In Jaun Browne's video discussing the NTSB preliminary report of the Bombardier circle to land jet crash at Truckee, he pointed out how differently airline pilots operate when everything they say and do is recorded. I think the video evidence we have in many small GA airplanes will help us help ourselves to fewer fatalities. As we invite everyone into the cockpit through video, however, we need to explain our low altitude orientation. We have, and need, much greater maneuvering latitude. Without ATC we are not, nor should we be, at a cleared airspeed, altitude, and on a procedural track.

A problem I see with increased awareness is increased unsafe intimidation. Flying like a crop duster or pipeline patrol pilot has brought comments and even incident reports from fellow pilots already. Yet spray pilots and pipeliners have extensive low altitude maneuvering experience that can increase safety through video exposure. Compare fatalities per 100,000 hours among Ag and pipeline patrol to that of the rest of general aviation.

Really dumb stuff looks really dumb in videos, but there is a huge safety difference between high airspeed zoom climb and Vx engine climb, for instance. Staying in low ground effect until cruise airspeed will get negative comments until the energy and safety advantage becomes apparent. I'm sure the steep 1 g energy management turn looks unsafe on video, but level turning load factor stalls are prevented that way. At a glance, it will look like some cowboy exhibiting "maneuvering flight." Thirty minutes of video in the crop field or on the pipeline, however, will look like the outcome of the maneuver is never in doubt.

So I welcome the intrusion of video, even audio. In the long run, better low altitude orientation should develop. If we plan and execute energy management , the engine will sound less labored, ground effect will cause acceleration, airspeed will become altitude dynamically, altitude will become airspeed dynamically, some form of zoom reserve will be maintained, the airplane will be happy, and the outcome of the maneuver will never be in doubt.

Legally collected and disseminated FDA data, including cockpit voice records are regulated in their use and release. The person(s) involved are "shielded" from both employment action and legal action but the same may not be true for the GA realm.

I commend those who, like me, have messed up and are willing to share for lessons learned going forward. What, legally, is the situation with the video from ground observation by other than the pilot involved? It seems the information is there and that we should use it to improve safety, as has the airlines. That, with the understanding that we can in no reasonable way be held to airspeed, altitude, and procedural track limitations as are those constantly under Instrument Flight Rules.

We in GA cannot achieve as good a safety record as the airlines because our aircraft do not allow the vast majority of every flight to be conducted above the weather. Nor are we 100% IFR. The limited oversight and regulation of Visual Flight Rules is logical. FARs give us greater latitude than do our fellow pilots, in some cases. So, as a improve safety device, Go Pro is a big help. As a get his number device, not so much. We fatally stall too many airplanes in the pattern, among other things. I hope video will help us understand we go too slow on takeoff. It seems we are trying to get to 1,000' too quickly. I hope video will help us understand how little damage results from landing incidents and accidents when we are going reasonably slow and how much damage and even injury results from landing accidents when we are going too fast. V-speeds have not been the answer for us, even though I like Dan's DMMS. In the low altitude world, situational awareness is 99% out the windscreen, relative wind noise, attitude, kinetic feel, and wide world awareness. We live in the much more dangerous VFR world where the tactical situation is always fluid. Video of those proficient with this world, like Motoadve and Jughead, should be helpful.

Comparing low level Pt91 GA to flying highly regulated and sterilized 121 in the FLs is silly, where they have a small army doing everything from W&B to weather and are a keyboard stroke away at almost any phase of flight.

Inviting government mandated surveillance equipment in ones life is even more silly to anyone who has ever read history, even just the last 10yrs worth. Didn’t ADSB demonstrate this?


One of the best lessons on real safety


If you want to be a better pilot you know what to do. Get more training (hopefully legally as the FAA just outlawed a good chunk of training) and surround yourself with people who know more than you.


More regulation and surveillance if anything will hurt safety as it will make people LESS open to sharing lessons learned in the wild. Think the average Joe is going to walk you through his thought process when there is a video and audio recording to be used against him if ANYTHING goes wrong, by a administration where your accuser is also your jury, and in a age where the rule books gain weight and never lose it?


You want to strap a go bro on, go for it, I used them for training before, but even the hint of making audio and video recording go the way of ADSB?

My Dad was a man of few rules concerning his children. He did, however, caution me to pay attention when boys were having fun. Something was going to happen. Video will help us understand ourselves concerning that. Most fatalities, however, are good pilots doing what they were taught to do. This is the much larger problem that I hope video will help alleviate. If we are trained to climb at Vx or Vy and to pull back on the stick in all turns and we are taught when the stall happens but not what causes stall, lots of stalls are going to happen in the pattern. Given the ACS requirement, the Flight Review requirement, and pilots who dutifully fly as they were taught practicing many repetitions but no iterations of what they were taught, muscle memory is going to be the probable cause in many fatalities.

"Go Bro" now that's funny.

