Articles for category My Two Cents Worth
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Mar
22
2021
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Posted by Admin
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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:
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My Two Cents Worth
Randy Mains
Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
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Feb
22
2021
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Posted by Admin
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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.
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Cherish your Wingman
My Two Cents Worth
Randy Mains
Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
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Jan
22
2021
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Posted by Admin
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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.
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M2C
My Two Cents Worth
Randy Mains
Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
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Dec
28
2020
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Posted by Admin
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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.
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My Two Cents Worth
Randy Mains
Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
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Nov
17
2020
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Posted by Admin
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With the advent of the Corona-19 virus pandemic, the workforce world-wide has had to adapt to an alternate way to approach their job. I am no different as I teach and facilitate a 5-day CRM Instructor course. Training to be an effective CRM instructor relies on learning how to become an effective facilitator, a skill I teach in my Instructor classes. To be a successful facilitator, facilitation techniques must be practiced on others to achieve the desired result of changing adult behavior. With the raging pandemic curtailing in-person interactions, learning to be a facilitator in aviation in a virtual setting is something the aviation industry has had to adapt to.
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My Two Cents Worth
Randy Mains
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My Two Cents Worth
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Oct
19
2020
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Posted by Admin
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When I was chief pilot at San Diego Life Flight air medical program, on my time off, I enrolled in a seven-month EMT class. There have been several incidents since taking that class where I’ve had to use those skills to lend assistance to people in need. That is one reason I think everyone should take, at very minimum, a first-aid course. You never know when you may be in a position to be of medical assistance or to even save a life.
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M2C
My Two Cents Worth
Randy Mains
Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
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Sep
18
2020
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Posted by Admin
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I recently received an email from a CFII by the name of Matthew Goodrich who felt compelled to write after reading my article, Knowing it’s time to hang up the Headset that appeared in the July/Aug 2020 issue of Rotorcraft Pro Magazine. Matthew wrote to say: “Great article Randy. You mention basic criteria for passing/failing a pilot in a checkride. Do you think instructors should evaluate the same basic criteria (judgment) when endorsing someone for checkride? Or do you think instructors should focus on clear standards and leave judgment of the bigger picture to examiners? It's likely not as black and white as I'm asking.
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My Two Cents Worth
Randy Mains
Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
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Aug
24
2020
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Posted by Admin
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A recent incident the FAA is investigating involving Harrison Ford that occurred this past April at Hawthorne Municipal Airport in California, prompted me to ponder the question that we all may need to address at some point in our flying career as we age: Will you know when it’s time to hang up your headset?
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My Two Cents Worth
Randy Mains
Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
Last July of 2019, the United States Helicopter Safety team, (USHST) put out a press release stating: Helicopter industry headed for highest fatal accidents in more than a decade. 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 that are worth remembering:
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Categories:
My Two Cents Worth
Two of my readers offered their unique views regarding the last column I wrote for the April/May 2020 issue of Rotorcraft Pro entitled Honoring that Sacred Trust. In the article I talked about the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash addressing some of the facts taken from the preliminary NTSB report, one of those facts being the accident pilot had over 8,000 flight hours and held an instrument instructor certificate.
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Categories:
My Two Cents Worth