Yet more good press

Guest Discussion
21

Gee, my airplane has an UP and DOWN control… My Girlfriend! Her: “Let’s go home now” Me: “Yes,dear” In fact, she exhibits this amazing power over much of my life…

Dean:

Remember too that we men always get the “last word” when talking to our Significant Other it’s:

“YES DEAR” and if you follow that rule - you’ll be very happy in dealing with them. Of course, that just my thought on the subject…

Just to add, do it in this order:

Yes dear,

your right,

I’m wrong,

I’m sorry,

repeat as nessasary.

Inproper or non-use can lead to the loss of half your stuff and future penalties.

nee

Gerry Mengo,
SR20 - #173

22

If you want a good literary icon for the early status of the automobile (and perhaps the current status of GA), consider “The Wind in the Willows”. The madcap Mr. Toad is the hobbyist, and Ratty and Mole are the civilians, doing their best to cure Toad of his dangerous obsession. Their first encounter: “It was on them! … the magnificent motor-car, immense, breath-snatching, passionate, with its pilot tense and hugging his wheel, possessed all earth and air for the fraction of a second, flung an enveloping cloud of dust that blinded and enwrapped them utterly, and then dwindled to a speck in the far distance, changed back into a droning bee once more.”

  • Question about history of driving is an interesting one; I haven’t looked at it in depth, but I believe that early-on it was clearly a “hobbyist” pursuit too. I’ll look more before book-tour time.
23

As long as the aviation infrastructure can be maintained and innovative companies like Cirrus Design remain financially viable, why would any GA hobbyist want civilians on board?.. Outside of the lofty goal of bringing the GA flying experience to the masses, what motivation is there for the GA community to rally around any effort to welcome the civilians to this cozy club?

Legit question, but my main answer would be to disagree with the premise. I think that the infrastructure will not be maintained or expanded, and companies like Cirrus will not prove to be viable, if GA ekes its way along as a quarter-of-one-percent hobbyist-plus-plutocrat pasttime.

Main points to consider:

  • If the only real growth area for GA is for corporate jets, and the piston fleet keeps falling apart and being flown by a dwindling tribe of enthusiasts, it is simply inevitable that political battles between communities and airports will go much more decisively against the airports. The political math will be: haughty Mr. Zillionaire with his Gulfstream, versus families whose kids are woken up by airplane noise. I can tell you where that’s leading. It’s the situation in Europe now.

  • A much larger market is the only hope for producing planes that are more reliable, less defect-ridden, and far cheaper that those today. The GA industry at its best right now resembles the British sports-car industry of the early 1950s. Some sporty Triumphs and MGs, some stately Rollses and Bentleys – but all of them essentially hand built, all making frequent trips to the shop, none nearly as robust as “lean manufacturing” has forced all cars to become in the last decade. The automakers couldn’t have done it without high volume, and neither can GA.

  • Crowding? I don’t know about you, but the only place I ever encounter crowds in the GA universe is Class B airspace or the approach lanes to big-time airports. Seems to me that there is a very long way to go before crowding is a serious issue.

In short, the logical trajectory of GA’s current “cozy” approach is a fleet that consists of biz-jetz, and 30-year-old Skyhawks, and not much in between. Just my opinion!

24

It seems time reference is the difference between our observations.

In the short run, that being 5-10 years, it is likely that increased non-corporate GA activity will DECREASE the chances for positive outcomes on airport issues. Every new non-corp GA pilot impacts airport communities by his/her flying activities, primarily noise and accident potential, but clearly not all of these same pilots impact the local airport communities’ political debates. Many will not even reside in the airport community or know of local airport use issues. In the short term, increased non-corp GA use isn’t the solution because it doesn’t translate into an equivalent political will.

  • A much larger market is the only hope for producing planes that are more reliable, less defect-ridden, and far cheaper that those today.

True, but how big a market? 10 million cars per year were produced by American auto manufacturers in the 70’s and 80’s and the product didn’t get incrementally better. Many opted for the relatively low volume Japanese auto makers to provide the cheaper, more reliable, less defect- ridden product. CD’s SR20 is a revolutionary product and most likely financially rewarding at production rates of 700 planes per year. It doesn’t take the participation of the masses to make that happen. It only takes CD to get production to the point where they meet current hobbyist demand. The constraint on CD isn’t demand, it’s production. If the rules of exception apply, CD can prove that a cheap, reliable, and less-defect ridden plane is possible at rates not requiring civilians involvement.

  • Crowding? I don’t know about you, but the only place I ever encounter crowds in the GA universe is Class B airspace or the approach lanes to big-time airports.

You are right, I too only encounter crowds in and around Class B. I fly out of SNA and NZY :wink:

25

Legit question, but my main answer would be to disagree with the premise. I think that the infrastructure will not be maintained or expanded, and companies like Cirrus will not prove to be viable, if GA ekes its way along as a quarter-of-one-percent hobbyist-plus-plutocrat pasttime.

Look at the demographics at your $100 hamburger stop. What happens when all the old men pass away? Less than your percentage?

26

FWIW, I don’t necessarily subscribe to your view that flying is inherently unsafe.

This is not to deny the risks present when the inevitable and otherwise unforseeable mechanical problems occur, which risks are obviously much lower to motorists who remain attached to terra firma. But such risks are a small minority to the bonehead risks.

Pete,

I actually agree with you.

My contention is not that flying is inherently unsafe; it is that it is not inherently safe. Perhaps it is exactly this fact - that something can be simultaneously both “not inherently unsafe” and “not inherently safe” - that fuels the debate.

