Where has the R44 thread GONE?
 

We had an excellent thread going, has it crossed some boundary of legality that has forced it off the airwaves??

Vfr

Maybe its initiator decided he had made his point, but didn't like the way things were going. the person who starts a thread can always delete it. If it had been me, I think I'd have done that. Shame though. :(

You say that Whirly, but many regulars put a lot of time and effort into that post - why did they bother?

I agree, FlyingSquirrel. But would you personally have put up with the tone of PPF1's comments? I'm not sure I would, if they'd been aimed at me. And then when someone started questioning the wisdom of being that truthful publicly, and would legal action be possible? Maybe the thread's originator had had enough. Or maybe there's another reason, who knows? Like I said, it's a shame, but understandable.

Could the question of liability and insurance have come into his decision? a/c wasn't damaged as far as I recall.

Some contributors could take note of the style used in formal air accident reports which do not apportion blame but seek to establish the facts. Many of the points made would have been perfectly acceptable if put appropriately.

It was a very good thread, and I will certainly be considering it next take-off...

BW

I was frustrated becauase I went to take the laptop somewhere quiet to read the whole thread again from start to finish to try to absorb some of the points made - and it was gone !!

Hmm. I hadn't considered that Raven might've pulled it, but I guess that makes sense. He was probably proud of that incredible, dramatic save, and probably told the student flying with him that day (and other students as well) about the post, only to have some of us go, "Err, excuse me but..." So he was probably pretty embarassed. That's the trouble with self-disclosure: it's a two-way street.

I have, unfortunately, sat on a number of post-accident review boards in my time. In a lot of cases, the pilot was the primary causal factor. The worst thing for me is to face a pilot who doesn't know what he did wrong, and won't acknowledge what he did wrong, and isn't sorry that he did anything wrong. In a lot of cases we have asked, "If you had it to do over again, what would you do differently?" Sadly, we are often met with a blank stare and the puzzled-sounding answer, "Nothing." Ouch.

I know a lot of people thought the thread was very informative, and I thought it was too.

But you didn't go "Err, excuse me but..." did you ? You sharpened your most withering pen and rushed to judgement. Your opening sentence practically brimmed over with glee at the the prospect of the vitriol you were about to heap down from on high.

Could you acknowledge the possibility that your style of criticism might have some role in the obdurate reactions you see in accident boards ?

The important issues underlying your post could have been gently teased out through a few open ended questions, and your points much better made kindly.

And still had this very informative thread running.......?

Puntosaurus:Heyyyyyyyy, shoot the messenger much?

If you blokes want dry reading, try FLYING Magazine! Or, come to think of it, just keep reading PPRUNE, the most boring, useless, silly, self-important and yet irrelevant aviation extant.

And as a memeber I trust you re including yourself and your posts within that statement? ;)

PW

I have actually found most of the original thread now in my history files - nothing's ever truly lost on a computer! I found the thread useful, irrespective of any judgements others might make over the facts.

Given an hour or so, I could probably reconstruct it in some form if people think it would not be a breach of pprune etiquette to re-start the thread, or (if it's acceptable generally) I can let people have a copy to review and file away in their private 'must remember this stuff' part of the memory.

Moderator?

I'll await a couple of flames to fall into the thread before putting anything up - I can be certain people will let me know exactly what they think...
':ooh:'

BTW - If the thought is that I'm a sad b*st*rd and a geek, don't bother as my kids already made me aware of that...

BW

Checkout this new thread - I Learned About Flying From That (ILAFFT).

It looks like the originator of the thread wanted it deleted (I don't blame him !) so we should probably respect his wishes.

But more importantly it turns out that PPRF#1 has a soul after all. Maybe if he was a little kinder to himself he'd find some room in his heart for others.

PPRUNE FAN

Your sentence above describes best yourself! If you had better people skills the maybe Raven wouldn´t have pulled his thread and people would have had the chance to learn from his occurrence.

So in hindsight what would you have done differently? Did YOU learn anything.

Aesir:No sir, Aesir! I mean, not that I didn't learn anything, but that I wouldn't have done anything differently. If I knew that the area surrounding the airport was not suitable for a forced-landing, I still would have back-taxied far enough so that I could have gotten some altitude/airspeed before turning away from the wind. That falls under Basic Helicopter Flying 101.

