I hope this isn't too soon.

I'm not really sure how to write what I am feeling so please bear with me.

I've been thinking about my hobby flying career for some time now; really since the midair at JC in 2013. I've always known that if you get involved with any activity that has significant risk then you'll lose friends while doing that activity. Now that I'm a father things are different, my kids depend on my to keep them safe and to come home after going out with my buddies. I'm not saying we should just sit at home and do nothing. I take my kids rock climbing, snowmobiling, river jet boating, whitewater rafting and I'm currently looking for a two person whitewater kayak that I can put my 4y/o in with me. There is just something about flying that for the past few years has felt risky when I consider my responsibilities as a dad. I've had a passion for aviation since I was really young and I don't want to lose that.

How do you mitigate the risk when backcountry flying with your family? You can't mitigate it all so how do you deal with the remaining risk? How do you hang on to your passion for aviation in the midst of friends getting in accidents? At what point do you turn in your wings?

There is so much more I want to say but at this moment I can't figure out how.

EDIT: This has been something I've been wanting to talk about for a long time. With two fiends in accidents the same week I guess it just pushed me over the top. Sorry the timing is bad.

Thanks for bringing this up, Whee.

This is obviously something that I think about a lot, especially these past few years. That JC mid-air in particular brought me within inches of giving up flying. I was in a deep funk for months.

One thing I've figured out as a parent is that one of your responsibilities toward your kids is to do what makes you happy. You don't want your kids to grow up with the guilt of (in their minds) causing you to sacrifice something you love.

That said, I've become more clear about my priorities when it comes to flying. I fly because I love it, and because it allows our family to experience things we wouldn't otherwise be able to. Any flight I make now has to fulfill one or both of those priorities. If it doesn't reach that level, I'll stay on the ground.

It's a challenge, most of us have thought about it. To me though, the fact that it concerns you shows that you are naturally risk assessing. That's a good thing, put it to use.

For me the big three are: Maintenance (sometimes 6 months before), Instruction quality and experience, decision making with your head not your ego. Totally my opinion, not gospel.

Full disclosure : I'm a low time pilot with well south of 1000 TT, but mostly all TW time in a Pacer, Ag wagon, Cessna 180/185, and a smattering of Supercub/Decathlon time. The TW time is the most insignificant part of my flying resume. For me the most important is that I learned to fly at 9000' of DA at near gross. My instructor was a guy that was a retired AF test pilot that only instructed because he had a passion for it. I was lucky.

For the main three points above, I'll go first to last.

1) Maintenance, Think about it like health care. It pays to be preventive in nature and not run to failure. Get a second opinion a couple of times before a big trip. I hate seeing threads on the interweb entitled "how much do you pay for an annual?" I think those folks are studying for the wrong test.

2) Instruction: Get relevant instruction (obviously) but also challenge yourself. If you are not sweating and mentally maxed out after an hour and a half of instruction.....there are probably one of two issues. First is that your instructor might not have much to offer, or he is not challenging you enough. There is a reason that the typical Air Force training flight is 1.1 hours. Those guys are also shooting precision approaches in jets/turboprops in under 150 hours TT. They don't accomplish that by sight seeing or shooting the bull. Finally on the instruction, get cross functional training. Getting slow and knowing where the airplane is going to quit flying in a turn is a handy thing to not just know, but be "GOOD" at it. Aerobatics will help you with that.

3) Use your head, limit your distractions. If that means going to Johnson creek the first time solo without 100 planes at the strip, then so be it. Manage your ego and your time. To me, one of the biggest pieces of "safety equipment" is in my wallet. My credit card allows me to stay that extra night in a hotel, wait an extra day to blast off, or make an extra stop. It's a life saver.

Lastly, what one guy defines as backcountry is something else entirely to someone else. For a married guy with a family, low experience, in an amateur maintained airplane.....Johnson creek, not at a fly in, feels just about right (for me).

Bill

Numerous people have said that God has a plan. Do you believe it or not? I know a retired farmer, former Cherokee pilot, that has high blood pressure. He had a younger brother that was walking from the barn to the house years ago and was struck by lightning and died.

Faith in God. Living for the moment (not the past or the "what if" in the future). A good life insurance policy. Proficiency. Competence. A risk benefit assessment. Following Godly conviction to find peace and contentment. With true contentment it doesn't matter if I'm flying or not because I'm where I'm suppose to be, doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

That's how I try to do it. It's easier saying it than it is doing it.

