OLD AKRO
Only guys who didn't know Max would ask dopey questions like this
No buddy, I didn't know Max, but I'd love you to tell me why asking about the pilot's training history (which the ATSB will investigate in every incident) is as you call it, a dopey question.
You know as well as I do that the pilot's training history is very, very relevant. And if he has never trained in a simulator for engine failures then he is up against it. My first few engine failures in a Kingair sim came after 31 years of flying - and they were a bloody handful. I now have the technique tuned, but I needed to be exposed to it. Pulling a throttle back in flight to simulate an engine failure does NOT replicate a full V1 cut in the sim, it never will.
I'm sorry if Max was a mate of yours and I know mates will always want to defend their buddies. But its the system that is at fault. There is not the requirement under the regs to do sim training in order for you to fly fare paying passengers in a B200. So one's first exposure to the real forces and the aggression required on the controls to keep it straight and fly away will be in the machine itself, and I don't think that is satisfactory.
Yes. I concur, the full story is not out there yet. I am playing the ball (the system), not the man. I am playing the training system. I hope you will play the ball back at me and tell me why you consider asking the question of any simulator training history is a dopey question. If not, will you also be contacting the ATSB when they look at his training history and tell them that it is a dopey line of enquiry?
I lost a very close mate who flew a military fast jet into the ground and died. He was a great mate, but unfortunately, it was his error. I couldn't defend his error - pilots make mistakes, cock up, whatever - and so do mates.