By IVY McIVER.
They say that pilots start out with an empty experience bucket and a bucket full of luck. The trick is to fill the experience bucket before your luck bucket is emptied.
Though one can make deposits into the experience account without making a withdrawal from the luck account, it would be foolish to think luck withdrawals will never be required.
Landing for the first time on a grass strip, kissing the tires on the Green Dot at Oshkosh for AirVenture, and your first solo are all flights that most definitely should go right into the experience bucket. Those are the flights pilots love to talk about!
The other flights that go into the experience bucket are precisely those flights that pilots don’t want to talk about. The flights where you land and think: I am so happy to be back on the ground.
As pilots, we hold ourselves to a certain level of precision. Penalty for failure is high and anything less than perfection can lead to harsh consequences, such as a bent airplane or worse.
Every pilot, however, has a story where luck played a part in a consequence-free outcome, perhaps a sense of narrow escape and relief, and an emphatic withdrawal from the luck bucket.
Pilots are an interesting breed. Because of this unattainable, yet required, level of absolute perfection, admitting mistakes is difficult. For every pilot who discusses his or her never again moment, there is another pilot insisting “that could never happen to me.”
The reality is it can and does “happen to me.” Regardless of level of experience, years of flying, number of aircraft in one’s logbook, careful flight planning, and attention to detail, sometimes bad stuff happens to good pilots. Perfection is impossible. We may be pilots, but we are also humans.
When it does — and it will — happen to you, there will be disbelief: How did I get myself into this? How could that have happened? And then a strong desire to never speak about it again, and concern that you have irrevocably damaged your pilot reputation.
Maybe it will be a small thing, easily concealed and written off as a learning experience to be tucked in the back of your mind. Should it be a more serious incident or accident of a more public nature, it’s hard not to want to crawl into a hole and go into hiding.
Every pilot has a story. When you do muster the courage to talk about your incident, accident, lapse in better judgment, or whatever caused the luck bucket withdrawal, the collective aviation community will invariably drop its tough exterior and rise up to envelop their fellow pilot with overwhelming support, revealing the vulnerability that is inherent in what we do.
Pilots whom you have held in the highest regard will not dismiss you as an unworthy pilot, but rather will embrace you as a pilot with a slightly more full experience bucket. Pilots will share that they too have been where you are.
To any pilot out there who has an untold story: I have been where you are. I was prepared, I was diligent, I researched the airport, I spoke to the airport manager about runway conditions, I reviewed the weather, and everything was going exactly right until it went horribly wrong. While my mistake did not result in injury, it did result in a bent airplane and a tremendous amount of embarrassment and shame.
I never wanted to tell the story, but when I did, my love for our aviation family and my level of admiration for my fellow pilots grew to epic proportions. I was told stories of prop strikes, ground loops, gear-up landings, and mid-air collisions. There was a story about putting a taildragger into a riverbank, one about landing a plane on amphibs in the water with the gear down and flipping it upside down, and one about taking out a taxi light as the pilot mistook the taxiway for the runway in low visibility and heavy snow.
The more I told my story, the more stories I heard. Eventually I realized that one more withdrawal from my luck bucket did not make me a bad pilot, just one with more experience.
When I sign off new students, I congratulate them and wish that they will encounter, recognize and solve many “mini-emergencies” in their career. This fills their experience bucket and, since we know that most major emergencies result as a chain of small ones, may help avoid a big one.
All this is so true. Never say it will not happen to me !
Amy …new pilot should be required to fill their luck buckets …
He is how:
Note
It is a hard requirement for our FASTA USA planned K6-12+ STEM SIM Cadet Wings Pilot programs …
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈[ Get Your Cadet Pilot STEM SIM WINGS ]>———\\>
A PILOTS LAST WORDS…
As CFII/ME ATP my last words to students after they pass their check ride and received their temporary pilot certificate:
The last thing I do – say when a student of mine gets his pilots certificate and is off to an enjoyable and safe flying career …
We shake hands, I say well done and
wish them good luck …then I ask for a FAVOR..
I say that I hope they never have an accident, but ask a big FAVOR!
that if they do have one to please make it an original one…
neil
Note: I have suggested this to the NTSB, the DOD, to the FAA, CAP, AOPA, EAA…SPS…
asked them to support a FAA requirement that any aircraft that any student or pilot checks out in – flies – they must by regulation review the accident, incident and mechanical failures of that aircraft once a year, but only those that year after the initial checkout/review …
WOULD this requirement help eliminated repeated accidents?
What do you think?