CW

I know how ya feel. I'm sure most fathers have felt a degree of this at some time or another. I know I have. I struggled with it a lot going into Ag aviation. Still so at times work wise.
When my first was born I became mortal the instant I saw her. Before that nothing could kill me. The older you get the more you think about responsibilities. But don't live trying not to die.
Everyone of those things you mentioned doing kills people every year. Along with cars, bath tubs, and chicken bones.
I would assume you still associate with all of those.
There's definitely a different mind set and a greater amount of caution taken when you are a family man. I severely try to up that when they're on board. My mind is consumed with they're safety. I use every extra margin I can think of.
That's all you can do. Do your best. Use your head. And don't live scared. It's in Gods hands anyways. I rest in that. When he wants you there's nothing you can do to stop it.
These feelings always intensify when someone close to you has an accident of course as well. Hang in there buddy.

There's a story I heard once a long time ago. I'm sure I'll botch it but you may get the idea. I'll have to change the times and towns to fit my narrow historical and geographical knowledge base.

Many years ago a man was going about some business in the town of Austin.
Rounding the corner he saw the angel of death amongst the crowd. The reaper turned, pointed, and looked at him with a look that chilled him to the core.
The man was frightened and turned and ran as fast as he could to a friends house.
He explained what had happened and asked to borrow his friends horse as he was getting out of there as quickly as possible.
He left everything and headed towards El Paso.
Later that evening the mans friend saw the angel of death as well. Discovering it was not his time he asked the reaper,
"Why did you scare my friend as you did earlier". He replied. " I wasn't trying to scare him. I was just shocked to see him here since I have an appointment with him in El Paso in 3 days".

Poor writing, but you get the idea.

This is an issue I've lived with all of my life. My Daddy died when I was 4 1/2 years old, in April 1948, when he burrowed into the ground in a P-51 north of Hillsdale, WY. He had just turned 29 years old. I remember that day, as if it were yesterday--even 67 years later. That event has affected me throughout my life.

But still I wanted to learn to fly. Life and finances prevented that until November 1972, and my first lesson was just after I turned 29 years old. I was extremely nervous, and I confessed that to my first instructor. He understood, and my first lesson was a wonderful experience, at night in the Anchorage area. The rest of my initial training was also a great experience, with a series of adventures which I'll always remember.

Over the years, I've had some harrowing experiences which temporarily gave me pause--an emergency engine glitch in the clouds and later a high speed runway excursion with the Mooney, and a total engine failure in my newly purchased airplane 11+ years ago resulting in landing in a field. The shear cost of flying, especially airplane ownership, has been an issue many times over the years. Those all gave me reason to rethink whether flying was all that important, from time to time.

And yet, although I only fly about once a week most weeks, sometimes less, sometimes more, I love it. As I've gotten older, it's become more valuable to me--I spend a lot of time each year maintaining my Class II SI. There's always something new. For instance, although I've flown at high elevations all of my aviation life and instructed and did single engine charter out of Laramie, it was only about 6 years ago that I started flying into the mountains instead of over them and actually landing at strips in the mountains--and I found that to be a new and valuable experience, as well as a whole lot of fun.

Yes, there's risk, and some of that risk can't be eliminated. It can be minimized by flying good equipment that is maintained well, staying proficient, getting instruction when proficiency lags, by having "safety" as the overall umbrella over everything that is done. On a somewhat macabre note, it helps to keep the life insurance premiums paid!

But everyone has to make those decisions for themselves. Sometimes taking a break for weeks, months, or even years makes sense; for others, perhaps dropping out of aviation altogether is the best decision. And for others, perhaps some counseling which helps one to look inward is appropriate.

Cary

I think about and wrestle with the same issues. I don't force my aviation hobby on my family and I do everything I can to make sure I come home to them at the end of the day.

My brother is a pilot and warned me early on that this hobby will take people who are your friends. But so has climbing, kayaking and biking as well.

You gotta make sure you do your livin' while you're still alive.

Fellow father here. Not really an easy thing to answer or think about, but every time I go flying, when my wife says "have a safe flight" I reply that I will fly like my life depends on it. It's kind of a half-joke because I say it so often but knowing there is a family at home that depends on me certainly influences my decisions on what level of risk I take.

There is a line somewhere between being selfish and not following your passion and we all have to figure out where our line is... and it can move around as we all know. We do our best and have faith in the rest, and that's about all we can do.

whee wrote:I take my kids rock climbing, snowmobiling, river jet boating, whitewater rafting and I'm currently looking for a two person whitewater kayak that I can put my 4y/o in with me.

soyAnarchisto wrote:My brother is a pilot and warned me early on that this hobby will take people who are your friends. But so has climbing, kayaking and biking as well.

To quit flying because of the hazards involved and keep doing things like these is irrational (and I mean that in a purely objective sense, not making a value statement). These things all have about the same level of risk, so to quit flying to mitigate risk really means that you should quit doing all those things.

And that might be a reasonable thing to do.

I don't subscribe to some of the comments made about aviation to the effect of "you're going to go at some point". You are far less likely to die driving a car. You are infinitely less likely to die being struck by lightning.

If you quit flying (and the other examples above), your odds of surviving injury free go up by something like a factor of ten.

