Contents

Items
--Wilbur Wright said in 1901, " Carelessness and overconfidence are usually more dangerous than deliberately accepted risk.
--Air Force used to tell pilot's when something bad happens "Wind the clock first".
--The bottom line was to slow down, analyze the situation, formulate a plan, and execute.
--When an investigator finds the ‘Easter Egg' he knows the exact cause of an accident.
--A pilot is never expected to compromise safety for any reason.
--Insurance personnel are not allowed to be a part of the investigation.
--What you say and the way you say it is always open to misinterpretation.
--The experienced investigator does not know everything but he does know how to get help.
--Unqualified people in any field of endeavor display the fact by both actions and words.
--Investigators are trained not to expect surprises.
--The highest level of expertise relating to aircraft and their parts is through the manufacturer.
--Primary reason seats do not face backwards is the dislike people have toward riding backwards.
--Pilots very mistakenly tend to ‘pull' the aircraft off on a short runway.
--A half-inch of ice will reduce wings lifting ability by half.
--Some accidents occur without a knowable cause.
--The U.S. has 66 percent of the worlds lawyers. They file 90 percent of the product liability suits.
--Engineers who resolve aircraft problems must beware of unintended consequences.
--The operational life of an aircraft engine after losing its oil is two minutes.
--It is normal for heavy smokers to have 1- percent CO in their blood.
--CO is slow to leave the body.
--Many pilots do not try to stay current with material vital to their safety.
--A major safety improvement would be having pilots not flying with known deficiencies.
--Aircraft that come apart do so usually because of pilot control input.
--Truth is, many pilots totally ignore weight and balance when flying.
--Nothing relieves the pilot-in-command of having an in depth knowledge of the POH.
--Nothing about flying appears complicated once it is understood.
--There will always be accidents so long as pilots on knowing the risks will still take chances.
--In flight breakups occur only when pilots induce aerodynamic loads beyond design limits.
--An Ivory Soap (99.44%) accident is easy to solve if pilots cooperate.
--Pilots inherently attempt to save the airplane not recognizing that it belongs to the insurance company.
--Any speculation before finding the facts will bias the judgment.
--In aviation and elsewhere we must learn to survive when things fail to function.
--Accidents in descending order derive from pilot proficiency, maintenance, and manufacture.
--Engine overhaul by a mechanic should be your last choice.
--When it comes to successful second-guessing time will win every time.
--There is no governmental responsibility to require aircraft to be fool proof.
--Flight crews are required to have only the minimums of skill and experience to meet the criteria.
--For every unfortunate event there will be a liability lawyer willing to look for a deep pocket.
--Low level flight causes about five percent of the accidents.
--Aviation fuel will not ‘stretch'.
--Fuel related accidents are more likely due to stupidity than poor judgment.
--Instructional dilemma is how far to let a student get into trouble before intervening.
--We will never be able to predict exactly the path a storm will take.
--Weather radar sees only degrees of moisture,
--The worse the weather the more important are independent pilot decisions.
--The hazard of complacency increases with experience.
--Pilots who are not increasing their knowledge are decreasing their knowledge.
--A pilot can never know too much about his airplane.

Emergency Preparation
Never lift off a runway nor fly a mile without a pretty good idea of where you expect to land. Know which way to expect to turn, how far to the two nearest airports and the next best landing option. It is of primary importance that the people survive; reuse of the airplane is secondary.

Number one priority is to fly the airplane, all the checklists and emergency procedures in the world will not outweigh how well you control the airspeed and ground contact attitude. As slow as possible is the best way to hit anything along with a flying angle of attack. An accident that occurs in poor visibility is nearly always fatal because you lack the ability to control both the airspeed and flight attitude. Don't fly into areas of possible thunderstorms or icing. Your survival will be more a matter of luck than skill.

Flying at night reduces your accident survival options. Flying at night is an option if there is sufficient moonlight to allow seeing and avoiding clouds. I have considered the desirability of having a night vision monocular for flying at night. With improved night vision your ability to see a preferred landing site would be greatly improved. For one who plans to do considerable night flying it seems an economic option.

