Well, we certainly don’t have the money to buy anything fancier than a 56 yo plane with a top speed of 120 knots. He’s a non-surgical sports doc and educator, not a surgeon. He’s been riding motorcycles since he was 16, and has had one stupid arrogant moment that left him sore for a month. He an be impulsive, but he’s not invulnerable and knows it. He never would ride his bike to work because he knew he’d be tired and stressed at the end of a long day and that’s a recipe for disaster on a bike. He won’t boat alone, even though it means he rarely gets on the water anymore, because he knows it’s not safe even if he were in shape for it, which he’s not any more.
So in that respect I’m pretty confident. My worries really stem from wondering if the plane will disintegrate around him when the the glue dries up! (memories of a friend’s dad’s model making addiction, and what happened when we tried to play with the old bi-plane model he had).
Though I might just remind him of the bike near-disaster…
It always seemed to me to be a case of ‘more dollars than sense’.
One of our doctors (we had two doctors; this one was the one dad went to for flight physicals) did not have a Bonanza; but he did have a Piper Cherokee. Now, the PA-28 is a docile airplane by all accounts; but he crashed his. Scuttlebutt said that he had a habit of flying low through a pass in the Tehachapis, and depending on an updraft to get him over a ridge. The wind wasn’t there that day.
OK, that’s not very helpful in a thread about calming someone’s nerves. The point is that attitude is an important factor in flying. (On the ground, I’m a nut. Ground nut! Ha! But in the air, I’m actually responsible.) A Piper Tri-Pacer maxes out at about the same speed as a Cessna 172, and it has a big, fat wing that makes lots of lift. I think it would be a good first airplane. And it is one that the average pilot – let alone a new pilot – is likely to take into conditions that a Bonanza owner might.
Johnny, the Bonanza’s nickname as the “doctor killer” may have been superseded by the Cirrus’ nickname as the “lawyer killer”.
saje, just so you understand, we’re not trying to scare anybody here. Aeronautical decision making (it even has an acronym - ADM) is all about knowing what *can *go wrong so you take the proper precautions, before and during the flight, and thereby keep them from happening. There are actually not that many things that *can *go wrong, and they can *all *be prepared for.
You’ll find a lot of pilots carefully reading and watching every report and every show they can find about problems that have happened, but that isn’t out of morbidity or a sick sense of humor -it’s about learning what not to do, and what to be prepared for, so that if an actual emergency like that occurs, it isn’t really an emergency.
Thanks for pointing that out, Elvis. Every pilot I know is analytical when it comes to incidents and accidents. Understanding is the first part of prevention.
As his wife, you can sit him down and say “Promise me that when the weather looks like a problem, you’ll stay on the ground, or turn around and not fly into it. And that you won’t let even the strong desire to reach your destination overcome this judgment.”
The point is that there will come a day when this dilemma arises. He needs to decide in advance how he’ll act when it does.
When he was really into whitewater boating the was a guy named Charlie Walbridge who put out a regular safety newsletter for the boating community. He basically chronicled every serious boating accident - death or near death/serious injury - and wrote in as much detail as he could glean about the accident. My husband used to read that religiously. We both buy the best safety equipment we can for our respective sports, AND we know how to fit it or use it. I know he will be anal about checking weather and opting to drive rather than fly. And I know he’s planning on continuing his training to get his instrument rating, it’s just going to take longer now with the new job.
It’s good to know that the planes themselves are sturdier than they look, and I’ve done some research on my own about the inspections required. I’m feeling a little bit better
Personal minimums are even more useful, since they provide objective criteria that do not permit judgment to enter into it at all - judgment can be malleable. If, for instance, he has a discussion with his instructor, or other local old hands (hangar-flying isn’t just swapping stories, it’s a learning process too) that reveals he’s not comfortable flying across the Smokies if the minimum forecast ceiling on the route is less than 3000 feet or the visibility is less than 5 miles, then have him write that down and refer to it before considering flying it. Having the numbers handy takes the pressure off and keeps the decision from even being a decision. As he gains experience, his personal minimums can widen.
When he got his ticket, no doubt he got the lecture about it being a license to keep learning. If he didn’t then, I hope he gets it soon. I once heard an aviation safety speaker introduce himself as a “7000 hour student pilot”, and we all got the point. There’s a saying that the most dangerous times for a pilot are at 100 hours, when he thinks he knows everything, at 500 hours, when he *knows *he knows everything, but not until 1000 hours does he know he can never know everything.
