Afraid to fly with you?

[A and C]

The fire crew at an airfield near me have a list of the people who they think are likely to kill them selfs in a light aircraft and don't let the work experence kids go flying with them.

[FREDAcheck]

This always comes as a shock to we pilots, but quite few people actually don't want to go flying. I know it's hard to credit, but I know a number people that regard it as a somewhat dangerous activity of no appeal. I don't think it's just me.

[maxred]

I once took an opportunity to assist a guy at out local base to tale his aeroplane down to Barcelona. I needed the experience. Various so called friends in the 'know' looked surprised but said nought. The trip was a near disaster, and as I rescued his IFR night approach into Perpignan, I clearly remember thinking- this is how you die. He made such mess of the procedure that only by the grace of god, and me getting visual with the airfield did we make it. The next morning we 'scudded' the coast round to Bagur VOR at 500'. I ryanaired it back home. I then learned his true history on my return to UK, a number of near fatalities and other horror stories. I wad actually truly pissed off that no one said, maybe they all thought they would get rid of two of us!!!!!:

I often say to people to come flying, you get the usual oh great, and then in the day they always appear to be 'busy'. You soon learn that your passion, is not nescessarily everyone elses. Same with a friend who has a yacht, I won't let my kids go sailing with him!!!

[Pace]

Afraid to fly with you? The problem is that if its family, friends, wives or girlfriends They really know you!

The guy who struts around wearing Ray bans and tries to emulate top gun is the same guy who cannot do the most basic repair job around the house.

he is the guy who gets man flu! The guy who stuck the cat in the microwave to dry off its wet coat! The guy who left the baby in the supermarket and forgot he had taken the baby shopping. He cannot even remember his own birthday nevermind hers! The guy who forgot where first gear was in the car and selected reverse ending up down an embankement into a canal ???
And they want to trust him with their lives ?


Pace

[John Miller]

I have a few stories about wayward pilots. In fact my best mate was one. He bought a twin to do his PPL and I eventually got the phone call from his instructor: "I'm fed up with him telling me what we're going to do every lesson. As you are his best mate, who also flies, I just want you to know we're recommending he stop flying altogether, in fact we have decided not to accept any more bookings. He's a natural but he can't be told anything and is completely fearless".

They were right - he had no time for pre-flights and treated the aeroplane like his car - get in and start up. A great guy too, who loved his toys (and still does). He took it remarkably well and I still got the phone calls to join his family on flying trips, which is where I wrote up many of my twin hours.

[Mark1234]

I've generally had the opposite experience, it may depend on how you put the question: "Would you like to sit in the aeroplane and pay half?" or "I'm going for a trip round <somewhere> tomorrow, spare seat if you'd like to come"

Obvious though it is, I'd also stress the importance of a calm relaxed attitude both before and during, explaining plenty and making it seem everyday/simple, rather than talking up how clever one is. I made a gliding mate (also a pilot) my first victim - he pointed out that he never wanted to hear me say 'oh cr*p' in an aeroplane, even if it was because I'd left my wallet in the car. For some reason that stuck with me!

Another thought is that while many of us know people we wouldn't fly with, at least we're in a position to judge - for most, it's a matter of blind trust.

[Pace]

Mark

There used to be a good marker for deciding whether you were happy with another pilot and that is whether you would be happy to trust your own two young children to go up for a flight with that pilot.

There are many I would not be happy to trust my kids (when they were Kids with

Pace

[Fuji Abound]

I'd worry more about the aircraft that the pilot.

Since I can (usually) fly the aircraft I will fly it from the right seat if needs really must, but the state of some aircraft, about which I can do little, other than refuse to fly in it, is of far greater concern.

I'd think twice about sitting in the back with some pilots.

[Mark1234]

Fuji - I'm inclined to disagree - if someone is PIC, they're PIC. If I'm not happy they can do that job, I'm not there (nor are any kids or family I might have). Equally I'm not having anyone on board who thinks they have the right to intervene with the flight (advice I'm happy to take, at my discretion).

Fighting over the controls is not a healthy picture, nor likely to have a happy outcome.

[TrafficPilot]

I had an slightly frightening experience as a PPL student/passenger a few years back.

I'd applied to fill a seat on a fly-in to a small unlicensed grass strip in the Midlands. I'd never met the Pilot before although we'd exchanged messages on a forum (not PPRuNe!).

The flight (in a PA28) went well until we reached the area of the grass strip. Despite having a GPS he couldn't find the strip so we spent a good 15-20mins flying around in circles trying to identify it. No problem there - I understand how difficult these things are to spot sometimes.

When we evetually did spot the strip he flew downwind and then lined up on an extended final. On short final (to this short grass strip with hedges at each end) I noticed our approach speed was 85kts! I wasn't sure what to do. Should I - a low hours PPL student and passenger mention the speed or just wait and see what happens. So I waited. And waited some more until I realised he wasn't slowing down. So I rather sheepishly said "are we ok on speed?" to which he looked at the ASI and said "think I'll go around on this one".

It was just as well we did go around. Another aircraft arriving earlier had gone into the hedge at the end of the strip.

Would I fly with him again. Nope! Had I been just a passenger with no flying experience I hate to think what could have happened.

[IO540]

Yes, a tricky one. I must admit I am not keen on flying with people unless I know their "history", and nowadays I almost never do so.

It makes me very sad to read some of the AAIB reports where the pilot was quite obviously a complete cowboy and killed some passengers who probably had no clue what was happening until shortly before the very end. If somebody kills just themselves, I have no issue with that.

