QNE/QNH

[David MacRay]

Ah, thanks for the explaination Slick.

It was around 1995, maybe the plane got one but I think the flying club would have told me since I was the guy that went to the air show with their plane.

Maybe I generate CADORS every time I fly, but the way the instructors look when they say the word makes me think I don't. It's like a little kid talking about monsters.

I never even heard of CADORS a decade ago.

[Slick Goodlin]

the way the instructors look when they say the word makes me think I don't. It's like a little kid talking about monsters.

There’s also the difference between you the private renter and those instructors doing it for money.

What happens with commercial operators is that Transport doesn’t have enough money to actively watch them for safety so they are required to self-police. Instead they have an inspector assigned to each operator sort of watching from a distance. I’ve had inspectors that I’ve never met. So if a pilot has a thing happen, he’s supposed to immediately file a report with his company, who is in turn supposed to track/investigate/mitigate/etc. AND they better do that before their inspector sees the CADOR because it’s likely their Ops Manager or Chief Pilot is going to be asked about it. If they can give TC a satisfying answer right away then they are considered to be in proper safe operational control and life goes on. At least that’s sort of the practical idealized version of it. I won’t get into whether this system is morally right or wrong, it’s the one we have and I don’t want to put any energy into trying to change it.

Looking at that system above you can see there are some opportunities for tension. The pilot who has a thing happen (their fault or not) now has to do something more than they had planned that day, which feels punitive in itself, and if they don’t it’s seen as a failure of the system with at the very least a chat with their boss. That boss is squeezed in the middle watching their company CADOR file, matching those occurrences to incident reports they’ve received, and dreading the call from TC. Often times the TC inspector is under the impression that they alone can make aviation safe, or worse still they decide that if they can have the company shut down that’s less work for them to do. So now a simple system that I truly believe was intended to monitor trends and make simple fixes is this big, tense monster.

Here’s a good example: one day I landed the rice rocket in Sault Ste Marie and on the roll-out I saw a big dead bird at the runway’s edge and told tower about it. Tower let’s their field maintenance folks know and files a CADOR (because record keeping - maybe they need a better way to scare birds away). I didn’t file a report because why would I? I didn’t hit the thing, I just did my part to make sure nobody else could. Two days later a Transport inspector calls and asks for the itinerary of that plane’s flight then hits me with, “It’s over now, I’ve GOT you,” over us not inspecting the plane for damage before departing (I was called because I was the boss at the time). I guess damage from the bird we taxied past? That sort of thing is how CADORs get a bad name.

On a side note, ask me over beers sometime if I miss that job.

Anyways, with private aviation seemingly dying a slow, tragic death in Canada we hear more about these lame procedural things from the growing proportion of young-ish inexperienced-ish commercial pilot’s.

[Colonel]

a Transport inspector calls ... hits me with, “It’s over now, I’ve GOT you,”
over us not inspecting the plane for damage before departing

I was given a choice. I could either suck Arlo's cock, or leave aviation, or leave Canada
if I wanted to continue to fly.

I don't live in Canada any more. I don't even visit Canada any more - it's been made
clear to me that I am NOT WELCOME.

I'd rather quit flying than suck Arlo's cock. They can come and take my ATP. And I
understand from my conversation last year, my Canadian citizenship at the same time.

I'm tired of being bullied and threatened.

[Eric Janson]

Mike Patey says the Draco crash was 100% his fault.

Doesn't mention ATC at all.

Decision to take-off was his and his alone.

Same with runway selection.

[Colonel]

Watch his video. Maybe it's been deleted since then, but he said right afterwards that he did
what he did to not upset ATC.

Can't upset ATC. That would be the end of the fucking world. Better to crash and possibly die.

At my old airport, there was a perpendicular grass north/south runway, to the (only) paved
east-west runway, which was really handy after a cold front blew through. When I was the
airport manager, NavCan used to give me static and told me I couldn't NOTAM the condition
of the grass runway in the spring when it was soft and wet because it wasn't an official
runway, so pilots had to land in the soft grass and nose over to keep NavCan happy, I guess.

It's all about the fucking bureaucrats. Can't upset them, while you try to get some Aviation done.

Another thing I did, because I was a BAD PERSON, was spend hours and hours on the lawn tractor,
mowing the parallel grass to the paved runway. It was about 1000 feet long or so, and I got it into
pretty good shape. Grass was nice and short, the ground was level and firm. It was a different
color than the other (long) grass, so it was pretty obvious where to land.

As an instructor, I would try to teach people to control their airspeed and touchdown point
on the paved runway. 70 mph, then 65 mph, then 60 mph. Didn't really matter what type of
light single it was.

Then I would have them sidestep and land on the button of the parallel grass runway and
roll out on the grass. It would take about 500 feet.

No one teaches that in Canadian Aviation any more, but I did. Because I was such a BAD
PERSON, I guess. That's why I was told to not bother trying to renew any instructor ratings
in Ontario Region.

[JW Scud]

If you are making dangerous decisions as an experienced pilot because you don't want to upset ATC, then try something else.

[Colonel]

Sigh. Reminds me of what Jake Mulhall said about experience.

[Eric Janson]

I couldn't find anything about being forced by ATC - Mike says he didn't want to taxi to the other runway.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

That's why I was told to not bother trying to renew any instructor ratings
in Ontario Region.

Fuck em.

You only need an instructors rating to teach people for the purpose of getting their license.

That is so poor paying only new commercial pilots do it to build time.

You don't really need any kind of pilot license to teach people the proper way to fly.

And the better you can teach the more you can charge.

[Colonel]

I dunno. I did my 25 years. I fear that all I did was make students cry,
or maybe barf. I don't want to make anyone unhappy. They can happily
kill themselves. I'm ok with that.