Oh hell no! Keep the dam government out of our lives as much as possible. We seem to have become a generation that is always trying to create a world covered in bubble wrap. Some things we do are risky. Ill accept personal responsibility and risk over additional government oversight and regulation with the false promise of enhanced safety any day.

What about video as a form of self examination? As MTV says, NTSB doesn't care and FAA doesn't have the resources to do extensive accident investigation. I care and hope you all care if a fellow pilot dies. If it is all about the thrill of danger, Russian roulette is more efficient.

contactflying wrote:What about video as a form of self examination? As MTV says, NTSB doesn't care and FAA doesn't have the resources to do extensive accident investigation. I care and hope you all care if a fellow pilot dies. If it is all about the thrill of danger, Russian roulette is more efficient.

Think we are taking two VERY different subjects

Using video to improve your own training/flying. Sure

Vs

Having to government force me to install audio and video surveillance equipment in my own aircraft. That a big NOOOOOPE

My lead in to the thread with the Jaun Browne mention of the way video and voice recorders shape behavior in airline cockpits may have misled you. I only am interested in their voluntary influence on GA self awareness. Since we have no power to fire each other, i think the oversight is not the real issue with our low level of interest to highers. Yes, a single airplane accident still makes the local news, but no enforcement by locals. A camera looking from the pilot's windscreen and audio recording of both his words and reaction and the airplanes relative wind noise and the sound of the engine can help him and us see how innocent level turns at shallow to medium bank can still cause stall when we don't have enough airspeed and are too low to recover.

I guess my main hope, from all this, is to get the airspeed vs. altitude argument resolved once and for all. The superiority of altitude is a high altitude orientation/indoctrination. The superiority of airspeed is a low altitude orientation/indoctrination. The problem is that other than crop duster, and power/pipeline patrol, and other low altitude professionals, there is no low altitude orientation/indoctrination. It is no wonder that most pilots think altitude is so much more important that they will stall too low to recover just to get to altitude a few minutes quicker.

I generally agree that video playback is a well proven learning tool, sports coaches have been using it for years. The concern in generating video, especially where liability may enter the equation is civil action. when things go sideways the legal beagles are never very far away and that's my concern.

Within the GA community video is a nice way to share memories and experiences, all you have to do is cruise this very site and enjoy the many spectacular submissions offered. Yes we cannot dismiss or take job action against each other beyond armchair quarterbacking style and technique.

And then there are those damn V speeds of the ACS. They are very appropriate IFR, where we are on a procedural track and we are not responsible for what is outside the windscreen as ATC is responsible for traffic. And on an ITO, we pitch up no more than a dot above the artificial horizon. We are fine with no more that a small indication of vertical speed.

Old non instrument rated pilots were killing themselves in the clouds when the technology came in. Eventually the FAA changed from low altitude orientation to high altitude orientation to get old pilots trained and competent IFR. The idea was integration of instruments with contact flying would be the solution. I am sure it has helped with inadvertent IMC but it obviously has not, at least with fatalities in the first 1,000' of potential energy, helped in the pattern. That potential energy, that altitude superiority, does not begin until we have enough of it to recover from stall. Stalling in the hope of getting it quicker (higher pitch and less airspeed) makes no sense except for the true obstacle that comes very soon after acceleration to Vx or Vy in low ground effect. And were you in low ground effect? And did you get the fuselage level? And most importantly, did you wait to pitch up only when necessary to just miss the obstacle?

On most takeoffs at most airports it is simply an internal need, an indoctrinated obsession, with getting to altitude quickly.

"On most takeoffs at most airports it is simply an internal need, an indoctrinated obsession, with getting to altitude quickly."

In all honesty the mixing of VFR and IFR departure requirements, especially between GA and Transport Category aircraft is very much apples and oranges with little similarity beyond "positive rate"

I fully agree with the need to better educate energy management within the GA community and your efforts are commendable. Departing IFR aircraft, especially into IMC conditions must meet a multitude of requirements, the published SID, noise abatement requirements, engine out requirements that often require going from a best rate to best angle of climb. Levelling off in ground effect to develop "zoom room" just isn't an option in my experience.

Yes, integration is not helpful between such different procedures.

Mapleflt wrote:"On most takeoffs at most airports it is simply an internal need, an indoctrinated obsession, with getting to altitude quickly."

In all honesty the mixing of VFR and IFR departure requirements, especially between GA and Transport Category aircraft is very much apples and oranges with little similarity beyond "positive rate"

I fully agree with the need to better educate energy management within the GA community and your efforts are commendable. Departing IFR aircraft, especially into IMC conditions must meet a multitude of requirements, the published SID, noise abatement requirements, engine out requirements that often require going from a best rate to best angle of climb. Levelling off in ground effect to develop "zoom room" just isn't an option in my experience.

That

How I operate launching VFR backcountry is VERY different launching into low IMC on a IFR flight.

