Pilot engineer

[bugdevheli]

Is it reasonable to assume that anyone with absolutely no engineering knowledge can ever be as safe a pilot as someone who has. Or is the engineer pilot more likely to make assumptions and create problems that put him under pressure. Granny Smith drives down M1 with no oil gets to London, engine knackered. Billy Smart drives down M1 hears big ends, stops gets out in hurry, killed by passing lorry. If you get my drift!

[chu]

Hey bugdevheli,

I am helicopter licenced engineer and fixed wing rated private pilot (hope to get my rotary licence soon!)

I think a pilot who is engineer as well will always be cautious and more suspicious than a pilot without (that much) technical knowledge. Everytime I fly in an aircraft (no matter if fixed or rotary wing), I automatically listen and watch for anything that is wrong. It's not fear or anything like that, I really enjoy flying. But you just always expect something to happen. Maybe that's bad for me, I don't know.

Nice regards,
Chris

:ok:

[Genghis the Engineer]

I'm not rotary, and my Engineering has far more to do with analysis and approval than building and fixing, but speaking as both the more flying I do the better an Engineer I get, and the more Engineering I do on the class of aircraft I fly, the more (as a pilot) I'm able to be "on-top" of what the aircraft is doing.

But, it must be said, there are some incredibly competent Engineers and Technicians who never fly, and some very able pilots who haven't much of a clue as to how their aircraft work - it would be arrogant to say that it's universal.

G

[NickLappos]

I think we have to define Engineer to get to the point.
In British usage, Engineer is
1) someone trained and certified to repair things, or
2) alternately, someone who is trained in the University to understand Math, Science and Mechanics and design machines.

In the states we say mechanic and engineer for those roles.

In the question asked by bugdevheli, I believe both skills are needed, to some degree, by a successful pilot today. With little interest in understanding why? or how? for his machine, a pilot is the lesser for it.

I think that at the level we believe that many car drivers are at (the little red light says "Oil Pressure", what do I do?) an aircraft pilot is downright dangerous. Someday we might make machines that require less attention.

[Rich Lee]

It is not necessary to know how a watch is designed or manufactured to tell time. All that is necessary is that one understands how to read numbers, or an 'operational' knowledge. Effective use of time is a concept even further removed from an engineering knowledge of watches.

The question was "Is it reasonable to assume that anyone with absolutely no engineering knowledge can ever be as safe a pilot as someone who has".

It is my opinion operational knowledge is necessary to operate a helicopter. Operational knowledge will of necessity include some engineering knowledge using either the Lappos motherland or new world definition. Safety is in part knowing why and how, but also how much, when, and should.

Will an engineering knowledge make one a safer pilot? Not necessarily. Will an engineering knowledge make a safe pilot safer? Probably.

If one were the to say in a word what the condition of being a safe pilot is, its basis lies first in seriously devoting one's body, mind and soul to the exercise of sound judgement and decision-making skills.

[donut king]

A fine response Rich!

Very well said. We can cram all the technical knowledge and reg's into an individual but if he or she cannot adapt it into the operational world we work in..... what good is it?

D.K

[imabell]

if you don't know how it works then you are probably not going to be able to make it work properly.

that doesn't mean that you have to be an engineer, common sense, skill and a level head help would help most.

would being a pilot make you a better engineer/mechanic.???

[Genghis the Engineer]

would being a pilot make you a better engineer/mechanic.???

Usually. For a stack of reasons varying from a design engineer better understanding the environment that he's designing for, to a mechanic being better equipped to talk with aircrew and understand what troubles them on more complex faults than "it just doesn't work".

And on that vein, one shouldn't miss the fact that a pilot who has a reasonable grasp of Engineering is better equipped to tell an engineer how he'd like it designed better next time around, or a mechanic what needs fixing.

Of course you could go one further, and argue that the people regulating us (pick national authority of your choice) should at-least be a practicing engineer, mechanic or pilot - which I think would make everybody happier.