So it's entirely reasonable to quit flying, snowmobiling, etc to reduce risk, and no one should judge you if that ends up being your decision. It's also entirely reasonable to make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. Plane crashes are just more spectacular than snowmobiling accidents, but both are risky and quitting one but keeping the other *might* say more about visceral fears than real risk mitigation.

The thing is, that making rational decisions should extend beyond this. Obesity kills far more people than aviation, perhaps as many as one in five people. Yet I know tons of overweight pilots who wouldn't dare take off without a careful preflight. Two of those pilots were friends in my former flying club and obesity took them out. In 50+ years (and, geez, what must be thousands of members), that club hasn't has a single fatal accident, but members and former members die regularly from not taking care of themselves physically. I just don't understand the overweight people who quit (or don't take up) flying for safety reasons.

Anyway, that's my spin. Get some exercise, eat a salad, keep your weight under control and enjoy flying, snowmobiling, etc...

I think it's something most of us think about from time to time. I wrestle with the idea a bit, but then again, I jumped out of planes professionally for almost 2 decades. Now with my kids growing up, I still think about it and I mitigate risk the best I can, accept there is risk, and know my family is happy if I'm happy. I don't do the crazy stuff I used to when jumping, but that doesn't mean I quit. As I finish getting the Stinson together this year and flying more often, I'm sure I'll think about it more....as far as how I fly.

I have no doubt that there are many among us that can easily relate to your questions and emotions. My story goes way back to when I was a young man with a son who was about 5 or 6. At the time I was enjoying the world of rotary wing flight, and with a young farmer’s budget was flying in experimental rotorcraft that have a somewhat bad reputation for the safety statistics. I did what I could to approach my hobby in a safe manner and sought out expert instruction as best I could. A group of us from a regional area had made friends and were meeting up several times a year to fly together. I bonded with a guy that lived in Louisiana and was my age, he had a couple of young sons around the age of my own. He and I had decided to purchase some new start of the art engines and we raced to see which one would be flying the new power plant the first of the two. He beat me by a few days and was having cooling issues that limited him to a short flight down the runway, landing at the end. Once mine was running, it suffered the same issue. The manufacturer asked him to send his engine back so that could take a look at it, and asked me to wait patiently. I will never forget talking to him that last time as he called excited to have the engine back on and the cooling issue solved. The last word to me was “I am going flying tomorrow and will call you when I get in”. I never heard from him, and my gut knew that something was wrong. I was so tempted to call his house, but for some reason just couldn’t do it. A week later, I called the engine company and they told me they would fix my engine, but I was not to do what Dave had done. He hit a power line on approach to his home flying field and died in the crash. I was totally devastated and after getting my machine up and running just didn’t have the steam to go fly any more. After struggling with it for about a year, I sold out and walked away.

It was nearly 20 years before I was able to get back in the cockpit; I purchased an old worn PA-12 and learned to fly with the little wheel on the back. The pull of aviation was strong but it took me a long time to get back on that horse. I finally decided “if not now, when?” Of course I am older now; my son is 37 so I suppose that is a factor too. I wish I had healed up sooner, but at least I am healed. There is risk in everything that we do. I drive a 75 mile commute 5 days a week. I have no doubt about the hazards of driving and try to do my best to stay safe and secure. Flying is the same way to me and I approach it with a desire to do better every day and be on top of my game.

Good luck to you finding the path that you will take. You are managing your risk well by thinking about and asking these questions. Personally though, I simply choose to not hide from risk but to manage it as best I can and accept what happens after that.

Mike

I tend to think about this topic with respect to not flying enough. If I choose to fly, I fly as much as I reasonably can for proficiency, for staying attuned to the mechanical condition of my equipment, and for keeping my pilot head screwed on.
Somebody said when you become a parent, you go from being a ship at sea, to being the harbor on the shore. True words.
My neighbor on one side died in a plane crash. My neighbor on the other side was eaten by a grizzly. Never miss a chance to kiss your family and tell 'em you love em, regardless of whether or not you choose to fly.

I'm not a father, so my reflections on this subject might well change if ever I am blessed with some young'uns.

For whatever reason, I have been attracted to a handful of what might be considered "adventure sports." Backcountry skiing was a short-lived exception. My avalanche instructor was one of five highly experienced instructors killed in an avalanche during an outing staged to promote backcountry safety (of all things) a couple of years ago. I decided the the ever-present bugaboo of avalanche in Colorado's notoriously unstable snowpack was a risk that I couldn't adequately analyze and mitigate, so I flatly avoid avalanche terrain or ski in-bounds. I continue to participate in technical diving, despite serious injuries and fatalities occurring in that community. In that setting I regard the combination of quality equipment, training, and proficiency/experience to be as potent a risk mitigant as it is in aviation. Nonetheless, every time I strap myself into my diving rig or into my airplane, I have an acute sense that the series of decisions that I make over the next hour (or so) will be life-and-death. I'm a little scared at the outset of every dive/flight, and I try to channel that fear into mental focus on the tasks at hand and to drive sound judgement. Moreover, I try to call upon this same sense of responsibility and awareness of the catastrophic consequences of mistakes when doing "everyday" things most might consider mundane: when I start the engine in my vehicle to drive somewhere; when I cross a busy street; when I pull out a ladder to replace a light bulb; when I use my table saw. In some ways, by confronting danger and responsibility in the cockpit I believe that I hone my ability to recognize hazards elsewhere and avoid the complacency that can end up costing you everything.

