How much is too much Testosterone?

December 14th, 2014 at 7:21:42 AM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
High Performance Aircraft require High Performance Pilots. And high performance pilots have to be regulars at it.

Doctors, lawyers, businessmen who fly their own planes should stay with simple aircraft rather than fast complex aircraft. It takes time to practice and to stay current in skills. Things go wrong and the demands of the aircraft can over tax a part time pilot.

Its referred to as getting behind the eight ball or behind the airplane. Or conversely, letting the plane get ahead of you.

With ten miles visibility but the possibility of icing problems, loss of situational awareness due to over focus on some relatively minor problem as the fast jet's airspeed is decaying too much is a problem for part time pilots. Professional, full time pilots know that if you have slow traffic in front of you, you make "S-turns" but stay oriented to your course, never turn away from your destination particularly if you are descending and may not reacquire it visually. If S turns won't work, do a full 360 or just add power and go around to try again. Better to swallow your pride than mouthfuls of dirt flambe.

A part time pilot can get so distracted that he allows the speed to decay to a point that he is going too slow, starts a turn and finds he going way to slow to continue flying. Not enough lift and the plane rolls inverted flys into the ground at a speed that is simply too slow for that model of plane to keep flying. Add possible icing problems and possible loss of reliability of instruments and you crash mainly because you slowed so much for that slow plane ahead of you that your plane simply can't fly that slowly. Stall/Spin when turning onto final approach course at too slow a speed to sustain lift. A mistake made by a part time pilot, rarely made by a professional pilot who knows to not let the plane get ahead of him

But what is it that compels a pilot who has already crashed one airplane at that same airport to go ahead a crash another highly demanding plane and to do it in the same type of "too low, too slow, turn, stall, spin, roll inverted" accident. Why wouldn't he hire a professional pilot who has the skills and the time to keep those skills current.