The military and some of the corporate jet manufacturers sometimes pause for a day or two to review procedures and behaviors with the goal of reducing accidents and incidents. If it works for them it might work for us, too.

For the last several years the East Tennessee Fly-In has been held at Elizabethton, TN (OA9), in the Appalachian foothills. There are all kinds of public and private strips located in the surrounding mountains. The airport was formerly used as the training headquarters for the Moody Bible Institute, and has terrific classroom facilities. In short, the Fly-In would be a perfect time and place for hosting a safety stand-down focused on back country operations, off airport operations, and mountain flying.

We have polled a number of safety specialists and have received a very positive response, but before finalizing plans we want to gage your interests with this survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Safety_Stand_Down_Survey. If you are interested in flying more safely please take the survey and share your thoughts.

FYI, the East Tennessee Fly-In is scheduled for October 8 - 10, and we are considering starting the stand-down on the afternoon of Thursday, October 7th. These dates typically coincide with very good fall colors. Weather this time of year is usually sunny and 70F during the day, and clear and 50F at night. In years past pilots have come from as far away as Northern California and Maine.

If you take the survey and later have additional thoughts or recommendations to share please PM me.

This sounds like a great idea.

Traveling across the country ( I live in the upper left hand corner of the 48 ) is not going to happen but keep us informed on how it goes and maybe something like this could be organized in the West.

TD

Civil Air Patrol has what is called a "safety down day." I think it's a Joke. That organization which I belong to (hanging by my fingernails) is doing everything they can to complicate flying and reduce the profiency of their pilots. My words here might be a little bold but after seeing a local CAP pilot the other day spend 5 hours on the computer to get a flight release opened and closed, I just shudder at the inefficientcy and watch the best of our pilots walk away from an organization that used to fly L19 Bird-dogs and Mentors. What ever happend to making a phone call to a local FRO and getting the authorization in person on the phone? We have had a rash of damaged aircraft and incidents in the past several years. I attribute most of it to people flying less. Safety Down Day??? Might work for some organizations but in our case I believe it is a false security.... How can a safety down day help pilots that log 5/12/or 20 hours a year?? Just my opinion..

I spent 6 years in the Navy, 4 1/2 of them on an aircraft carrier. Safety stand-down days were typically held after a major accident, after a rash of small "incidents", or usually after a LOT of days of non-stop flight ops. In many ways the "safety" stand-down was usually nothing more than a day of rest for the flight deck and air crews.

Speedo, I think it's a good idea

Tim

edleg wrote:....after a major accident, after a rash of small "incidents", or usually after a LOT of days of non-stop flight ops. In many ways the "safety" stand-down was usually nothing more than a day of rest for the flight deck and air crews.

I've been through a bunch; it was exactly as Edleg says.

Stopping to remind crews about safety can't hurt; however, sometimes it was treated scornfully as a bad joke by the experienced people, because the so-called "safety" guys ran around spouting speeches about operations, and pilots, they knew nothing about. In some cases, it was downright insulting to observe.

The intent is positive; not all standdowns had that result, though.

Participating in one right now. Stuck in Juneau, AK due to 1/4 mi. vis at home.

gb

Thanks for all your comments, both pro and con. I don't think we'll be able to fix the underlying problem of the pilot who only flies 20 hours a year, and I understand the skepticism from those of you who have endured stand-downs that didn't live up the the spirit of the concept.

The stand-down is motivated by several factors: we've observed unsafe flying, we've had close calls or have friends who've had them, and our fly-ins are getting bigger every year. Our hope is that by shining a light on several safety topics we can encourage folks to embrace safe behaviors. And if we all adopt safer behaviors we should see a reduction in accidents, and that should translate into fewer injuries or fatalities and lower insurance costs. Those are outcomes that benefit all of us, so that's why we're hoping to get a good response to the survey. We'll let you know if the survey tells us we should proceed with the idea.

In the mean time, keep sharing your comments, take the survey if you think you might want to participate, and send the link to your friends who might be interested.

Thanks,

Eric

The Army has a lot of safety stand-down days. It's probably a good idea in general, but it always works out to be a pain in my ass (ie. have to find more time to catch up on the missed work):)

Is that kind of like "why check the weather? we're going anyway." lol

Being up to date on all the latest information is great, but isn't that why most of us go through some sort of refresher training?
Yet another bureaucratic inspired day off seems like mostly a waste.
Let the safety officer, or equivalent, take the time to do the research then either include it in the regular refresher course, or if it is really critical pass along the information immediately. That is why God invented memo's.
I don't think I need to take a "day off" to sit in a meeting that should only last 10 minutes.

John,

I'm not sure if your response is directed at skellems' post above, or the original question about participation in a safety stand down. Just in case it's in response to the original posting, the survey responses show a high level of interest in hearing lessons learned from folks who have first hand experience operating off airport, in extreme environments, etc. There is also a strong interest in receiving backcountry flying instruction. One person asked for a significant FAA presence to provide clear interpretation of the rules that apply to off-airport and low-level operations

I'll summarize the survey results and post them here. Give me a day or so to collect everything.