The chaps for whom I've most respect are those rare and gifted individuals who are sufficiently good engineers to design an aeroplane, capable enough mechanics to build it, and a good enough pilot to fly it. I've met three (all FW, I don't know if there's anybody nowadays in the Rotary world thus placed as aircraft get more complex) and they are all very remarkable people - it is nice to know that they can exist.

G

[helislave]

Interesting topic. Thought i'd add my own insights. although perhaps going a little of the thread. So my apologies if it is.

It is similar to what i posted before 'is a degree and advantage'

Surely from the point of view of operator/manufacture or whomever else, an engineering pilot would be of more benefit that just a pilot (engineer) alone, to reinforce the point made by Genghis the Engineer, a pilot who is also and engineer (not the type that gets given the 'engineer' title that fixes washing machines, in UK terms at least - sorry pet gripe perhaps the reason i no longer live in the UK - i am an Aero Engineer) must be better positioned in terms of safety, more understanding of the mechanics and better able to report back to maintenance any problems and speaks the language of the technicians/mechanics and designers to perfect the design?..if anything an engineer should at least be in a better position to pass the exams..isn't that a better propsect for a operator/employer....

I agree on Rich Lee's point, about i just read a watch i don't need to know how it works, the same can be said for many things, i don't have a clue about this PC i'm using, but if it breaks or were to potentially break, or understanding what might break, is it particularly life threatening. However i think that a PC or watch is no where near as complex as a helicopter? However i do check the tyres and breaks on my bicycle..well at least occasionally. It must be a matter of perspective, yet again....

[Vfrpilotpb]

Having a little Farmyard engineers experience made my walk arounds special when doing my initial training, and having seen and been heard to say (Jesus Christ, is that what holds it), I can tell you all, that I look at everything twice, people have complained at the time I take, but there aint no laybys up in the air, so people normally leave me alone til I am good and ready.:ok:

[PPRUNE FAN#1]

My certificate says "pilot" not "mechanic," and so I make no official claim to knowing anything at all about the inner workings of my ship. I'd imagine that most helo pilots are naturally curious about mechanical things. It's in our nature. And even if I'm not particularly mechanically gifted, I like to know how things work. But as Rich Lee points out, a helicopter pilot need only have "operational knowlege" to be safe. But would more knowlege make a pilot safER? I think that would be hard to quantify, although it would intellectually seem so. Thus, if it gives you comfort to know how the little gears in the watch are actually made, or how a freewheeling unit is constructed, more power to ya!

I try to not make mechanical decisions. If I have any questions prior to the flight, I defer to the mechanic/engineer. If he says "Go," I assume he is right. Have I ever caught something that an engineer missed on his Daily Inspection? Thankfully, no. During flight, if some problem develops, I simply land. Have done it, will continue to do it. I don't second-guess the machine...don't blithely ignore anomalies. And I don't think having any special mechanical knowlege would make me any "safer" as long as there are "real" engineers around. However, having that knowlege could make me a big pain in the arse.

Here in the U.S., a large number of ex-Army aviators whom I've met considered themselves an expert mechanic on the basis of their serving as "Maintenance/Test Pilot" for their unit. It must have been a rotating assignment, because virtually every ex-Army pilot claims to have had that job. Of the egotistical ones, the fact that they did not have an A&P rating nor any practical mechanical experience did not diminish their inflated self-image one bit.

A classic example of how wrong we can sometimes be occurred early in my flying. I was serving as an SIC on a Sikorsky S-58. Prior to launch one day, the PIC (who had a certain, er..."reputation" among the mechs) waltzed into Maintenance and announced authoritatively that our right main gear tyre pressure was too low. The engineer dutifully went out and pronounced it "A-OK." At the time, I was too naive/dumb to see what was happening. And so the p*ssing contest began, delaying our scheduled departure: PIC demanding that the mechanic increase the tyre pressure; the mechanic staunchly defending it as normal. You can guess the rest, can't you? It was the *left* (opposite) tyre that was at too high a pressure! The PIC didn't catch that, of course. All he knew was that one tyre was lower than the other, so the lower one must've been at fault. The mech used that incident to humiliate him. It hardly had any effect.

Taught me a right good lesson, it did. Sometimes a little knowlege is a dangerous thing.