I've been reading along with the thread about good pilots vs bad pilots and
how these two different scenarios fit into the accident environment.
It's an interesting thread.
If you will indulge me, I'd like to add some personal comment on the good vs
bad issue.
I think most of us as a group will agree that if each one of us were to sit
down and evaluate ourselves to ourselves as pilots, most of us would come up
with a fair analysis that pointed to our taking flying and flight safety
seriously. Oh, I'm sure there are a few of us who wouldn't pass the test,
but for the most part, based on what I've read from all of you for the years
I've been hanging around here, I'd say, the average pilot here is safety
conscious and tries his/her absolute best to make their flying as safe as
humanly possible for both themselves and the people who entrust their lives
to them with every flight.
Some of us are pleasure pilots, actually a great many here are pleasure
pilots. A few of us come from diversified professional aviation backgrounds
and have thousands of hours behind us. All of us share a common interest in
making flying as safe as we can make it, so in that respect, we're all equal
partners in the game.
My perspective on the good vs bad issue isn't any more profound than yours
really. It might however have a slightly different slant.
I spent a great deal of my time in aviation at both extreme ends of the
teaching spectrum. I specialized in teaching primary students and also
pilots who would be flying high performance airplanes. I spent many years
closely involved in the airshow community where life and death in an
airplane were a heartbeat away, and decision and indecision were much more
than mere words.
During my tenure in aviation, counting the pilots close to me on the
military jet aerobatic teams, I've lost no less than 32 close friends and
associates to airshow related accidents. I've written on the subject of
airshow flight safety internationally and have served on more than one
accident investigation committee.
What I'm getting at here is simply to give you the base from which I'm
making my comments on the good vs bad pilot issue. I'm sure many of you have
extensive experience in slightly different areas and would have intelligent
comment to add along with mine.
I'd like to try and pass on to you how many of us in the airshow community
approach the flight safety issue. Perhaps by sharing how we feel about it,
some mutual benefit can be obtained that will result in food for thought
among the group.This is my intent anyway.
We have a saying in the warbird community that basically postulates the
simple fact that flying an airplane is a physical and mental exercise in
avoiding an accident the airplane is trying to make happen. How good you can
make yourself at avoiding that accident and how long you can keep from
having that accident is the name of the game......nothing more...nothing
less.
If we took the time to figure out all the things that could go wrong with a
given flight or go wrong on a given airplane at any given time, we'd
probably never get in one of the damn things. Let's face it; anytime you
take a piece of heavy machinery, point it in a direction and make it go real
fast and real high off the ground, you have a potential for an accident to
say the least.
Avoiding having this accident is job one for us as pilots, and how we
approach dealing with this situation will go a long way in determining our
longevity as pilots.
You can play the statistic game and come up with all kinds of stats on hours
flown vs accident rates but that won't tell you much on the individual
basis; YOU being the individual. I can tell you that we in the display
flying community don't put a whole lot of faith in statistics. We believe
that from the time you first set foot on an airfield and sit your butt down
in the seat of an airplane with the intention of learning to fly, your
ATTITUDE about what you're doing will determine how good you become at
avoiding that accident waiting for you out there.
The key to avoiding accidents and being a good pilot lies in preparation and
training. Even considering this, the odds are up for grabs.
You can be a good pilot for twenty years and end up being a bad one for just
a few seconds and those few seconds can wipe out every moment of those
twenty years of good and safe flying.
Just last year at Mountain Home AFB, Chris Stricklin of the Thunderbirds, a
thoroughly trained and competent pilot who had demonstrated to the entire
Air Force that he was good enough to fly in the most demanding environment
you can possibly imagine, made one simple mistake and in the space of a few
seconds, lost his airplane, came within 1/8 second of losing his life and
effectively ended his career in the Air Force.
I could give you a hundred examples like this one, but what happened to
Stricklin makes my point perfectly. Even if we prepare through constant
training, we can be bitten and bitten hard, and it happens to the best of
us.
The truth is that at any given moment in time, a pilot can be either a good
pilot or a bad one. The trick is to constantly be leaning heavily on the
"good" side. The only way to do this is through constant training and
preparation so that when something goes wrong, and believe me, sooner or
later, something will go wrong, the training kicks in and what could have
been an accident is avoided. In this case, the pilot is a good pilot.
In the airshow community, we believe that being a good pilot is simply being
as prepared for what you are doing as is humanly possible. We cut the odds
this way. Taking catastrophic failure out of the equation, many of us have
survived long careers as pilots by adapting this attitude for being prepared
through proper training.
What I've commented on here holds true, especially true, for the primary
student learning to fly, and the everyday non professional pilot who flies
only for pleasure.
As a flight instructor, I've taught this simple philosophy to every student
who came my way.
"Spend every moment as a pilot preparing yourself for an accident that might
never happen, and have some fun while you're doing it.....THAT'S FLYING!!!!"
Dudley Henriques