PLEASE Share your answer with us …
FASTA-USA Neil TEXT/CELL 813-784-4669
Well, there is a saying that luck is part of skill, Mr John
Great writing as always Ivy “Amy” McIver good luck with the new AKA ;^P
Remember John…”Luck Beats GOOD”
John Wesley says <>
I’m not as “experienced” as John — I only have 13,000+ hours and I’ve only flown in maybe a 130 different kinds of airplanes. But I doubt another 2000 hours or 20 more different kinds of airplanes will change the reality that “Luck” does exist.
Whether one trades experience for luck or not is subjective. Experience does seem to make a difference — as reflected in insurance rates for pilots (and FAA accident statistics). But no amount of experience can determine when and were an engine will quit — or a bird strike will occur — or an animal will run out onto the runway as you’re landing — or a crosswind will swirl around a building as you’re flaring.
Experience makes dealing with “lesser-luck” situations easier; but it doesn’t eliminate the reality that “luck” (or circumstances or timing or whatever you want to call it) doesn’t exist.
It is foolish to say that “luck” doesn’t exist; just as it is foolish to depend on “luck” to deal with unforeseen circumstances. The reality is that you can’t ignore “luck” and the role it plays in transitioning from a student pilot to 15,000 hour pilot.
It is very very difficult to get to 15,000 of flight time without having one or more “incidents” along the way — usually more! Keeping one’s self within the perimeters of one’s experience and training helps minimize both the “incident factor” and the “damage aspect” of any given incident. But the “randomness” of “luck”, itself minimized by not putting oneself into circumstances one is ill-prepared or trained to handle, still exists — and to ignore it is to ignore a reality of flying! In fact, to ignore it is to ignore a reality of living in general … whether in the air or on the ground.
I thought Amy’s essay was solid and a very good reminder for all pilots, no matter how much PIC time one has.
MOO (my opinion only)
// Richard Eastman
Sorry Amy, never bought into the luck thing, it doesn’t exist, Skill, knowledge and planning are all that there is, In 50 years, next month, over 15,000 hours, in over 120 different makes and models of aircraft. i have lost engines, propellers, radios, electrical systems and instruments, never wished i was back on the ground and never trusted to luck. When all goes to crap, keep your wings level, keep your airspeed under control and fly the damn airplane,
I also do not trust BRS, makes good pilots too complacent and too trusting in luck.
Experience whether good or bad is of utmost important to pilots. They say ‘smooth sailings’ will never make a good pilot. We need to see the other side too but is the risk taking worth it !!! But some incidences happen unknowingly either owing to complacency or through the actions initiated by your second pilot who could be a captain or a first officer in an airline. This is where luck counts no matter what experience you have. If not, you become a number.
I recall a day of flying when luck smiled at me. After take-off from runway 02 at an airport elevation of 4386 feet, surrounded by high mountains, I turned right and intercepted radial 115 outbound to proceed to my destination. Once on course and during climb, I flew through rain and cloud. Suddenly my GPWS started “terrain ! Terrain ! Pull Up ! Pull Up !! “. This continued for about 20 seconds. I stretched my neck to see ahead through the rain and cloud. I had the biggest fright of my life when I saw tree tops below me. I looked at my engine torques and knew the two Rolls Royce Dart engines were not giving sufficient power. In this engine, after climb/cruise power is set, you do not touch the power levers to increase or decrease TGT. There is a fuel trimmer. You increase or decrease the Turbine Gas Temperatures with these trimmers. Normally after take off when climb/cruise power is set, fuel trimmer goes on the minus side around 45 %. When my eyes were directed to other specifics need to fly, my first officer used the fuel trimmer and diminished the trim to 0 %. Hence there was very less power to achieve en-route climb gradient. I moved the trimmers to 100 % immediately. Engine torques increased, airplane started climbing and finally, GPWS was quiet. I prayed to God that day for being with me.
I never got to fly with that first officer again as he had left and joined another airline. It is now 17 years but you won’t believe me if I tell you, he is still a first officer today. Happy Landings.
Very well said.
Thanks for bring back to mind a couple withdrawals of my own.
A similar tale we use at sea. You MAKE your luck. Every time you check the rig over, scan the horizon one more time, check the depth under the keel, run an emergency drill, do some planned maintenance, recheck the passage plan, etc etc – you put points in the bosun’s box on deck.
When the sea turns nasty and you cannot do these things and have to batten down the hatches and hang on – the sea sweeps the decks, washing points out the box. When the storm subsides if there are still points in the box – you are afloat and can start to replenish the box. If there were not enough points in the box however…………