Risk Management

It was almost sunset when I came out to the field. I needed to pick up my Jepps that I had left in the airplane. I came out the side of the hangar, facing the runways. It was then that I noticed the Beech Travelair sitting like a duck, bedded down for the night, landing gear neatly recessed into the wheel wells. Gear-up on our least-used runway.

There were red caution strobes all around the Travelair, so incoming traffic (rare at night) would see the bird. I picked up my flashlight and went out for a look. Streaks of oil, rubber and metal trailed out behind the twin. A classic gear-up, but why? I put on my sleuth hat and looked around. People, parts, position and paper – the classic ai…

Among pilots, the perception of whats safe is forever clouded by the tree-falling-in-the-woods syndrome. If no ones there to hear it, does it still make a thud?

The aviation safety corollary has to be the accident stats numbers game. When a trend seems to surface, was it there all along or are we just noticing it because we happened to be looking?

Such may very well be the case with the FAAs current safety problem child – runway incursions. According to data collected by the agency, runway incursions are at an all-time high and rising.

Worse, most of them are committed by general aviation pilots, giving the impression that the average Bonanza or Piper owner is bumbling around…

My first and only accident is a good example of how psychological factors affect piloting decisions. I was 17, inexperienced and anxious to try out a new set of wings. I had little money, so my primary radio was a used unit of doubtful reliability. In fact, it had malfunctioned on the ground several times, and I was unsure how it would do in the air.

Everything worked well until I got into a steep turn. In most planes, a radio malfunction will not lead directly to a crash. But in a radio-controlled model aircraft, you can guess the result.

Despite what you might think, the cause of this crash was not faulty equipment – it was pilot error. I made a bad decision to fly with deficient e…

At the end of July every summer, thousands of pilots hear the sirens song luring them to Oshkosh. For many, the trip involves a long flight in a sport plane seldom flown cross-country. For a few, the challenge is too much.

Pilots who ignore the pilgrimage to aviations Mecca are not immune. Family vacations and the desire to explore tap into the quality that airplanes do best: long trips.

Long trips have many advantages over short ones. You can climb higher, get above the thermals and into cooler, smoother air. The airplane consumes less fuel in the thinner air and goes faster. You may be able to catch a favorable tailwind and whisk along over the countryside watching the GPS or DME c…

The new private pilot was on fourth flight with passengers in a Cessna 172. In his first landing attempt he was long and went around. During the process the airplane was observed performing strangely.

On the second attempt the pilot again landed long and again attempted to go-around. He added full power but did not retract the flaps from fully extended, whereupon the aircraft pitched up, stalled and crashed.

The two long landings were bad enough, implying both inadequate training and substandard proficiency, but the problem had even deeper roots. The NTSB investigator found only two entries in the pilots logbook regarding go-around training. Both were pre-solo. The pilot also had n…

Situational awareness is more than knowing where you are; it means knowing how the flights history affects its future.

Several years ago, two active-duty Air Force pilots (one an instructor) rented a Cessna 172 in Del Rio, Texas, so they could take their dates for a flight. The two pilots sat up front with two passengers in the back seat and a heavy load of fuel in the wings. (In case youre thinking ahead, the aircraft was 323 pounds over its maximum allowable gross weight and 3.1 inches beyond its allowable aft C.G. limit.)

They took off and proceeded to perform aerobatic maneuvers at very low altitudes while also buzzing boats on the nearby lake. They performed at least one complete aileron roll, abrupt pull-ups, very abrupt level-offs at low altitude and hammerhead type turns.

The last maneuver w…

In accident reports, the NTSB may call it maneuvering flight, but most of the time it has a more colorful name: buzzing – or flat hatting to use a World War II term.

Most pilots have been guilty of it. Some dont get bitten, some learn the hard way and live to tell the story. Some find they fail the final exam. Not everyone, it appears, is as lucky as I was to survive a crash while buzzing.

The AOPA Air Safety Foundations Nall Report says buzzing in single-engine airplanes continues to be one of the largest producers of fatal accidents. Furthermore, the report says, 34.5 percent of the fatal maneuvering accidents resulted from maneuvering during low, slow flight. That remin…

No matter what youre flying, chances are youve thought of trading up to something faster, or more nimble, or with a bigger payload. Pilots never have problems thinking ahead of the airplane when theyre looking so far ahead theyre seeing the next airplane theyll own. As one pilot once told me, Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.

Conventional wisdom says that aircraft selection should match the mission of aircraft ownership. In other words, once youve figured out what you really want to do with an airplane, selecting an adequate model should be a piece of cake. If you plan to haul a family of four plus luggage over the Sierra Nevadas in the summertime in a typical 4-place…

Recently I had my own almost accident, which reminded me of a problem that is only going to get worse.

It was Thanksgiving Day and the traffic going into Denver International was normal for any holiday. Our Boeing 727 was cleared for the visual approach and landing behind an Airbus 319. Since the 727 is heavier than the Airbus, and since we had sufficient separation distance, the thought of a wake vortex encounter didnt enter my mind.

Just as I started to flare, we hit the Airbus wake and suddenly my wing dropped. It only takes 12 degrees of wing dip to strike an outboard flap during a normal landing in the 727. For a few moments, that wake had more control over the aircraft than…