CAA Safety Evenings
 

Flicking through the Pilot Magazine diary - my eye's were drawn to the CAA Safety Evenings which they hold at various airfields across the country. As there are a couple not a million miles from me shortly, I was curious as to what they were all about?

Has anyone here been to one? Is it a worthwhile way to spend an evening?

IMHO they are certainly worth attending - some aspects are very illuminating. e.g. they gave us a very good practical demo of the way in which disorientation in clouds works.

Allegedly according to the statistics, pilots who attend them have fewer accidents. It may of course be that people who see fit to attend them are already predisposed to "thinking safety"

PS They also put a nice stamp in your logbook to say that you've been.

I've been to a couple of evenings and they are definately worth attending.

The presenter, David Cockburn, is a very good speaker in his own right and he normally brings along another guest speaker from the CAA too.

I would strongly recommend that you go to it.


CAA Safety Evenings

I've been to 4 or 5 of these over the last ten years or so, and from that position I'm going to be slightly controversial. I think that these safety evenings have lost their way slightly.

The main objective now seems to be to frighten GA pilots into not going beyond their limits - all well and good. But doing so with lots of "though shalt nots" instead of constructive advice about the best way to fly safely isn't in my opinion all that helpful. Also some of the advice being given, particularly with regard to microlights, is just plain wrong (the fatal accident rate being quoted was about double that in CAP701, and the explanation of the tumble - a current hot-topic in microlight circles, seriously contradicted the published work on the subject from places like "Microlight Flying" and "Journal of Aerospace Engineering".

For the time being, if you've time and inclination to improve your safety understanding my recommendation would be to use the events organised by GASCo or the PFA (or some commercial ventures such as that run by Irv Lee) which have better researched better qualified speakers (and GASCo is now run by John Thorpe, who used to do the CAA safety evenings). You don't get a stamp in your logbook, but for my money you'll learn far more of real use in keeping you safe.

As to the accident record of safety evening attendees - whenever I've been to them the audience are all the more experienced and cautious pilots anyway; the people who need a bit of education rarely go. That I think is the main reason for that statistic.

That said, it does no harm to be reminded of rules and best practice, and it's a good opportunity to pick up some of CAA's (excellent) safety literature, so not a complete waste of an evening. But, far less useful than it should be.

G

Genghis the controversial.

Genghis

I am not sure that your views are particularly unusual.

The current format, a mixture of doubtful humour and patronising "Know your Limits" stuff is of little use to anybody with more than a few hours under their belt and a desire to look deeper than

"Don't fly in bad weather"; and

"Look at what some silly chappies do in their flying machines".

A good idea badly in need of a serious overhaul - possibly, dare I say, a role to be given to somebody who is not an ex RAF bod on the gentle run down to full retirement.

Having been to a few I think they are good for a very low time low experience PPL who has no interest in flying outside his local area.

Like most of the printed material mailed out by the CAA, they are patronising and of very little value to someone with currency, especially IFR.

They spend a lot of time making points like one should not try to squeeze between terrain and cloudbase - fair enough because that is responsible for a large % of low-currency PPL deaths. But you try to mention instrument flight and the speaker doesn't want to talk about it, and you get hissing from the mostly-over-60 audience who I suspect have plenty of time, say things like "you can go everywhere VFR, young man", and have little need to get involved with clouds. But they all lay out their logbooks, some truly ancient ones, on the table for the speaker to rubber stamp them, so they presumably get a nice warm feeling that they have attended a SAFETY briefing from the UK's foremost SAFETY authority.

Same for the MCASD day in Middle Wallop. A lot of people who feel very important. That event is perhaps of value to somebody flying around that airfield but I went to these with a colleague who like me is IFR current and we felt it was a complete total waste of time.

If you want to be really brave, mention the dreaded three letter word (G-P-S) in one of these meetings :O (I did, just once)

Having said that, the great majority of PPLs fly very little so perhaps this is intentional. It is the nature of this business that once you want to go beyond the £100 burger on a nice sunny Sunday, you are on your own.

Sorry to be "somewhat negative" but I really learnt nothing whatsoever, and the original poster asked for opinions :O

If somebody wants to learn about flying, the best thing is to find an instructor who has been past the nearest crease in his chart, and go to a few places. Or (a far cheaper and safer option because some instructors like going to interesting places a bit too much) find an experienced PPL or PPL/IR pilot and go somewhere with him. It's a whole different world.

topcat450

I go to them and if you learn one new thing - then count it as a bonus.

Sometimes - you garner as much from talking to CAA bods informally at the bar as you do listening to the formal chalk and talk.

I have several reservations about the way M3/JAR145 maintenance outfits work and a discussion on this subject was very helpful. Obviously - this was not on the formal agenda and didn't need to be aired publicly but a bit of networking helped me.
OK - if Nicole Kidman asked you to join her on an interesting flight into paradise aboard a G-V , consider it a no brainer - otherwise yes - a worthwhile way to spend an evening.

