I totally agree the system is broken.

Mid-40's chap, PPL(H) gained, bought and owned a helicopter. Never had an accident but also realised within 2 seconds of getting outside of a concrete runway that I had NO CLUE.
Had many near misses and quit quickly before I killed myself and others..

PPL(H) does nothing to prepare a helicopter "pilot". If there was a facility that could offer "real life after PPL(H) training", I think everybody would be surprised at the up take. Maybe long hour FI's should be contacting hell owners that have low hours on the clocks of their machines....

Yes we are mid-40's, yes have deep pockets but that does not mean we don't want to fly safely!!! Darwin will always reward the idiots no matter how many hours they have...

if that is how you have interpreted what has been written here then perhaps you need to read it again.

To continue the driving analogy - how many drivers who have just passed their tests are allowed to gain experience as driving instructors?

There will always be good, young helicopter instructors just as there will always be bad, experienced ones but lets not justify using low time instructors because it is the right thing to do when we know it is because it is the cheap thing to do.

On this thread and others on this Forum, the question of Safety is raised in one form or another.

Isn't it the case that Safety is paramount, providing it doesn't cost too much money? I was in the Industry from 1961 to 2010 and it was ever thus. There were people in the Management tree who subscribed to the principle more than others but there were those who appointed "Safety/Quality Managers" . Write the Manuals and that's job done.

What's the next problem? Cynical....moi?

No absolutely not. In leisure aviation, safety is not paramount. This is the stupid sort of BS spouted by commercial aviation management who don't know anything about flying. If safety were paramount then we would all stay in bed with the hangar doors firmly locked.

Safety is pretty important in commercial aviation for reasons I'm sure I don't need to go into on here.

Safety in leisure aviation is much more a case of the degree of risk averseness, priorities and general purpose of the flight. For example in my capacity as a gliding instructor flying members of the public on "Trial Lessons", there can be no doubt that we should expect the same number of satisfactory landings as takeoffs. However when I fly my glider in a competition, I may need to cut safety margins to the bone and I accept that one day, I may misjudge slightly and come to grief. If I never do, I probably wasn't trying hard enough!

It is like the difference between a coach driver (who should never crash) and a Formula 1 driver who, when they crash, we just shrug at and get out the next car.

So in leisure aviation it is our necks at risk, we can choose to set whatever level of safety we like. People who are prepared to fly with PPLs should realise that it is probably not as safe as flying on a commercial air transport flight. If they don't, well they are stupid.

It is the cheap thing to do but as said, if we make it the perfect system without considering cost, virtually no-one will be able afford it. Although no doubt some on here would quite like it if PPL helicoptering was reserved only for the rich elite!

It's a bit like a commercial air operator - things have to be a compromise as there is no point in being the best and safest outfit around, if you go bust.

Yes and just remind me how often does that happen? What is the probability of a person dying when an aircraft falls on their head vs the probability of them dying in a road accident? Many, many orders of magnitude. Of course I'm sure the hysterical risk averse contingent will wail and scream at one such occurrence (whilst reading their Daily Mail).

And let's remember that quite a few allegedly competent professional pilots manage to crash into people on the ground. Hawker Hunter anyone? Clutha bar?

What is a military instructor paid per hour? For comparative purposes..

Reminds me of that old adage - "imagine saying that in front of a Judge"

HeliCompactor

Please tell which planet you are on or which one you come from ? Which industry uses junior inexperienced people to teach something that can have a serious consequence on not only the trainee but his friends ???
As for the costs of aviation, here is an example part which cost $370 in 2009, now list price $ 1390. Rolls Royce just put up their parts by 7.5% :ugh::ugh:

I'm from planet realist, clearly you are not from around here. Anyway to answer your question, firstly I'd say that PPL training isn't really an industry - by using that word you are again linking it to commercial aviation, although I suppose you could say anything is an "industry" if you wanted to spin it. So, well there's aviation of course! There are also many, many other such things. Car driving for instance. Anyone with a basic licence can teach someone to drive. In my day you just had to have passed your test (I helped teach my sister to drive when I was 18) although now you have to be 21 I think. Then there is skiing, sub-aqua, horse riding, and... well so many you'll get bored if I recite them all. These are all things where mistakes can seriously injure or kill.

