Most experienced CFI runs out of gas

Andrew Sarangan wrote
I think there is something else at play here. The 10,000+ hr pilot is
likely an airline pilot. I don't believe airline cockpit skills are
directly transferably to the GA cockpit.

If there are skills at all. An airline pilot friend of mine frets
about how he is going to operate his Baron. He says that while he
flew the DC-9 and 727, his airline recurrent training and experience
was OK, but now that he is in the Airbus (he refuses to call that
flying) he is really concerned.

I think your points about the crew environment and lack of redundancy
are well taken, but we may be missing the fact that the modern
airliner is just so much easier to fly than the complex single or
light twin typically flown by the airline pilot on his days off that
the skill level may simply have atrophied. If so, expect this to get
worse in the future.

Another interesting aspect of the Nall report is that student pilots
accounted for fewer accidents even though they accounted for more flying
hours.

I don't think that's interesting at all. It's hard to get hurt if you
never do anything. Student pilots fly under restrictions that would
make aviation useless - in fact, they are specifically prohibited from
doing most of the things that would make flying useful at all.
Unfortunately, I am lately seeing a trend among instructors to make
solo endorsements so restrictive that the student is never challenged,
and to avoid challenging flights dual as well. I have no doubt that
makes the training numbers look good, but the important question is
what happens AFTER the training, when the student goes out on his own
and starts using the airplane - especially those first few hundred
hours before real experience is gained, when the student relies most
on his primary training. I bet those numbers don't look so good.

Michael

(Michael) wrote in
om:

Andrew Sarangan wrote


Another interesting aspect of the Nall report is that student pilots
accounted for fewer accidents even though they accounted for more
flying hours.

I don't think that's interesting at all. It's hard to get hurt if you
never do anything. Student pilots fly under restrictions that would
make aviation useless - in fact, they are specifically prohibited from
doing most of the things that would make flying useful at all.
Unfortunately, I am lately seeing a trend among instructors to make
solo endorsements so restrictive that the student is never challenged,
and to avoid challenging flights dual as well. I have no doubt that
makes the training numbers look good, but the important question is
what happens AFTER the training, when the student goes out on his own
and starts using the airplane - especially those first few hundred
hours before real experience is gained, when the student relies most
on his primary training. I bet those numbers don't look so good.

Michael




In 1947 there were over 9000 aviation accidents. In 2003 there were only
1500 accidents. How is safety improving if the students are being
increasingly prohibited from doing useful things?





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"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
7...
(Michael) wrote in
om:

Andrew Sarangan wrote


Another interesting aspect of the Nall report is that student pilots
accounted for fewer accidents even though they accounted for more
flying hours.

I don't think that's interesting at all. It's hard to get hurt if you
never do anything. Student pilots fly under restrictions that would
make aviation useless - in fact, they are specifically prohibited from
doing most of the things that would make flying useful at all.
Unfortunately, I am lately seeing a trend among instructors to make
solo endorsements so restrictive that the student is never challenged,
and to avoid challenging flights dual as well. I have no doubt that
makes the training numbers look good, but the important question is
what happens AFTER the training, when the student goes out on his own
and starts using the airplane - especially those first few hundred
hours before real experience is gained, when the student relies most
on his primary training. I bet those numbers don't look so good.

Michael




In 1947 there were over 9000 aviation accidents. In 2003 there were only
1500 accidents. How is safety improving if the students are being
increasingly prohibited from doing useful things?

Without supporting data those numbers are totally meaningless.

"Dave Stadt" wrote in news:jzfmd.8294$tM7.1298
@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com:


"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
7...
(Michael) wrote in
om:

Andrew Sarangan wrote


Another interesting aspect of the Nall report is that student
pilots
accounted for fewer accidents even though they accounted for more
flying hours.

I don't think that's interesting at all. It's hard to get hurt if
you
never do anything. Student pilots fly under restrictions that
would
make aviation useless - in fact, they are specifically prohibited
from
doing most of the things that would make flying useful at all.
Unfortunately, I am lately seeing a trend among instructors to make
solo endorsements so restrictive that the student is never
challenged,
and to avoid challenging flights dual as well. I have no doubt
that
makes the training numbers look good, but the important question is
what happens AFTER the training, when the student goes out on his
own
and starts using the airplane - especially those first few hundred
hours before real experience is gained, when the student relies
most
on his primary training. I bet those numbers don't look so good.

Michael




In 1947 there were over 9000 aviation accidents. In 2003 there were
only
1500 accidents. How is safety improving if the students are being
increasingly prohibited from doing useful things?

Without supporting data those numbers are totally meaningless.


http://www.whittsflying.com/Page6.34Statistics%20of%
20Flying.htm#Statistics%20of%20Flying


The Nall report supports the 2003 data.







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Andrew Sarangan wrote
In 1947 there were over 9000 aviation accidents. In 2003 there were only
1500 accidents. How is safety improving if the students are being
increasingly prohibited from doing useful things?

I don't have data for 1947.

In 1955 Piper alone built over 1000 TriPacers - plus other aircraft.
In 2003, all US manufacturers combined didn't build that many piston
airplanes.