To the extent that flying IS safe, it is so because of responsible planning and the best judgment of well-trained individuals (not just pilots, but ATC personnel, our A&Ps, airport line crew, etc.).

The unsafe part of flying comes from the obvious opposites - the boneheads and their moves, which can and do jeopardize all of us - both Hobbyists and Civilians, to borrow from Jim Fallows. But you’re right: there are still other risks, mechanical and natural, that are always present.

These risks are present everywhere, always; in a car, steering could fail, or an earthquake could collapse a bridge while you’re driving on it. Events like this are rare, but they do happen.

In aviation, “stuff happens”, too. We accept these risks, and do what we can to manage them; we accept that there are some things that we can’t do much about.

Your point about the road-risks (high speed in close proximity to other drivers, etc.) is well made and well taken. There are indeed many areas in which flying is both safer and more pleasant than car travel.

I know we’re on the same page with this. It’s the pilots who jump in and go after a 10-second “preflight” and no weather briefing I worry about - for them and for us.

  • Mike.
27

Methinks John King might say ‘we have met the boneheads and they are us’.

The best among us must realize dumb mistakes are not made only by the dumb. Whether or not flying is inherently risky is subject to argument. It is not inherently safe. It is our job to take as much of the risk out of it as possible, to make it safe.

Articles such as the one in question suffer from Jessica (Dubroff) syndrome. To be a worthy pilot is not easy but it will be portrayed as such from time to time.

28

Couldn’t agree more…

Here’s a portion of an e-mail I sent in response to that article:

“While I have no doubt the intentions of the piece were to dramatize just how safe and informed the next generation of pilots will be, I believe it is ill conceived to suggest that a 12-year-old is capable of flight under your or any conditions. The general public may or may not understand how relatively simple the actual controls of an airplane are, but they do know that the mastery of those controls and the judgement that goes with it take time, training, extensive review, and still are not perfect. Consider how ludicrous it would sound to say that a new Toyota was safe because with some simple instruction and a special seat I could take my 10 year-old friend out and he could drive me through Los Angeles.”

29

Methinks John King might say ‘we have met the boneheads and they are us’.

Bob,

You are right. We are often the boneheads. I have made mistakes that make me blush, really dumb mistakes, that I was lucky to get past unscathed. Everyone makes mistakes.

There was a recent story somewhere of a guy in a twin who declared an emergency - one engine was on fire. Tower cleared him to land, any runway; they rolled the rescue and fire equipment. They reported (on the radio) that they could see his engine trailing smoke and flame. On short final, the pilot reported that he did not have a positive GEAR DOWN indication - and he elected to go around. He never made it.

Was that a bonehead decision? Not in my book. Sure, it’s easy to be an armchair-quarterback and criticize. But I’ve had a real engine-out emergency, and I know that my brain didn’t work the same way it usually does; stress and adrenaline do very strange things physiologically and mentally. I think that’s why we train so much for emergencies - having a rote script is extremely helpful when the chips are down. That’s what saved me. I just reverted to what I’d been taught. I sure as hell wasn’t thinking very well.

I doubt that the poor sod in the twin with a burning engine ever trained for a simultaneous failures of the type he thought he was experiencing. It’s obvious - way obvious - that his was not a good decision; but we aren’t experiencing the terror that he was at the time.

My point is… anyone can do something boneheaded; sooner or later, I believe, everyone does. There’s a difference, though, between doing something boneheaded, and BEING A BONEHEAD. What separates those who are occasional boneheads from the bonehead-recidivists is the desire to avoid the mistakes, both by preparation and by learning from the mistakes we do make.

I hope I can continue to survive my mistakes. If I die because of a mistake, that’s a shame. But if I die (or worse, kill someone else), because I failed to plan, or didn’t try to be safe, or did something stupid for the nth time, then shame on me. If I did that, I would truly be a bonehead.

I believe that most in the aviation community are safety nuts. But sadly, there are still real boneheads out there.

  • Mike.
30

I didn’t mean the King article mentioned far above, I meant the other one, orginally posted somewhere on at thread below and to which Bob was referring.

31

Mike,

I couldn’t agree more. The reality is flying is dangerous. I know that’s a tough word, but it is true. Airplanes are not very dangerous. But once a human being is behind the controls and goes up into the world of weather, it becomes an activity with risk. Period. Boneheads are the ones who ignore this simple fact.

No one can expect to perform perfectly in any endeavor. No pilot should expect to perform flawlessly behind the controls. It seems to me that the best one can do, therefore, is acknowledge the risks and seek to minimize them. Training is one way. Mental training is another. Discipline is a part of it. I don’t verbally announce my engine failure on take-off plans every time for show, I do it because I figure if I say it a thousand times, then if it ever happens, I’ll save precious seconds because it will be somewhat engrained.

It is also important for the pilot to remember that risks operate on at least a square law. One failure, say is a 5 out od 100 in terms of serious. But two 5’s in one flight does not add up to ten, it makes 25, or 5 times 5. Your example of the guy in the twin shows this… Once something is wrong, pilot’s need to remember GET ON THE GROUND. If they think flying is so inherently safe that “I’ll do today’s IMC even though I know my back-up vacuum pump is done - because hey flying is safe” they are tossing out the safety.

I have friends who are big-time mountain climbers. Not one of them thinks climbing is safe or dangerous. They think of it as humbling. They acknowledge the power of the mountain to cast them aside without a thought. Pilots need to remember this too. A thunderstorm, a mechanical… and it is us against gravity. And we’ll lose. Flying is most safe when we admit it is dangerous.

Dean

PS – I think all of the above is why I love flying. When I’m up in the air, I have to become the person I’d like to be.