Risk Factors

[Colonel Sanders]

If you have > 500TT, stop reading now.

Was flying with a fresh PPL recently, and he
was working on developing his stick and rudder
skills, which I highly approve of.

However, his decision-making needed a bit
of work, which is also unsurprising. When I
was a 100hr PPL, I was really dangerous
because I didn't know, what I didn't know.
Remember, a PPL is a licence to learn.

. hints at this with his byline: "No one
ever died because I refused a flight". Like a
teenaged girl, as a pilot you have to learn
when to say, "No" to a flight.

But that decision - whether or not to commence
the flight - can be a really tough one for a low-time
pilot to make. He has no experience to draw on.

Talking to the fresh PPL, recently, I explicitly identified
some quantifiable risk factors for any flight, which all
need to be evaluated before takeoff:

1) Pilot
2) Aircraft
3) Terrain
4) Wx
5) Day/Night

Most people don't break the go/no-go decision down
quite like that - they rather make an intuitive decision
by looking out the window at their departure point. And
that's ok as long as they are highly experienced with
good intuition, and they don't get fooled by a "sucker hole"
at their departure airport.

Let's take a look at the risk factors:

1) Pilot: How much experience? How much on type?
How recent? Tired? Hungry? Stress?

2) Aircraft: how reliable? Do instruments and radios
and xponder/encoder work? Are the gas gauges accurate?
Does it burn much oil? Run rough? Cockpit lighting?
Fancy equipment which will help us? (eg turbo, O2,
fuel totalizer, pressurization, etc).

3) Terrain: I like flat, low country with no towers. Are
there any dark hills which we might hit at night? Is density
altitude or uncontrollable downdrafts a consideration?
Over water? Airspace problems? (eg class F, prohibited,
restricted, MOA, TFR, etc). Are we familiar with the route?
Or, is this our first time flying this route?

4) Weather. If the air is dry, and there are no lows or
fronts around, life is good. But if there is moisture in
the air, there will be morning fog, which when the sun
hits, will burn off and give us 2 hrs flying time before the
Cb's develop. Also, winds. They can make takeoff
and landing difficult, and give us a bumpy ride enroute,
and with headwinds, can eat into our fuel reserve. A
big plus for me is flying from bad wx into good wx,
which is low stress. Flying from good wx into bad
wx is a good way to kill yourself. These guys painted
themselves into a corner and left themselves with
no "outs" if anything went wrong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfWhIOT3gMM

5) Day/Night. Night VFR is much sportier than Day
VFR, if you don't do it right. You need to watch the
dewpoint spread like a hawk, and you need to know
what a safe altitude is for EVERY portion of your flight,
and you need to know when to get on the attitude
indicator to avoid doing a JFK, jr.

Looking at a proposed flight, I tell low-time pilots
to carefully examine each of the risk factors above.

A very low-risk flight will have none of the above
risk factors. Your biggest problem will be staying
awake.

A very high-risk (suicidal, really) flight will have ALL
of the above risk factors, and if you start to verbally
enumerate them, you will have written the first page
of the TSB accident report, which always with their
20/20 hindsight make it blindingly obvious what a
bad decision the pilot made, to take off.

But you can't always have zero risk factors. But
I might suggest that a low-time pilot try to keep
it down to ONE risk factor - himself. Make sure
the other risk factors are not present, when he
is PIC.

As you get more and more experienced, you
can accept more and more risk factors, and
more serious risk factors.

A good example of applying the above risk
factors was this guy, who flew non-stop across
the Pacific Ocean in a homebuilt from Guam to
Florida. Note his equipment failures enroute, in
a single over water:

http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/50 ... -stop.html

The objective is to help low-time pilots know
when they are messing with something dangerous,
and it's time to back off. Park the airplane. Tie
it down. Get a hotel, and let the wx pass through,
and fly home in the sunshine.

[Shiny Side Up]

1) Pilot: How much experience? How much on type?
How recent? Tired? Hungry? Stress?

"I can swim" Leander said.

[Beefitarian]

Peer pressure can be a very dangerous thing also.

I was in Mitchell South Dekota, home of the "Corn Palace" kind of neat can get pretty warm for a dog on the sidewalk visiting that place on the way back from Airventure. Sorry I digress.

I was flying at the time of the semi pertinent story. It was pretty windy, maybe 35 - 40 Knots. I was somewhat concerned with taxiing. The Calgary Flying Club had maximum wind speeds for renters in the contract I signed to fly their Warrior II. I was waiting for the wind to slow down as it was forcast to do so.

