Dave Krall CFII
New member
Gear DOWN amphib water landings and flight safety in general commentary....
We had a gear down amphib fatal water landing out here last summer by an experienced amphib pilot not known for recklessness. I have long postulated that besides the individual pilot workload being high in amphibs that "drugs" also play a significant role in not only amphib but many of aviation accidents, especially recreational flying or "fun" flying.
One of the "drugs" most commonly involved are naturally formed endorphins from the PIC's brain. Among its POWERFUL effects is what is commonly referred to by athletes as "runner's high". Although naturally occurring, these effects can be very harmful to rational and timely decision making by pilots, and just as dangerous as any illegal drug's effects.
The mechanism of this very common scenario is the joy of flight itself being actually experienced by the pilot in command to a detrimental level. This is particularly easy to succumb to in amphibs because of their high versatility and the environments that they can fly their occupants into. Everyone has heard that drugs make you stupid, and/or make you feel "drugged". This happens to some extent every time a pilot takes flight for fun but, how much and how well the endorphic effect is managed is the critical and highly variable factor.
Since private flight training, I learned not to relax too much and enjoy a flight too much until I'm back on the ground. People ask me if I find flying relaxing and my reply is always "Hell no! I will relax when I'm on the ground!" And that's what I will do, reflecting later on the amazing flights we have just completed and enjoying them to the max at those postflight times.
Now also consider, piled on top of the detrimental endorphic effects present in all flying for fun, adding the common and well known judgmental and reaction time impairments of mild to moderate hypoxia often present and synergistically enhancing the endorphins at high DA and you have a real recipe for disaster -Synergistic Hypoxoendorphinism. It's amazing we don't have more accidents than we do.
If we were to encourage more Regs, which I do not, it would be mandatory for all pilots to not only study the Nall Report each year but, also to submit a brief analysis as to the general and specific whys and wherefores of all the different accident categories, especially those flown by that studying pilot.
It is mandatory for all my flight students to look up and study the Nall Report and make substantial comments to me on that year's report, and the summary listed of previous year's averages.
__________________
Flying, flight instruction, STOL Amphibion design and flight testing for the noblest of all reasons: Because It Is Cool
We had a gear down amphib fatal water landing out here last summer by an experienced amphib pilot not known for recklessness. I have long postulated that besides the individual pilot workload being high in amphibs that "drugs" also play a significant role in not only amphib but many of aviation accidents, especially recreational flying or "fun" flying.
One of the "drugs" most commonly involved are naturally formed endorphins from the PIC's brain. Among its POWERFUL effects is what is commonly referred to by athletes as "runner's high". Although naturally occurring, these effects can be very harmful to rational and timely decision making by pilots, and just as dangerous as any illegal drug's effects.
The mechanism of this very common scenario is the joy of flight itself being actually experienced by the pilot in command to a detrimental level. This is particularly easy to succumb to in amphibs because of their high versatility and the environments that they can fly their occupants into. Everyone has heard that drugs make you stupid, and/or make you feel "drugged". This happens to some extent every time a pilot takes flight for fun but, how much and how well the endorphic effect is managed is the critical and highly variable factor.
Since private flight training, I learned not to relax too much and enjoy a flight too much until I'm back on the ground. People ask me if I find flying relaxing and my reply is always "Hell no! I will relax when I'm on the ground!" And that's what I will do, reflecting later on the amazing flights we have just completed and enjoying them to the max at those postflight times.
Now also consider, piled on top of the detrimental endorphic effects present in all flying for fun, adding the common and well known judgmental and reaction time impairments of mild to moderate hypoxia often present and synergistically enhancing the endorphins at high DA and you have a real recipe for disaster -Synergistic Hypoxoendorphinism. It's amazing we don't have more accidents than we do.
If we were to encourage more Regs, which I do not, it would be mandatory for all pilots to not only study the Nall Report each year but, also to submit a brief analysis as to the general and specific whys and wherefores of all the different accident categories, especially those flown by that studying pilot.
It is mandatory for all my flight students to look up and study the Nall Report and make substantial comments to me on that year's report, and the summary listed of previous year's averages.
__________________
Flying, flight instruction, STOL Amphibion design and flight testing for the noblest of all reasons: Because It Is Cool
