There is an open source Bonanza Performance app that has a Flight Risk Assessment ‘meter’ that can be calibrated. It also carries out the legal M&B and Performance calculations.
What you’re looking for is probably similar to this from the FAA. It wasn’t a thing when I did my PPL (too long ago), but certainly came up during more recent training for CPL, IR, ME.
RobertL18C wrote:
There is an open source Bonanza Performance app that has a Flight Risk Assessment ‘meter’ that can be calibrated
There’s one for the Baron also.
maxbc wrote:
And yeah all this additional stuff may make GA operation less fun, into a sort of unpaid professional job, so it might be a non-starter
I have always been pro airmanship and very skeptical of airline type SOP as a way to fly GA. GA is flexibility IMO, and then you need something that includes flexibility. This TEM doesn’t seem to be all that SOP-ish, but more like airmanship in a more structured form. Not 100% sure yet, but what I have seen so far looks OK. GA for sure can be done in a more airline type fashion also, and that would perhaps also mean a higher level of safety? Don’t know, accidents in GA seem to have the same causes nonetheless, which tells me there’s something more to it. It will for sure make GA less flexible, and therefore uninteresting for many (probably most GA pilots). Besides, the main problem of GA today isn’t that too many are dying, but that too many quits, or fly way too little.
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Do we really need another layer of duplication. Every pilot should have his/her own go/no go decision making procedures which will of course differ between aircraft and equipment in the aircraft.
But whether we fly with whatever equipment and whoever we are, the first question we need to ask ourselves is why are we making this flight?
The next broad question is “can we achieve that goal?”
This second is based on route, weather, notam, the aircraft and the capability of the pilot both in terms of licencing and experience.
The only things we can share on an app which may or may not be suitable to all pilots is “shared experience” which as I wrote is already covered in the FFA/REX and the FFPLUM/REX. (REX standing for return on experience)
These cover everything from leaving the tow bar on before a flight to a ditching in the sea all written from personal experience and added to by a safety person from the FFA or FFPLUM.
Every sunday I get an email with links to the experiences of the week.
This week’s are:-
Nouvelle publication nationale RexFFA
Bonjour,
4OZ9WNGMWND : Intégration en langue anglaise sur terrain autoinformation
3GYSLE0K89F : Rebond à l’atterrissage
3D4JUGK1SRA : Survol de la zone d’Abli
3JBV8IDGWD2 : Odeur de brûlé dans la cabine – Perte de l’alternateur
3E3ZYDKKPUG : Hélice et Barre de tractage
42TORNX2GNT : Sortie de piste latérale en DR400
42FJG93OVRQ : 2 avions en tour de piste évoluant à des vitesses différente
42FEMDEK9X5 : Rapprochement dangereux
Cliquez sur les liens pour accéder directement aux déclarations.
I really can’t see what maxbc is trying.to achieve here that is different to that we already have.
I didn’t do a translation as maxbc is based in France.
I gotta subscribe to those, thanks !
The idea is to act on lessons learned by implementing safeguards (in the form of checklists or procedures). I’ll try with an example.
We all read about Richard McSpadden’s accident. Let’s say for instance that the engine problems they had were a partial loss of power, but with an engine still responding. The pilot’s mistake was deciding to turn back with not enough available power to make it to the runway, instead of landing ahead. As a consequence of this accident, you could add a procedure that makes you quickly evaluate the power available, and treat the failure as a full power loss in case it’s not sufficient. If you want to reliably implement this procedure, you have to write it down somewhere (e.g. in your personal POH), make it objective using absolute numbers (RPM, MP, or simply check if you can safely or barely achieve stable level flight), and then drill the procedure, just like we do on regular engine failure after takeoff (maybe not as much drill, but you get the idea). It’s really about protecting yourself from bad judgement in the heat of the moment, or forgetting something important. I agree that the border between procedures and airmanship is tenuous, but this is still the method that has been successfully used in airlines to protect pilots from their own mistakes.
Without this extra effort, even though I read about this accident, I’m not sure I would act correctly and reliably in a similar situation.
There are many more examples of what could be done. You could have a certain number of conditions that trigger a personal analysis. Say for instance you get a stall warning on approach. You would then need to fill a sheet of paper with the facts (wind gradient, measured or estimated, speed on approach etc.), your own analysis of what led to the situation, and how you want to avoid the danger in the future. You then keep that paper in your personal POH and read it again from time to time. It’s just a more systematic approach to building experience, that protects us from oversight or bad judgement. Most pilots in this situation would just say “hey I got a stall warning, I gotta be careful”, and the story would end there without identifying external / internal dangers.
@maxbc I hope if you got a stall warning your immediate and automatic response would be to lower the nose.
There are things that should be automatic and require no decision making thought.
You gave an example of partial power after take off. Before even trying to make a decision your automatic reaction should be lower the nose and maintain safe speed (I would use best glide speed) and look for somewhere to land straight ahead or not far off. If you find yourself quite high or at best glide you are climbing only then can you start thinking of trouble shooting or turning back.
These are things that should be briefed beforehand to wake up the memory.
I can understand your thinking because I realise that when you are learning you might well be overwhelmed by “to do lists” which are memory items “check lists” to make sure you have actually completed all items on your to do list (but you should run through the check list in your own time). If you can develop a logical scan these 2 items become easier. Then you have the briefings. Briefings should be done in a relaxed but logical manner so should be done when you find yourself waiting.
The to do list are often different for each aircraft.
You might want to write down your briefings. You should develop ones that you are comfortable with. Some pilots like to brief more than others eg some might brief that on take off the wind will be (from my left or right) to remind themselves to add a little left or right aileron during the take off roll. Others may do this automatically and don’t need to brief it. All pilots are different.
