Is this a bad attitude?
Is this a bad attitude?
I agree with many of the comments here. However, speaking as a licensed mechanical engineer, one point I would like to stress is that some rules are there for a reason. Failure to follow certain accepted practices with regard to design and or maintenance will most likely get someone killed.
" Failure to follow certain accepted practices..."
Gravity - not just a good idea. Its the law.
And from the movie "the Right Stuff", they put words into Alan Shepard's mouth that he never really said, but I still use it them my aerobatic safety presentation.
Shepard's prayer - Dear God, please don't let me F@#& up!
Could not resist some humor.
Wes
Last edited by WLIU; 12-02-2013 at 02:46 PM.
The article itself is not extreme--it actually cautions against extremism. And Bob Rossier, its author, isn't a desk-flyer. He is a current flight instructor, writes about flight instruction, dives, instructs diving, writes about diving. You don't have to agree with everything he says, but he has aviation credits greater than many of us: ATP MEL & SEL, Comm SES, CFII SE & ME, Advanced and Instrument Ground. I suggest a careful re-read of the article for what it does say, not what it doesn't.
Oh, disclaimer: I don't know Bob Rossier, but I've read a lot of his articles. I don't always agree with him, but most of the time, he has valuable advice.
Cary
"I have slipped the surly bonds of earth...,
put out my hand and touched the face of God." J.G. Magee
Good advice....Myself I read this when I first started flying ultralights. I spent every min looking through things like this. You did not find me wasting time on boards like this chatting but reading. I was always told, want to learn something shut your mouth and open your ears. So I do try and listen before opening mouth.
What would be really nice is to have a group of articles a new pilot or someone just getting into flying should read. Maybe should is not the right word. But you get the idea. I had all these sites all bookmarked then my hard drive took a dump and I lost it all. Its funny how one time you can find something, but then go back and try and find it again and its gone. But I know its not gone I just can't find it, frustrating.
This is a good read though, makes one look at oneself. I found myself in a lot of different places as I read.
Tony
I will suggest that Mr Rossier is simply repeating material generated within the FAA bureaucracy by someone with far less credentials than the ones you cite. I always hope that pilots with lots of alphabet soup after their names and apparently weighty logbooks can do better than quote a party line. After all, those ratings and hours should allow the author to add real value to the discussion.
Out in the real world of aviation, you would be surprised by how extreme very accomplished pilots are when measured by the scale offered in the article. Shrinking violets don't land on glaciers, spray crops, fly helicopters hundred of miles offshore, and win world aerobatic championships to offer a few examples.
An article about the real personality traits of pilots would be a lot more interesting than an article about the way that pilots "are supposed to be." Would probably not be politically correct though.
Best of luck,
Wes
N78PS
Myself I believe all new pilots need to learn all they can not only about aviation but about why they are whom they are or what makes them do the things and think the way they do. All new pilots I mean new never been in aviation or around aviation I believe benefit from reading things like this.
The NTSB is another place I hung out at a lot reading all I could on others mistakes. What I found doing this is. Just because one has hundreds if not thousands of hrs logged this will not protect you from the ill fated flight. Many a pilot with hundreds or thousands of hrs have spun aircraft in in the pattern and other places. Pilots with thousands of hrs have been known to fly into the earth and never know it.
Flying you better bring your A game or stay on the ground.
Tony
Well, one interesting aspect of experience is whether it includes both depth as well as breadth. We see a lot of recreational pilots who essentially fly the same hour 100 times. Fly out to lunch on a nice day and come home. Nothing wrong with that but when giving weight to that experience the narrowness of it matters. Even airline pilots often simply fly the same flight 1000 times. Thats what they are supposed to do. It is supposed to be repetitive and routine.
Then there are folks who do a whole lot of different things once. We see that in aviation where a pilot has a bunch of ratings but no further experience. For example, I have a SES rating but only about 15 hours behind it. So while perhaps my putting SES on my resume signals that I work at broadening my aeronautical knowledge, it actually does not mean that I know a lot more than you might. Add 100 hours and that rating will mean more in my resume.
I will suggest that the guys who have 3 or 4 ratings backed by many hundreds or thousands of hours going different places or flying different aircraft are the ones that you want to listen to at the bar when they are coaxed into talking. I once flew for a while with a gentleman who had spent 15,000 hours in flight test at Pratt and Whitney. On the street you wouldn't give Paul a second look. Looked like the building custodian. But I learned a huge amount in a short time listening to him talk about the real world of aviation when we got him to talk. And no FAA nice talk.
Your mileage may vary,
Wes
N78PS