<<edit: Which would you prefer to get to handle? The G-V or Nicole Kidman?>>

I have to concur with Genghis and 2Ds opinion but would urge people to go at least once.

They could however be a lot more informative, educational and useful.

FD

I trust that those who have made the critisisms of the evenings have also made their feelings known to the CAA Staff who put in a lot of time and effort into formulating and presenting them.

They openly ask for constructive comment in order to improve the work to which they devote a lot of time, if you can't be bothered to do that, what's the point of posting your bitches here?:rolleyes:

I did so, though obviously in a less outspoken manner. Didn't get me anywhere.

Safety evenings
 

Yep:

Definitely worth a visit: I went to one nearly 5 years ago, but sadly E Anglia is not very well served and its a long trek out of area on a winters weekday evening.

I'm aiming to go again this winter.

One tip: take your logbook 'cos they (used to) mebbee still do give you an endorsement stamp.

Impresses the Yanks if you hire abroad ;)

I've been to these, twice. The first time I was a newish PPL, and I learned a lot. The second time I'd got more hours and experience under my belt, and I'm not sure I learned very much, if anything. But it certainly didn't do any harm, and if I learn one new thing, on a winter evening when I've not much to do anyway, it's probably worth it. I haven't been for a couple of years now so I'm planning to go again.

So, not fantastic, could be better, but possibly quite useful, especially if you're fairly new to flying - that's my verdict.

I did attend one last winter (I'm a PPL/IMCR, 175 hrs TT, 103 PIC), and found it food for thought.

After reflection, I believe these evenings to be useful on the whole. Like others, though, I think there are some problems:

i. the style of presentation erred on the side of being patronising

ii. the style of the two speakers differed markedly, with one of them being obviously nervous and in need of a confidence boost for presentational skills.

iii. the content was such that the whole presentation could have been condensed into a fraction of the time taken. (Having carved out an evening from my personal schedule, I was really looking for more content than I got! Particularly around the whole issue of IFR flight and safety.)

iv. the venue left quite a bit to be desired in terms of the sort of comfort required to enable an audience to give full attention to speakers and presentation. (Obviously, this will differ from venue to venue, and they (the CAA) are at the mercy of what is available if they are to bring these presentations to a large audience.)

The most serious criticism being point i., since this is likely to alienate the audience and prevent any messages getting through. A rethink could well be beneficial. (And these thoughts were offered by letter to the organization.)

Nik nak,

I did email the chap who did the presentation that I attended last year.

As I had just returned from an AME course at the FAA HQ a few months earlier and had been exposed to their way of presenting safety information to their 'flock' I was keen to share this information.

The return email was along the lines that 'thank you but we know it all already'

Ah well, I thought I'll keep it all to myself then.

FD

Ah, well, when you attend any training event and come away thinking "I knew all that" then you most certainly have learned something - you've learned that you've been doing it right all this time.

Like others above, I have attended several evenings over several years. The first was interesting, informative and useful. Subsequent years were those under the 'new' aegis and even allowing for some deja vu, I felt increasingly patronised.

At one, the first part dragged on too long for the guest speaker to do more than say hello. At another, technical problems with AVAs delayed the proceedings with similar effect and at the last one I went to, the presentation was, frankly, dreary. I had rounded up some people to attend; as first time attendees their reaction was surprisingly negative. I had hoped that the disappointing evenings were just aberrations, but it seems this is not the case.

I know there has been feedback to Mr Cockburn more eloquent than mine. I would merely make the point that variety of content and a rather more dynamic presentation are factors that might attract more pilots - and more than once.

Still willing to learn, I shall inevitably attend another evening soon, but more in hope than expectation.

Now I feel bad about being so negative regarding a worthy cause.
I shall go and re-read Gasco & Gasil immediately.

I thought there was a saying in aviation that you never stop learning. If people feel patronised by these talks and think they know it all then maybe they could do the talks themselves and enlighten us all :) Just a thought.

Many of us have. We're also still learning, but would like to build on what we know now, rather than repeat the same lessons.

G

The More I Do, The Less I Know
 

That's why I read everything and anything that I suspect might be pertinent, read pPrune parastically (to steal the wisdom of others), eavesdrop at airfields and go to Safety Evenings.

The current format just seems to miss an excellent opprtunity to augment those other sources of knowledge - in a live show.

Perhaps this is a case for the redistribution of income derived from GA: I'm sure these events could utilise more funds.

I've been to 4 or 5 of these events. In my opinion, the chap who is currently presenting these isn't anywhere near as good as his predecessor.

I found the first couple I attended useful, as I was a student/new PPL at the time. Since then though, I find it really frustrating that the presentation is identical each time - exactly the same slides, same 'Who's been framed' style video clips etc etc. The most recent one I attended was April this year - prior to that it was January 2002 - exactly the same. Don't think I'll bother next time.