Anyway this is a rather fatuous conversation. People can wail, scream, sob and bang the table as much as they like about how terrible it is that we have young and inexperienced teaching aviation, but really they would better spend their time doing something more useful such as bear bating, because one thing is for sure IT AINT GOING TO CHANGE, GET OVER IT.

HeliComparator, you point out the differences between a trial lesson and competition flying, and how you treat them differently. That's the decent and proper way to approach it, good for you. Gliding is a lot of fun.

Now imagine if you took up some unsuspecting "friends" on your competition, and they trusted you because they didn't know any better, but trusted you because you are the pilot? I'm sure that you would agree that that would be a bad thing. An extremely arrogant/invulnerable/macho thing?

I don't think this is about relatively inexperienced instructors, more that some types of PPL are just complete twunts. We all make mistakes, but really, the "wave at friends" one is comedy gold.....I bet that will be used in so many case studies. (note to self: get down to Ladbrokes).

Seperately, the cost of running an aircraft is huge and the margins are small. Add to that all the other overheads. Just charge the customer more, if they don't like if they can pick a cheaper hobby, like golf or basket weaving.

Anyway, I hope you don't bite my head off. You appear to be in a bad mood or something?

Peace and love, man! http://cdn.pprune.org/images/smilies/badteeth.gifhttp://cdn.pprune.org/images/smilies/thumbs.gif

It seems that everyone is agreed thata pilot (commercial or private) should want to be able to recognise risk, toknow / think about how it can be minimised, and then act appropriately toreduce that risk, so far as is necessary and reasonable in the circumstances of thatflight. This is perhaps along-winded way of saying “display good airmanship”. That, in turn, is about having the rightmind-set as a pilot.

The question dividing opinion is how to achieve that mind-set at theoutset (grant of a license) and how to maintain it. The focus on PPL is, to my mind, adistraction because not all holders of commercial licenses display consistentlygood airmanship (based on my reading of all Helicopter accidents recorded by UKAAIB).

I do not see any solution as being (only) instructor-basedas without testing there cannot be enforcement, without which there is less incentive (in a cost-conscious world) spend the time to train.


Stepping away from aviation, how is this handled in otherareas, and can we learn from them? I make two observations and a suggestion.


1. UK Driving License ( easier in my day ) but now they have a hazard perception test. It is a pass-fail test based on your abilityto identify hazards developing.

2. In my line of business (I am a self-declared businessmanPPL) we have our own risk issues. We have regular testing of practitioner's risk assessment and ability to act to mitigate risk appropriately, using web-basedsystems. We read the scenarios and answer the questions; at the end of the test you get a simplepass / fail. Should I fail there is nofeedback as to which questions I got wrong. Instead I would have to undertake therelevant training again in full, and then can re-test. This means that I have to understand the material, not simply learn the answers to the questions. Until we pass, our certificate to practiceis suspended.

My suggestion is a change to the testing environment for everyone, whichin turn will change the training environment. Time and cost can be saved elsewhere; there is material taught andtested at PPL theory level that is of no practical use whatsoever once we hold alicense. Weed-out that material and introduce helicopter (for PPL(H)) specificrisk examples. Already in EASA we have to undertake type-specific annual LPC toretain our license. All (PPL and CPL)could annually take a web-based risk identification / mitigation test before beingallowed to sit their LPC. Failing thetest should require evidence that the risk awareness training has been retaken and the test successfully passed.A solution like that need not create significant additionalrunning cost, and it should put a focus back onto safety throughout the life ofanyone’s license.

Excellent suggestions John - glad you aren't listenting to HeliC's dystopian, defeatist posts.

Things can change and must, it is just a case of focussing the CAA's 'eye of Sauron' on the issue and getting them to be pro-active.

A few thoughts: The web based "training" tests I've been required to take seem to be a method for a "responsible person" to show that a box of their own has been ticked. For example, those required to obtain security clearances and airfield driving permits. They seem to revolve mainly around recognising new catch phrases and their abbreviations. They cannot improve an individual's common sense or awareness of their personal limitations. Unfortunately, there really is no substitute for the benefit of experience in aviation.

