I am in The Killing Zone

Andrew Gideon wrote:

In a way, it's a difficult line. I've always thought that one reason for
flying with an instructor was to push one's personal envelope. So
conditions that might be just beyond my personal minimums are something I'd
try out with an instructor on board. In a sense, this is a case where I am
hoping for a "bail out" should I get in over my head.

I've not thought about it quite this way before, and I'm curious what others
might think.

It's been years since I've flown with an instructor who knows how to handle a Maule.
Since I've always been the most experienced pilot on board my plane since about 3
months after I bought it, I got out of the habit of thinking the CFI was there to
bail me out long ago. I'd bet that I'd keep the same mindset now even if I were to
fly with a high-time Maule CFI.

George Patterson
None of us is as dumb as all of us.

Yes, "instructor in command" syndrome is insidious.

On the one hand, I do not relinquish "in command" when i fly with an
instructor. If an instructor asks me to do something that is patently unsafe,
I will demur. However, in order to learn anything, I need to trust the
instructor - when he asks me to do something that is beyond my capability
(alone), he =is= there to bail me out. How else am I going to learn to fly
upside down, or in a cloud, or with the nose wheel in the back? But even when
a situation may not be beyond me, an instructor isn't just a passenger. He's
more like a required crewmember, and we need to fly as a team.

This should be understood. I usually treat it as understood. I'm not sure,
upon reflection, how well my understanding would match the instructor's should
we get into a situation.

For example, a passenger pulls the power off and says you lost your engine,
what do you do? If it were me, I wouldn't set up a glide, pick a field, and go
through my emergency checklist. I would smack the passenger one good, and
shove the lever back forward. Then I would contemplate the juxtaposition of
91.3 against 91.15.

An instructor does the same thing, it's a whole different story. As it turned
out, we were over a grass strip. I set up the proper approach, went through
the proper checklist procedures, and made an approach. 200 feet above the
ground the instructor did =not= say I had the field made and to go around. He
said go ahead and land it. Well, I'd never landed at a grass strip before
(renters are prohibited from doing so). I mentioned this and he replied
(correctly) that it only applies without an instructor - it was ok to land on
grass with him in the plane. Ok, cool! I did a nice landing, we went around
and did it several more times, then went home. I learned something and got
some nice grass experience (though being winter it wasn't quite the same).

Later on I looked up the airport we had landed at in the AF/D and found out it
was closed to transients in winter.

So, whose bad? Pilot in command (me) or instructor in command syndrome? What
would you have done? Why?

Jose




--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

"Joe Johnson" wrote in message
m...

I'm a newly minted PP-ASEL and I'm as scared (though not as eloquent) as
Marco. Are you saying the whole thesis in The Killing Zone is based on
such
an elementary methodological error?

Yup. Of course, a sound analysis might still yield a similar result. We just
don't know.

--Gary

Are you saying the whole thesis in The Killing Zone is based on such
an elementary methodological error?

Not entirely. But you are dealing with such small numbers here that
the only way to make them valid would be to keep the dead pilots alive
and let them keep on flying.

Fatalities are only caused by people who crash. Once you're killed,
you don't get to play any more, or in this case to accumulate more
hours. Even if fatalities were distributed at random among the entire
pilot population, the survivors would necessarily have more hours than
the ones who were killed.

It's like the old pilot justification: "He *****ed up!" If he crashed,
then he ****ed up. Since you won't **** up, you won't crash. QED.

In this case, the pilot is saying: "He was low-time!" Since we aren't
low-time (well, I have just over 300 hours), then obviously we won't
crash. As Hemingway said: "Wouldn't it be pretty to think so?"

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

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"Cub Driver" wrote in message
news

Are you saying the whole thesis in The Killing Zone is based on such
an elementary methodological error?

Not entirely. But you are dealing with such small numbers here that
the only way to make them valid would be to keep the dead pilots alive
and let them keep on flying.

I don't think that's correct. The percentages are small, but with hundreds
of fatalities per year, the magnitude of the "killing zone" difference would
pass a statistical-significance test. It's just that the author isn't
measuring what he claims to be measuring.

Fatalities are only caused by people who crash. Once you're killed,
you don't get to play any more, or in this case to accumulate more
hours. Even if fatalities were distributed at random among the entire
pilot population, the survivors would necessarily have more hours than
the ones who were killed.

Not by a noticeable amount. The fatality rate is only 0.05% per year. If the
fatality rate per hour of flight time were constant as a function of total
hours flown, the distribution of flight-time hours among the dead would be
virtually identical to the distribution among the survivors. (If the
fatality rate were, say, 20% per year, then your point would apply.)

--Gary

"Joe Johnson" wrote in message news:2Xkwc.5825

I'm a newly minted PP-ASEL and I'm as scared (though not as eloquent) as
Marco. Are you saying the whole thesis in The Killing Zone is based on
such
an elementary methodological error?

