Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

Notice that to inexperienced spectators the action doesn't look spectacular at all until it goes wrong.

I was cured of doing steep turns etc over properties when I realised it didn't look spectacular from the ground, and people really didn't take much notice.

  • Agree 1
Posted

My instructor always told me to “fly in the middle of the air. It's dangerous around the edges”

He also used to say that he didn't do low flying because he had a back problem. That usually prompted the question “What's wrong with your back?” To which he would reply “I have a yellow stripe down it”

 

  • Like 6
Posted

I have always strived to be the pilot who is not noticed, that seems to be the safest way,

  • Like 2
Posted

IF you are a show off there's a fair chance that at some stage, you will show that you aren't as good as you thought you were. Nev

  • Like 2
Posted

You could say nearly every accident is a breakdown of SOP’s plus the huge gap between perceived ability verses actual ability of the pilot.

  • Like 3
  • Agree 2
Posted

There's such as thing as taking necessary risks - as in war action - as compared to taking unnecessary risks in peacetime. When you consider that Pollock would've only needed one small miscalculation - just a small wind gust at the wrong time, and Pollock would now be remembered as a destroyers of lives and public assets - not a pilots hero.

 

In industry and labour, there's a group known as "persistent risk takers". These are the blokes who dash under a suspended load to retrieve something without chocking the load, or who work under loose rocks in the roof of a mining stope without ensuring the loose rocks are barred down or secured with rockbolts - or who do a fast right turn only 50M in front of approaching, speeding traffic.

 

They do this persistently, against all the rules designed to prevent accidents and fatalities - and sometimes they can do it for a lifetime, and get away with it. But many don't, and they pay the price for their adrenaline-pumping behaviour.

Posted

One track, your example of barring down means something to me, I have been there and done that and had my mate hit by a falling stone. He was walking up the rill and I shouted but he didn’t hear me. He couldn’t work as a miner again.

  • Informative 1
Posted

Risk takers........

My tale is not of an accident. Rather its about an accident looking for somewhere to happen. So maybe it does qualify as 'hooning'.

I live on a hill half a kilometer from a river. My front deck is 700' ASML, but our driveway is along a narrow valley which rises to an end behind our house, at about 1000'AMSL.

So, when I heard what sounded like a Rotax coming up our little valley, I started scanning to see the aircraft. I spotted it through the tree trunks, still below me, and it was heading up our narrow dead end valley. As it went past the last possible U-turn point, couldn't believe there could be a reason to drive into narrow rising ground. I heard the throttle open up. I lost sight of it and started listening for the sound of breaking trees. The pilot managed slightly more than a 90 degree turn on full climb and just cleared the hundred foot gumtrees behind our house. It had my adrenaline going. It looked like maybe a Foxbat.

 

 

Human factors?

Showing off?

Poor training?

If I had my camera, I would have identified the aircraft and made a complaint to RAA because, apart from flying at less than 500' over houses, it looked like reckless behaviour of the sort that gives us all a bad name. I hope there wasn't any passenger.

  • Like 2
  • Informative 1
Posted

Maybe god if you are a believer. Go up valleys keeping to the right normally and have room to turn. High trees mean you'll NEVER have ground effect to help you.

  • Like 1

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...