Those who haven't been through military flying selection, training and the military way of mentoring and supervising newly qualified pilots are often very quick to criticise those who have. Yet many civilian helicopter pilots have probably unknowingly seen the benefit of that same system. It was quite common in the past for experienced military trained pilots to instruct, less so more recently. I'm not personally in an instructional job (although I hold an FI rating) and in a previous life completed four instructional tours in the armed forces, three of them rotary wing. Having later become a civilian pilot (well over twenty years ago) and having been lucky enough to be directly taken on as a multi-role helicopter captain, including SAR, I was initially quite understandably closely mentored by other pilots in the job, all of them ex military, too. Since subsequently flying as a corporate captain (some 16 years now) I've flown with quite a number of copilots, some of them previously "hour building" instructors. Some have been very well qualified on paper, with newly gained ratings. With one or two exceptions, they have all been very keen to learn and most would probably have passed military selection based on flying aptitude alone. However, without suitable mentoring none would have been safe to be let loose as captains, some of them well out of their depth at 140kts VFR, let alone IFR.

However, main problem with the PPL system is that there is no mentoring post qualification.

Employers will take on newly qualified and inexperienced instructors simply because in the main that's all they'll get for the money on offer. There is no depth of experience to pass on in those circumstances.

JohnR81 - I'm sure your proposals would be beneficial, however on the exam contents thing, CAA exams have been full of pointless rubbish for as long as I can remember (which is quite a long time!) and so whilst I agree there is huge room for improvement, I can't see it happening any time soon. Ultimately we need people to recognise new hazards that they have never encountered before rather than just learning a list of what could go wrong, and that is pretty hard to train and assess by computer. You also have to bear in mind that the CAA has to be compliant with EASA, who have to be compliant with ICAO on licensing matters so it is hard to ditch stuff, quite easy to add stuff but then you create too many hurdles and disincentives and ultimately achieve flight safety only because it becomes too difficult for anyone to get a licence.

So a private helicopter flopped into the ground, no-one was seriously injured, and as a consequence of that you demand that all young instructors be sacked and only old farts like you, preferably with a military background, be allowed to instruct. How amazingly knee-jerk and arrogant.

Shy - so it all comes back to how wonderful ex mil guys and their system are - they have a thing or two to teach us civvies! Funny how in my career many of the pilots I've known who crashed due to stupidity were ex mil, quite a few have never crashed but it is a miracle when you see their competence level. Well I'd say just about the same proportion as those who are civvy from birth. Funny that!

And even if it were not the case, it is ludicrous to suggest that PPLs should have to go through a military level of training, supervising and mentoring before being allowed out on their own. What planet... no idea!

On the other hand if I misunderstood you and you are just saying junior PPLs will inevitably be higher risk than those who are part of an organisation with supervision and mentoring then I'd say Duh! Obviously! But so what?

Mil instructors would typically be a Flt Lt (or equiv) on second tour so basic would be over 45k GBP plus at least about 9k Flying pay. That's on the regular pay scales. The mil web of what you can be paid as spec aircrew is complex, but you should think in general well over 50k GBP.

https://www.raf.mod.uk/community/mur...6-17-FINAL.pdf

Oops, I replied to a comment on what I thought was the final page and turns out I'm a page late....

Helicomparator - you are still ranting and railing at comments that simply are not there. I know you have an entrenched position on ex-mil pilots but for goodness sake stop bashing us over the head with your own prejudices.

HC, did you not read my post in full?

I was merely making the point that the main problem is that pilots fresh out of a civilian flying school aren't very closely mentored once they gain their PPL. I've been there myself - my initial flying training was done at a civilian flying school (prior to my military training) and in total I've flown as a civilian pilot for longer than I flew in the military.

All inexperienced pilots can benefit from a mentor, regardless of ability and training.

Unless perhaps they obviously have a flawless natural ability such as your own, where no-one with any military experience need try to teach them anything.

I've seen both systems, you obviously have not and you seem to have a permanent shoulder chip caption on. Most of your posts on this website consist of acrimony towards other professionals. It should be a discussion about flight safety, not acrimonious point scoring because of background, or what you think it might be.

this post is an attempt to get back on topic from all the ranting !

from Mr Torque,

This is certainly the truest true fact that explains some of the nonsense that goes on post PPL

Also several people have picked up on that they fit the profile of those in the 40's of the business man variety, I really think I am on to something here.

