Hammer wrote:Y'all just need to develop a properly caustic and abrasive personality. I've been a pilot for almost 30 years and nobody's asked me to go fly with them yet...

Yeah but that's because you won't ditch your vacuum system.

colopilot wrote:

Hammer wrote:Y'all just need to develop a properly caustic and abrasive personality. I've been a pilot for almost 30 years and nobody's asked me to go fly with them yet...

Yeah but that's because you won't ditch your vacuum system.

Damn right I won't...the vacuum system is integral to the golf cart I fly to Radio Shack while wearing my aviation headset and epaulette's. Everyone knows I'm a sixteen-year-old poser...with Tourette Syndrome...so you can't make fun of me or you will go to hell. No joke...

I was taught a 3 stage process years ago in airline CRM. It goes something like this. When you see someone doing something you don't like, the first step is and inquiry.

"Seems like we are a bit low"

Or maybe "Would you consider this a congested area?"

The point is maybe they don't realize they are screwing up. A question like that gives them the opportunity to save face by recognizing the error themselves.

If that doesn't get the point across, second step is to appeal to their logic.

"Don't you think we should be higher over the super bowl?"

Last step is an ultimatum.

"You need to climb ASAP or I won't be flying with you again."

"Land the aircraft immediately or follow the rules or find another passenger"

All that being said, I've just flat out told people I won't go. People like to fly formation at fly-ins. I view this the same way. I LOVE flying formation and I've been lucky to have taught by some people who were pretty good at it. I'm very selective about who I do it with. IF I'm out with my dad, I'll tuck in 3' off his wing or vice versa and have no worries. On the other hand, I've been at fly-ins and said, "I don't know you OR your abilities so I won't fly that tight with you".

No need to be shy, just be honest. We've all seen guys at fly-ins that are an accident waiting to happen. If no one tells them, they may never learn. Some guys wreck 2-3 airplanes and still don't learn.

Hammer wrote:so you can't make fun of me or you will go to hell.

Meh, probably going there anyway. May as well make the journey a fun ride. Do you think the dark lord runs a vacuum backup? Asking for a friend.

On topic... I think most pilots like to share the experience with people, it's one of the best parts of flying. I don't think most want to be the one nobody will fly with, and may not realize what they're doing is scaring people. If they do know and don't care then you know you shouldn't be with them in an airplane, but I imagine some gentle yet non-vague persuasion is all it'll take for almost all cases.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say I doubt Hammer knows who the dark lord is so he probably doesn't care whether he runs a vac pump or not.

I see Aeropod's point but I like the more direct approach and would jump to step 3 whether I'm the passenger or the pilot.

whee wrote:I'm going to go out on a limb and say I doubt Hammer knows who the dark lord is so he probably doesn't care whether he runs a vac pump or not.

I see Aeropod's point but I like the more direct approach and would jump to step 3 whether I'm the passenger or the pilot.

Pretty much my view. I flew one time at about Moose horn height above the muskeg near Fairbanks with one of my wife's old boyfriends. Never again.

Better to be direct than dead.

I was in the back seat of a light commercial plane one time and the pilot was flying like a ham handed idiot, I reached up and gently tugged on the collar of his shirt and said "I am feeling sick, you fly real nice and smooth from now on or this will be my sick sack"

niente qui

“Y'all just need to develop a properly caustic and abrasive personality. I've been a pilot for almost 30 years and nobody's asked me to go fly with them yet...”

Yup.
Guilty of laughing out loud at that one.

shorton wrote:I was in the back seat of a light commercial plane one time and the pilot was flying like a ham handed idiot, I reached up and gently tugged on the collar of his shirt and said "I am feeling sick, you fly real nice and smooth from now on or this will be my sick sack"

He was probably just "bracketing" or constantly moving the controls like Contact promotes.

Luckily the only experience I have with this situation in the air has been at work. Everyone knows those guys that you wonder how they got so far being such terrible pilots/crew members. In those two or three cases where I had to fly with those folks, whether I was the assigned PC or not, if anything happened that I wasn’t happy with I asserted myself as the PC and took control of the flight. Easy to do with a work aircraft not under private ownership. Probably helped to that I was either senior in rank or senior in aeronautical experience to the pilot-in-question.

I rode a hopped-up side by side with a friend of mine’s dad a couple of months ago. He was highly skilled and capable, tearing up and down some trails in the woods and over jumps and whatnot but it scared the crap out of me. We must’ve been doing 50-60 on some narrow, windy trails in between the trees.

When we got back to his place I told him thanks for the ride but that was the last time I’d get on that thing with him. He had a little chuckle but hasn’t pressed the issue since and we’re still friends so it ended the situation well enough for me.

Drink milk every day and grow a strong spine!!
I tell the truth to my friends whether they like it or not and expect they do the same for me. If they are not my friend and don't like it, its ok because I do have lots of good friends that understand the truth. You may save someones life some day.
DENNY

G44 wrote:....He was probably just "bracketing" or constantly moving the controls like Contact promotes.

That's "dynamic proactive control movement" to you.

hotrod180 wrote:

G44 wrote:....He was probably just "bracketing" or constantly moving the controls like Contact promotes.

That's "dynamic proactive control movement" to you.

Uh huh

The good thing about the military, Cam, is that everyone is trained to high standards and can be expected to do an acceptable job. The bad thing is that some don't and highers do what pleases them.

We lost two students in Primary due to this problem. One was the nephew of the Governor of Puerto Rico and the other was my former stick buddy, also from PRARNG. The nephew was too much into himself to learn to fly and was given many additional rides after many pinks. They put my stick buddy with him in the only two student stick because others didn't want to fly with him. He got lost on every xc including the first night xc.

After his instructor took him gas to get back to Dempsey, he flew into the ground behind a police car on a traffic stop while following the instructor back.

Thank you all, for the serious post and the funny ones that made me laugh.

Cheers...Rob

I have a little bit of a life motto I try to live by. Do the right thing, not the nice thing.

If someone was scaring me, and I thought my life was in danger, the right thing is to tell them and get out of the situation. The nice thing would be to say nothing until we landed, and avoid them.

I've only be scared by another pilot once, and I was very clear with them what bothered me, and we established new ground rules, and all was well after that.

It hardly ever comes up, why the hell would I want to let someone else fly me in their plane?! Or are we talking formation flying? The last time I rode as a passenger was about 8 years ago, with a good friend from the ultralight days (and other then the time he took off from a beach in Baja with his tip rudders still tied back, was a good stick back then) in his Maule M-5. 4 hours throughout the day, down around the Page AZ area, he never did anything I didn't like. This was also the first time in years I flew in a side by side aircraft, and i couldn't believe the relative lack of viz compared to the tandem I'm used to, but I digress. Leaving my rear passenger seat in the hangar 99% of the time like I do, is one way i avoid putting another pilot in the position of saying he wouldn't want to fly with me. A whole different deal I imagine with you 4 seat fliers.