I witnessed an interesting transformation in my older brother as he took up hang gliding, joined a volunteer fire department, and then became a father to two beautiful children (in that order). I know that his wife worries about his hang gliding and the middle-of-the-night calls to car accidents and structure fires. Even though participation in those activities involves a spectrum of inherent risks, my brother went from the sort of person who drives 10-over the speed limit to one who drives 10-under. Being first on-scene to numerous accidents clearly gave him a good understanding of kinetic energy. He goes out of his way to tell me and my younger brother when lives have been senselessly lost on the highway to reinforce the lesson that the world outside our front doors is perilous. His stories echo in my head when I'm on the highway.

So, I fly, dive, hike, bike, drive, raft, climb, camp, shoot, and boat. And, I'm a little scared the whole time.

My father was a several thousand-hour backcountry pilot by the time I was born. Well before I was 10 years old, he gave it all up.

He never told us what happened. One day he was flying alone in the Cessna 185F somewhere in the mountains, and we figure he had a true life or death close-call. He and the plane came home again to the little backcountry airstrip where we lived, totally unscratched on the outside, but his attitude was forever changed inside... He never really flew as PIC again, other than a handful of times as favours to friends.

He passed on years ago, but I know he reflected on the same things you are discussing Jon, and made the decision then and there. He was the sole provider for our family of five.

Years later, when I was in my 20's, I used to take him flying. I could tell he wished he never let his licence and medical lapse. But I don't know if he ever regretted his decision.

I'll become a father in the next few days, so let's wait and see if my perceptions change....

Don't give up on that Bearhawk, Jon!

whee wrote:How do you mitigate the risk when backcountry flying with your family? You can't mitigate it all so how do you deal with the remaining risk? How do you hang on to your passion for aviation in the midst of friends getting in accidents? At what point do you turn in your wings?

1st Question: 2 sets of "minimums". 1 with wife on board and another without. I figure my wife and boys will be OK without me, but it would be damned hard on them to lose both.

2. Confidence that you are doing your best and further confidence to know where your limitations lie as well as those of your equipment. With experience comes recognition of what feels right that day and what doesn't.

3. Remember them fondly and be glad it wasn't you. That seems harsh, no doubt.

4. The old timers I know hang it up when they start getting complacent and forgetful. That happens early on for some, others go into their 80's.

Hope that helps. Don't give up your dream.

I know what you're feeling. I had to hang up dirt bikes for no reason other than I was riding scared. I'd had a run of wins when I was younger and could still out ride 90% of the crowd, but just couldn't shake the feeling that I was going to have a bad spill. I quit a 30 year passion cold turkey and have only had a few passing twinges of regret. It's hard to explain, but the last year I faked it for my riding buddies and had recurring nightmares about bone crushing get offs.

1st Question: 2 sets of "minimums". 1 with wife on board and another without. I figure my wife and boys will be OK without me, but it would be damned hard on them to lose both.

2. Confidence that you are doing your best and further confidence to know where your limitations lie as well as those of your equipment. With experience comes recognition of what feels right that day and what doesn't.

3. Remember them fondly and be glad it wasn't you. That seems harsh, no doubt.

4. The old timers I know hang it up when they start getting complacent and forgetful. That happens early on for some, others go into their 80's.

Hope that helps. Don't give up your dream.

Very well said. To your third point I would also add, "study "their" mistakes and learn everything you can from them. The lessons written in blood are the most likely to save your life."

Additionally I would add,

5. Buy the best safety gear you can afford.

6. Have a life insurance policy.

In the end, the decision to fly is very personal. Each individual is working with a unique set of variables that he or she must weigh and there's no shame in walking away if one day you decide that the juice is no longer worth the squeeze.

Almost forgot,

7. Build a Bearhawk or buy a Maule. (You already nailed that one)

Whee,

I don't have anything of substance to add except to say thank you for bringing this up. I've experienced the same struggles and asked myself the same question(s).

I had the conversation with my wife and we both decided that I would continue to train for the worst and keep the airplane in perfect shape. With the risk mitigated as much as we could, the risk was worth the unforgettable adventures we've had. Can't tell you I haven't questioned that in the last couple days.

Brett