Early in the PPL course they are generally respectful of the fact that they know nothing and their instructor knows something, but a certain percentage of the students at a certain point start to try to treat the instructor like one of their employees and in the hands of an experienced instructor they can be easily controlled, but the younger and less experienced FI(R) can get streamrollered by them if they are not careful and the student starts to run the flight,

This is my experience, and it just leads to greater problems post PPL

Of course they can. But leisure aviation is a compromise even more so than commercial aviation. You could of course invent some mandatory mentoring system e.g. requiring PPLs to be part of some organisation or club such that old farts can put their awe in regularly (and probably disagreeing with every other old fart). But in doing so you are removing the freedoms of a licenced pilot - they effectively become pilots under supervision. I'm sure you wouldn't mind that too much but I'm sure anyone contemplating getting a licence now, would see it as the excessive nannying that it is. A PPL is an international qualification and if you make it too difficult to get in the UK, people will go elsewhere and anyway EASA wouldn't be too impressed.

But no matter, as a reaction to an R44 flopping in and not seriously injuring anyone, it is clearly a megalomaniacal over-reaction and it ain't going to happen, so why witter on about it?

I only have an entrenched position on (some) ex-mil because they routinely spit out the same arrogant rubbish about how wonderful they and the organisation that trained them are/is. After all, we only notice someone is ex mil when it forms a repetitive part of their posting.

Much as we only notice those with a massive chip on their shoulder about not being ex-mil, how much better they are because they worked on the N Sea, and how no-one could learn from ex-mil (arrogant) pilots - because they keep banging on about it on these pages.

Post-PPLH mentoring is a good idea and most of those without egos on here recognise it - it doesn't have to restrict their freedoms or cost a fortune, but it is a good idea and those that want to learn and improve will - those that don't won't but they will probably be in a minority.

It already exists to a large extent in flying clubs. In fact in my other life as a glider pilot whereby no licence is currently required to fly IFR or cross country, gliding clubs and the BGA system is supervision and mentoring par excellence. Which is great.

So my point is not that mentoring is ineffective, it is that it is unfeasible to enforce it for PPLs. The whole point of having a licence is that you can operate independently! Of course it is the usual story of those who don't really need to will seek advice and good counsel anyway, those who really do need it are too arrogant to realise and so won't.

So far folk seem to have decided that in order to avoid a pilot flopping his R44 into a field we must eliminate young instructors - even though we have no idea who this chap's instructor(s) was/were. And that he is an arrogant fool who wouldn't have crashed if only he had been forced to have some mentoring.

In these days of evidence-based regulatory actions, that is nothing short of barking.

HC, I never wrote about demanding mandatory training post PPL. By claiming that I do, you've just invented it as another way of venting your spleen against others of a different background to yourself (i.e. military), as seems to be your usual thing. As I did say, you really can't comment on military training or supervision because by your own admission you don't have any experience of it.

I also know that some very sensible newly qualified PPL helicopter pilots do regularly ask for an instructor to fly along with them and pay them to do so (and which will please you, not necessarily an ex-military one). Good on them. But it's an unfortunate fact that at the other end of the scale some low houred, fresh out of the box extrovert PPL "know it-alls" know so little they don't even realise they are about to do something that is likely to result in an accident and there is no supervisory chain to stop them. Which is where this thread began. The evidence is on the accident report above and in a depressingly high number of others in the past.

ST no you didn't state it outright but that seemed the implication. But of course you couldn't resist the "when I was in the military we did it so much better..." kind of comment.

I don't disagree with your last para but I do think it is pie in the sky to expect some sort of mandatory supervision / mentoring for PPLs. Perhaps our disagreement is just because I am a realist, and also because I accept that leisure aviation will have a higher proportion of crashery than commercial or military aviation. Whereas you see a problem and want it fixed regardless of the practicalities or loss of freedoms. Perhaps a move to a police state where private aviation is not allowed would suit you?

Total Bo££ocks, as usual. I've never implicated any such thing. Did you fail at Cranwell, or something?

No one has said anything of the sort - or implied it, you are imagining it.

Any mention of the military system has been to highlight how we are protected from ourselves (for the most part) and prevented from doing the enemy's job for him by being constantly educated and reminded of the pitfalls and mistakes made by others.

We know we are fortunate to have had that progression, tuition, development and protection - is it arrogant to suggest something similar might benefit those starting out in the private flying game?

