is required. The
concept of PIC does not relinquish another person from the responsibility
they have to themselves and their family. The PIC is in charge of the
flight, no doubt, but I'm still in charge of me and when my responsibilities
to myself and my family conflict with another persons responsibilities as
PIC, I'd rather be prepared to offer the PIC alternatives.

And just how was a student pilot to "assume PIC" when it wasn't legal
for him to do so?

Your situation above isn't anything like the DC situation. It sounds
from the reports that the student did get involved reasonably
appropriately, then again none of us were in the cockpit to know exactly
who did what when.


Matt

Jim Burns wrote:
The "he was a passenger" is a cop out. If you are a pilot, even a student
pilot with only 30 hours, and you are in the airplane, why wouldn't you do
everything you could to be prepared?? which to me starts at home with
flight planning.

I can see by this and your other post that you expect the student
pilot passenger to act more like a student than a passenger. That's
your perogative. Not being an instructor, I don't generally take that
approach. I don't insist that a student pilot riding with me do any
flight planning or learn anything at all. I'm not an instructor and
I'm not there to teach them anything. If they happen to learn
something on the flight, good for them. But I certainly wouldn't (as a
non-CFI) insist that any student that goes for a ride with me do
detailed flight planning or anything else. If they choose to do so,
that's fine, but when it comes right down to it, I'm the PIC and they
are just a passenger. I can provide them with some practical
experience, and they can take what they can from that, but I'm not
going to pretend to be their instructor.

At 30 hours, I would expect that the student pilot/passenger had completed
at least part of his cross country training, so I'd expect that if he had
agreed to do the hands on flying through that type of airspace that he would
take the effort to flight plan it also.
snip

If your assumptions are correct, perhaps you have a point. But
neither you nor I know what kind of 30 hr. student we're talking about.
There's the 30 hr. student that's flying solo X/C and there's the one
who flies once a month and hasn't soloed yet (i.e. clueless newbie).
The latter may not even be at the level of competently planning a
flight of this distance. I'm not going to judge him without more info.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
If they were willing, I think it would be of great benefit for a magazine
like AOPA's Flight Training to interview both of them and ask them
questions
from the pilots, students, and instructors point of view, rather than just
the news media interviewing them from the talking head "you almost got
shot
down and could have killed the President" point of view.

Agreed.

I guess two pilots planning the same route could get lost in
unfamiliar territory and neither realize where they were. I would hope
that
two heads and four eyes would tilt the odds more in their favor, perhaps
not. What irritates me the most is that Shaeffer hasn't shown us that he
understood the complexity of the area other than the Camp David P area.

Yup, that's certainly true. And he seems to have been off course by a good
45 degrees, which is hard to understand.

On the other hand, I once got 30 degrees off course when I plotted a course
while flying, and mistakenly subtracted magnetic variation instead of adding
it. If they did something like that, and also had a crosswind that was
different than forecast, and maybe had some unnoticed gyro drift and some
sloppiness in holding their heading (since the student was flying), and if
they had the bad luck for all those factors to align in the same direction,
and if their pilotage sucked and/or the landmarks were sparse until they
were deeply inside the ADIZ...

--Gary

The "he was a passenger" is a cop out. If you are a pilot, even a student
pilot with only 30 hours, and you are in the airplane, why wouldn't you do
everything you could to be prepared?? which to me starts at home with
flight planning.

At 30 hours, I would expect that the student pilot/passenger had completed
at least part of his cross country training, so I'd expect that if he had
agreed to do the hands on flying through that type of airspace that he would
take the effort to flight plan it also. Granted, he was not PIC, nor was he
under any obligation or requirement to flight plan the trip, but any student
worth his salt would have if knowing in advance that he would be doing the
actual flying through that airspace.

I'll also put some more blame on Mr. Shaeffer for not mentoring the student
pilot towards flight planning the trip. I would expect that suggestion of
any private pilot that takes a cross country flight with a student pilot.
You don't have to be an instructor to promote and display proper flight
planning to students.

....and when I go on a cross country flight "just as a passenger" of another
pilot, I usually will take the trouble to draw a line on a map... takes all
of about 45 seconds. The closest prohibited area here is a live fire
bombing range in the middle of a restricted area which is in the middle of a
MOA, I don't care who the PIC is, I'll still plan the proposed route.