Michael

In article , Andrew Sarangan
wrote:
In 1947 there were over 9000 aviation accidents. In 2003 there were only
1500 accidents. How is safety improving if the students are being
increasingly prohibited from doing useful things?

In 1947, not only were virtually all light planes taildraggers (meaning
lots of groundlooping), airfields were short, weather forecasting wasn't
as good, instrumentation for weather flying was not fitted to many light
planes (even most trainers now have the full IFR kit), the planes
were lower powered (the typical trainer of '47 was an 85hp C140 on
the more powerful end, 65hp aircraft were more typical - leading
to higher risk mountain and hot weather flying), wake turbulence
wasn't understood and NAVAIDs in many instances simply didn't exist.

Not to mention in 1947, Cessna made more C140s alone than the entire
light plane industry's output in 2003.

The more telling stats is that despite Britain's more regulated aviation
environment, the British accident rate is HIGHER than in the US.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message ...
"Malcolm Teas" wrote in message
om...
Hm. An FAA certified fuel gauge has to be right on two conditions:
full and empty. No assurances of correctness anywhere else.

Illegal cell phones, and now this old wives tale?

It's retread week!

I dunno about that. I'm repeating what I learned from an instructor
of mine who's also an A&P. At your kind suggestion above I tried
to track it down on the FAA website.

TSO-C55 is titled "FUEL AND OIL QUANTITY INSTRUMENTS (RECIPROCATING
ENGINE AIRCRAFT)", so that looked good. But it just refers me to SAE
Aeronautical Standard AS-405B, "Fuel and Oil Quantity Instruments,"
dated July 15, 1958 for the details. It refers to older standards as
well.

Aeronautical standards are downloadable for $59 each from the SAE site
www.sae.org.

AS-405B was updated in July 2001 to AS-405C and now handles both
float-type and capacitive instruments. (Capacative instruments were
also covered in an earlier standard from 1989.)

Also there's TSO-C47 from 1997 that covers "PRESSURE INSTRUMENTS -
FUEL, OIL, AND HYDRAULIC". Unfortunately it also deadends into a SAE
document. There's nothing in either TSO that answers this question.

I'd expect that at least some of the difference of opinion we're
finding are from older vs newer standards. Like we say in the
computer biz, the nice thing about standards is that there's so many
of them to choose from. Anyone got a extra $59 or so and want to
resolve this? I'm curious, but not $59 curious.

In any case, regardless of the standard, we all know about planes with
fuel gauges that are at best a hint to your fuel condition. Seems
best to track time as well as gauges like someone suggested.

-Malcolm Teas

"Malcolm Teas" wrote in message
om...
Hm. An FAA certified fuel gauge has to be right on two conditions:
full and empty. No assurances of correctness anywhere else.

Illegal cell phones, and now this old wives tale?

It's retread week!

I dunno about that. I'm repeating what I learned from an instructor
of mine who's also an A&P.

Certification rules require at least two things of fuel gauges: that they
read "empty" when there is 0 usable fuel left (as opposed to dry tanks), and
that they indicate the quantity of fuel in the tank.

People commonly misinterpret the "0 usable fuel" clause to mean that's all a
fuel gauge is required to do, but it's simply not true.

I can't speak to the certification rules prior to the current Part 23, but I
would be very surprised if they also only required an indication of empty or
not. After all, that could satisfied with a simple on/off light, and I've
never heard of an airplane so-equipped.

See FAR 23.1337 for more details.

Pete

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
7...
"Dave Stadt" wrote in news:jzfmd.8294$tM7.1298
@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com:


"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
7...
(Michael) wrote in
om:

Andrew Sarangan wrote


Another interesting aspect of the Nall report is that student
pilots
accounted for fewer accidents even though they accounted for more
flying hours.

I don't think that's interesting at all. It's hard to get hurt if
you
never do anything. Student pilots fly under restrictions that
would
make aviation useless - in fact, they are specifically prohibited
from
doing most of the things that would make flying useful at all.
Unfortunately, I am lately seeing a trend among instructors to make
solo endorsements so restrictive that the student is never
challenged,
and to avoid challenging flights dual as well. I have no doubt
that
makes the training numbers look good, but the important question is
what happens AFTER the training, when the student goes out on his
own
and starts using the airplane - especially those first few hundred
hours before real experience is gained, when the student relies
most
on his primary training. I bet those numbers don't look so good.

Michael




In 1947 there were over 9000 aviation accidents. In 2003 there were
only
1500 accidents. How is safety improving if the students are being
increasingly prohibited from doing useful things?

Without supporting data those numbers are totally meaningless.


http://www.whittsflying.com/Page6.34Statistics%20of%
20Flying.htm#Statistics%20of%20Flying


The Nall report supports the 2003 data.

Still useless information for comparison purposes.

Dylan Smith wrote
The more telling stats is that despite Britain's more regulated aviation
environment, the British accident rate is HIGHER than in the US.

Of course. All safety rules inevitably make things less safe.

Michael