Being a member of a club is a great way to reap the benefits of others experience - a chat over a beer with an old sweat might just save an embarrassing incident, accident, write-off or even loss of life. The days of sitting around the crewroom chewing the fat, learning from the stories of others - peers as well as the older/more experienced were many of the most valuable for many of us in the military - sadly that sort of environment doesn't exist widely in GA.

You are rather polarised in your position - you seem to believe that if we try to improve anything, it automatically equates to loss of freedom or massive increase in cost which will deny aviation to the masses; this is more sad than realistic since you would rather do nothing and let people kill themselves and others for the want of a little education.

It's not just the 'flopping' of an R44 into a field - that is just the latest in a litany of very preventable accidents (many with fatalities) caused simply by the lack of airmanship.

I thought the same. It seems it is clays only.

I have watched this thread with some amusement. As ever the ex-military folk are full of how much better the military system is.
Well hardly surprising, no real consideration of cost, nearly unlimited time, a hierarchical control system where junior ranks can only operate with permission, no real need to get things done in the minimum time possibe Whilst some people might volunteer to join this arrangement mere ppls obviously would not, commercial training has always taken advantage of the experience levels that military pilots have picked up at notionally no expense to the operator - when they have to pay for less than 500hrs is plenty!

Mentoring - yes can be very effective and most of the ppls I know do some. The people who probably need it most are however perhaps lest likely to seek it out. The answer for most here seems to be they would not be allowed in the military so they should not have a licence!

JAA tried to address this point, compulsory flight with an instructor every two years - the result? No improvement in accident rates!

Certainly a supportive club or group environment can help, but my local gliding club has had a couple of stupid accidents where all that support has not heped and reslted in broken aircraft and people.

Like HC I have tired of the military is best argument - without the people making it understanding they have been in an environment almost totally protected from the real world. Practical training is cost and time constrained, it aims to achieve a level of competence where people will survive and learn whilst the pay to build experience.

The training syllabus is stuffed full of rubbish, coming from the point of view that culling out some people without the necessary intelligence and memory is its purpose. Does it achieve that? No, it simply clouds the issues and makes people swop up the answers rather than the reasons. EASA has simply continued that process, courtesy of may of the ex-military types that fill regulatory positions.

I am afraid to say this thread is getting very sad. The more responsible of us try and make the system better and point out its weakness, yes HC i have a very bad name at The CAA for trying to do so, to make people safer. Quite frankly with your attitude I really don't know why I should bother, let the new generation kill themselves.
Here is an example for you i would welcome your professional comments on. Last week doing some training with a PPLH, not one of mine, I stuck the pedals in a cruise position just before the start of a descent from 800 ft to land. Student realised at 500 ft, asked me to take feet of pedals I refused saying no they are stuck, what are you going to be about it. Reply I do not know. I again asked what we were going to do at 200 ft, again reply I do not know. At 100 ft I asked again what are we going to do, again reply I do not know. My reply I have control.

Isn't stuck pedals part of the PPL training? So the guy will have been taught it, but not taken it in at the time or forgotten it. So I don't really see your point - people get taught stuff they subsequently forget. Happened all the time in my professional career as a Training Captain doing recurrent checks on professional pilots, so I see no reason why it shouldn't happen to PPLs too.

But it's interesting that you want to make a big deal out of that particular thing. I think it is a fairly pointless excercise since just how often does yaw control get stuck at the pedals? It is a completely different kettle of fish to yaw control getting stuck at the tail rotor. I know a great many pilots with 10,000 hrs or more each, none of them have ever had such an event. So just how important is it? By which I mean, if that PPL has an accident it won't be due to that circumstance but it will be due to some event not covered by trite and repetitive excercises.

When it does happen it is most likely due to some obstruction of the pedals by an object dropped by the occupants, or of course even more likely as a result of the passenger plonking his feet on the pedals. So your PPL was absolutely correct in recognising the problem and telling you to get your feet off the pedals. He had obviously visually checked for obstructions which was the right thing to do, and on seeing the problem he dealt with it correctly within his limited authority as P2. I wonder if you praised him for that or merely ridiculed him for not ignoring the obvious problem and instead carrying out some gung ho running landing thingy just like you were taught by an equally mindless instructor.

Well I'll give you that it is a slightly useful excercise in that it reinforces the concept of yaw with power, but it is just a game and some people find it hard to take role playing games seriously. Doesn't mean they are a bad pilot, just a bad actor.