Don't be afraid, just be aware and prepared.

I read a statistic back in the early '90s that said that newly-minuted
private pilots were less at risk than pilots in the 150-hour range, because
their training and discipline was more current and they have flown more
regularly than somebody like me, who logged a couple of hours a year until
just recently. I'm at 150 hrs now, and thankful that I'm in a training
program again because I can see how some of my skills have rusted that,
without IFR training, I would have forgotten about all together. Other than
that I'd probably me more of a danger to myself than I was at 50 hrs.

-c

Well, let's not go overboard either.
You took up flying because you enjoy it, right? If you come to the point where
you no longer enjoy it, then don't make a point of pride out of it.

Our psychological mind set has a lot to do with the outcome of everything we
undertake. Without considering flying, all of us have seen talented,
intelligent people get themselves into situations where they were subjugated -
perhaps they "gave" power to someone else, who was able to manipulate them,
perhaps through anxiety about a professional situation they got into a
situation where they looked stupid, and everything they did only made them
look more clueless, when you KNOW they have far greater talent and ability
than that.

As pilots and (perpetual) students, we are constantly trying to improve our
risk management - however in our efforts I wonder if we don't sometimes create
situations that actually degrade our performance. Look at the VFR into IMC
problem. It has been drilled into us that an inadvertent foray by a VFR pilot
into IMC is guaranteed to reduce his life expectancy to 23 seconds. Well
that's not necessarily true, and neither is it a correct reading of the
experiments cited to support it. With just a little bit of training, pilots
can be expected to do much better - well over a minute in some cases!

Seriously, I read an article recently in which a pilot recounts his foray into
IMC. He enlisted the help of his non-pilot passengers - one to watch the AI,
and to "yell" if it moved. Another to do the same with the VSI, the altimeter,
etc. Well OK - he found a solution and came out of it alive, and good for
him, but my impression in reading the article was that his greatest weakness
was his attitude. He took it as a given that the situation was unsurvivable,
when at the same time he demonstrated that he knew exactly what to do. In this
case, I believe his training about risk actually hindered his performance, and
with a little less of the "23 second" self-fullfilling prophecy, he would have
improved his performance immeasurably.

Many pilots have pretty interesting stories about early solo flights. The
first time you think you're lost, and there's no instructor to bail you out.
How many thoughts go through your mind before you finally decide "Wait a
minute . . . I know how to do this"? After this, some assurance is gained, and
every new challenge, despite the anxiety it produces, can be met with the
LEARNED (not born-with) problem solving attitude - provided of course that you
have not grossly overstepped your limits.

To be honest, in the example cited here I don't think I would have flown
either. I don't like the "leaky brakes" thing, particularly with passengers
who place their trust in me. So it's not the decision I question, but all the
brow-beating. I'm interested in hearing others' opinion here - even those who
say I'm way off - but I think to fly safely (not to mention enjoyably) we
should be more serene in our judgement of managable risks vs imprudence.

G Faris

I think I mentioned before that I don't feel ready.


That's good... it will (should) make you a more careful pilot.
I am worried about the pilot that that has not worries. (Alfred
E. Newman comes to mind... "what, me worry?")

Its healthy to question yourself... "am I prepared for this flight?"
"Do I feel confident with the weather situation en-route?"
You WILL feel more comfortable with more hours. Actually, for
me it wasn't until I got my Commercial rating on top of an
instrument rating that I spent more time enjoying the flight than
sweating the details.

Stick to the checklists, and scan the instruments (engine instruments too!)
Don't ever get too confident.

Thanks for a great post - I am just nearing the end of my PPL A training
here in the UK in a PA28-161 and have all of the same worries that you have,
in fact at the moment the more I learn, the more I question my abilities. I
do think however that if we truly relax or become complacent then we invite
problems upon ourselves.

Why fly when we aren't happy with the circumstances? I work very hard to be
able to afford my training and in fairness, if I don't enjoy it I might as
well tear up £20 notes. So, bearing that in mind I only fly if I feel
comfortable doing so. Surely this way we can derive more from our amazing
pastime and stay on the right side of the killing zone by being reasonable
and honest with ourselves in making decisions that, ultimately, our lives
depend upon. In my opinion a decision to stay on the floor is one that you
can never regret - there will always be another day as good as the last.
That said though, I do greatly enjoy my flying and the sense of liberty and
freedom that I get from it. We are all lucky to be flying and if we display
the responsibility and common-sense that should be synomonous with flying
then only we decide whether or not we come home.

After 350 hours there's a SHARP drop.

Well, the bad pilots have crashed.

And the uninterested pilots have quit flying.

And the elderly pilots have died of natural causes.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

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