I actually was not subject to peer presure but my brother told me that one of the guys that was wandering around the FBO had approached him and suggested, "You sure you want to go with this guy? I'd find another pilot if I were you." He had told me, "The wind's not bad, I went flying today allready."

I could have just as easily been someone telling me to quit being a sissy and get going.

[Colonel Sanders]

I know lots of pilots braver than me. They're dead now. I can only presume they all wanted it that way.

[triplese7en]

Nicely written. I must say that every PPL should be taught that method to determine if you should do a flight. Obviously you can expand each of the five categories but just by breaking it down into five areas of consideration you've greatly improved your chances of a successful flight, IMO.

[photofly]

I am reminded of JFK, jr. His risk factors were:

1. Flight in a new-to-him sophisticated aircraft
2. At night with very limited night experience and no IR
3. Following a very delayed departure
4. Flight over featureless open water
5. In marginal visibility
6. With his wife and another passenger
7. While suffering life stress such as financial worries and marital problems

[Dagwood]

6. With his wife and another passenger

Yeah, the wife is always a risk to aviation, one way or another

[cgzro]

Wasnt he also in a cast or something too?

[photofly]

According to Wikipedia, the cast had come off but he was still walking with a stick.

[Colonel Sanders]

The tragedy about JFK, jr is that it could have been
averted so easily, in a couple different ways.

His aircraft had a good autopilot. He could have
just turned it on (hdg & hold altitude) and it would
have gotten him to Block Island.

Even without an autopilot, he had received significant
training at FlightSafety (the best of the best) towards
his instrument rating. If someone had told him, "Hey,
stop looking outside, get on the attitude indicator", he
probably would have been ok.

Again, it was the transition from VFR (with a horizon
at night provided by the lights on the ground) to IFR
(blackness over the water) that caught and killed him.

When I am doing night ratings, I love flying west from
eastern ontario. I don't say anything, and as we head
out over the blackness of Algonquin park, the horizon
provided by the lights on the ground disappears. And,
we roll upside down, exactly simulating JFK, jr.

Learning factor of intensity applies. They don't make
that mistake again.

It's funny (weird, not ha-ha) that you can tell people
stuff on the ground, like "Don't pick up a dropping wing
with aileron" and then you go up in the air and guess
what they do?

People have difficulty learning from the lessons of
others. They must learn the lessons themselves.

[Colonel Sanders]

Another lesson for low-time pilots:

You always want to be more than one "What If?"
question away from death. I like a few layers.
Backups for my backups. People accuse me of
being a horrible pessimist, and I guess they're right.

For example, we are flying along and what if the
engine quits? Well, we switch tanks (see all recent
accidents where people did not). What if that doesn't
restart the engine? Well, we glide to a landing. We
do not stall/spin.

For example, we are planning a VFR x/c trip through
the airspace of a big airport. Inverted wedding cake
TRSA. Well, we have the ATIS and VFR approach
freqs out. What if they say, "VFR calling remain clear?"
Well, we better have the altitudes marked on the VNC
and a safe route planned, for altitude (obstructions/airspace)
and cloud, that takes us around the TRSA.

[High Flyin]

When I am doing night ratings, I love flying west from
eastern ontario. I don't say anything, and as we head
out over the blackness of Algonquin park, the horizon
provided by the lights on the ground disappears. And,
we roll upside down, exactly simulating JFK, jr.

I've done this route several times between Ottawa and North Bay. I've always been surprised TC doesn't classify night as IFR in Canada. Once you leave the city's lights and head a little north, it gets dark fast. The weather may be VFR, but if you're navigating visually, you'll usually end up inverted as you said.

[FenderManDan]

....... The Calgary Flying Club had maximum wind speeds for renters in the contract I signed to fly their Warrior II. ...

Nooo way, did you fly GVDH. That old girl is in CYTZ.


Back on topic: this is an awsome informational thread. Thanks Col. I have been trained to think in similar terms.

[Beefitarian]

Maybe.

[Shiny Side Up]

5) Day/Night. Night VFR is much sportier than Day
VFR, if you don't do it right.

To keep the thread going, this bit deserves a bit of revisiting. If you're not night rated, don't screw around with the dark. Not hard to do, but people get caught all the time. Give yourself a fair chunk of leeway, depending on the weather it can get dark faster than you think. Don't put yourself in a spot where you're racing the clock. One point of note is that the wind always shifts and picks up at the point of sunset, pretty much following the terminator, particularly when the weather is nice. You might find your first night landing in one of the worst gusty crosswinds you have to deal with.

Don't get stuck in the Rocks after dark, even if you are night rated.