You know, it's so silly. Some dumb guy puts himself and his passenger(s) in a really precarious position (200 feet agl, away from the wind with no good forced-landing areas underneath him), then has the dreaded Bad Thing happen. But somehow (divine intervention?) he manages to pull off a dramatic and precarious "save." Nearly everyone hails him as a hero. Those of us who know better - which he should have as well - shake our collective heads and go, "Hey dumbass, consider yourself lucky." And then Mr. Superpilot goes, "B-b-but it wasn't *my* fault...it was ATC's fault! Yeah, that's it." ...And we're all supposed to nod in agreement and not say anything.

Maybe you geeks care more about the form of the response than the actual substance. Maybe decorum is more important to you people than anything else.

May God have mercy on your souls.

"Fan#1" (thought you're not acting like it lately),

What we want is not to be called names (e.g. "geeks"), and to have a mutually respectful conversation that most people can benefit from. I am pretty sure that had you not stomped into the room with guns a-firin', the R44 thread would still be here (rather than having everyone search their browser caches to see what the link was, as I did yesterday).

Leave your high horse tied up outside, please.

Dave Blevins
(full of cowboy references today)

Obviously PPF#1 has never or will never make a mistake or error of judgement.

It seems as if the rest of us have the sense to say "There for the grace of god......" and the next time we go up, this thread may creep into the ol' subconcious.

That is the point of an open and honest blame-free culture that we in aviation are supposed to be embracing nowadays.

I've had to pull people up many times, but the only time they would get a full on hat off, stare at the axminster type of balling out, is if they continued to have done something daft after having been warned before, or if it was so unutterably idiotic it would defy the belief of any licensed pilot.

Raven did do something that in hindsight was a bit daft, but would he/she do it again? Surely that is the point.

It's the big bag of luck Vs. small bag of experience scenario. Everyone has done some silly stuff in their past (even you PPF) at least Raven has had the balls to mention it here so we can all learn, it's just a pity the thread has gone, since I certainly have gleaned some info from it.

PPF#1, do you think that by insulting someone as 'dumb' and 'dumbass', you are going to foster any kind of open discussion when people make mistakes?

It seems odd to me that when you have made so much of your experience and approach to safety, you don't consider as worthwhile the safety benefits of an open forum for contributing and discussing real emergencies.

If the people to whom sh*t happens (whether of their own making or otherwise) don't talk about these occurances, nobody gets the benefit of their experience. Part of the reason I believe other contributors questioned the decisions in a more controlled tone is so others don't get scared off from contributing. Plus it's just good manners.

The form of the response is as important as the content in the context of pursuing an open forum and opportunities to improve safety. You appear to care more about making the readers accept that this pilot was a dumbass than leaving open the opportunity for everyone else to learn about other issues in the future.

You have clearly made a decision to adopt an abrasive contribution approach. You are smart enough to know there is a risk that some members may decide it's not worth posting similar issues in future, simply for a quiet life away from contributors like yourself.

So whilst I value your questions and experience, I would ask you to understand that if you continue with the insulting tone, it is to the detriment of general aviation safety for the rest of the readers.

If safety really is as important to you as you say, and you take such care in the cockpit, why compromise safety by acting this way when you could help improve it simply by moderating your approach?

BW

Yeah, Pprune is boring, useless and silly and I figured that from reading all the crap posted here I guess Raven1 must have ran to his helicopter and tried to make all the mistakes he could get his hands on?

Since I logged in here for the first time I have done more stupid things than ever before, never did realize this until now.

PF#1. Thank you man for pointing this out to me, this is my last look at this web and now I will burn my computer and poke my eyes out! :rolleyes:

PPF#1 - the value of your experience and knowledge in response to Raven's "it's-not-my-fault" rationalization is drowned-out by the noise of your childish name-calling and casts a large shadow on your credibilty - which you clearly wanted to establish with your "quit counting at 10,000 hours" comment.

While you may have scared off Raven or anyone considering posting a revealing experience - and therefore a valuable safety debate - your posts offer an opportunity to discuss a more subtle factor in aviation safety - personality.

There are many qualifications and characteristics that make a safe pilot, experience being one. Others are less obvious but, in the eyes of those whose job is aviation safety, can be even more telling. An article in a commercial aviation magazine speaks of the importance of interpersonal skills to aviation safety. An ATP and former senior accident investigator for the NTSB, who now works as an aviation consultant in Denver says, "Personality needs to be considered on a level of importance right along with piloting skills. When you have a pilot with an angry, ticked-off personality, his world shrinks, and his viewpoint is narrowed before he even gets in the cockpit. That in itself is a weakness, and for every captain - who is the purveyor of safety - his persona becomes a liability." - Business and Commercial Aviation, November 2004.