JFK Jr.'s mean ol wife

Agreed.

Many pilots, in an attempt to perpetuate the "most dangerous part of flying
is the drive to the airport" myth, feel compelled to condemn unsuccessful
aviators as dolts or statistical outliers for the purpose of assuaging their
potential passengers' fear of flying. While we can remove or control many
of the factors of risk in general aviation, GA statistics are a reflection
of the fact that for miles traveled, or trips taken, GA flying is
considerably deadlier than driving.

Rather than dispelling pilots who crash as fools (which admittedly many are,
read the NTSB reports), let's learn from their mistakes, place ourselves in
their scenarios, and ask ourselves what we'd do in similar circumstances.



"Dan Luke" c172rgATbellsouthDOTnet wrote in message
...
"Orval Fairbairn" wrote:
Just read the ASRS reports to see how these conditions can creep up on
an otherwise proficient pilot and take heed!

Amen.
From a pilot's perspective, one of the most distressing things about that
accident was all the condemnation of JFK from the pilot community, as if
all
these god-like aviators are immune from such an event. That adolescent
illusion of invulnerability gets people killed.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

In article ,
"Dan Luke" c172rgATbellsouthDOTnet wrote:

"Orval Fairbairn" wrote:
Just read the ASRS reports to see how these conditions can creep up on
an otherwise proficient pilot and take heed!

Amen.
From a pilot's perspective, one of the most distressing things about that
accident was all the condemnation of JFK from the pilot community, as if all
these god-like aviators are immune from such an event. That adolescent
illusion of invulnerability gets people killed.

AMEN! I also read in some of the AOPA & EAA publications that JFK Jr.
was a pretty good guy and was a potential GA advocate among the liberal
side, who tend to be anti-GA.

His loss was a loss for all of us.

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"MC" wrote in message ...

I wasn't aware that night flight required a rating...if we're gonna be
literal in here lets go all the way.

Australia requires a rating to do night VFR.

Last I checked Martha's Vineyard was not part of Australia.

: Many pilots, in an attempt to perpetuate the "most dangerous part of flying
: is the drive to the airport" myth, feel compelled to condemn unsuccessful
: aviators as dolts or statistical outliers for the purpose of assuaging their
: potential passengers' fear of flying.

Quite true.

:While we can remove or control many
: of the factors of risk in general aviation, GA statistics are a reflection
: of the fact that for miles traveled, or trips taken, GA flying is
: considerably deadlier than driving.

The difference is that in driving, the drunk on the other side of
the road is most likely to kill you. When flying, you get to kill
yourself.

: Rather than dispelling pilots who crash as fools (which admittedly many are,
: read the NTSB reports), let's learn from their mistakes, place ourselves in
: their scenarios, and ask ourselves what we'd do in similar circumstances.

Most of the deadly accidents can be attributed to some form of
poor pilot decision, judgement, competence. It's pretty rare that a wing
falls off, or even that an engine quits outright. Much more often it's
VFR in IMC, fuel starvation, or overloading that gets people killed. It's
unfortunate that arrogance and hubris are typical pilot personality
traits, as these really have no business in aviation.


FWIW
-Cory

--
************************************************** ***********************
* The prime directive of Linux: *
* - learn what you don't know, *
* - teach what you do. *
* (Just my 20 USm$) *
************************************************** ***********************

: Rather than dispelling pilots who crash as fools (which admittedly many
are,
: read the NTSB reports), let's learn from their mistakes, place ourselves
in
: their scenarios, and ask ourselves what we'd do in similar
circumstances.

Most of the deadly accidents can be attributed to some form of
poor pilot decision, judgement, competence. It's pretty rare that a wing
falls off, or even that an engine quits outright. Much more often it's
VFR in IMC, fuel starvation, or overloading that gets people killed. It's
unfortunate that arrogance and hubris are typical pilot personality
traits, as these really have no business in aviation.

True, unfortunately those people are rarely the folks introspectively asking
themselves what they would do in a difficult situation beforehand. The
unfortunate thing about safety seminars are that the people who need them
most will never attend.