When flying any sort of distance and planning on stopping away from home, have some cash on you and have a credit card. Making sure you have the ability to overnight usually makes it more of an option for most flyers. Just in case though, always have some gloves and a toque and good shoes if you have to hoof it somewhere. Anything that will make stopping and posibly overnighting somewhere easier is going to reduce your chance of suffering gethomeitis.

[N1 Green]

Good post Colonel

In regards to #2, the Aircraft:

Sometimes when the Aircraft is above average, say G1000 or some G530 with some weather data, it gives the pilot the feeling that he can trust the instruments and find his way through this squall line because he can see the cells on the G1000 display. For low flying VFR this is an opening for disaster
, it might lead the average low timer pilot to skip the basics of analyzing some GFA’s , making some FSS phone calls, not even opening the VNC during flight and other really bad shortcuts. Some students won’t even look outside to look for traffic; they think the TCAS would be there for them.
In other words: extra technology might give the pilot extra self confident attitude and skip basics.

[xysn]

It's funny (weird, not ha-ha) that you can tell people
stuff on the ground, like "Don't pick up a dropping wing
with aileron" and then you go up in the air and guess
what they do?

Bump for a useful thread.

As for wing drop with aileron I think it takes a bit of an intense lesson considering one does raise or lower a wing with the aileron in 99% of the time in the air.

[Rookie50]

When I am doing night ratings, I love flying west from
eastern ontario. I don't say anything, and as we head
out over the blackness of Algonquin park, the horizon
provided by the lights on the ground disappears. And,
we roll upside down, exactly simulating JFK, jr.

I've done this route several times between Ottawa and North Bay. I've always been surprised TC doesn't classify night as IFR in Canada. Once you leave the city's lights and head a little north, it gets dark fast. The weather may be VFR, but if you're navigating visually, you'll usually end up inverted as you said.

I would agree, having flown west from Ottawa many times at night. Throw in a bunch of haze and it gets a little interesting.

[Colonel Sanders]

west from Ottawa many times at night. Throw in a bunch of haze and it gets a little interesting

The transition is the tough part, though. If you
had an instructor in the right seat that handed
you a hood, forcing you to get on the gyros,
then you would be just fine.

I have the haze problem even during the day.
There are no gyros in the Pitts. Flying x/c on
hazy summer days, if I climb up to any reasonable
altitude - esp over water - I find that I am continually
"falling off" and dropping a wing (either side). This
is annoying to the people flying formation on me.

In the absence of an attitude indicator - which I
really shouldn't need during day VFR, but there
you are - I use the GPS track and the ball as a
cheap substitute. If you keep the GPS track
constant, the aircraft is going the same direction,
and if the ball is centered, the wings are level.

Decades ago, you could use the ADF needle
to do the same thing. No one turns them on
any more, though.

[photofly]

The transition is the tough part, though. If you
had an instructor in the right seat that handed
you a hood, forcing you to get on the gyros,
then you would be just fine.

Try the left turnout from CYTZ Rwy26, out over Lake Ontario, on a hazy day. Yikes. Instant "IFR".

[Blakey]

I know lots of pilots braver than me. They're dead now. I can only presume they all wanted it that way.

If ALL the pilots braver than me were already dead I'd have a quick review of my Risk Management criteria. I like to have a few "braver" guys as a buffer!

[photofly]

That's why we value CS. He's our buffer.

[Colonel Sanders]

Gee ... thanks so much!

The funny (weird, not ha-ha) thing is that despite the
fact that many think I am a nutbar at the stick (Tower
C is convinced that I am descended from people who
went over Niagara Falls in a barrel), I am the biggest
chicken you have ever met in a cockpit. I operate with
extremely low risk - at least, compared to a lot of people
I see crashing airplanes, whom are operating with a
very high risk level.

See, the difference is that many (esp low-time) pilots
simply don't know they are operating at a high risk
level. They don't know, what they don't know, like a
small child wandering towards a spinning wood lathe.

I am a horrible pessimist. I expect everything to break.
And then I expect my backups to fail. And I spend an
awful lot of time, learning about the "devil in the details"
to understand and lower my risk.

I spend a lot of time thinking about aerodynamics. And
weather. And the details of my aircraft systems. And
previous accidents, because we all know there aren't
any new ones - see "closed loop" control.

If you spend a lot of time thinking about aerodynamics,
weather, and aircraft systems, and review old aircraft
accidents, you will learn an awful lot of important stuff
that will keep you alive.

[jump154]

I am a horrible pessimist. I expect everything to break.
And then I expect my backups to fail. And I spend an
awful lot of time, learning about the "devil in the details"
to understand and lower my risk.

That seems to be a common trait of us Engineering types.

[Colonel Sanders]

Yeah, but we don't talk fast enough to get the good-looking chicks