When to speak up....?

Our tow pilot crashed our Wilga yesterday at dusk. He was coming in with
the flaps down and the power pulled back. At about 200ft he decided his
descent rate was too great and pulled the flaps up. He said he was too slow
but never added power and the high rate of descent continued right into the
ground. The leading link suspension failed but the struts held up so the
plane skidded down the runway on the ends of the struts. He then added full
power, beating the brand new prop into very small pieces.

The good things: No one was hurt at all, the robust suspension absorbed the
impact very well. If it had been in dirt, it would have been a completely
different story, I'm sure it would have flipped.....

The undercarriage is shot, the prop and engine are toast, and there are some
questions about the wing structure. I think it's probably a total loss.
The owners, being gambling men, had decided to self insure. Fortunately
this loss is no big deal for them. On the bright side, we now have a good
supply of Wilga parts!

I had been feeling a little concerned about my friends flying for a while
now but he was very and angry unreceptive of any input about his flying. He
taught me how to fly 27 years ago and I have always held him in very high
regard. I let these things discourage me from acting on my concerns. He's
not that old, mid 60's, but his skills were starting to suffer. I feel
really bad now that I let my respect for him and his attitude get in the way
of talking to him about my concerns.

How many more of you out there have concerns about a fellow pilot and aren't
saying anything to them because it's not easy?




--
Gary Boggs
3650 Airport Dr.
Hood River, Oregon, USA
97031-9613

Gary Boggs wrote:

I had been feeling a little concerned about my friends flying for a while
now but he was very and angry unreceptive of any input about his flying. He
taught me how to fly 27 years ago and I have always held him in very high
regard. I let these things discourage me from acting on my concerns. He's
not that old, mid 60's, but his skills were starting to suffer. I feel
really bad now that I let my respect for him and his attitude get in the way
of talking to him about my concerns.

How many more of you out there have concerns about a fellow pilot and aren't
saying anything to them because it's not easy?

It's a tough situation, when someone's flying skills start to go, and
they go into denial instead of doing something about it. We had a
similar situation years ago where we could see the skills decreasing,
and while we fumbled around trying to figure out what to do, we
discovered the pilot, our long-time friend and main tow pilot, had been
flying without a medical for almost a year! He was so desperate to keep
flying, he didn't want to stop or tell us he couldn't pass a medical
anymore. It was scary, more from a liability standpoint (we owned the
towplane), because he wasn't that "bad" yet, but clearly losing his
sharpness.

This doesn't apply directly to your question, and might not have any
impact on the situation, but in a case where the pilot's formal
qualifications can affect you directly, I think that each year the pilot
should show you his license, binennial, meidical, and the aircraft
owners (even it's a club) should show him the maintenance and annual
records , and insurance papers, or leave these were he can access them
at any time. This should happen at the start of the relationship, so
there aren't any hard feelings later.

--
-----
change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...
Our tow pilot crashed our Wilga yesterday at dusk. He was coming in with
the flaps down and the power pulled back. At about 200ft he decided his
descent rate was too great and pulled the flaps up. He said he was too
slow
but never added power and the high rate of descent continued right into
the
ground. The leading link suspension failed but the struts held up so the
plane skidded down the runway on the ends of the struts. He then added
full
power, beating the brand new prop into very small pieces.

The good things: No one was hurt at all, the robust suspension absorbed
the
impact very well. If it had been in dirt, it would have been a completely
different story, I'm sure it would have flipped.....

The undercarriage is shot, the prop and engine are toast, and there are
some
questions about the wing structure. I think it's probably a total loss.
The owners, being gambling men, had decided to self insure. Fortunately
this loss is no big deal for them. On the bright side, we now have a good
supply of Wilga parts!

I had been feeling a little concerned about my friends flying for a while
now but he was very and angry unreceptive of any input about his flying.
He
taught me how to fly 27 years ago and I have always held him in very high
regard. I let these things discourage me from acting on my concerns.
He's
not that old, mid 60's, but his skills were starting to suffer. I feel
really bad now that I let my respect for him and his attitude get in the
way
of talking to him about my concerns.

