COMMON CAUSE
Pilots, Proficiency, and Planes
Really now, how many planes do we have to smack up before the carnage is enough? Just look at the FAA website each day, Data and Statistics, Preliminary Incidents, and judge for yourself. Sure makes it hard to recruit new pilots or get the support of your neighbors and friends for general aviation. Could we stop hurting the planes? The planes are not breaking; it’s the pilots who are hurting them. Read the reports. Yes, the engine will stop when it runs out of fuel.
Have you had enough? How hard do you have to land to keep breaking the nose wheel or the main gear of fixed gear aircraft? The occasional problem with an RG is a well known risk, with the accepted insurance premium. But damaging FIXED gear airplanes? Who taught these pilots to land: one of your local CFIs? Who demanded excellence? No one. They were just happy to be teaching another pilot and earning a meager wage. Landing too fast, fear of the stall warning indicator, ignorance of the POH landing performance data, poor flaring technique, incorrect crosswind correction technique, lack of focus and attention to situational awareness….all valid reasons, but really just excuses.
Do YOU care how well you fly? Do YOU have any pride in your skills? When you share the sky with others, what does your flying say about YOU? Do you have the confidence to ask a friend how you are doing? How about a CFI? Could you re-take the FAA flight exam for your certificate rating with confidence? Are you proficient, as opposed to just legal? Why the hell not? Why are we satisfied with mediocrity? Sit at the end of your favorite local runway this weekend and watch for yourself the landings. These are your friends and fellow pilots. Switch seats, and it could be you, demonstrating your unique technique.
Much is made of the current GA accident rates, both fatal and non-fatal. You can slice and dice the statistics in a hundred ways, and come to many conclusions. But the really telling tale is to look at the incidents that happen, the bad days that are noted but don’t meet the thresholds to be called an official NTSB accident. These are the precursors to actual accidents, i.e. how many near misses happen before someone really screws up. Think a gear up accident is a minor incident? Ask the pilot/owner. Ask your insurance company. The airlines learned a long time ago to capture and analyze the data behind every non-standard performance of their pilots and planes, in order to find the root causes, change their procedures or training, and reduce their accident rates. What about us in GA?
Common Cause – Set a good example for your fellow pilots and non-flyers alike – improve your flying skills and techniques. General Aviation is all about us as pilots; we can kill it or grow it by our everyday example. It would be nice if we aimed higher than the boaters or our local drivers. Actions speak louder than words. Help raise the bar.
Oh, by the way…. As an economic barometer, the figures for general aviation suggest fuel prices and the economy may be hitting the little guys hard. The evidence is indirect and correlative, but abundant. AVweb’s fuel finder showed prices for 100LL averaging more than $5.30 per gallon and that they had climbed eight cents since the previous week. A review of activity at FAA and contract towers for 2007 included in FAA’s Aerospace Forecast for 2008-2025 stated, “At the end of 2007, non-commercial aircraft activity was 16.1 percent below the activity in 2000, having declined each year since 2002.”
The FAA’s most recent year-over-year records available online show the difference in hours flown by recreational pilots in 2005 and 2006 -- recreational GA pilots flew about 125,000 fewer hours in 2006 than the prior year. If that’s just a bump in the road, it’s a bump in a road that’s been headed downhill for years.
As for sales of small aircraft, light sport aircraft in the first quarter of 2008 dropped 30 percent from six months prior, according to industry watchdog Dan Johnson. The General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) showed sales of piston aircraft fell 28 percent when compared with the first quarter of 2007. Today’s pilots are paying nearly twice as much per hour on fuel as they did in 2005. Statistics suggest many of America’s (fewer than) 600,000 pilots may be taking that to heart, and the same may be true for prospective pilots who can often expect to pay more than $125 for one hour of flight instruction. One school reported a reduction in training hours of 20 percent since 2007.
Mike Sullivan
COM SMEL, CFI, MEI, INSTRI
Msull77554@aol.com, KHEF, C-177RG