Psychological Hazards

[SkyHawk-N]

I've been reading a book by a guy called Sparky Imeson on mountain flying, it's another really good read for all sorts of reasons. One section of the book goes into emergency landing techniques and how to survive a crash landing in trees, hills, etc. One bit that has really caught my imagination, and an area that I have thought about a lot before reading the book, is Psychological Hazards.

Imeson basically lists three of these hazards which can 'interfere' with the pilot's ability to successfully manage an inflight emergency;

1. Reluctance to accept the emergency situation
2. Desire to save the aircraft
3. Undue concern about getting hurt

As I have said, I have thought about this before reading the book and wonder how I will actually handle a situation which requires an immediate and irreversible decision. I'd like to think that I would think more about the people in the aircraft and on the ground to be affected by no. 2. but how I would actually perform if the donk suddenly stopped or the weather forced me to perform a precautionary landing while I was over a 'hostile' environment I can only guess.

Flying over most of the English countryside I can see that there will be less of an issue, there are many places to put down from an engine out while in the cruise. I'm more interested if it happens over mountains, forest, places where there are less/no clear, flat areas.

I'm just interested in hearing from anyone who has experienced a genuine forced landing and whether or not, when it came to the crunch (no pun intented) were you affected by any of these 'hazards'?

Hope this isn't thought of as a downer subject, I just don't see much written about it.

[Julian]

I have had a sort of number 3) in the fact I was moire worried about my passengers getting hurt.

I mate and myself(he is a pilot as well) were flying our then girlfriends up the coast in the US, I was flying as he was taking pics etc. The girls were in the back and not too bad as passengers.

I noticed the oil pressure going off the scale and motioned to my mate so as not the alert the girls, we were over water and the land just off to starboard would have made for interesting landing. We did some checks and found by throttling back we could bring it back within the green. We carried on and looking for any landing areas on the way in case we needed them.

We didnt tell the girls and made it back to base where we informed the FBO we had hired the aircraft from.

"Oh yeah dont worry......its a dodgy gauge!"

I think 2) would be interesting as I think you would probably get different reactions if you had rented it or if it was your own. I think you would probably be more inclined to try and save the aircraft if you had sunk your hard earned £ into it.

J.