Why should he be given a chance, Pace? He's had sufficient chances already. Any 45hr holder of a PPL (* or indeed NPPL holder - in fact anyone qualified to operate an aircraft) should be competent enough to consistently fly solo cross country without running out of fuel and infringing controlled airspace. If not, then standard would be grossly inadequate. Running out of fuel is as fundamental a sin to an aviator as running aground is to a mariner: entirely avoidable except in a tiny minority of cases.
Having a spirit of adventure does not absolve you from requiring a certain level of competence and common sense. Most worrying is this fellow's attitude, which suggests that he cannot see that he has done anything wrong, would not be receptive to retraining, and is destined to repeat his mistakes if given half a chance. Mistakes in other hobbies may not be a big deal (damn - I've dropped a stitch); mistakes like his in aviation can result in fatalities in the air, on the ground or most likely, himself. A line has to be drawn somewhere and I feel that VH has shown, and continues to show himself to be on the wrong side of it by quite some margin. Flying is fun, but it's not a game.
One thing I am feeling from the report and VH's comments is that he has absolutely no grasp whatsoever of the concept of unusable fuel. His argument seems to be that because there was a small amount of fuel present in the wreckage and at the time of the engine failure, then he could not have run out of fuel. Studying the report might help him understand (wishful thinking I feel). I am not familiar with the aircraft type but I do also wonder if maybe he found a best endurance speed fuel flow value in the manual and then applied that to flying around at high power settings until he ran out of gas.
Last edited by Torque Tonight; 14th August 2010 at 13:35.
Reason: *