I disagree on your view.
What you are suggesting is like sending a learner driver on an open strech of quiet country road to do his driving test where there is nothing to SEE AND AVOID. Like Sunfish said i am also sure that the poor bugger done all his training in the most busiest of environments with all confidence that he can do it on his own.
Otherwise his instructor would not have sent him on his first solo now... would he/she?
Please stop assuming that both aircraft were actually "in the circuit".
Please also stop quoting the BS in the Herald Sun which can't even get the Club Presidents name correct, let alone any other details.
Condolences to the family and my sympathies to staff, instructors and ATC at YMMB.
.....and there is a special place in Hell for people like Mr. Tom Uren of the "residents committee" who should know enough to shut his trap at a time like this.
The airport will also be having an interesting time dealing with the inevitable public kneejerk-backlash.
Might be timely to remember the airport was there long before almost all of the residents surrounding it.
Oh yes, the NIMBY crowd are already out saying the airport should be moved.
Dandenong councillor Peter Brown said the airport should move to the city fringes. "If nothing has provided … evidence that there is chronic mismanagement of air traffic over the residential area, then this should," he wrote in an email to councillors at Kingston Council yesterday.
They always conveniently forget that when all these airports were built, there were no houses within cooee of the area. Same at Essendon, and its starting to happen out Tullamarine way too. In the meantime, local councils are happy to be the beneficiary of the economic benefits that have flowed and continue to flow from the aviation activity.
It is all about risk mitigation and I think Plank Bender has a valid point.
I am not saying that the Instructor concerned made any error at all - I have sent over 50 studes solo and I still pace and fidget until the student returns. I can only imagine the anguish of the stude's instructor now - and I am sure he wouldn't have sent him solo unless 100% satisfied that all was right.
But let us discuss 777's point.
Many many years ago Col Pay approved me to send students solo and I think his only advice was never send them first solo within 30 mins of last light or within 30 mins of fixed reserve.
This is the most simple form of risk mitigation stragetgy, and it works. Every flying school I have worked for has had some simple criteria for student solo.
It is human nature to discount the risk involved in things we all do every day - my mate the Ag pilot tells me he'd never fly IFR in a single... and I tell him I'd never fly at 6' AGL at night. We each assess the level of risk in our own operations as acceptable.
After sending god-only knows how many students solo in a busy environment maybe it's easier to discount the risk of a slightly-busier-than-normal stretch.
Last edited by Horatio Leafblower : 28th August 2008 at 02:02.
Location: qld (if you couldn't work that out from my name!)
Posts: 212
As someone who sent many first solos, my heart goes out to the instructor who sent the C150 out. Thinking of you mate.
I can not believe the PA28 guys managed to land that aircraft. My hat goes off to you. If it had been a conventional tail aircraft like another C150 or C172, it would have jammed the controls and would have been all over. The all flying tail has saved lives.
Interesting to hear from one of MB pilots that the ATC there is 'first-class', and then from the residents committee that they are 'mis-managed'. It goes to show you have to ask the opinions of the ppl that count.
Since the city has grown up around the airport, there have been numerous changes to operations in order to 'please' the residents, ie circuit ops restricted to daylight hours (excluding tues and wed) and limiting asymmetric circuits for twins.
I personally think the MB ATC are a top-notch group of guys who are 100% dedicated to the safety of all their pilots, and are genuinely concerned about 1st solo-ers. How many times have I heard them say congratulations after a safe landing?
PS to the lady in the age article saying the circuits make her house shake - do you live in a cardboard box? they're cessnas, not 747s!
I'm thinking that normally circuits are conducted on runway right (31 & 35). Are first solos conducted on 31 Left due to less intense traffic? Airport management is saying they had both recently taken off, which points to circuits but could just have easily have been the Warrior re-joining. If it was circuits you'd think the Warrior would have out performed the 150 and been ahead of it.
I'm just suggesting that if they were doing circuits they were very unlucky based on the performance of their respective aircraft types.
Reminds me of the recent crash at Latrobe Valley where a very low time Indian solo student ran into the back of another aircraft and killed the pilot of the preceeding aircraft.
Whist we always say Aviate, Navigate and then Communicate, both these incidents are having the finger pointed at Communication breakdowns.
Direct no speed – this is a ‘Rumour’ network and despite your assertion that this ‘helps no one’ it is actually very useful for pilots to talk about events like this. Particularly from psychological perspective, and yes, I have the qualifications to make that claim.
If someone posts that it hit the other because you can't see up in a Cessna and can't see down in a Piper, I'd read that (as a qualified pilot) and think to myself, "mental note, keep a good lookout next time I'm climbing and turning onto downwind" or similar. Same goes for a numer of other scenarios that sometimes appear here.
On a side note - from news in the USA, a homebuilt Velocity with 5 hours on the taco has crashed into a house in Las Vegas Nevada killing its' 2 elderly occupants who were home at the time. Lets home the near miss in Perth is the third occurence as they say these things often happen in 3's.
Location: Victoria, Australia~I like goin' swimmin' with bow-legged wimmin...
Age: 50
Posts: 475
Quote:
...a homebuilt Velocity with 5 hours on the taco...
Must be from southern Nevada if it is equipped with a taco...
Don't you just love how the pollies' first priority is to blame somebody else? Brumby on 774 this morning obviously considered he had done all he could by indicating decisions about operations at the airport are the responsibility of the Feds.
Horrible news, but a typical lack of perspective by the media. It is the airborne equivalent of a p-plater writing himself and his Gemini off in the side of a house, yet when that really happens is there any strident call to ban learner drivers from urban areas?
One of the many seperate articles in today's "The Age" quotes a friend of the pilot saying he first went solo last weekend, whereas all the other articles still say "first solo".
I suspect that the "first solo" may be the result of some misreporting.
"PS to the lady in the age article saying the circuits make her house shake - do you live in a cardboard box? they're cessnas, not 747s!"
I have lived most of my life within MMB's circuit area, and some of the helicopters do make your house shake. Thats why the circuit area for helicopters was altered a few years ago to try and take them away from the surrounding houses.
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