Speaking of pilot personality traits, someone on some thread mentioned that
certain personality traits that make people succeed in business are the same
traits that in some cases, kill them in the air. CEOs didn't get to where
they are now by avoiding risks. While good CEO's take calculated risks,
many successful people, with the money to buy more plane than they can
handle, are likely to overestimate their ability, underestimate the risks at
hand, and overestimate the reward of satisfying their passengers and getting
to their destination at a particular time. I'm not insinuating that JFK Jr
fell into this category, but there are plenty of high profile fatalities
were this was a contributing factor.

Jeff Franks wrote:

An outsider looking in would think we're all
scared to death someone else might be smarter than us.

....than *we*.

- Andrew, who simply could not resist

In rec.aviation.misc Snowbird wrote:
: wrote in message ...

: Most of the deadly accidents can be attributed to some form of
: poor pilot decision, judgement, competence. It's pretty rare that a wing
: falls off, or even that an engine quits outright. Much more often it's
: VFR in IMC, fuel starvation, or overloading that gets people killed. It's
: unfortunate that arrogance and hubris are typical pilot personality
: traits, as these really have no business in aviation.

: I guess I'm a little unclear on your meaning, here, Cory.

: Are you saying that arrogance and hubris lead pilots into poor
: decisions such as VFR into IMC, fuel starvation, overloading,
: or misestimating the performance of the aircraft?

: It happens. There are certainly plenty of accidents which seem
: to fall into the "what was he THINKING?" category.

: On the other hand, I see another kind of arrogance, which is
: the sort which says "VFR into IMC, fuel starvation, etc etc
: are mistakes which stupid, arrogant pilots make. I'm not a
: stupid, arrogant pilot so I'll never make such a mistake."

: Having watched an accident chain unfolding next to me, and
: having had a few flights where we landed and looked at
: each other and knew that if a few things fell out differently,
: we would have been in trouble -- I try now to ask "what was
: he thinking?" in a different tone of voice. One of enquiry
: not condemnation.

I'm pretty much saying the former. Once one thinks the latter,
they've already become "arrogant and/or stupid." While certainly all
pilots are not made equal, the temptation to think of oneself as "better
than that," is the fundamental issue. Of course, there is the slippery
slope of errors that usually leads to an incident, but pilots with hubris
are more susceptible to that chain.

I'm probably unclear again, but the bottom line is that it's not
good to be overconfident.

-Cory


--
************************************************** ***********************
* The prime directive of Linux: *
* - learn what you don't know, *
* - teach what you do. *
* (Just my 20 USm$) *
************************************************** ***********************

"Dan Luke" c172rgATbellsouthDOTnet wrote in message ...
From a pilot's perspective, one of the most distressing things about that
accident was all the condemnation of JFK from the pilot community, as if all
these god-like aviators are immune from such an event. That adolescent
illusion of invulnerability gets people killed.

Yes. If you search the NTSB database, you can see that even
professional air taxi pilots and crews and their passengers have died
in that same area, in almost exactly the same way, on a moonless or
hazy night.

It is a common hazard along the islands here. You usually won't see
pilots from this part of the country giving JFK Jr grief. But we
should all learn from his mistake.

It's also sad that some otherwise smart and kind people feel the need
to take some kind of childish political stand on this particular
wreck.

Kevin

"Ace Pilot" wrote:
The lack of good judgment in this
accident is what drew the condemnation of the aviation community, in
my opinion.

Uh, that was my point: there was a chorus of pilots howling about what a
stupid decision JFK made, as if they would NEVER do such a thing. One
frequently sees that type of rationalization in these newsgroups. Most
pilots believe that their judgement is vastly superior to that of the
average pilot. Apparently the mathematical absurdity of this idea escapes
them. This enables them to believe that they are safer flying than driving.
That self delusion is what ultimately leads to most "pilot error" accidents,
IMO.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

wrote:
The difference is that in driving, the drunk on the other side of
the road is most likely to kill you. When flying, you get to kill
yourself.

So what? You're still much more liable to get killed flying.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM