3 ms·

Literally never (former flight instructor). I have no idea how to operate a parachute. Not required knowledge! Occasionally a student pilot will inadvertently

by cmurf 5y ago

Literally never (former flight instructor). I have no idea how to operate a parachute. Not required knowledge! Occasionally a student pilot will inadvertently get into stall/spin (only allowed at a proper altitude) during stall training. The value of the student getting into the stall spin, and flight instructor calmly saying "what are you going to do?" is way higher than a parachute. Low altitude stall/spins are essentially not recoverable (in time) and you die. A parachute won't help you, you're not getting out of the plane soon enough. And a parachute as a fallback for proper stall/spin recovery technique to me is idiotic. Don't get in a stall spin low to the ground, and if you have the altitude you recover. Either you can't parachute out or you don't need to. That's the bottom line. Further, my confidence getting out of the plane with a parachute on is essentially zero. Whereas I know I can recover from a stall/spin. In fact, normally trimmed, most planes have positive static and dynamic stability, and will recover from a stall spin on their own if you just relax back pressure on the yoke. Which I'd have to do to parachute away from the plane. So hilariously, by jumping from the plane, the plane has a very good chance of recovering on its own, obviating the need to jump. Now for aerobatics training, it's different because plausibly you could stress the airplane enough to break it. At which point it might be uncontrollable enough you'd need to parachute out to survive. And flight over hazardous terrain is another plausible scenario although I'd argue that's just plain bad flight planning. WTF are you doing planning a flight where you can't glide to a road? I've done quite a lot of mountain flying and it's not difficult to plane this, at least in the lower 48. In Alaska and Canada, I'm sure there's a bit of a chuckle the idea of being in gliding distance of a road or some flat enough surface. But for the other 95% of flights going on, you're not considering a parachute. No. I've never worn one.

cardiffspaceman 5y ago
> *I'm sure there's a bit of a chuckle the idea of being in gliding distance of a road or some flat enough surface* So I just saw a video on YouTube which analyzed an incident of a plane outbound from Aspen which was flown into the ground. I'm sure if the terrain were about 6000 ft lower it would not have been considered hazardous. They simply failed to get high enough to go over the pass, and when they tried to turn around and give up they hit the ground. So the point is, they couldn't fly under power safely back to the airport, gliding wasn't a factor. https://youtu.be/8PBUVMCbmFQ https://youtu.be/8PBUVMCbmFQ
- cmurf 5y ago
  I just watched the video. AOPA puts out great stuff. Everything they say here is spot on. It's not simple failure to get high enough. That was not the fatal mistake. It's multiple mistakes, the accumulation of which results in no more choices. Poor flight planning, possibly an inhibition of an ATP to ask "lower ranked" local pilots about various routes, and waiting too long to abort. They lacked an abort plan. They could not have been asking "what do I do right now if the powerplant fails?" Because they not only accepted going passed the point of managing a powerplant failure, to the point where they had no options even with a fully operating powerplant. There was nothing wrong with that airplane. It was all errors in judgement that lead to no choice but a crash. Having flown in and out of Aspen many times myself, I have never used Independence pass. I've opted for the down valley northwest route for climb out, then north, and finally east to Corona/Rollins pass. Many choices before, during, and after pass crossing. A local pilot would have given alternatives to Independence, and their reasoning. A local flight instructor would have reminded them about density altitude, leaning, and even the option of not taking off fully fueled in order to improve climb performance, and fully fuel on the other side of the mountain range instead. Colorado sees this same lack of awareness of the effects of altitude with hikers all the time too. Folks from New York and Florida and California, regularly climb 14ers in fall and unwittingly get stuck in snow storms while Denver is clear as a bell, having no imagination at all for treachery. And their families are appalled when the search and rescue is called off because it's even too treacherous for S&R operations. Happens every year.
- cmurf 5y ago
  The mantra of mountain flying, "altitude is your friend". You can't fight physics. Normally aspirated planes are seriously underpowered at high altitude. It's shocking. And they don't have much excess power to start with. This pilot made a fatal mistake much earlier than the actual accident by not becoming deeply uncomfortable at the low altitude perniciously taking away all options. He assumed the rate of climb would get them over the pass. A small tailwind makes this even worse as it reduces the time you gave for climb. Every time I fly in the mountains I see planes well below my altitude, thousands of feet. I've slowly build up a store of power and thus choices, including more time to troubleshoot, more time to announce position which is a line of sight transmission.
userbinator 5y ago
So hilariously, by jumping from the plane, the plane has a very good chance of recovering on its own, obviating the need to jump That reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber

by cmurf 5y ago

cardiffspaceman 5y ago

> *I'm sure there's a bit of a chuckle the idea of being in gliding distance of a road or some flat enough surface* So I just saw a video on YouTube which analyzed an incident of a plane outbound from Aspen which was flown into the ground. I'm sure if the terrain were about 6000 ft lower it would not have been considered hazardous. They simply failed to get high enough to go over the pass, and when they tried to turn around and give up they hit the ground. So the point is, they couldn't fly under power safely back to the airport, gliding wasn't a factor. https://youtu.be/8PBUVMCbmFQ https://youtu.be/8PBUVMCbmFQ

cmurf 5y ago
I just watched the video. AOPA puts out great stuff. Everything they say here is spot on. It's not simple failure to get high enough. That was not the fatal mistake. It's multiple mistakes, the accumulation of which results in no more choices. Poor flight planning, possibly an inhibition of an ATP to ask "lower ranked" local pilots about various routes, and waiting too long to abort. They lacked an abort plan. They could not have been asking "what do I do right now if the powerplant fails?" Because they not only accepted going passed the point of managing a powerplant failure, to the point where they had no options even with a fully operating powerplant. There was nothing wrong with that airplane. It was all errors in judgement that lead to no choice but a crash. Having flown in and out of Aspen many times myself, I have never used Independence pass. I've opted for the down valley northwest route for climb out, then north, and finally east to Corona/Rollins pass. Many choices before, during, and after pass crossing. A local pilot would have given alternatives to Independence, and their reasoning. A local flight instructor would have reminded them about density altitude, leaning, and even the option of not taking off fully fueled in order to improve climb performance, and fully fuel on the other side of the mountain range instead. Colorado sees this same lack of awareness of the effects of altitude with hikers all the time too. Folks from New York and Florida and California, regularly climb 14ers in fall and unwittingly get stuck in snow storms while Denver is clear as a bell, having no imagination at all for treachery. And their families are appalled when the search and rescue is called off because it's even too treacherous for S&R operations. Happens every year.
cmurf 5y ago
The mantra of mountain flying, "altitude is your friend". You can't fight physics. Normally aspirated planes are seriously underpowered at high altitude. It's shocking. And they don't have much excess power to start with. This pilot made a fatal mistake much earlier than the actual accident by not becoming deeply uncomfortable at the low altitude perniciously taking away all options. He assumed the rate of climb would get them over the pass. A small tailwind makes this even worse as it reduces the time you gave for climb. Every time I fly in the mountains I see planes well below my altitude, thousands of feet. I've slowly build up a store of power and thus choices, including more time to troubleshoot, more time to announce position which is a line of sight transmission.

userbinator 5y ago

So hilariously, by jumping from the plane, the plane has a very good chance of recovering on its own, obviating the need to jump That reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber