TV Interview With Pilot From ADIZ Incident

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
I feel no sympathy for Mr. Sheaffer. I feel a little for Mr. Martin, but
he
too, even as a 30 hour student, should have flight planned the route and
made himself extremely familiar with it.

Why? Do you expect your passengers to supervise your navigation?

--Gary

I expect any student pilot passengers that ride along on cross country
flights with me to at least show the initiative and interest to figure out
where we're going, how long it will take, how we're going to get there, and
if we stray off course could we end up running into anything or possibly get
shot down by F16's. If they don't want to do the work at home, we can do it
together, but he will do it. Any student that doesn't at least show that
much interest can walk, and I don't care if he's a student of mine or of any
other instructor. If a person has something in their wallet that says FAA
and Pilot on it, they should at least be responsible for their own flight
safety to what ever extent they can. I have no tolerance for pilots who are
passengers that sit idly by all fat, dumb, and happy, wondering where they
are rather than knowing. Nowhere did I mention or suggest "supervising" the
PIC, the PIC was in charge, but that doesn't mean that the pilot/passenger
should be a corpse. What I am suggesting is that Martin could have
monitored their flight path and watched out for his own ass. He had the
ability and the knowledge, and if he would have used it, he could have saved
them both a lot of trouble. If I was Martin's CFI, we would begin the
cross country planning lessons all over and it would last a good while.

Jim

"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
news
"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
I feel no sympathy for Mr. Sheaffer. I feel a little for Mr. Martin,
but
he
too, even as a 30 hour student, should have flight planned the route and
made himself extremely familiar with it.

Why? Do you expect your passengers to supervise your navigation?

--Gary

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
I expect any student pilot passengers that ride along on cross country
flights with me to at least show the initiative and interest to figure out
where we're going, how long it will take, how we're going to get there,
and
if we stray off course could we end up running into anything or possibly
get
shot down by F16's. If they don't want to do the work at home, we can do
it
together, but he will do it. Any student that doesn't at least show that
much interest can walk, and I don't care if he's a student of mine or of
any
other instructor. If a person has something in their wallet that says FAA
and Pilot on it, they should at least be responsible for their own flight
safety to what ever extent they can. I have no tolerance for pilots who
are
passengers that sit idly by all fat, dumb, and happy, wondering where they
are rather than knowing. Nowhere did I mention or suggest "supervising"
the
PIC, the PIC was in charge, but that doesn't mean that the pilot/passenger
should be a corpse. What I am suggesting is that Martin could have
monitored their flight path and watched out for his own ass. He had the
ability and the knowledge, and if he would have used it, he could have
saved
them both a lot of trouble. If I was Martin's CFI, we would begin the
cross country planning lessons all over and it would last a good while.

Jim


I'd start with a review of CRM...

This isn't that much unlike cases where 1st Officers have allowed Captains
to kill both of them (and everyone in the back of the bus) by flying into
t-storms or CFIT without uttering a peep.

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
Any student that doesn't at least show that
much interest can walk, and I don't care if he's a student of mine or of
any
other instructor.

That's a perfectly reasonable choice for you to make, especially since
you're an instructor. But there's also nothing unreasonable about a PIC
being willing to carry a student passenger who does *not* take that interest
on that particular flight (especially a PIC who is *not* an instructor); and
there'd be nothing unreasonable about being such a passenger.

But I don't understand why you leap to the conclusion that the student
*didn't* take an interest in planning the flight. The pilots' joint
statement claims they both did pre-flight planning; do you have evidence to
the contrary? The student was actually flying the plane; perhaps he was not
yet far enough along in his training to navigate reliably while doing so, so
he depended on the PIC to interpret where they were (relative to their
pre-planned track) and to say what heading to fly. The PIC got lost, thought
they were elsewhere, and specified the wrong headings.

--Gary

But I don't understand why you leap to the conclusion that the student
*didn't* take an interest in planning the flight.

I'll agree with you that I did jump to that conclusion. Some of the things
that I do automatically when taking trips, I am sure other people do not do
at all. I should not begin to guess what type of prep the student pilot
did. I guess two pilots planning the same route could get lost in
unfamiliar territory and neither realize where they were. I would hope that
two heads and four eyes would tilt the odds more in their favor, perhaps
not. What irritates me the most is that Shaeffer hasn't shown us that he
understood the complexity of the area other than the Camp David P area.
That relaxed attitude would not be something that I would want a student
exposed to when flying in that airspace. Maybe more will come out and we
won't have to speculate, you make some valid points.

Jim

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
If they were willing, I think it would be of great benefit for a magazine
like AOPA's Flight Training to interview both of them and ask them
questions
from the pilots, students, and instructors point of view, rather than just
the news media interviewing them from the talking head "you almost got
shot
down and could have killed the President" point of view.

Agreed.

I guess two pilots planning the same route could get lost in
unfamiliar territory and neither realize where they were. I would hope
that
two heads and four eyes would tilt the odds more in their favor, perhaps
not. What irritates me the most is that Shaeffer hasn't shown us that he
understood the complexity of the area other than the Camp David P area.

Yup, that's certainly true. And he seems to have been off course by a good
45 degrees, which is hard to understand.

On the other hand, I once got 30 degrees off course when I plotted a course
while flying, and mistakenly subtracted magnetic variation instead of adding
it. If they did something like that, and also had a crosswind that was
different than forecast, and maybe had some unnoticed gyro drift and some
sloppiness in holding their heading (since the student was flying), and if
they had the bad luck for all those factors to align in the same direction,
and if their pilotage sucked and/or the landmarks were sparse until they
were deeply inside the ADIZ...

--Gary

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
I expect any student pilot passengers that ride along on cross country
flights with me to at least show the initiative and interest to figure out
where we're going, how long it will take, how we're going to get there,
and
if we stray off course could we end up running into anything or possibly
get
shot down by F16's. If they don't want to do the work at home, we can do
it

I think Gary and Jim both got good point, but definitely the real experience
of the student pilot is an important factor. If he doesn't know anything
about navigation yet, maybe its ok, but if he does, he should have shown
iniciative to try to see the flight plan and see what's going on. At least
whenI started doing crosscountries, I became very interested in the routings
to take.
Now as a pilot, I always try to contribute positively with the PIC, and I'll
even tell him that I think to do something is a bad idea if I really think
it is. I know I'm not the PIC, but still I have a responsibility with myself
and my family and my friend, the PIC, to try to help as much as I can. The
fact that I am not PIC doesnt mean that I am going to ignore whatever I
think its dangerous just because I'm not PIC.