Scudrunners

Grubby got me thinking.. lets start a new thread.  This might be a repeat of an earlier thread, but who cares.. it will be fun to resurrect.


Does joining the bent metal club make you a "better" pilot? 


I dont believe that bending metal, (my insurance company would agree) makes you a safer, and or better pilot.  Mind you, what do I know. 

It is a plus if you get the new age group to compliment you on your bending of the metal by saying.


"" Good job. ""

Not a member, but I recall landing in some bush strip and flinging a rock at the tail of a BN2 to discover it had dislodged a 2 " X 5" deep chunk of bondo.

Bent Bondo club? or do I get partial credit for others work.

Need more threads? Chipped bondo club. Ripped fabric club.

I will shamefully admit that I'm a member of the torn fabric club.  Did it make me a better pilot?  Maybe.  It brought to the forefront that we're all capable of doing something stupid and in some situations it's just waiting for a chance to happen.  Knowing this (don't learn it first hand like me) is the first step towards prevention.

Do I get any points for doing the repair myself?

I have much more experience riding motorcycles, so I could use this as a comparison:

I have many years of experience racing off road. Lots of crashes, bent metal and a few broken bones. I believe I am a much better rider as a result of constantly riding at my limit (or maybe I have landed on my head a few too many times).

On the rare occasion that I ride on the street, I ride with safety in mind, as opposed to speed.

I would compare normal flying to riding on the street, where you do not want to bend metal or break bones. I could see situations where you could push limits, such as operating in the back country, where the airplane is at a much higher risk of being damaged, but the risk to the pilot is still acceptable. If some metal gets bent in these circumstances, then it could be a learning experience.

This discussion is sort of interesting but is difficult to decide what exactly having an accident really tells you about a pilots decision making and flying skills really are because accidents can happen to anyone.


I do know for sure that I never had one yet.


Then again maybe I was not doing any flying in areas that are a bit risky.


I did fly seven years of ag. flying both fixed and rotary wing.


Fifteen years as Captain on heavy water bombers.


Eight years flying the airshow circuit in Europe.


If nothing else I sure was lucky I never smashed on up and missed that learning experience.

[quote author=Chuck Ellsworth link=topic=3184.msg9003#msg9003 date=1464451343]
This discussion is sort of interesting but is difficult to decide what exactly having an accident really tells you about (what) a pilots decision making and flying skills really are because accidents can happen to anyone.[/quote]


It might even take the pilot a good while after an accident to figure that out. How about that ... if only we could get the pilots real perspective on every synopsis, how come it ened the way it did. Never realized my nicked prop could be the result of a neatly achieved accident avoidance, ... my aborted take-off right after aborting landing upon initial rollout ... which was inclined to end so much worse. I've never dreamed i could join the accident free club by simply framing the situation a little different  :P

[quote]difficult to decide what exactly having an accident really tells you[/quote]

The thing to remember is that a pilot that
never flies (like a TC Inspector) is the safest
in the world - he will never have an accident,
so he can pompously lecture about [b]Bad People[/b]
that don't have defined benefits and a job for
life and an indexed pension like he does.

On the other hand, a guy that flies taking a
lot of risk - like drug spotting in Columbia -
is going to get shot at and sooner or later hit.


A "pilot" that never flies probably won't understand
this, but ... every time you attempt a high-risk activity,
there is a measurable probability that it won't work
out ok, regardless of pilot skill.

And if you do that often enough, sooner or later
it's going to catch up with you, even if Jerzy doesn't
comprehend the Convergence of the Central Limit
Theorem.

So many of my friends are dead now, and they were
all superb pilots ... but they all accepted much higher
levels of risk than 99.999% of most pilots, and it
caught up to them.

Andrew Wright, for example.  He had a complete
structural failure in an all-composite Giles (the tail
come off) and without an ejection seat, he just
couldn't get out.  Really smart guy.  PhD.  Awesome
stick.  And, he's dead now.

Bill Gordon.  Incredible pilot and better mechanic,
but that didn't help him when the engine of the
70 year old P-47 (designed to last 6 months, tops)
failed over water.

Mike Mangold.  Engine failure in L39 right after takeoff -
either FOD or blade failure is my guess.  Incredible
pilot.  Reno air race.  Red Bull.  F-4 combat over Iraq.

All these pilots took measurable risks, and it caught
up with them, over the years.  No zero-zero ejection
seat to save them.

[youtube][/youtube]

I remember trying to explain to a particularly dense
TC inspector the risks of flying with a cold seat, and
he just didn't "get it".  He got angry and petulant with
me.  I suppose I should not have been surprised at his
childish and unprofessional behaviour.  What else is new.

People that refuse to learn from the lessons of history
are doomed to relive it, I guess.