Flight Training - November/December 2024 - 8

UNUSUAL ATTITUDE BY DAVE HIRSCHMAN
" I know it's an infinitesimal chance, "
he said. " But an infinitesimal chance is
still a chance. "
Editor at Large DAVE HIRSCHMAN
can find rational arguments for his
aviation choices, " But truthfully, I
fly the way I prefer to fly and find
justifications for it later. Pilots are
creatures of habit more than logic. "
dave.hirschman@aopa.org
THE MR. SPOCK ACT
Pilots like to pretend we're logical, fact-based people. Don't be
tricked by the facade.
As a group, we're much closer to the emotional Capt. Kirk than the cool-headed Mr.
Spock. Each of us comes with certain predispositions that reveal themselves in the ways
we fly and the aspects of aviation that draw us in, and especially the things that repel us.
Personally, I'm happy flying aerobatics and maneuvering aggressively even though I
know from painful experience how unforgiving those pursuits can be. I also like flying in
the clouds and making instrument approaches to published minimums, and I'll confess
to having done some long-distance flights over water in single-engine airplanes.
Before you pigeonhole me as a wild risk taker, consider this: My risk tolerance falls to
almost zero when my wife and/or kids, or other nonpilot passengers, get in an airplane
with me. Then, I become the picture of caution. Flying with family in potential icing conditions,
at night in single-engine airplanes, or over mountains in less-than-good weather
is a nonstarter. I just won't do it, even though, intellectually, I know the odds of an engine
failure or other catastrophic mechanical issue in these situations is far less than smacking
the ground during a solo acro flight. My illogic is in keeping with other pilots, however.
I recently flew with a highly experienced backcountry flier who abhors aerobatics
( " Extremely nauseating, and not very interesting " ). Yet he happily flies his single-engine
airplane long distances over remote, mountainous terrain, in winter, where the odds
of surviving a forced landing seem, to me at least, incredibly slim. Strangely, however,
this supremely confident pilot's sense of invincibility ends at the water's edge. During a
photo flight near the California coast, he refused to make the 26-mile jaunt to Catalina
Island, even though the photography conditions there promised to be excellent.
" No way, " he said on our air-to-air radio frequency. " Going in the ocean takes you
from the very top of the food chain to the very bottom. There are some big, hungry fish
in that water, and I absolutely refuse to be their dinner. "
Another casualty of too much Shark Week? Pointing out that the airplane doesn't
know or care whether it's flying over land or water or comparing the relative benefits of
ditching versus a forced landing in an urban area did no good. To this pilot, any chance
of being forced down at sea was too much-and he adamantly refused to consider it.
8
FLIGHT TRAINING NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2024
A chief pilot at a large corporate
flight department recently justified
his company's purchase of a twinengine
Beechcraft King Air over
a single-engine Pilatus PC-12 in
similarly fatalistic terms. Even
though single-engine turboprops
have an exemplary safety record,
and the operating and maintenance
costs of a multiengine airplane are
higher, he and his company's owners
refused to consider buying any
airplane with just one engine-even
a highly reliable turbine engine.
" Our accountant made it very clear
that the King Air costs more to fly and
maintain-and no one in our group
questions that, " he said. " The bottom
line for us is that a King Air will still
climb after an engine failure, and that's
something no single-engine turboprop
can do. " Case closed.
My brother Harry is a partner in a
Russian aerobatic airplane, a Yak 50, that
has retractable landing gear. It looks cool
and distinctive-but retractable gear adds
weight, increases maintenance costs,
raises insurance premiums, and, frankly,
doesn't increase performance all that
much for an airplane designed to spend
most of its life in the tight confines of a
1,000-meter aerobatic box. The rest of
the competitive aerobatic world long ago
went to fixed-gear airplanes. But Harry
and his partners aren't swayed.
" Yeah, I get all those arguments
and they're well taken, " he said. " But
I just like the sound of the landing
gear clicking into the uplocks. I like
the way the airplane feels when it
accelerates as the gear retracts. I
even like moving the gear handle up
and down after takeoff and before
landing. It just feels right to me. "
Aviation culture has long followed the
lead of laconic military test pilots who
strive to gather as much hard data as they
can, and they rely on it to make informed
aeronautical decisions-nothing wrong
with that. But let's also be honest and
recognize that our own predispositions
play a far bigger role in how, what, and
where we fly than we let on. And those
considerations are just as real, and at
least as important, as any amount of hard,
analytical data. FT

Flight Training - November/December 2024

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