[Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
 | [Main General Bulletin Board | BBFAQ |
Prev by Date | Next by Date | Post Followup ]
Member Login / Signup - Members see fewer ads. - Latest Member Gallery Photos
Reply - Loooooong Posted by EGD [Email]  (#663) [Profile/Gallery]
(more from EGD) on Sat, 3 Oct 2015 10:57:58
In Reply to: OT: What's with all these small plane crashes?, bender  [Profile/Gallery]
, Sat, 3 Oct 2015 09:19:07
Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup
|
A few thoughts on your post...
I hadn't noticed any increase in small plane crashes recently but maybe I haven't been paying attention.
Flying is difficult and many pilots are too inexperienced to handle the situations that arise. It's easy to get into a fix in the air and much more difficult and dangerous to get out of one, often with fatal consequences.
It's a wise man who knows his limitations and I know I won't ever be a pilot despite having a degree in aerospace engineering. I've always had inner ear issues affecting balance and I know I'm not fit for the cockpit because of it. It's one thing to kill yourself but another thing entirely to harm your passengers or people on the ground.
I suspect many of those who crash small planes have simply got into a situation that's way beyond their capabilities or experience. And, it's not like you can just pull off to the side of the road to recalibrate what you're doing.
There are, of course, mindnumbingly stupid people in the air just as there are on the freeway. I used to fly a lot with a close friend in college doing acrobatics and cross-country and he was meticulous in his pre-flight preparation. He was the son of a Navy fighter pilot and his Dad had drilled that into him. Anyway, my college roommate at the time was another pilot but he was reckless and dangerous and my close friend told me never to fly with him.
One example of his stupidity was when he took three linesman from the football team with him in a small Cessna 172 practicing stall manoeuvers. Problem was the combined weight of the guys in the back seat shifted the center of lift so far to the rear of the airfoil that getting the nose of the aircraft pointed down to gain enough airspeed to get out of the stall was extremely difficult and on their last run of the day the genius pulled the airplane out about 100' above the trees.
I've also spoken with ATC people who tell horrors stories of confused pilots not knowing what to do in certain situations and then hearing them plead for help as they crash. Again, the unexpected situation probably overmatched the skills of the pilot.
Another situation is when an inexperience pilot gets into a situation in which he has to rely on his instruments and not his eyes to fly. Oftentimes it's hard to get the brain to believe what the instruments are telling the pilot. You're in the clouds and your brain says you're flying straight and level though the instruments say you're in a 1g turn with the nose pointed down. Next thing you know, your aircraft is in an unrecoverable situation and you crash. I suspect that happens often enough. I've heard of some pilots taping a ball on a string to the roof of the cockpit and rely on its movement as backup to the instruments since gravity doesn't lie, etc.
You can also have a situation in which a person flies a aircraft that's well beyond his experience level. I always think of Thurman Munson, catcher for the Yankees in the 70s, flying a perfectly good Cessna Citation jet into the ground on approach. He didn't have that much experience flying but he could afford the aircraft. Kinda like taking a small prop plane pilot and handling him the keys to an F-22. What could possibly go wrong?
Knowing local conditions is important too. We were flying back down the east side of the Sierra Nevada in California and stopped in Bishop to fuel up and ask about using a pass to go over the Sierra to the Central Valley and the locals told us that our aircraft with the weight we had would not make it, that we'd end up in a box canyon of sorts with no way to turn around without hitting solid granite, we needed a more powerful aircraft with the summer heat, etc. Good advice so we didn't attempt the crossing. Other pilots may not not have had the sense to even ask before making the attempt.
Finally, flying is not necessarily a pursuit for the rich. Lots of middle class people do it. Flying a small plane like a Cessna 182, say, will set you back around $150/hour all things considered but many professionals can afford to do so. Yesterday at my former employer was a fly-in day for the employees and lots of my former colleagues flew in their aircraft. These are experienced engineers making between $150K-$180K per year and that may be considered rich to some but it's solidly middle class in Southern California.
Search for a story by William Langewiesche in The Atlantic magazine (I think) about Air France Flight 442 and the difficulties those experienced pilots encounter on their fatal flight from Brazil to Paris. You may learn a lot about some of the issues involved.
->Posting last edited on Sat, 3 Oct 2015 11:11:08.
, Sat, 3 Oct 2015 09:19:07, Tue, 6 Oct 2015 15:07:13
, Sun, 4 Oct 2015 13:43:15, Sat, 3 Oct 2015 15:15:01, Sat, 3 Oct 2015 10:57:58 <-- Viewing This Message, Mon, 5 Oct 2015 05:39:46
, Sat, 3 Oct 2015 19:45:36
, Sun, 4 Oct 2015 16:46:03, Sun, 4 Oct 2015 17:42:12, Mon, 5 Oct 2015 03:13:48, Mon, 5 Oct 2015 12:18:13, Mon, 5 Oct 2015 14:42:59
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