[Fuji Abound]

Fuji - I'm inclined to disagree - if someone is PIC, they're PIC. If I'm not happy they can do that job, I'm not there (nor are any kids or family I might have). Equally I'm not having anyone on board who thinks they have the right to intervene with the flight (advice I'm happy to take, at my discretion).

Fighting over the controls is not a healthy picture, nor likely to have a happy outcome.

Mark - you are correct, even more certainly when it comes to kids, family etc where they are not pilots.

As to someone intervening it is always a matter of last resort, and obviously there is more than an element of judgement. However I am not going to have someone fly me into the side of a mountain, power cables or spins. I have been in that situation on the first two. Unfortunately it is not always possible to be certain in advance that a pilot will be able to cope with every situation. You might not be happy with the intervention BUT if you think the intervention cant do any harm even if you disagree at that moment in time it is as well to find out rather than refuse to transfer control.

A good example - not visual, go around. Handling pilot does nothing. I said again - go around. Still does nothing. At that point I have control, full throttle and around we go. If I hadnt we would both be dead, with hills immediately beyond the go around point whatever the pilot thought, I am not hanging around to enjoy the debate and to find out I was right. I know that sort of thing should not happen and when you are not visual at the DH there should be no question from the handling pilot as to what he should do - unfortunately life is not quite like that. Neither of us had anything to lose by the handling pilot not accepting the go around call. Neither of us had anything to lose by transferring control. Having gone around we both now have the luxury of debating what went wrong. The alternative was to leave that luxury to the AIB. If I had got the wrong DH so what - nothing lost than pride, if the pilot has got the wrong DH nothing lost but both our lives.

If you ever find yourself in that situation please for me intervene and forget about all those stories of very annoying instructors and friends who want to intervene at every possible opportunity for no good reason. Back on the ground if you still disagree with me, by all means never fly with me again.

[Halfbaked_Boy]

Mark1234,

Generally I agree, but a couple of years back I forcibly took control from somebody in the flare at night. At 40 feet...

[CharlieDeltaUK]

As a student PPL, I aspire to be safe and the type of person who can be entrusted with the lives of others. So, I promised myself that I would study properly for the exams, for example, rather than aiming just to pass. But, let's assume for a moment that most people have at least a degree of self-preservation and yet some still end up being the type of pilot who should take up another hobby. That means they are unconsciously incompetent.

How many such folk get a PPL in the first place? I'm not asking this so I can adopt a stance of indignation. I'm asking because, as a student, I'm trusting my instructor, my examiners etc to protect me from myself. In most skills, there is a stage where one is in the category of being unconsciously incompetent, and that's when you need others to make you aware of the gaps. Right now, I know my skills are limited because it's obvious. I assume there will come a time when I get to a stage where I'm more borderline, and that's the exact time when I want my FI (or examiner) to be very candid about my shortfalls and I'll carry on having lessons until the core skills are solid.

I have been offshore sailing for years and now I take other people's kids sailing for a sail training organisation. It was years after getting my yachtmaster qualification that I was ready to accept the trust of parents who don't know me before they drop off their kids at the marina. I sailed as the 'mate' during that interval and we had a regime where I got feedback after every voyage. I only became a skipper when I had enough confidence to know that I could keep the crew safe in all eventualities. It means I don't have the distraction of being stressed. Some folk take it as a blow to their ego if they aren't made skippers as soon as they get qualified, but the system prevails, at least it does in our organisation. I was rather hoping that this would be the norm for flying. Otherwise,, how does one avoid being the type of pilot who features on the "avoid" list?

[The500man]

I've flown with a particularly nervous passenger on a few occasions with only a few post ppl lessons. I knew he was generally okay in the aircraft if he was busy taking pictures and if I was pointing out things to look at, but one of the trips was to Clacton. It was probably my worst landing ever, including three or four smallish bounces (all done before the footpath) in a C172. Once things had settled down on the ground I looked over expecting to see a pale faced passenger, but he was absolutely fine.

Afterwards he said he wasn't worried because I was so calm. This made me think about one of the guys I'd met at my then flying group who acted so nervously on his pre-flight planning that he made me nervous just being around him! I can see why alot of people wouldn't want to be flown by a pilot that seems nervous.

I've only ever flown with instructors and non-flying passengers. Thinking about it carefully I'm not sure I'd be happy to sit in the back of an aircraft when a newly qualified pilot is flying!

[IFMU]

My wife is fearful of any kind of flying, including with me. Pre-wife she would go.

I won't fly with anybody who tells me how good they are.

-- IFMU

[Mark1234]

CharlieDelta - to answer your question with respect to the 'average' private pilot scene (i.e. not 2 crew ops as some have discussed). In my (limited) experience, it's not prevalent, but there are more than you would think out there. I would probably characterise it as an unsafe attitude, rather than unconcious incompetance.

They're generally perfectly capable of, and may even fly as a model pilot when an instructor is present, or they are being checked up on, but when they are not, either can't be bothered to, or don't feel they need to do the job properly, engage in questionable activity etc. Generally it leads to errosion of margins, and one day something comes along that surprises them, and they're way behind where they need to be.

It's an easy place to get into - the human animal isn't good at judging risk - we tend to work along the lines of "first time scary, 50th time it didn't kill me, so it must be safe". I've heard said that from 100-300hours (I think) is the most dangerous time of a pilot's life; you know enough to feel comfortable, and get yourself into trouble, but don't have the experience to get out

[englishal]

Yes, a tricky one. I must admit I am not keen on flying with people unless I know their "history", and nowadays I almost never do so.

A very wise thing and pretty much the same as me. I am very wary of flying with people I don't know, and would almost never sit in the back unless there is someone up front I completely trust, know their experience or the way they fly. This stems from several incidents post PPL with other low time pilots from showing off to bad decision making which could have ended very differently.