You need to develop systems to suit you. Having said that each instructor is also different so best to not argue with them you can always go your own way when you have passed the PPL.
gallois wrote:
your immediate and automatic response would be to lower the nose.
Obviously. But it still indicates suboptimal IAS monitoring or wind gradient misestimation, both of which can be prevented in the future in order to stay out of danger, by doing a return on experience after the fact.
gallois wrote:
only then can you start thinking of trouble shooting or turning back
Again, this seems obvious, yet pilots still make the mistake (although we still don’t know exactly what happened in McSpadden’s aircraft, it’s likely this was the case).
gallois wrote:
Having said that each instructor is also different so best to not argue with them you can always go your own way when you have passed the PPL.
Absolutely. I was really thinking about post-PPL continous learning.
All this reasoning comes from the fact that, following plane crashes, the air transport industry never accepted the answer that “the pilot was bad” or “made a mistake”. They always looked for ways to change the system surrounding the pilot (targeted procedures, better training etc.), to specifically compensate for human unreliability. The fact that many GA/NCO crashes happen because of “pilot error” mean it’s not just one pilot’s fault, but rather that the collective frameworks and maintenance of competency are lacking.
You should never get anywhere near a stall in cruise.
And, other than a combination of wind shear and inertia, an aircraft knows nothing about wind. You would be amazed how many instructors don’t know that, while thumbing through airline job adverts!
The danger is in the circuit. Way too many PPLs fly way too slowly. They fly C150s at 50kt and leave themselves with no leeway. I used to do that too, and the FI said to me “one day you will die and this is how you are going to do it”. I never did it again.
The McSpadden crash was not flown by him. And they had only seconds. My own reaction (in the RHS, with a non-idiot flying, and I would not be flying with an idiot PIC in the first place) would be to let the pilot do whatever he thinks is going to work. I’ve been reading his articles in the US AOPA mag for years and he never came across as a gorilla; he was a very clever guy and I am sure he would have made exactly that call.
Re airline pilot skills, look at AF447 for one example of how little piloting skill is needed to clock up 5k hrs in a modern airliner. But the airlines have no choice; they need the pilots.
GA will never change the taught procedures. The PPL syllabus cannot be changed, other than trivia, because the schools are not interested. The 45hr minimum is barely enough to get across the basics – especially as the typical customer is not a 20 year old WW2 Spitfire ace, or a modern RAF pilot who passed layers of selection and got through ~90% washout; it is somebody in their 40s who has enough money and time to get into this activity, and these learn much slower (I started at 43 so I know!).
I don’t think we can be so quick to draw conclusions. In some instances the accident appears obvious. In other areas things are not so clear cut.
In investigating accidents, the BEA, NTSB, AAIB look for contributory facts for which they have evidence. It’s sometimes difficult in GA which for the most part don’t have black boxes. The regulators could mandate a dashcam in each aircraft but would they really want to publish that in the event of a fatality and how much would it actually assist ga safety. With regards pilot error, for the most part these organisations don’t apportion blame. We need to see them as making a report and perhaps being expeet witnesses in any possible court case.
In 2019 there were 215 ga accidents in France. Four of them were fatal.
73 of these accidents were in aeroplanes and 103 in ULM. These statistics are not surprising as one could anecdotally expect ULMs, which have no regulated annual maintenance requirements, uncertified engines, use of small grass strips etc etc to be riskier than certified aircraft or even homebuilts which have to go through regular navigability cerrification and pilots are checked every 2 years etc.
Club aeroplanes in 2019 flew a little short of 500,000 hours. So there were 73 accidents in around half a million hours.
There are no figures for ULMs. There are 6 categories and no necessity for a pilot to keep a log book or record hours so I cannot give a breakdown. At present I cannot find a breakdown for the causes of those accidents.
But both the FFA and FFPLUM study the accidents. They consider every accident to be one too many and so every year if a particular cause of accidents in general, comes to the fore they will start an educational campaign. If need be they will perhaps sugges/push/lobby for a change in regulation which may be what happened with the introduction of minimal and mayday fuel and procedures for wearing of life vests and carriage of rafts. ( of course this would not have been just them it would have been in agreement with other european ga organisations).
If we compare these figures, loosely with deaths on French motorways in that year at around 180 with 1654 bodily injuries we don’t do too bad in ga.
It also showed that a disproportionate number of accidents are drug and alcohol related. And that will be the area of safety on the roads which will be targeted.
Now, as has already been written these statistics are pretty useless in comparing risk factors as we have no idea of how many cars are on French motorways and how many hours drivers spend on them.
But IMO whilst ga does carry risk, I think we can sometimes be in danger of ovzr emphasising that risk.
Most GA pilots are responsible and conservative(small c) people and prepared to learn. But this is just IMHO.
Peter wrote:
The McSpadden crash was not flown by him.
Absolutely. I was not judging Mr Spadden himself, but merely using this accident as an example in general. I apologize if this was misleading. The PIC (the other pilot) could potentially have been saved from an ill-fated decision, with the proper framework.
Also, IMO PPL itself teaching only the basics is not so much of a problem, or the fact that, as I understand, it’s a license to learn. What is lacking is the real-life frameworks and procedures, just like there are real-life competency maintenance and frameworks in airlines. Much common sense (what I read on this forum for instance) still fails to be applied in the real world and accidents still occur. If I have time I’ll dig in more detail into accidents from a few years ago, to estimate how much this is the case (common sense not applied), and to which extent better frameworks could help.