Jim

"John Galban" wrote in message
oups.com...


Jim Burns wrote:

I feel no sympathy for Mr. Sheaffer. I feel a little for Mr. Martin,
but he
too, even as a 30 hour student, should have flight planned the route and
made himself extremely familiar with it.

He should have?? He was a passenger. While it may be a good
learning exercise (assuming he was even at that stage of his training),
I wouldn't expect a passenger to go to that kind of effort. If this
was a training flight with an actual instructor, that would be a
different story.

When I go along for a ride as a passenger, I don't flight plan a
proposed route. I let the PIC take care of that.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

Did anybody else watch the video ?
He is claiming that the student was at the controls the whole time !!
And when asked if he would do anything different next time he said he would
have taken the controls and turned away from Washington.

Does anybody believe this new story ?


"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:rJIke.1138$rr.509@fed1read01...
www.msnbc.com

Look for the Today Show link

Small box near the center of page ... as of 930mst, it was #6 of 13 video
clips you could choose from.

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ

"i" == iflyatiger writes:

i Did anybody else watch the video ? He is claiming that the
i student was at the controls the whole time !! And when asked
i if he would do anything different next time he said he would
i have taken the controls and turned away from Washington.

i Does anybody believe this new story ?

I believe the pilot is a confused coward who, having screwed up, isn't
man enough to admit it, and instead is more or less blaming the
student pilot! I wonder if the student was going to try to log the
time? They should bust him too. A real couple of bozos.

I expect any student pilot passengers that ride along on cross country
flights with me to at least show the initiative and interest to figure out
where we're going, how long it will take, how we're going to get there, and
if we stray off course could we end up running into anything or possibly get
shot down by F16's. If they don't want to do the work at home, we can do it
together, but he will do it. Any student that doesn't at least show that
much interest can walk, and I don't care if he's a student of mine or of any
other instructor. If a person has something in their wallet that says FAA
and Pilot on it, they should at least be responsible for their own flight
safety to what ever extent they can. I have no tolerance for pilots who are
passengers that sit idly by all fat, dumb, and happy, wondering where they
are rather than knowing. Nowhere did I mention or suggest "supervising" the
PIC, the PIC was in charge, but that doesn't mean that the pilot/passenger
should be a corpse. What I am suggesting is that Martin could have
monitored their flight path and watched out for his own ass. He had the
ability and the knowledge, and if he would have used it, he could have saved
them both a lot of trouble. If I was Martin's CFI, we would begin the
cross country planning lessons all over and it would last a good while.

Jim

"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
news
"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
I feel no sympathy for Mr. Sheaffer. I feel a little for Mr. Martin,
but
he
too, even as a 30 hour student, should have flight planned the route and
made himself extremely familiar with it.

Why? Do you expect your passengers to supervise your navigation?

--Gary

Bob Fry wrote:

I believe the pilot is a confused coward who, having screwed up, isn't
man enough to admit it, and instead is more or less blaming the
student pilot! I wonder if the student was going to try to log the
time? They should bust him too. A real couple of bozos.

I agree with you on the pilot. A PIC trying to push some of the
heat onto his passenger is repugnant.

It might be tough to log dual without a CFI's singature. Frankly, as
far as the student is concerned, I'm not ready to hang him. This could
likely be a case of a student that doesn't know much about flying, who
put way more trust in the pilot than he should have.

I can remember when I was a student. I looked up to people who had
been flying for decades and assumed that they knew a hell of a lot more
about flying than I did. I flew with an instructor that was downright
dangerous, but I didn't have a clue until quite a long time later.

Put yourself in the student's shoes and take another look at it.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

On Tue, 24 May 2005 21:13:50 GMT, Jose
wrote in ::

Here's the link to the video:
http://video.msn.com/video/p.htm?t=1...c8ca634ff6&rf=

All I get is
"Amazing video quality Install this free software, and then receive
select videos delivered to your computer in crystal-clear quality."

I don't know what it is about peddlers of unknown software who seem to
think that just because it's free everyone wants it.

Jose

Sorry about that. I right clicked on the 'Play' button, and selected
'Properties' and cut out the URL. It should have provided the correct
URL to play the video, but ...

If you search for 'Pilot' on the http://video.msn.com/ page, it will
be one of the choices returned.