Every act of flying has an inherent risk factor that requires you have a back door plan available. Failure to make immediate use of a safety option is a not uncommon cause of complete failure of the option. Risk increases exponentially as the adverse factors enter the flight. The danger of each link in the chain leading to an accident is such that each link exponentially increases the probability of the accident. Risk factors do not just add; they multiply. The factors can be pilot judgment mistakes, changes in atmospheric conditions or aircraft malfunctions. Separately or together they require the pilot to come up with an option that will prevent this uncontrolled growth.

Any option that reduces risk has a primary ingredient of complete awareness of where you are and where you should go for the greatest reduction of risk. Your ability to have anticipated where you plan to go is to be preferred to making the decision after the fact. The more nearly normal you can keep your emergency procedures the better. Every so often your landings should be done as power-off.

If you make, keep, and amend a fuel consumption log for an aircraft as you normally fly it, you should never run out of fuel. Check fuel and oil at every opportunity. Walk around the aircraft before you get in. An inadequate preflight is high on the list of accident causes. Most problems leading to accident begin as small annoyances. An annoyance can, if ignored, grow quite rapidly and unexpectedly. Safety relies on the pilot, more so than in any other kind of transportation. Keep your head about you. Know you airplane thoroughly and all of its systems. ----Know the limits of your performance and of the airplane.
--An emergency isn't an emergency if it is a procedure you have practiced.
--You must practice anticipating potential problems and vocalizing your solutions.

Flight Insurance Areas
Time
There are many different kinds of time in aviation. The pilot must know these times, how much to trust the time judgments of others, how to determine total real time, remaining useful time, remaining legal time and how to obtain more time.

Extra time can be made available if you know what to do when to do it and then do it. The problems of flying can be directly attributable to misuse of time. If we take enough time to identify and make available our options and resources, and then manage them wisely, we can expect safer and more enjoyable flying experiences. You can't do this if you don't know where you are or what to say. If you don't know where you are...say so.

Fuel
We begin with the aircraft manual. The manual gives various engine operation fuel times. The time will vary greatly with load, power, leaning, and throttle use. The book time figures are not for you or the aircraft as it exists today. They are at best approximations to which you must add an insurance factor. Still you must know them as a place to begin. During very cold weather alcohol can be added to fuel to combine with any water that may be in the tank. Sump draining should be carried to extremes under cold conditions.

Battery
A battery has a time factor rating known as amp-hours when new. With this as a datum from which we must make assumptions as to how much time we have for various aircraft functions. If the battery charging system fails, we can only rely on our knowledge of amp-hour time consumption available. From this knowledge we can figure the approximate useful time of the transponder, radio receiver, transmitter, lights, flaps and gear. Minimum electrical would be using just the transponder. A competent mechanic should be able to give you the information you want for a specific aircraft.

Altitude
Altitude is time in the bank. Altitude gives you time to select options, to turn, descend and plan. Altitude can give you more fuel time. Altitude gives you more distance for the fuel time especially if winds can be used. At low altitudes there is less available time and fewer options. Altitude improves communications and usually visibility.

Ground
Always take the ground time to develop the "what if" choices you may need to make. The weather, preflight, charts, POH limits any your own condition should be checked during ground time prior to every flight. Making the go/no-go decision is as important as flying decisions get. It takes superior knowledge on the part of a pilot to say no to a flight or any part of a flight. Recognizing that experience may make a flight possible for you will make your refusal to fly all the more important.

Waiting a while on the ground before going is always an option as may leaving early. Fuel is time. Being surprised by the weather is going to be hard to explain. Never fly into a situation that does not have a back door escape route.

Only yesterday, 10-2-98 I flew with a pilot into the Sierras to retrieve an automobile. The weather was forecast to be good. On reaching Sacrmento, A solid cloud embankment extended to each side as far as we could see. Bases were at 7000' and tops about 9000'. This was completely unexpected. I had the pilot contact Rancho FSS for a weather up-date. They had no information on this solid overcast cloud cover. The Truckee AWOS gave Scattered clouds at 9000'. If not for that real time report we would have turned back. With that forecast we flew on and found that the Truckee Basin and entire eastern side of the Sierras was clear. The flight and return was completed in good flying conditions.

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