I totaly agree, with four hours to think about it you would have thought he would have had a better plan than that.
You're right. he had 4 hours to think about what could possibly go wrong
SSD is quite nicely critical of the successful efforts of a low time pilot to save his own ass. I don't know the philosophy in mother england, but over here, once it turns to crap like that, who cares! The insurer owns it, all you gotta do is make sure you can stagger to the pub.
SSD You clearly have a somewhat limited knowledge of human factors, and how they may affect a persons performance in a time of critical need.
Lets have a look at that in some detail shall we.
1. Initial Bodily reactions.
The emergency raises blood pressure, heart rate, energy consumption and stress. This will happen in any emergency regardless of your experience. However experience
may reduce the extent of the reaction.
With this reaction the body produces a lot of heat, which the body tries to lower via sweating....i.e it starts dumping fluid. This is an important point for you to recall later.
2. Environment.
On the day in question, the temperature in the area ranged from 42 - 45 degrees centigrade, (107 - 113 Farenheit) at ground level. ( i should know, i was only 40 nm away on the day)
Now if we consider that he would have stayed local, and probably about 2000' agl and applied the ELR to the eqaution and round it up to 2 deg per thousand, the lowest ambient temperature you'd see is 38c (100.4 F)
It was a cloudless day, if the the ambient temperature isn't enough, the aussie sun will roast you! I know of englishmen that have come here and not lasted 30 minutes in the aussie sun. Leeson 1..how to spot an englishman...look for the lobster walking down the road.
Actually thinking about it...does your thermometer even go that high?
3. Flight plan.
This one is a bit of an unknown, as no-one has commented on it.
I doubt with the conditions of the day, a long flight was not planned for, probably 30-60 minutes local/circuits. You body/mind will tolerate the environment for that long. As an aussie trained glider pilot, one thing your instructors push is re-hydration. The rule of thumb is 2 litres drank every hour...and trust me, at that, after 6.5 hours you have never thought about taking a leak...2 litres per hour is not enough.
So our lil pilot in this instance has taken off for a short flight, certainly not carrying the water to fly for 4 hours under stress that probably required 4 litres per hour replacement.
4. Result.
Said pilot, heavily stressed (4 hours to think about it), heavily dehdyrated with impaired motor skills that go with that condition makes a less than perfect (in your opinion) landing, in an aeroplane that the insurer know owns, which at best was only ever capable of a controlled crash, walked away.
Maybe SSD, we should set up an aeroplane with the same fault and see how you perform, without the environmental issues this pilot had to deal with. Surely you can show us how it should be done
I see no reason to denigrate this guy on his performance, just pat him on the back and get him airborne again to continue the passion that fuels so many of us.
Cheers
Jas
PS...looked in my book...got time in that aircraft. Never have flown a warrior with air-con..so don't even mention it.