On Saturday, November 30, 2019 at 10:32:36 AM UTC-8, Phil Plane wrote:
On Saturday, 30 November 2019 21:30:21 UTC+13, Branko Stojkovic wrote:

With regards to the stick-and-rudder skills, the matter is pretty straight forward. In general, there is a direct correlation/causation between the flying experience and the stick-and-rudder skill level, i.e., the beginners have limited skills and the experts have excellent skills. Furthermore, most pilots can fairly accurately assess their own stick-and-rudder skills. A yearly check ride with an instructor provides a useful feedback about the areas that need improvement.

Well I would take issue with that statement. I fly with a wide range of pilots from a wide range of backgrounds and have learned to be careful with generalisations.

I have flown with experienced competition pilots with thousands of hours who I would not be comfortable with in a tricky situation. I have flown with pilots who have barely finished their training with a few hundred hours who I wouldn't want to take control from for fear of embarrassing myself because they flew so precisely and correctly. I don't even try to guess in advance which is which any more. I wait for the evidence.

So I would suggest that good handling skills can be learned relatively quickly, but that they don't just get better with repetition. You need to actively try to improve.

Many 'experienced' pilots have been doing the same thing over an over and have embedded bad habits or lazy handling into their flying.

The biggest difference I see is many low time pilots know they haven't learned enough yet and want to get better.

When pilots just want to get by, they should probably think of moving to an activity that doesn't punish mistakes quite as hard.

Okay, so what about them decision-making skills, which also vary among the glider pilot population? It is safe to say that in this case there is a much weaker correlation between the flying experience and the skill level. It seems that the decision-making skills are much more related to the psychological makeup of the pilot and makes things much more complicated and causes several intractable problems.

This is the major factor. If you come up with a solution, let me know.

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Phil Plane

Phil,

I totally agree with you because I have seen it for myself. That's why I started by saying "In general…". In any case, my main point was that the stick-and-rudder skills are much better understood and appreciated, and much easier to rate, than the soft skills of decision-making.

One important thing I didn't say in my post is this: Once your stick-and-rudder skills are good enough for you to fly solo, it is solely up to your decision making to keep you out of situations that would require higher piloting skills than the ones you possess. For that reason alone I would say that poor decision-making is the root cause of most accidents.

As for the solution, I can only tell you what worked for me. When I analyze my flying, I try to identify things that I am doing wrong, i.e., poor decisions that I've made. I also consider if my poor decision was a one-off, or if there may be a pattern. Lastly, and most importantly, I I try to figure out the reasons behind my making these types poor decisions.

For example, I made some poor decisions in the past because I am generally a nice guy who likes to please others. Luckily none of these resulted in an accident, but one came frighteningly close, and it was only my low altitude flying skills that saved my ass, the ass of the guy in my rear cockpit (who I was trying to please) and the asses of a couple of guys on the ground. I have since learned to recognize this pattern in my thinking and, for the most part, I have been successful in avoiding even minor safety infractions in order to please someone.

The most difficult part in this is looking at yourself with all of your shields down, warts and all. If this exercise doesn't make you uncomfortable, then you are not doing it right. Once you get better at it, it becomes much easier to admit to yourself and to other people that you have flaws. It also makes learning from other's mistakes and criticism much more effective.

Branko
XYU