Sure there is some very minor cross over, and I have taken off from lakes and picked up a IFR back into the hangar before, but that’s about as close as it gets, with maybe LLWS and a few other situations having a similar recovery IMC or VMC.

But that said, 121 is such a different world than 91 IFR, and thank god for that, I wouldn’t want the 200pax 121 operating like a 91 plane, and the versatility of small 91 planes would be destroyed if they had to deal with all the 121 stuff.



One size doesn’t fit all

The strategically standardized controllability of IFR, workable with military, 121, and 91, makes it the very safest place to be in all aviation. The apples and oranges come most into play, as Maplefit pointed out, between IFR and VFR. My concern is with the official disregard of the apples and oranges nature of high and low altitude. We won't overcome the high fatality rate around the airport until we accept the difference in safe energy reserve. The definition of maneuvering flight needs to change from unwise fooling around to flight at an altitude too low for recovery from stall. We need to indoctrinate pilots that when without zoom reserve in the form of altitude, they need zoom reserve in the form of airspeed.

contactflying wrote:The strategically standardized controllability of IFR, workable with military, 121, and 91, makes it the very safest place to be in all aviation. The apples and oranges come most into play, as Maplefit pointed out, between IFR and VFR. My concern is with the official disregard of the apples and oranges nature of high and low altitude. We won't overcome the high fatality rate around the airport until we accept the difference in safe energy reserve. The definition of maneuvering flight needs to change from unwise fooling around to flight at an altitude too low for recovery from stall. We need to indoctrinate pilots that when without zoom reserve in the form of altitude, they need zoom reserve in the form of airspeed.

You are correct. But there's better ways to indoctrinate then by using cockpit video IMO. Also, if it ends in fatalities I'd rather not watch them regardless of what I learn.

Understandable. Hopefully The Administrator and schools will teach airspeed until safe altitude rather than the opposite. And then the sad video will be the exception.

contactflying wrote:Understandable. Hopefully The Administrator and schools will teach airspeed until safe altitude rather than the opposite. And then the sad video will be the exception.

I’m confused, so when flying IFR, on takeoff I shouldn’t pitch for my TOGA bars, than transition to VY, than to enroute climb?

Also in many backcountry settings you want the plane fully configured no lower than 500AGL?

IFR takeoff: My technical level of experience stopped with the introduction of computers, which I have situational awareness problems with. I used a vacuum driven gyro AH in small airplanes and an AC electric driven gyro AH in Hueys. Both had a fixed airplane wings looking line with a gap and dot in the middle and an the gyro driven floating artificial horizon. We simply put the dot one dot or bar width above the artificial horizon on ITO. Airspeed Vy or faster as long as vertical speed was positive. My computer competent sons have convinced me computers fly IFR better than pilots, given good pilot management, so I accept your point.

VFR: The airplanes I flew were simple. I didn't use any airspeed indicator. The idea I'm trying to get across is to takeoff fast and land slow. When out there maneuvering at an altitude where a stall will be fatal, go fast. The only altitude guaranteed is airspeed. The only maneuverability guaranteed is airspeed, either kinetic or potential energy of the little altitude available traded for airspeed. Maintain zoom reserve airspeed, cruise airspeed as much as possible. Engine failure and ground rush: OK, use the small amount of potential energy of altitude available, point the nose down and trade that couple hundred feet altitude for airspeed to fly to the crash and crash as slow as possible while still flying (sorry, it's an art.) Energy management tun is fine w/o power if zoom reserve in airspeed has been maintained. We have to have airspeed to trade for altitude to set up the 1 g turn at any bank we choose and get to the ground target quickly. We have to get the wing level before touchdown. Bank (release back pressure) a lot and then less if a lot is not needed.

IFR: except takeoff and landing, all operations are high where potential energy of altitude (gravity) is always available.

VFR: Until leaving the pattern to go on up or to reduce airspeed to land safely, all operations are low enough for stall to be fatal (except short final to entering ground effect.)

Apples: we have zoom reserve in potential energy of altitude (we have enough altitude to trade altitude for airspeed sufficient to successfully recover from inadvertent engine failure or stall. High altitude orientation/indoctrination is fine.

Oranges: we do not have zoom reserve in potential energy of altitude sufficient to successfully recover from stall. Low altitude orientation/indoctrination is necessary to fly safely. This is the part that is missing in flight training.

High altitude orientation/indoctrination is responsible for the actual reason for all fatal stalls: the pilot pulled back on the stick and slowed the airplane to the point that a pitch attitude high enough to just cause lift gave way when he slowed just a bit more. Angle of bank affects this and is covered in the training. Keeping zoom reserve in the form of airspeed when too low to recover from stall is not covered properly...not indoctrinated well...It is a probable cause link in every fatal stall. There is a huge hole in the how to not stall when low training. Energy management for safe turns is simply not taught.

He didn't die because he was too low. He died because he pulled back on the stick when too slow to maneuver safely.