Fate Can Be The Hunter

Kudos to Robert Wright on achieving 50 years of accident/incident free flying and receiving the FAAs Master Pilot Award (On Getting To 50, September 2016). I too have reached that milestone, but not without accident nor incident in my 6100-plus hours of private pilot flying, most of which has been recreational. My incidents occurred despite what I believed to have been reasonable risk management.

Editorial Staff

Monday, January 30, 2017 at 12:00 AM ET

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Key Takeaways:

An experienced pilot reflects on 50 years of flying, detailing multiple accidents and incidents that occurred despite his diligent risk management, emphasizing that "fate" or unforeseen circumstances can still lead to problems in aviation.
Another reader, an engineer, critiques a previously published flight energy management equation for being dimensionally inhomogeneous and provides a corrected formula for the "Rate of change of Energy" that accurately accounts for thrust and drag.

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Kudos to Robert Wright on achieving 50 years of accident/incident free flying and receiving the FAA’s Master Pilot Award (“50 Years a Pilot,” September 2016). I too have reached that milestone, but not without accident nor incident in my 6100-plus hours of private pilot flying, most of which has been recreational. My incidents occurred despite what I believed to have been reasonable risk management:

As a student pilot with approximately 20 hours, I landed a Cessna 150 four minutes behind a DC-6 on a calm evening on a runway too short to land beyond his touchdown point. I was caught in the DC-6’s reverse-thrust vortex, striking the prop and both wing tips.