Overlooking the obvious - Military flying can be dangerous!
‘Twos in’ –
Interesting thread.
There does seem to be a default tendency on here to presume (in most cases) the crew are not at fault in any way, and to blame all sorts of external influences. This does seem to be curious and rather a change from the attitudes of the past, as one or two of your correspondents suggest.
Since most accidents in any sphere are rarely single cause, there is some justification for alluding to other effects and influences, additional causes. Which is primary and which is secondary is often arguable. In the military sphere, it seems to me these have recently included poor operations management at several levels, inadequate oversight of operations especially involving relatively junior crew, poor man management as well as what I would describe as strategic maintenance issues which in effect become airworthiness matters. Not and exhaustive list, and I've left out some of the 'old standards' of course. There certainly seems to be a need to improve the high level overview of both military airworthiness and safety thinking.
That said, there is a tendency on certain rather high profile running arguments to refer to what are all but ‘Little green men from Mars’ postulates to avoid any crew blame whatever. That is counter productive.
Ultimately flying crew take the risks and, human nature and operations being what they are, too often become the casualties. Sometimes they are just unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Oft times they are in some greater or lesser way part of the cause of the accident. For all sorts of reasons. Again, that is human nature. Denying that does no-one any favours, does nowt for air safety. The more we look openly & understand what can go wrong,with us, the human element, the safer things should become.
And on luck - A famous golfer , after sinking a very long putt, was congratulated on his luck by an interviewer. “ Yeah”, he drawled “ It’s funny. The more I practice, the luckier I get”. (a) I wish those cutting back annual flying hours would note that and (b) he’s right – to a large extent you make your own luck, by good planning & thinking defensively.
Interesting thread.
There does seem to be a default tendency on here to presume (in most cases) the crew are not at fault in any way, and to blame all sorts of external influences. This does seem to be curious and rather a change from the attitudes of the past, as one or two of your correspondents suggest.
Since most accidents in any sphere are rarely single cause, there is some justification for alluding to other effects and influences, additional causes. Which is primary and which is secondary is often arguable. In the military sphere, it seems to me these have recently included poor operations management at several levels, inadequate oversight of operations especially involving relatively junior crew, poor man management as well as what I would describe as strategic maintenance issues which in effect become airworthiness matters. Not and exhaustive list, and I've left out some of the 'old standards' of course. There certainly seems to be a need to improve the high level overview of both military airworthiness and safety thinking.
That said, there is a tendency on certain rather high profile running arguments to refer to what are all but ‘Little green men from Mars’ postulates to avoid any crew blame whatever. That is counter productive.
Ultimately flying crew take the risks and, human nature and operations being what they are, too often become the casualties. Sometimes they are just unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Oft times they are in some greater or lesser way part of the cause of the accident. For all sorts of reasons. Again, that is human nature. Denying that does no-one any favours, does nowt for air safety. The more we look openly & understand what can go wrong,with us, the human element, the safer things should become.
And on luck - A famous golfer , after sinking a very long putt, was congratulated on his luck by an interviewer. “ Yeah”, he drawled “ It’s funny. The more I practice, the luckier I get”. (a) I wish those cutting back annual flying hours would note that and (b) he’s right – to a large extent you make your own luck, by good planning & thinking defensively.
biscuit:
Not sure what long running arguments those might be. Crews are not to blame if they are required to operate aircraft that senior officers know are unairworthy, but they don't. If they then have an accident in which they die, no-one that I am aware of is saying that whatever happened it was not their fault. What I say is that the known unairworthiness of the aircraft is an issue in its own right which may or may not have been a causal factor of the accident. Thanks to the antediluvian practice of neither fitting CVR's nor ADR's to UK military aircraft (fast being corrected), as often as not that is not known (a cynic might say that is why the practice continued as long as it did). Such is the situation with the Chinook Mk2 crash at Mull. It is certainly not the case with Nimrod though. Of course, if the little green men are Walter's.....
there is a tendency on certain rather high profile running arguments to refer to what are all but ‘Little green men from Mars’ postulates to avoid any crew blame whatever. That is counter productive.
A quick toe in the water.
Forgive me if the quote is not quite correct but I believe Yeager once stated " its not that I'm a better flier than anyone else its just that I fly more than anyone else". A big statement considering the ego that generally goes with these high achievers.
No doubt less flying means less or more degrading of skills. This aligns with the dangers of flying, in particular military flying. Forgetting operational flying it is still a bit different to civilian. The fact that the gear was not out down can be attributed to numerous items such as the 1.0 hour of burning an turning under high G man's plus the extraneous secondary duties and the fact that this has been repeated daily is slightly fatiguuuueing. I know the civvy equivelant of spending X amount of hours siping coffee trying to stay awake is also fatiguing and constantly high pressured, as is instructing in the civvy world.
Stdby to rec.
Forgive me if the quote is not quite correct but I believe Yeager once stated " its not that I'm a better flier than anyone else its just that I fly more than anyone else". A big statement considering the ego that generally goes with these high achievers.
No doubt less flying means less or more degrading of skills. This aligns with the dangers of flying, in particular military flying. Forgetting operational flying it is still a bit different to civilian. The fact that the gear was not out down can be attributed to numerous items such as the 1.0 hour of burning an turning under high G man's plus the extraneous secondary duties and the fact that this has been repeated daily is slightly fatiguuuueing. I know the civvy equivelant of spending X amount of hours siping coffee trying to stay awake is also fatiguing and constantly high pressured, as is instructing in the civvy world.
Stdby to rec.
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Currency - or lack of it - and flight safety
Several posters have talked about implications of a reduction in flying hours/training and the difference between military and civil flying....
The differences should I think be obvious....
In the civil world aircrew need to obviously keep their type, instrument, and night ratings current, including visits to the sim for emergency drills etc.
A military pilot needs to keep current with.....perhaps the following additional skills which we all know are perishable skills which rapidly fade if not practiced...
Weaponeering - air to air, air to ground, with bombs/rockets/guns;
Air to air refueling - by day and night;
Low flying - and with NVG's at night;
Tactical formation flying;
Electronic warfare and threat mitigation;
This on top of maintaining "poling" skills to include manoevering skills which in the civil world which would be called aerobatics.
Then there are programs such as TLP, Red Flag, QWI/QFI courses, and dreaded "secondary" duties!
Small wonder that 15-20 hrs per month on a fast jet squadron is hardly enough particularly when it includes "transit" time which is of little training value.....
MB
The differences should I think be obvious....
In the civil world aircrew need to obviously keep their type, instrument, and night ratings current, including visits to the sim for emergency drills etc.
A military pilot needs to keep current with.....perhaps the following additional skills which we all know are perishable skills which rapidly fade if not practiced...
Weaponeering - air to air, air to ground, with bombs/rockets/guns;
Air to air refueling - by day and night;
Low flying - and with NVG's at night;
Tactical formation flying;
Electronic warfare and threat mitigation;
This on top of maintaining "poling" skills to include manoevering skills which in the civil world which would be called aerobatics.
Then there are programs such as TLP, Red Flag, QWI/QFI courses, and dreaded "secondary" duties!
Small wonder that 15-20 hrs per month on a fast jet squadron is hardly enough particularly when it includes "transit" time which is of little training value.....
MB