I think people are getting bogged down by the title of this proposal, which I think is somewhat of a misuse of what originated as a military term. I'm not sure that what is being proposed here should really be called a "safety standdown", for several reasons:

1) The proposal includes some flying, including flight training. Safety stand downs are typically just that--NO flying.
2) This isn't intended to be a military or even quasi military or even "official" event, necessarily. The goal, as I understand it, is to offer pilots an opportunity to learn more about back country flying, about flying safely in the back country, and an opportunity to enhance their skills in that environment. And, to offer some social opportunities as well. Often times, we learn as much in personal interactions as in a classroom.

Oh, yeah, and these things can be a lot of fun, by the way.

So, I would call this something other than a safety stand down, but it really doesn't matter what you call it. Pay attention to the CONTENT of what the man is proposing, and respond to that, rather than a name.

I think it's a great idea, and I wish we had more of these kinds of programs throughout the country. If you've never participated in such an event, you don't know what you're missing. Lots of good information, some good flying, and especially good company.

Please offer your feedback on this proposal, and if you can, attend.

MTV

You want to improve safety in the backcountry. Organize a well run backcountry instruction. The ones I've been to had a very good classroom, survival and FLYING instruction. DON'T cut out the flying. Having a stand down for flying is rediculous. Pilots need to be taken out into the backcountry and shown proper proceedures. They need classroom time to be given the safety aspects of flying the backcountry. I think a standdown is a bad idea.

Another has been military guy here. Safety standdowns were always bad ju-ju. Any kind of "training day" title would be preferable.

I've never met a safety type who was a "yes" guy. It's always "no". They bigger event you have the more of a CYA attitude that will prevail. Getting the FAA involved may get you some answers, but you won't like them. They won't mean anything to any of the other FSDO's around the country anyway. Think about someone flatting a tire and going off the side of a runway at an event like this? Also like to point out the FAA "oversight" that went on here not too long ago. The risk/reward equation for a safety inspector to tell you anything other than "don't" will have them very uncomfortable. I used to be the straight laced type who wanted everything black and white. I'm now firmly in the grey area's are better camp.

I would like to be able to attend a training event to improve skills etc. but to be perfectly honest in todays environment I wouldn't attend a big event like that if you paid me to. Kinda sad really.

My personal safety stand downs are spent in the shop, fixing whatever I broke, waiting on the UPS and FEDEX drivers, checking my VISA balance, looking out the shop windows at the perfect flying conditions, kicking myself for a bad decision etc. Honestly, when contemplating a new off airport landing site, usually while airborne and orbiting it, I think of the above and it keeps me mostly making safe decisions.

Clearly "stand-down" has, shall we say, a particular cachet that doesn't register well. An event name like "Safety and Survival Training for Mountain and Backcountry Flying" might capture the concept better [cut me some slack, I'm an engineer, not an ad copy writer ]. Give me a day or so to pull together the survey results - your comments can help us tune the event.

By the way, we're definitely not looking at a monster event. The idea of dozens of planes blasting off in different directions doing who knows what is my idea of a cluster #@*%. My preliminary inquiries tell me that there are some nationally known backcountry and mountain flying instructors who would be interested in conducting their ground and flight training, and that there are some very experienced pilots, survival experts, and medical experts who would be interested in conducting group discussions and seminars. Every one of them has said "Keep it small." We plan to heed their advice!

Now you're talkin! And no problem on the slack, I really shouldn't be allowed out in the real world without supervision.

My comments were in general, not towards any one post. I'm all for training and learning from the misfortune of others. I just don't feel the need to add a stand down day on top of proper training and refresher courses.

I think this post is a perfect illustration why Safety Stand Down days don't work. They are boring, they don't hit the target, and it's looked at by the pilots as another check in the block..."crap, is it that time of the year again?"

Navy pilot for 17 years but let me pick on the Air Force for a minute since I worked with them for a year. The Air Force SSD is all about procedures and performance. The unit I was with expected their stand down day to essentially be a recap of "the book," or normal and emergency procedures. That's stuff that should be done daily or weekly. If they do it weekly then the SSD is a waste of time in the sense that the audience has the "oh crap" attitude.

We screw up our share of safety days and use them as a time to open the book too. But, the best days we've had were when they were broken up and each area of the squadron (maintenance, pilots, aircrew, etc) in the morning and each had a handful of recently reported incidents that generated discussions. In the afternoons we addressed the big safety picture and bring in special speakers (doctors, police, local utilities reps, park rangers). In the springtime we would discuss boating and outdoor safety. The summer we'd talk heat related injuries and OUI. Fall we'd talk about house heating and the dangers of the upcoming snow season. Winter/holidays would be OUI, burning down Christmas trees, carbon monoxide, snowmobiling, and cold weather injuries.

This works well in a squadron environment when we are all being paid to be there. We don't have to give up a day with the family or a vacation day from the job.

Tailor the safety day to your audience and organization. Make it work or don't do one, but my guess is that any organization can make it work. All you are doing is raising awareness to the things that can kill you and break your airplane. It can be an hour or two and it can be an entire day.

Also, make sure the presenters have credibility. Don't have the 50 hour pilot lead a discussion about fuel planning. Let him/her talk about the troubles they encountered while getting their private pilot license.

Here's the most important thing...the leadership has to wholeheartedly support it. If the boss orders it as just a check in the box then that's what it will be.