I once had a job interview with a major airline and I was asked if I would take control if I thought the captain was about to crash the aircraft. I said yes, and got the job. (Turned it down, though!)
How could someone ask that question with a straight face? 
The answer is so obvious that some might think it’s some subtle trick question, which is unfair (the aviation exams are full of those anyway).
If you were a passenger in my plane and did that I would report you to the FAA…that’s how a license is lost. Once again we circle back to who is in charge and what consitutes safe practice. It is not okay for anyone to assume they can grab the controls unless the pilot is completely incapacitated or transfers control with a verbal statement of positive transfer of control.
We can all write what we like. If I thought the PIC was going to kill me, I would intervene.
RobertL18C wrote:
These aircraft lift off naturally and should not require positive rotation typical of a swept wing jet, only gentle back pressure is required.
I agree about ignoring the ASI, but don’t you find you can get into ground effect sooner by rotating quite aggressively and momentarily applying full flap? Sort of “one potato, two potato, lift tail, one potato, two potato, rotate and flap” – like this:
Of course it’s not usually necessary to shave 10-20% off the ground roll like this, but then nor is flying small airplanes.
One of the harder things to learn when becoming an instructor is to judge the fine line between intervening and letting the student make their mistakes and learn from them. in general, i am on the hands-off side of things – which on one occasion ended up in a spin because the wing-drop and frozen student went out of hand rather quickly in an aircraft that supposedly is hard to spin…
A hard landing doesn’t really hurt anyone. Stalling in from a few metres above the runway will do serious damage, and in the climb-out is likely to kill you. Where to draw the line?
So if somene intervenes and gets it wrong, i’d rather it were on the safe side and words were exchanged after the flight, not with a pilot with their pride intact, but shattered bones.
This has nohing to do with CRM, which is about routine task sharing.
An I’ll fly with Vieke anytime, both as pilot or passenger, USFlyer is probably better off flying alone.
Cobalt wrote:
not with a pilot with their pride
Pilot pride, once again is not the issue. Pilot control is the issue. Grabbing the controls simply because the progression of a flight is not going the way YOU would fly it is a dangerous and unsafe impulse.
I have seen bent rudder peddals in trainers. The school said students sometimes don’t want to release control or get confused and there becomes a struggle for control. To me…that kind of scenario is a big reason I will never fly as an instructor. Who needs it?
I explain clearly what is expected of passengers (and what they can expect to see in each phase of flight) as part of the pre-taxi briefing. This includes other pilots. If someone is upset they need to say so and I will take them back to the ground or taxi back to the ramp – sometimes people get airsick, sometimes they simply can’t handle flying in a small plane.
There is simply no room for anyone else to second guess the progression of the flight. I won’t take anyone up who expects to take control of the aircraft unless I become incapacitated fully or I relinquish control with a verbal exchange with another pilot (which has never happened).
One other tidbit. I own two planes. Each have very different flying characteristics. The Flight Design CT has 48kt Vso and climbs out at 900fpm Vy. The plane has a stubby nose and the siteview would be confusing to Cessna, Piper or other long nosed aircraft flyers. Many comment they thought the plane was going to stall on landing since the entire runway disappears in the flare. It would be a disaster for a pilot to assume high angle of attack and grab the controls at that point.
Now I have a dim recollection of the FAA prosecuting an experienced pilot for being in an aircraft when a less experienced pilot was PIC and screwed up. Can’t for the life of me find the reference.
Regarding ASIs in mph: I used to fly a 172 with an ASI marked in both knots and MPH. I didn’t like it. It could get confusing in the heat of the moment, and even the test pilots got confused: the POH gave all the speeds in knots when they were clearly reading the mph scale.
There is ample precedence where inaction has lead to fatal accidents, not only in GA but also in airline flying.
The incident Vieke reports is a classical one where her actions were not only appropriate but necessary. Had a passenger without the necessary skills and assertivenes to act been on board, this flight might well have ended up in an accident. We had one of these not too long ago here where a pilot pulled an airplane off too soon in high density altitude and then panicked because the airplane climbed slower than expected, so he pulled more and crashed the plane. 4 people escaped with their lifes with great luck. The passenger on the right had even called out to him that a lamp with STALL written on it had come on. Had that passenger been a pilot, he would most probably have pushed the yoke and saved the day.
