Pilots who are afraid of the airplane

Yep, this is it.

What you're actually getting at here is the fact that judgment and airmanship cannot be taught in a classroom. Since it takes experience to actually develop judgment, there are two ways to ensure inexperienced pilots make safe decisions: constructing an environment with a lot of rules where pilots don't have to use any actual judgment (just follow the rules), and modeling good judgment and decisionmaking as an instructor that your students can emulate.

In places like a university, a 141 school, or the military, both can be done. In the 'wild west' of the Part 61 world, it is difficult to have a tight rules set, so an instructor's demonstration of making good and bad choices is going to be the most influential piece. If the instructor is nervous or unsure of themselves in the tasks they're performing, then their student will follow and likewise be unsure. Just as importantly, if the instructor is calm and confident when something new or "dangerous" (as perceived by the student) is performed, the student has the greatest opportunity to NOT be afraid of it.

I agree with you 100% Hacker. Some of us learn to fly many moons ago in which 141 schools were around but not widespread(1977). I went the part 61 route because the program wasn't as expensive as the part 141 program. The FBO I learn to fly at had POI's who were not entirely familiar with all the protocol required of part 141. Once all of my training was completed under part 61 in which took me a long time, I was able to advance to part 135 cargo, part 91/135 charter/business jets. Part 135 was where I learn all about ice, didn't care about crosswinds, flying approaches down to 1/2 a mile, 1800RVR, and 1600RVR. Part 121 regional, and then part 121 logistics company. No military experience! Pilots will generally learn as they go along and if they live through their mistakes, I am sure every pilot has a story to tell.
 
I don't claim to have the market cornered on it. But I swear to god, lots of people have had very specific lobotomies, in which the sections of the brain used for higher order cognition and proper movement of the black, blue, and red knobs were removed.

I like to push the black one in as fast as possible. Especially if it's turbo charged.
 
Now which was Badlands? I've heard the callsign, just can't place it. I rode with a Bankair MU-2 guy when my 99 crapped out in PNS a couple of times. As a guy who had flown the Mitsi previously, and sort of thought he was hot poop, let me tell you that that guy was hardcore. Somehow had the trick down of taxiing on one engine (which I never did). He'd taxi out while starting #2 and putting a cud of chew between his four remaining teeth. Landed the beast like Buttah, too, and could hold 250 to like 1/2 mile final. On the shoulders of Redneck Giants, we stand.

Badlands is Flight Development LLC, the rebirth of Flight Line Inc, American Check Transport. I was at ACT when we went kaput and then came back when Flight Development got going. Leased a few MU-2s that you probably flew at Air1st. Way nice compared to the crap we had at ACT except they didn't have sperry autopilots.

And taxing the MU-2 on one engine is easier to do if you push up the condition lever to take off.
 
Kinda funny, I have a somewhat similar story when I was going through IOE (the first time) on the 767. I'd been killing it with my 757 landings, and the last two legs were in the 767 over the North Atlantic. My first landing in the thing was into Shannon right at dawn; I put the mains down nicely, but slammed the nose on pretty good. Check airman (fantastic retired Delta guy) tells me: "Oh, don't worry. You'll get the feel of it. Just add a little backpressure next time."

Okay!

Next landing, my last leg of IOE: Beautiful day in DFW, calm winds. I touch the mains down smoothly, then...add backpressure. The nose comes straight back up into the air, and I almost have a heart attack (keep in mind, we all had the fear of god put into us about tail strikes over there). I managed to arrest the nose (and I know the check airman was on the controls then, too), and put it back down. I couldn't believe how embarrassed I was, not to mention the fact that I was sure the check airman was going to require more IOE due to that demonstration.

Him: "So...are you going to do that again?"
Me: "Ugh, hell no."
Him: "Good. Congrats on finishing IOE."

Never had trouble after that. ;)


Here is probably about what my landing looked like, except mine went all crazy with the pitch attitude too :) . Oh, and the paint job was uglier.

 
Yup. I had a 8-9 year captain have his hands on the yoke when I took off a few weeks ago.

He also told me I needed more crosswind correction on my takeoff roll, even though the wings were perfectly level. He then had his ailerons in the wrong damn direction on his next two takeoffs.

Some must speak their mind, even if it is incorrect. It drives me absolutely nuts, but I bite my tongue and press on.
 
Some must speak their mind, even if it is incorrect. It drives me absolutely nuts, but I bite my tongue and press on.

Yeah. It sucks. On one hand you want to tell them to shove it. On the other hand you don't want to set up an environment where if they see something that actually is wrong, they're hesitant to bring it up. I usually find some solace in the fact that I know they have their head up their ass. In fact its pretty amusing sometimes.

On day three this guy started talking, paused, and then continued with "can I offer you some constructive criticism?"

"Hah...please do."

Then he proceeded to tell me that my standard altitude callouts were distracting and that I should keep them off hot mic so they don't bother him. Friggin hilarious.
 
Here is probably about what my landing looked like, except mine went all crazy with the pitch attitude too :) . Oh, and the paint job was uglier.



Nice! At least we can't really pod strike on the light twin (well, you could, but you'd break a lot of other stuff first).

Perhaps that's where the 16% pay differential comes from. ;)
 
Nobody my age knows how to manage a high performance reciprocating power plant.


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If an IO-540 is high performance, there's literally hundreds of people a year than learn TIO-540's and TSIO-520's and how to manage them. Also there are plenty of 3's and 6's still flying that there are a lot of people that still known how to manage a big radial.
 
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