Author: Randy Mains
Reshaaz Mohammed, a helicopter pilot from Trinidad wrote asking me, “Why is it so difficult to get that first flying job?” Here is what he had to say:
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My Two Cents Worth
Have you ever accidentally done a loop in a helicopter on a moonless night at 1,000 feet on downwind leg to an airport because the pilot flying lost spatial orientation? I have. The sudden and abrupt transition from controlled flight to uncontrolled flight, when the pilot “lost it,” then fighting for control, took me as much by surprise as it did the poor pilot.
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Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
Often times I receive comments from readers who have an observation or two about a column I’ve written. I recently received an email from a Captain Mark Sobaszko who flies for a major airline offering his 2 Cents’ Worth about my latest article, “Sully Welcome to our World”. As a former helicopter pilot, I find Captain Sobaszko’s comments quite interesting as he’s seen both sides of the coin. Here is what he had to say:
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Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
In the seven years since an airline pilot saved 155 lives by ditching his crippled airliner in the Hudson River, there's been enough time to write a book and make a movie, but apparently not enough to carry out most of the safety recommendations stemming from the accident. Of the 35 recommendations made by the National Transportation Safety Board in response to the incident involving US Airways Flight 1549, only six have been heeded.”
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Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
In life it’s good to know what you have control over and what you don’t, which of course is true in aviation too. I have an aviation story that illustrates my point when I tried to convince an aviation psychologist that I’m a dog.
Upon reaching the age of 62 pilots at Abu Dhabi Aviation were told they would need to pass a psychological evaluation as part of their six-monthly Class 1 medical to maintain their ATP licenses. The idea of a psychological evaluation seemed ludicrous to me after 42-years in aviation further exacerbated knowing it was a money spinner for the government so I decided I was going to have some fun and try to convince the psychologist I was a dog.
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Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
When I flew for the Royal Oman Police, the British, Scottish, and Australian pilots I had the pleasure to fly with had a lovely saying. Whenever they wanted to convey an idea, but wanted you to know that you may already know it, they would preface their statement by saying, “Now, I don’t want to teach Granny to suck eggs but….”
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My Two Cents Worth
I have a professional Facebook page that deals solely with crew resource management and helicopter safety issues. I hope I don’t disappoint visitors to my page if they don’t see pictures of my breakfast, lunch, or dinner, my cat, dog or car or learn that I am in a departure lounge somewhere awaiting my flight home. I ‘built’ my Facebook page for one purpose—as a tool to keep CRM and helicopter safety foremost in air crew member’s minds.
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Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
I’d been awake for 17 hours when the phone rang at 12:45 a.m. The communications specialist said, “There’s a scene call on Palomar Mountain. Will you be able to take the flight?”
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My Two Cents Worth
I’ve been a flight instructor in the military, a senior instructor for Bell Helicopter in Iran teaching pilots how to be instructor pilots, head of training and a flight examiner for 13 years while working for the Royal Oman Police Air Wing in the Sultanate of Oman with British, American and Australian pilots and a type-rating instructor and type-rating examiner in the Bell 412EP and Bell 212 while working for Abu Dhabi Aviation. While in Abu Dhabi, I trained and examined airline transport pilots hailing from more than 20 countries around the world. In my 47-year and 13,000-hour flying career I have developed habits I use to keep us safe while training that I will pass along to you to, hopefully, keep you safe.
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My Two Cents Worth
In the 1960s and ‘70s a disease seemed to strike the airline industry that caused airliners to crash for no known reason. NASA called a “Resource Management on the Flight Deck” workshop that identified human error as the main cause of several high-profile accidents. NASA’s research uncovered that from 1968 to 1976 there were 60 airliners that crashed due to elements of human error. Researching back further through the Boeing archives to 1940, NASA discovered that four out of five accidents—80 percent—had an element of human error. Since that workshop, six generations of CRM have emerged.
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Categories:
My Two Cents Worth