There was a case of a Korean 747 which took off from Luton with a defective Horizon in front of the Captain. The FO did not take control even when the airplane went into a totally unusual attitude and they crashed. That is not what I expect a FO to do in such a case.
There was a BEA Trident which took off from London Heathrow with a very junior FO in the RH seat. Upon mistake, the droops (a slat like device at the wing edge) were retracted prematurely, which caused the airplane to stall. The PIC in question most probably suffered a heard condition at the time and did not react apropriately but instead kept the nose up and allowed a deep stall to develop. The FO, being junior as he was and having observed the PIC having a massive fight and still being in a grumpy mood did not interfere. They crashed at Staines.
The father of a good friend of mine, a highly experienced FI and bush pilot was killed amongst 4 other people on board a Cessna 182 in Botswana when the pilot of that plane stalled it on departure. Unfortunately he had been sitting in the back and could not react. Had he been sitting on the RH seat, he certainly would have and they would be alive.
And finally: Air France 447? What if only ONE of these 3 guys on board whould have clearly stated “STALL, GET THE NOSE DOWN”? Instead all 3 of them were sitting baffled in front of their screens, aware that they would hit the water and never knew why. Would they have reacted if someone else had been on the Flight Deck and reckognized the Stall and told them to shove the sticks down? Maybe. Sometimes if tunnel vision develops in an emergency, some input is needed to break it.
Again, the whole thing comes down to CRM.
Whenever two pilots are present on an airplane, particularly in the right seat, a BRIEFING is needed on what is expected from everyone. Likewise, it helps a lot to do your pre-departure briefing, approach briefing and checklists aloud for the benefit of the other pilot so he KNOWS what you are doing. Keep each other in the loop. That way, situations like the one Vieke has encountered should not have to develop in the first place.
Now I have a dim recollection of the FAA prosecuting an experienced pilot for being in an aircraft when a less experienced pilot was PIC and screwed up. Can’t for the life of me find the reference.
I can’t find it either but recall from some years ago that the FAA busted a CFI (a US certified flying instructor, not the “UK CFI” which is largely a honorary title self-adopted by the owner of a school) who was flying as a passenger, and there was a crash.
The argument is a very fine line and the basic idea was that it is difficult for an FI to fly RHS and claim the flight was not an instructional one.
We have done this here a number of times. It relates to training in N-regs in which the instructor/examiner cannot be paid in UK airspace unless he holds a JAR/EASA CPL and one solution was for the instructor to fly as a passenger to say France and do the stuff there. (Another was to make the payment “for ground school”). It also relates to the UK AOPA mentoring scheme, which “required” AOPA to get insurance but nobody could see why (I phoned up UK’s biggest insurer and they could not see why) and AOPA never openly told anybody why they got it. One of their officials told me it was to protect AOPA, not the mentor. One of the requirements for a mentor was that he holds a CRI which is a sort of “quasi instructor” qualification and that straight away opens the above issue. Another was that AOPA was acting as a vetting agency so they had a responsibility for selecting only good competent people, etc…
Psychologically the argument (that no such flight can be genuinely non-instructional) is strong because most PPLs will be affected by the (perceived) “much more experienced” pilot in the RHS. I certainly always had that problem and the moment an FI got into the RHS I used to make countless silly mistakes which I never made when flying alone (then I make different ones 
).
There was a BEA Trident which took off from London Heathrow with a very junior FO in the RH seat. Upon mistake, the droops (a slat like device at the wing edge) were retracted prematurely, which caused the airplane to stall. The PIC in question most probably suffered a heard condition at the time and did not react apropriately but instead kept the nose up and allowed a deep stall to develop. The FO, being junior as he was and having observed the PIC having a massive fight and still being in a grumpy mood did not interfere. They crashed at Staines.
Yes; that was a classic, and I am sure the same situation has been replayed countless times since, with fatal results.
Not sure about AF447. Both were complete muppets IMHO and the captain was not in the cockpit because he was sleeping, which was because he was out all of previous night shagging.
