Shy Torque, fantastic quotation:
Perhaps tens of thousands of years ago, some of their ancestors would have been caught and eaten by what other men were catching and eating.
Love it.
That should be plaquarded on every helicopter, in full view of the pilot and passengers. Not only for PPLs, but for professional pilots too.
We all seem to have homed in on the 1500m vis limit. I have about 11,500 hours, of which, 10,000+ have been flown VFR in the Weedesphere. If I find myself in visibility of 1500m, I seriously have to ask myself why I am there, what am I going to achieve, and how can I justify this if it goes wrong? 1500m is not a guide to what is acceptable, it's the absolute legal minimum in some countries.
With technology as it is today, I'd like to see some sort of on-board, low-cost sensor that gives a fairly accurate visibility reading. It could even be linked in to your GPS/moving map. Something like this could be pre-set with warnings for those that need them. At 1500m the plaquard above should flash. Mind you, the cowboys would ignore that too, and who is going to pay for the development of something that is relevant to such a minority, who will most likely ignore it anyway....this is why I'm not an inventor.
Seriously, don't we just need to be taking responsibility for the situations we put ourselves into, and instilling that in other pilots too, instead of looking for excuses or for a training programme to blame. Certainly in the British Military, the occasional hanging helped with the responsibility issue.
TM