How many more of you out there have concerns about a fellow pilot and
aren't
saying anything to them because it's not easy?




--
Gary Boggs
3650 Airport Dr.
Hood River, Oregon, USA
97031-9613



Gary, this is an important subject - thanks for posting it.

I have given this considerable thought as I am now 63. I feel I have a
responsibility to the sport to do all possible to avoid the situation you
describe. All accidents hurt everyone. At a minimum, there is the bad
press and the inevitable increase in insurance premiums. A sport struggling
to maintain members can ill afford any negatives.

I have taken several steps to deal with my own situation.

First, not trusting self-evaluation, I have approached several excellent
young pilots, whom I trust, and sincerely asked them to confront me with
their observations if they sense any degradation in my flying skills. I
have made it clear that if my flying skills start to deteriorate, I will
forgo flying as PIC but may continue flying as the second pilot in a
two-seater with a better pilot as PIC.

The absence of any such confrontations, so far, gives me confidence in my
abilities.

Second, I take every action to maintain my physical and mental abilities. I
fly often, avoid tobacco (including secondary smoke), minimize alcohol, eat
carefully and exercise regularly. I also try to remain intellectually
active. This news group helps with the latter.

I would urge others in my situation to seriously consider similar actions.

Bill Daniels

This issue gets very sticky in club situations.

Several years ago we had an elderly club member who did not fly that
often and demonstrated several very sketchy approaches and landings in
club gliders. As President of the club at the time I felt that some
action needed to be taken so set up several check rides with club
instructors and flew with the member myself. He had long experience
as a pilot and when very current did an acceptable job as PIC.
Unfortunately his skills were very perishable, meaning that with just
a short layoff of a few weeks we were back to square one and in the
potential hazard zone. After essentially failing the clubs flight
test, we considered several remedies, talked them over with the pilot
and came to an understanding that he was not to fly solo or be PIC for
the take off or landing but could continue to fly the club gliders
with other club members under these restrictions. There are allsorts
of issues with this. What is the responsibility of club management to
take pro-active action to head off a potential accident? Who are we to
decide the flying future of fellow club members that may not be
perfect pilots (none of us are) but have not broken anything? It
smacks of big brother. Are the club bylaws and members within their
authority to take this pro-active action? What I was looking for was a
way to keep this pilot of long experience actively engaged in the club
and flying while protecting the interests of the other club members
and to a degree his own. So many of these older members have so much
to contribute and are offten the biggest contributors in a club. It
would be a good thing if clubs could develop a pathway for these
members that was known, acceptable, did not impinge on the ego but
kept them actively flying and contributing to the club. My position
was that he in essence failed the clubs flight test and was given a
red light be the clubs instructors and it did not have a thing to do
with his age which is what it came down to. The eventual outcome in
this case was that while nothing was broken, at least by this member,
he eventually walked accusing age discrimination and equating me to an
infamous iron curtain leader. The joys of being a club President.

John Seaborn USA


"Gary Boggs" wrote in message ...
Our tow pilot crashed our Wilga yesterday at dusk. He was coming in with
the flaps down and the power pulled back. At about 200ft he decided his
descent rate was too great and pulled the flaps up. He said he was too slow
but never added power and the high rate of descent continued right into the
ground. The leading link suspension failed but the struts held up so the
plane skidded down the runway on the ends of the struts. He then added full
power, beating the brand new prop into very small pieces.

The good things: No one was hurt at all, the robust suspension absorbed the
impact very well. If it had been in dirt, it would have been a completely
different story, I'm sure it would have flipped.....

The undercarriage is shot, the prop and engine are toast, and there are some
questions about the wing structure. I think it's probably a total loss.
The owners, being gambling men, had decided to self insure. Fortunately
this loss is no big deal for them. On the bright side, we now have a good
supply of Wilga parts!

I had been feeling a little concerned about my friends flying for a while
now but he was very and angry unreceptive of any input about his flying. He
taught me how to fly 27 years ago and I have always held him in very high
regard. I let these things discourage me from acting on my concerns. He's
not that old, mid 60's, but his skills were starting to suffer. I feel
really bad now that I let my respect for him and his attitude get in the way
of talking to him about my concerns.

