wrote:
On Aug 17, 6:19 pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
Peter Dohm wrote:
"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message
...
Back in May, I finally got a chance to ride along in a friend's float
plane, and he even let me do a couple of take-offs and landings. I was
hoping that since his plane partner had lost his medical, I could convince
him to take me on as a plane partner.
Today, that plane crashed, and my friend and probably his plane partner
are both dead.
It is much better for each of us to "go out with a bang" doing something
which we enjoy. I have watched several slowly pine away, despite all of the
so-called modern miracles, and that really is much worse. Still, it is a
real shame that your friend was along on that flight--and apparently long
before what should have been his time.
Peter
Naturally, being around the demonstration community most of my life,
I've seen my share of death and managed to avoid it personally,
sometimes by a slim margin.

I've been in conversations like this one many times and in fact have
commented within this context on occasion when talking with other air
show pilots when the subject of dying in a crash has come up.
I've always said the same thing at those times and I'll relate it here FWIW;
My answer was simple and to the point. What I said was that if I drove
one into the ground someday, I sure hoped that my friends didn't all
gather round and say I died doing something I loved to do. I'd MUCH
rather have had them gather round and say that knowing me like they did,
they would take even money that whatever happened, I was fighting it all
the way down trying to save it.

This is just a small point on a personal slant that I've made above, but
FWIW, I think many pilots who don't make it for one reason or another
might rest easier if their friends thought of them this way. I know in
the airshow community, this is how a lot of us feel.

--
Dudley Henriques- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I've never cared for the "went out doing what they loved" line
either. Dying sucks no matter how you look at it or how it happens,
whether you smash into the ground in a plane, or fade away in a
hospital bed. Every person that dies leaves behind people who liked
them, loved them, and even a few that hated them. Its better to throw
a wake and celebrate the life that they had, and openly state that you
will miss them, than to try to somehow justify what happened. Just
admit it sucks, face the pain of losing them, and celebrate the fact
that you were fortunate enough to be part of their life.

I for one hope that I never ever die in a plane crash. I love flying
too much, and would hate to die from something that gives me so much
pleasure. I would also hate for my wife to be able to say "see, I
knew his flying was dangerous and I knew it would kill him someday".
Of course, I don't want to die from cancer, heart attack, auto
accident, viral infection, gunshot, stabbing or "old age".
Unfortunately, none of us are immortal.

I lost two co-workers in a plane crash, and my boss was lucky enough
to survive it with serious injuries. I mourned the two who died (both
great guys) and told my boss that I was glad that he was still alive
(and he was damned lucky to be alive). When his partners tried to pin
the blame on him (unjustified, he wasn't responsible for the crash) I
supported him and even testified on his behalf in court when he sued
his partners for ousting him from the company just two weeks after the
crash. The whole thing was ugly, and I left that company because of
how they treated him (and how they treated me). I never once thought
that the guys who died did so doing what they loved, that simply
didn't matter. They were dead, their families were suffering, and
there was no way to ever change that. Nobody could do anything about
it, and even trying to lay blame where it didn't belong wasn't going
to change it.

I think that the best we can do for fatal airplane accidents is to
study them to learn from the mistakes (if any) that the pilot(s) made
so that we don't repeat them. If we can do that and succeed, then at
least they helped prevent someone else from repeating that accident.
Learning from personal experience how to avoid fatal accidents isn't
very practical.

Dean W
AeroLEDs LLC
www.aeroleds.com

Had a good friend, Dick Schram. Dick was probably the best light
aircraft stick I've ever known. He was world famous for his comedy act
in a J3 Cub. He was killed right in front of me as his son Dick Jr (of
the Blue Angels) was narrating his act at the Reading show many years ago.
He was killed when the stick came out in his hand during a low altitude
loop. The airplane was borrowed and had been used for a photo shoot the
day before with the rear stick taken out for the photographer. Whoever
put it back in didn't secure the cotter pin at the base of the stick and
Dick missed it in his preflight.
It was just one of those "little things" that can kill you in an airplane.
I have used Dick's accident in every safety seminar I've ever given on
flight safety. I would estimate over the years I've probably reached
thousands of pilots with this "preflight importance message".
I've thought many times about Dick and how he might have felt about
being used in this way, but I knew him well enough to know that if there
would have been one thing he would have wanted to leave behind it would
have been a safety message that might save another pilot's life.

In our business, you never cry in public when someone buys the farm. It
just isn't the way professionals do things. This doesn't mean we don't
have feelings. Of course we feel a loss just as anyone would. We have
families and friends and we all know each other. Aviation is one huge
family really, and when someone goes in, we all feel it.
But the name of the game on the professional end is LEARNING. Privately,
we suck it in and eat it raw. We look at what happened and we learn from
it. We feel that if nothing is learned from an accident, a life was
wasted, and no life should be wasted.
Through my safety lectures, Dick Schram lived on to help other pilots. I
STILL even today, as you can see here, use his accident to stress to
pilots everywhere the importance of complete and thorough preflight
inspections.
Knowing Schram as I did, someday down the line when we meet again, he'll
buy me a heavenly drink and slap me on the back and thank me for
insuring that his death might have saved another pilot's life.
Dick Schram was like that.
Dudley Henriques

--
Dudley Henriques