Quote:
Originally Posted by jrh  At the risk of sounding like a mom....be careful out there.
The longer I do this stuff, the more I realize just how nasty flying can be. Scary things happen. It sounds really cool to talk about all the badass things I've done, but it's very un-cool when metal gets bent or people get hurt.
That's a concept I don't think many pilots have a full appreciation of when they're first starting out. Everybody wants to swap the hangar stories, but nobody thinks about the truly ugly things that can pop up as a result of pushing limits.
Flying is a lot like growing up. 16 year olds think they know their limits, and a few of them might, but most don't really have a clue how harsh life can be. Then when they get to be about 20-25, they think, "Oh....*that's* what my parents were talking about," and they get a clue.
Same with flying. Brand new private pilots think they have it all figured out, then once they hit a few hundred, or maybe a few thousand hours, they look back and think, "Holy crap, I'm lucky to be here. I didn't know what I was doing back then. I could've killed myself numerous times out of shear ignorance." |
Well put.
I don't think the idea is to go out with a fresh instrument rating and scare the poo out of yourself getting iced up in IMC in a single piston at night with everything for 500 miles at minimums. The idea is to (hopefully) get that experience little by little...
I've had plenty of "I shouldn't be alive" moments. They aren't fun. The funny thing is, the more experience I get, the more I look back and say "yeah...shouldn't have survived that one either". It's true about the luck and experience "buckets" that everyone starts off with...I'm a believer.
-mini
PS
Be VERY careful with a written policy on when renters can fly (I'm not talking about students...I just mean Joe pilot that's renting an airplane). All it takes is one violation, incident or accident by that pilot and their attorney is going to claim they never would have been in that situation had it not been for the written policy. Keep in mind, they don't have to prove it "beyond a reasonable doubt" either. Just be careful is all...