How many more of you out there have concerns about a fellow pilot and aren't
saying anything to them because it's not easy?

"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...

How many more of you out there have concerns about a fellow pilot and
aren't
saying anything to them because it's not easy?

We had a recent situation where an 80 year-old pilot in a twin turned
an apparently uncomplicated single engine landing into a spin-crash-burn
right into the middle of my neighborhood. He took his daughter with him.
Also; not good public relations for the local GA airport where he was trying
to land.

Apparently, someone should have spoken up.

Vaughn

"John Seaborn" wrote in message
om...
This issue gets very sticky in club situations.

Several years ago we had an elderly club member who did not fly that
often and demonstrated several very sketchy approaches and landings in
club gliders.

Sometimes there is nothing you can do but let them walk, and that is
a better outcome than waiting for the inevitable accident.

The best situation is for these guys is to fly dual with a newly
licensed pilot as a mentor. I developed a friendship with such a pilot in
my early days as a private pilot. The dual flying we did was great for both
of us. His experience kept me out of trouble, and my eyesight and
newly-born skills kept him out of trouble. We shared expenses and flew more
often than either one of us could have afforded, which helped build and
maintain skills. Just because these guys are experiencing some
deterioration in their abilities, does not mean that they do not have some
very valuable experience to pass on to the next generation of pilots.

Vaughn

Gary & All,
Speak up, when you see something you think is unsafe. I don't care if the pilot
listens or not, at least you just gave him one data point. When he gets several
data points, it may sink in.

I watched a fairly low time pilot enter the pattern at 200 feet and then
proceed to fly downwind and base, just like he was at normal altitude. I swore
he was going to dig in his wing tip as he turned final. He made it and nobody
said anything to him

The next weekend he was killed after arriving at the airport, very low and
then proceeding as though everything was completely normal.

TELL THEM,
JJ Sinclair

On 3/7/04 12:28 PM, in article , "Bill
Daniels" wrote:


I have given this considerable thought as I am now 63. I feel I have a
responsibility to the sport to do all possible to avoid the situation you
describe.

...[do not trust] self-evaluation....

...take every action to maintain...physical and mental abilities.

Good ideas, Bill.

Something that could be relevant to the example posted by Gary is also
staying well aware of how ones focus can slip over the length of a long day
of towing and other duties around the club.

Dehydration and low nourishment levels are real threats for tow pilots as
well as glider pilots during a busy day. The tow plane has to be refueled,
no matter how many gliders are lined up for launch, and so does the tow
pilot. At the age of 60, I can no longer neglect my own "fueling"
requirements they way I did when I was younger. The effects are now more
apparent.

Find ways to stay hydrated and fed, even during long busy hot summer day
launch schedules, and do it the rest of the year too.



Jack
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

probably read some of the posts on here then, from
the 'flat turn using rudder' brigade.

At 00:42 08 March 2004, Jj Sinclair wrote:
Gary & All,
Speak up, when you see something you think is unsafe.
I don't care if the pilot
listens or not, at least you just gave him one data
point. When he gets several
data points, it may sink in.

I watched a fairly low time pilot enter the pattern
at 200 feet and then
proceed to fly downwind and base, just like he was
at normal altitude. I swore
he was going to dig in his wing tip as he turned final.
He made it and nobody
said anything to him

The next weekend he was killed after arriving at the
airport, very low and
then proceeding as though everything was completely
normal.

TELL THEM,
JJ Sinclair

(JJ Sinclair) wrote in message ...

TELL THEM,
JJ Sinclair

Not only that, but TELL ME! Let your friends (or enemies, depending
on how you get along with the rest of the gang at the airport) know
that you do not mind "constructive criticism" when you do some
boneheaded act in public.

Low passes come to mind. If most of your buds say "Oooh Aaah, nice
pass!" but one crotchety old twirlybird geezer tells you that you
scared his dog, then maybe your aerial evolution was not quite as well
executed as you planned.

Of course, you then have to be able to smile (try to hide the clenched
teeth)and thank someone for potentially saving your life...

Kirk