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Social Media’s ‘Bottle Cap Challenge’ a Dangerous Game

CFI tries to figure out the allure of intentionally adding FOD to a runway for the purpose of hitting it.

The Bottle Cap Challenge has seen a lot of activity on social media. [YouTube Screengrab: Patagonia Bush Pilots]
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Key Takeaways:

  • The article criticizes the "Bottle Cap Challenge for pilots," where pilots attempt to use airplane tires during takeoff to knock caps off soda bottles placed on runways.
  • It highlights the significant dangers of this challenge, including intentionally creating foreign object debris (FOD), risking aircraft damage, and potentially injuring individuals, all for social media attention.
  • The author argues that this perilous activity offers no practical aviation skill development and contrasts it with legitimate pilot training practices that have real-world applications and adhere to certification standards.
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One of the outgrowths of video-enhanced social media are the number of “challenges” that are shared on them. For the unfamiliar, these challenges often involve a physical activity, like having a bucket of ice dumped over your head, having six of your closest friends hit golf balls at you, riding a skateboard down a flight of stairs at a public library, etc. The non-social media general public often hears about these challenges when the person performing the challenge is injured or worse.

For example, a few years ago, health officials were warning consumers not to eat detergent pods when the Tide Pod Challenge became a thing—the challenge involved people who ate the whole bowl of stupid on a given day and were inspired to swallow a packet of poisonous detergent as a means of gaining attention on social media.

Meg Godlewski

Meg Godlewski has been an aviation journalist for more than 24 years and a CFI for more than 20 years. If she is not flying or teaching aviation, she is writing about it. Meg is a founding member of the Pilot Proficiency Center at EAA AirVenture and excels at the application of simulation technology to flatten the learning curve. Follow Meg on Twitter @2Lewski.

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