In summary stuck yaw pedals isn't a common or even infrequent cause of accidents. So could you explain why you were wasting time on it, rather than concentrating on the sort of issue that is much, much more likely to be the cause of this guy's first accident? Seems you are part of the problem.

Well HC and Alpha time for me to give up then, hope I never get to fly with either of you as quite frankly your views send a shudder down my spine. I can only take from your views that we don't teach anything to do with what if scenarios or anything to do with safety.
As I am obviously crap at my job could you please tell me what you would like me to teach when it comes to emergencies ? I have left my brain behind ?

The really funny part of this thread is despite all the money, professionalism, mentoring etc, I can recall quite a few military helicopter accidents where the mistakes made by this R44 pilot have also featured.
As an ex military pilot myself I would say giving the resources, selection process and all the other favourable factors and conditions we enjoyed, when making a comparison with civil PPL training, the respective accidents rates and root causes are disproportionate......and actually favour the Civil sector. And I am not talking about operational military flying. Just training and peacetime.
It's also easy to claim the military flight envelope is more demanding but hitting the ground IS hitting the ground no matter how you manage to get there.

Hughes500 I think if you ever had the chance to fly with HC it would be your privilege. He has a wealth of knowledge and a lifetime of experience. You would surely benefit even just a little.

I also was intrigued by your TR fixed pitch story for one clear reason! These excercises are inherently dangerous. Therefore you should NEVER instigate them in flight without a full and proper brief when instructing. The fact your student did not even realise what your were simulating by placing your feet on the pedals stirs my own inner instructor to the point of moral outrage.

Introducing exercises during training, especially flight control malfunctions that require a highly advanced diagnosis and subsequent flight profile, without a ground brief is dangerous and extremely traumatic for the student.

This also applies exactly the same for Flight Tests and Checks. All critical exercises must at least have a safety brief AND can even include guidance and confirmatory instruction to at least ensure safety is served.

H500 I know you will smart a bit and kick back at what I have written, however, if you truly want to take on the CAA or improve the standards of PPL skills generally look carefully at what I have written in conjunction with what HC also states about your students initial reaction. That SHOULD have been a clear indicator to you to say "Oh you are not sure....then let me give you a brief (possibly in flight) followed by some top notch demos (which I am sure you can do), followed by his practise. EXPLANATION, DEMONSTRATION, IMITATION.

Sitting there with your feet jammed on the pedals and letting the poor guy descend to 100 feet having no clue how to resolve the problem would have been horrific for that pilot. In my view you should seriously consider your conduct and the effect it would have had on this student.

Apologies for butting in but I think that Hughes500's point is that this wasn't a 'student'. The pilot in question already held a PPL(H) so, technically, he/she should have already covered 'stuck pedals'. If he/she couldn't recall what to do, they should've had a go at problem solving the issue, rather than just blankly saying 'I don't know' repeatedly.

I suspect that Hughes500's point was what would this particular pilot do if they had stuck pedals for real when flying on their own? Just repeatedly say 'I don't know' until they ran out of fuel, or spun in. Or work out what to do in order to get the aircraft back on the ground?

(And yes, unfortunately, mobile phones do often get dropped and then subsequently get caught in pedal controls).

Whether you are so crap at your job as to need to give up I don't know, it would be unreasonable to make a call based on an Internet forum. But to answer your questions I'd say we should be teaching stuff that in the real world is likely to cause a pilot to come to grief and how to deal with it so it doesn't. So for a new PPL, distractions and interference from a passenger must surely be high on the list. Could you cite any PPL accident say in the last 10 years where jammed yaw pedals was the cause?

And on a related point, you say this was a training flight. A refresher training flight should start in the briefing room where you review what you are going to do, what you expect from the student, covering theory and practice and thus getting a feel for what the PPL knows and maybe doesn't know. Then you go on the TRAINING flight and put it into practice. Just flying along and thinking up some pat emergency drill and then bollocking the guy when he gets it wrong is a testing flight, not a training flight. With the former approach the PPL will hopefully go away having learned something and will respect you for helping him. With the latter he will consider that the aim of the flight was for you to demonstrate how much cleverer you are than he is and he will go away having learnt only that the instructor is an a**e.

Edited to say DB beat me to it and put it so much better!