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Articles for category My Two Cents Worth




Oct
25
2021

CRM Success Stories

Posted by Admin

As a CRM facilitator it’s rewarding when I receive CRM success stories from folks who have a good story to tell. I have two stories to share in this issue, the first from flight paramedic, Rhett Draehn, who is the program safety manager at Careflight in Dallas and took my CRM instructor’s course several years ago. He wrote: [Read More...]



Tags: My Two Cents Worth Randy Mains
Categories: categoryMy Two Cents Worth



Sep
27
2021

Life in a Spin!

Posted by Admin

If you are looking for an intensely human, punchy, immensely funny, really short but sometimes [Read More...]



Categories: categoryMy Two Cents Worth



Aug
30
2021

Post Flight—an Old Pilot’s Notes

Posted by Admin

Byron Edgington, a self-professed ‘Sky Writer’ author and a commercial and military helicopter pilot for 50 years, told me his vision for his latest published book, Postflight: An Old Pilot’s Logbook, was simple: “Educate wannabe and upcoming aviators by offering lessons shared by those with experience in the business.” [Read More...]



Tags: My Two Cents Worth Randy Mains
Categories: categoryMy Two Cents Worth



Jul
26
2021

Air Medical crew in the front seat?

Posted by Admin

“Is having a medical crew member in the co-pilot seat a positive or negative safety issue?’  That’s a question a flight nurse put to the helicopter air medical community a while back.  How would you answer that question? [Read More...]



Tags: My Two Cents Worth Randy Mains
Categories: categoryMy Two Cents Worth



Jun
27
2021

Dying to Please

Posted by Admin

As professional pilots, we naturally want to please our passengers, get them to their destination on time, give them a memorable flight, and of course we want to do it safely.  But if we are not careful, an overwhelming urge to please our passengers can overpower our good judgment, creating a mental blind spot to a link or links in an error chain forming, which can lead us into a deadly trap. That is what happened to Ara Zobayan, the pilot tasked to fly Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and six others to his Mamba Sports Academy near Thousand Oaks, California, where Bryant was scheduled to coach a game.  Sadly, and to the shock of the sports world, none of them made it to their destination.  [Read More...]



Tags: My Two Cents Worth Randy Mains
Categories: categoryMy Two Cents Worth



Apr
26
2021

Evidence Based Training

Posted by Admin

Have you heard the term “evidence based training” (EBT)?  It’s sometimes referred to as “competency based training.”  EBT is a relatively new approach to flight training developed in 2013 on behalf of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) that was led by a group of airline industry experts to increase the effectiveness of pilot training to meet the challenges of airline operations in the 21st century. If the past is any indication of the future, I think we will hear more about EBT in our industry.  [Read More...]



Tags: My Two Cents Worth Randy Mains
Categories: categoryMy Two Cents Worth



Mar
22
2021

USHST Dire Warning

Posted by Admin

USHST: Helicopter industry headed for highest fatal accidents in more than a decade was the headline of a press release posted in July 2019 that read:  The U.S. helicopter industry said it was experiencing a year of tragic accidents with too many lives being lost. To stem the surge of fatal accidents, the U.S. Helicopter Safety Team called on helicopter operators, pilots, instructors and mechanics to rely on safety basics and place a priority on them.  The safety organization called for pilots, instructors and others with a stake in helicopter safety to focus on SEVEN key actions that will save lives based on past accident reports.  Here are the seven key actions: [Read More...]



Tags: My Two Cents Worth Randy Mains
Categories: categoryMy Two Cents Worth



Feb
22
2021

Cherish your Wingman

Posted by Admin

I’ve observed, from 9 years speaking at Helisuccess in Las Vegas, Nevada, that most if not all attendees have had that special someone at their side acting as their ‘wingman’.  In the context here, wingman is the person who knows your back story, knows the struggles you’ve made, someone who not only believes in you, but actively cheers you on in private and in public; a close confidant, someone who lends a sympathetic ear and encouragement during times of your self-doubt.  A wingman may help you study your emergency checklist and will very often make numerous personal sacrifices in doing so, be it financially or gladly give you their personal time so that your career may progress.  A wingman unselfishly does this as a way to boost you up so that you may someday accomplish your dream, whatever your dream may be. [Read More...]



Tags: Cherish your Wingman My Two Cents Worth Randy Mains
Categories: categoryMy Two Cents Worth



Jan
22
2021

A Unique Vision-Limiting Device

Posted by Admin

Erik Sabiston, founder of ICARUS Devices reached out to me on Linkedin to let me know of a product he’s promoting, a vision-limiting device for IMC training which seems to me to be very unique.  I am a flight simulator instructor and examiner and know the value of a flight simulator to access a pilot’s reaction to IMC events.  Erik’s product seems to be very useful in the actual aircraft that can be used on a student with a safety pilot of course.  The clear plastic mounted on either a baseball cap or a helmet flips down over the face of the pilot flying.  Then, controlled by an app by the instructor, they can reduce the visibility slowly to simulate going into an IIMC event slowly or suddenly. [Read More...]



Tags: M2C My Two Cents Worth Randy Mains
Categories: categoryMy Two Cents Worth



Dec
28
2020

Normalization of Deviance

Posted by Admin

What can the helicopter world learn from NASA’s mistakes?  I’m specifically talking about the Challenger disaster and the cancer of “normalization of deviance” that was the root cause of that tragedy.  On November 3, 2014, NASA Chief of Safety and Mission Assurance Terry Wilcutt and Deputy Chief of Safety and Mission Assurance Hal Bell, put together a presentation entitled “The Cost of Silence: Normalization of Deviance and Groupthink. [Read More...]



Tags: My Two Cents Worth Randy Mains
Categories: categoryMy Two Cents Worth


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