The idea of the somewhat experienced pilot being a danger to himself isn’t just folksy wisdom - that’s been found in the Nall Report stats. But IIRC, the band was around 300-500 hours in which one is more likely to have an accident / incident.
I remember reading that and being extra careful when I was at that level of experience.
If hubby is using the aircraft for business he needs to fully accept that he IS going to miss some appointments, and some homecomings WILL be delayed. If his line of work will not tolerate these problems, then a light aircraft is not an appropriate means of transportation.
The “need” to get there is the thing that kills more people in small airplanes than most anything else. Many pilots will eventually fly in iffy weather, and getting away with it, it becomes that much easier the next time, when the weather is only slightly worse. This can also apply to small mechanical problems. (The nose wheel has a little shimmy, but not too bad…I’ll have it checked when I get home) Wash rinse repeat and at some point those pilots will find themselves in deep shit.
Note that this scenario pretty well describes what lead to the loss of a space shuttle. It is a human failing to believe that when a problem does not manifest, it means the risk was overstated.
Staying alive will sometimes require delaying the flight, turning back, or setting down at a small duster strip outside of Hicksville where the only amenity is a windsock and some old tires hung on the fence posts to make them easier to see. (Cell phones have made this less of an issue than in decades past)
The problem with parachutes is that they might not open. If I ever have to bail out of an airplane, I won’t be wearing one. I don’t want to take that chance!
Weather that’s somewhat below your personal minimums in no way guarantees you won’t reach your destination safely. In reality, you’ll probably get there 49 times out of 50. A 1 in 50 chance of killing yourself is way too high a risk to run, but if you get into the habit of doing this, chances are good you’ll get away with it the first 20 or 30 times you try it.
And if you do, part of your brain will be telling you “Hey - every time I tried this it worked - so obviously its okay this time, too.” A pilot who thinks this way is reliably headed for trouble. If he’s lucky, he scares himself badly and has a chance to recalibrate his thinking.
I’m sure with some training, it’ll increase his chances to some extent, just seems like landing options are more limited if engine failure in that environment, particularly if it is a heavy rocked or treed mountainous area. Never done any myself, and I’m sure you know what you’re doing. My ferry pilot was from CO, and he took my plane from Ohio to TX, and told me, “John, if you ever want to do some mountain flying in CO, look me up. We’re tired of you Texan’s littering up our mountains.”
Totally agree with this. General aviation is too weather limited to be used for schedule sensitive transportation. Even if you have a instrument license nothing ordinary people can afford can deal with thunderstorms or icing. I was once stuck somewhere for a week with a rented plane while the fence posts built up a half inch of rime ice.
That said is is lots of fun, and most of the time the weather lets you through. As a Rocky Mountain pilot, I don’t find flying around mountains scary, but I almost never deal with low visibility. Anything under 30 miles or so and I probably wouldn’t fly. Eastern pilots probably have different limits.
If he ever feels pressure to get somewhere on time, just have him park the plane and take a bus.
Please take him up on that offer if you do come out this way. Him or another CFI that is mountain rated. I also am tired of you flat-landers cluttering up the hills around here with your aluminum.
Having grown up in The Pacific Northwest, I do understand that pilots in the coastal mountains have more of a weather issue the we do here. You also get a lot more carburetor ice then we do here. I started my training in Oregon.
saje, I concur that your husband should think about his personal abilities and then set some limits for himself. Writing these limits down on a piece of paper kept in his wallet is a good idea. He must stick to these limits no excuses! It is kind of like setting a limit for what you would pay for an item at an auction before the sale starts and then sticking to that number when the item is sold. Of course at the auction, you only lose money.
From what you have said, I think that he has the right attitude toward flying. Getting an instrument rating is a wonderful idea. Any additional training is good. The wings program is a big help in this area. The wings program may also help him save some $$ on insurance in the future.
The good thing is that he doesn’t have to fly to commute, he just wants to, even though in the big picture it really isn’t convenient or cheap :rolleyes: We own a house & biz in TN, and have a car there. The drive between places is about 6 hrs so if he’s grounded by weather or mechanical problems it’s pretty easily do-able by car. He’s been doing it weekly, more or less, since August anyway. And, luckily, his schedule at both jobs is fairly flexible.
He’s also never been driven by the clock. It drives ME nuts that in day to day life that he doesn’t much care if he’s late, but I hope it will be to his advantage here. No ingrained pressure to beat a deadline might not be such a bad thing after all.
