Bandit12

CASA Avmed really don't understand neurodevelopmental disorders, and what they don't understand gets a hard "no". I diagnose Autism frequently, and many Autistic adults would make fabulous pilots. It's a generalisation, but often structure, rules, and repetition works really well for how they operate. Use of checklists, religiously rehearsing plans for response to engine failure, never attempting a turn back - arguably, Autistic pilots would handle these things better than the rest of us. ADHD is a little more complex. A person with ADHD might have attention at the 1st percentile but be at the 50th percentile when taking stimulant medication, while the person without ADHD could be rolling along in life blissfully unaware that their attention skills are only at the 25th percentile. One gets a medical and the other doesn't....

.......the AGM of the Victorian Speedway Association. Accusations of inappropriate behavioural touchpoints abound, Turbo took to the podium, drew a deep breath and said..... (PS hello chaps, long time no see!)

Despite all our talk, we still don't understand either!

I didn't learn back in the day, being only a relative newcomer from the early 2000s. But I did fly a Tomahawk up to GFPT, then later for NVFR and just for fun. I didn't find it to be scary at all or difficult to recover, although incipient spins were all that was allowed. It certainly didn't spin at the drop of a hat, but it did have quite a pronounced wing drop at stall. Accelerated spins in a Pitts S2B were much more of an eye opener. Agree though that spin training should be mandatory.

Could be as simple as a partial failure and a split second call to get it back rather than put it down. Sadly as Nev said, unlikely to ever know.

At the risk of casting aspersions on my profession, sadly I don't think a psych report would offer much useful information in most of the cases. It definitely happens with the big players but not so much the small ones, because the big players can afford to recruit based on desirable characteristics (as a preventative measure) but when it is a hobby there is no such restriction. I'm not surprised in the least that a highly experienced pilot would attempt a turn back despite training and advocating against it. With a split second to make a judgement call, and given that the exact circumstances are usually unknown, I suspect that plenty of people would do similarly. Incidentally, I would be happy to offer my time to look at the HF side of accidents. There is always plenty to be learned, and if nothing else I'm sure that Maj would have been quick to encourage others to learn from the accident.

The things you miss when away from the forum for awhile. Sad news, RIP Pud.

Haven't been around much, busy life and kids had taken centre stage. I saw the crash on the ABC news yesterday morning and while an accident is never good news, this one struck a chord instantly. Even then I avoided logging in to the forum for a day, not wanting to know about it. Like so many others, I had never met Maj in person, but enjoyed many discussions over the last few years. He will be greatly missed.

There is a big difference between being depressed and having depression, and it has nothing to do with what you are inferring FT. Nothing at all. We have more people commit suicide than die in car accidents in Australia every single year. And how many of them take out a plane load of people with them? Granted, most of them probably aren't pilots, but most of them drive and most of them do not take a car load of people with them when they decide to go. This was not just depression, and it was not just being depressed.

Nope. Even with computerised systems and mandatory reporting. There is nothing to stop a person giving a false name at a clinic, representing themselves as having any other occupation other than pilot, paying in full in cash to circumvent Medicare and walking out the door having told of their fantasies to cause mass destruction. As long as they were assessed in that moment as not being able or likely to carry out their fantasies, no one would even try to prevent them or follow up. I read elsewhere how his fiance broke off their relationship the day before (caveat - we all know how accurate the beloved media is) and wondered to myself about whether this wasn't a grand stunt to get back at her. A lot more complex than depression and suicide, that's for sure. Seriously, I think commercial aviation has probably some of the best mechanisms of support that I have seen. Think about the appalling treatment of our service men/women with PTSD. I think Dutchy is completely on the right track, all we will see are bandaids to make people feel like "something" has been done, and the very outside risk of this sort of thing will continue to be just that.

And speaking with just a hint of experience with suicidal individuals (not pilots though), effective screening to prevent a person like this from being at the controls would be incredibly restrictive. By the time everyone who might be a risk was removed, there would be very few flying at all. Wait, that sounds suspiciously like a CASA risk management strategy......best not give them ideas.

Close, the other Bandit - we caught up in Alice last May for dinner with Nico and Roadbandit. Too many similar forum names! Nice Corby by the way, looks like it has been done up with a Christen Eagle paint/decal look.

Gday ColdComfort, from another FarRider from the old days...... Bikes and planes really do mix!

Me too (ed psych not medical though) - if there is real data out there, it is not being shared publicly and what has been shared is neither valid nor useful. Not that I think Jabiru deserves a free pass here, but a little more transparency and a whole lot more quantified data would go a long way. Anecdotally, I have seen a lot of mention about people approaching Jabiru with a failure, only to be told it was caused by poor maintenance or operator error. Has an alternative response ever been received?

Maybe this is where some of the problems lie. In terms of accountability, it should be relatively straightforward for all organisations to demonstrate whether or not they did report to ATSB. Whichever hasn't done the reporting will need a bit of a kick up the organisation's you-know-what.