That's because some of them are avid Daily Mail readers. Or if not, their posts resemble letters to the editor of that organ. ;)

Recently I carried out a go-around from short final when I spotted a loose dog close to the runway. Was my decision the result of a risk assessment or just plain common sense? Either way it was a mental process as I didn't have time to fill in a form.

Airmanship is continuous risk assessment, more often than not quite literally done "on the fly", either just prior to walking out to the aircraft or when on board.

For practical reasons, paperwork and form filling in this instance isn't a pilot's job. Where the modern meaning of "risk assessment" is required it is usually pre-empted by paperwork such as SOPs, MELs, etc.

Homeguard wrote:I concur. I was attending a non-aviation event and was sent a (long) risk assessment form to fill in. The completion of which was a condition of attendance. I duly spent some considerable time filling in the form. I presented it to the orgainsers, who brushed it aside.
"Oh we don't want to actually see it." I was told, "but you have to do it."

"What about, in the event of an accident?" I asked.

"Our investigators will do their own in that case!"

How big was the dog?

Flyingmac
Would you have initiated a go around for a loose dog if you had been low on fuel?
That would have been risk assessment (and it wouldn't have required filling in a form!) :)

I get the feeling that a number of people on this forum would have strafed anyone loose in a yellow jacket though!

How big was the dog?

Bulldog. Big red one.

How many drop down boxes on the risk assessment would that need? I guess we would have to assess by breed, size and colour? Would sex make a difference? What about if it had been a different animal, deer, cow, cat?

I think we are going to need a decision making flow diagram as well? Then we need to work out how to bind and present them and work them into the immediate actions on go around. IO540 will be along shortly with suggestions on how they can be built into the GPS or a a laptop running as an EFB because all that old fashioned hard copy stuff is just stupid and anyone who is anyone is running a full wannabee airliner style cockpit.

The airline guys will be along to point out that the bound book would probably make a good desk for doing the Sudoku......

Formal risk assessment is b@llocks anyway. You take a task, which has the potential to be "highly likely" and to cause "multiple fatalities" then you fill out some forms an magically it becomes very safe......and can be carried out.

In my humble experience...;)

dont blame the tools - blame the tools that use them...

any idiot that uses methods such as this "just because the rules say so", without due customisation to be appropriate to the application, and then does not go ahead and implement appropriate mitigations should be given all of the planes, that have landed in cow fields, to clean..... (preferably with their tongues)

any method MAY help you get to an answer and investigate new solutions BUT this needs to be
1) done at the right time (i.e. before you need the solution)
2) reviewed periodically (but not every time you want to do somthing)
3) done by someone who knows what they are doing (in this case it would be brilliant if it was done by some of the cynical, skeptical pilots as they appear to have seen it and done it and can come to an answer quickly, or at least it will hush them up)
4) needs follow up actions (such as changing the checklist or training methods)

AS SUCH I think that a lot of this has already been done (although we did not realise that we were doing it at the time) and the resulting mitigations put into action. Although sadly we still have to revisit when the AAIB reports.

I have assessed this thread and found it to be an unacceptable risk to my sanity. Action to be taken:- Abandon said thread.