2005 11 weather notes

VINTAGE INSTRUCTOR

THE

DOUG STEWART

Weather notes The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recently released a report sent to Marion Blakey, the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, detailing the conclusions it had come to after undertaking a safety study titled Risk Factors Associated with Weather-Related General Aviation Accidents. Some of its findings were not surprising, such as the fact that the knowledge tests required for any pilot certificate could be passed without answering a single weather-related question correctly, or that poor performance on the knowledge and practical tests was directly associated “with a higher risk of a pilot being involved in a weather-related accident.”

What did surprise me, however, was the fact that it found a direct correlation between the age at which a pilot first obtained a certificate and the risk factors he or she would be exposed to. It found that the younger a person was when obtaining that first certificate, regardless of current age, or hours logged, the less risk he or she had in relation to a weather-related accident. In other words, many of the pilots who had weather-related accidents obtained their pilot certificates later in life. The report concluded that quite typically the younger a pilot was when first starting in aviation, the more likely he or she was to continue in some form of professional flying. Thus, as more ratings are added, more weather-related training is acquired.

The NTSB also determined that the guidance from the FAA currently discourages pilots from obtaining weather information from Internet, satellite, and other data sources. The report stated, “Many pilots use other sources to obtain

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weather data not included in a standard briefing and then contact FSS or DUATS to fulfill a perceived regulatory obligation. This creates the potential for pilot misinterpretation or confusion if weather information gathered from various sources appears to be more detailed than the FSS information.”

The NTSB concluded the report with six recommendations, some of which might be considered Draconian, especially by those who consider aviation already too highly regulated. Those recommendations are to: 1. “Add a specific requirement for all pilots who do not receive weather-related recurrent training that the biennial flight review include the following: recognition of critical weather situations from the ground and in flight, procurement and use of aeronautical weather reports and forecasts, determination of fuel requirements, and planning for alternatives if the intended flight cannot be completed or delays are encountered.”

2. “Add a requirement that the BFR include demonstrations of basic attitude flying, virtually the same as those required by the private pilot practical test.”

3. “Establish a minimum number of weather-related questions that must be answered correctly in order to pass FAA airman knowledge tests.”

4. “Develop a means to identify pilots whose overall performance history indicates that they are at future risk of accident involvement, and develop a program to reduce risk for those pilots.”

5. “Determine optimal information presentation methods and delivery systems for flight service station weather information briefings, including the possibility of supplementing or replacing some portions of the current standard

weather briefing with graphical data.”

6. “Revise guidance materials associated with pilot weather briefings to include guidance for pilots in the use of Internet, satellite, and other data sources for obtaining weather information suitable for meeting the intent of CFR Part 91.103” (which says the pilot must obtain all “available information” prior to any flight) “and subsequently inform the aviation community about this change.”

As many of us are aware, virtually three out of four weather-related accidents are fatal ones. The NTSB is obviously concerned with this high percentage and is taking steps to try and reduce it. I vigorously applaud that effort.

However, I can’t help but notice that it did not address one thing I feel is at the root of many weather-related accidents: you cannot teach common sense.

I do not disagree with most of the report, but nowhere in it does the NTSB address the issues of proper aeronautical decision-making. Nowhere in the report are the five hazardous attitudes addressed. Not once is there a suggestion that perhaps scenario-based training might be able to address these issues.

The NTSB found that the knowledge test does not adequately address the issues of weather knowledge, but not once does the report address the fact that many of the weather questions on the knowledge test are testing to a rote knowledge of things like abbreviations used in METARs, or charts that one will rarely, if ever, actually see. The report does not address the fact that there are too few questions, if any, that adequately test the pilot’s abilities to make proper “go/no go” decisions. And I be-

lieve that it is this inability that is killing pilots.

I have long contended that those portions of the knowledge test dealing with weather have been sorely inadequate. To be honest I had never even considered that it might be possible to pass the test without answering one single question on weather correctly.

But again I will offer that it is not a lack of weather knowledge, or how to obtain it, that is killing pilots. Instead I feel that it is the hazardous attitudes that exist in all of us that are reducing the pilot population.

I doubt that any pilot, nor the passengers they took with them, went out to his or her airplane on the day of the crash thinking: “Hmm…I think I’ll kill myself today in a weather-related crash.” It is possible that the pilot did not understand the briefing he or she received, or that if graphics had been added to the briefing, it might have made more of an impression than the one he or she made on the ground.

But it is also possible that the pilot didn’t get any briefing at all (anti-

authority), as was the case with a pilot who recently destroyed a beautiful aerobatic airplane, while luckily surviving the crash not far from my house just a few weeks ago, when the weather went south on him.

Or perhaps the pilot understood the briefing, and even went to numerous other sources of weather information, before departing on the final flight, thinking he had the skills to handle all that the weather could throw at him (macho). And maybe, just maybe, the pilot felt the weather did not pose more of a threat than he was capable, or that the airplane was capable, of handling (invulnerability).

If the encounter with the weather was inadvertent, or if part of the problem was an equipment failure while in IMC, did the pilot do something that compounded the problem (impulsivity) before properly thinking through (aviate, navigate, communicate) the problem? Is there the possibility, as the yogurt started to slowly creep up toward the eyeballs, that the pilot just gave up and hoped for the best (resignation)?

Straight & level

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attention. There’s nothing to fiddle with

I strongly feel that rather than mandating “basic attitude” training (which will be quite difficult for those of us who fly minimally equipped lightplanes like Cubs and Champs), we instead endeavor to instill the recognition of the need for more frequent, voluntarily obtained training, as in the FAA Wings program. I feel that we need to change our training paradigm from a maneuvers-based syllabus to a scenario-based syllabus. By teaching pilots how to use the tools and techniques of proper aeronautical decisionmaking, we will reduce the number of weather-related accidents.

If all of us made it a point to obtain frequent recurrent training, it would definitely reduce the number of accidents and perhaps even reduce the number of new regulations that some would like to have written. Won’t you join me in that effort?

Doug Stewart is the 2004 National CFI of the Year, a Master Instructor, and a DPE. He operates DSFI Inc. (www.dsflight. com) based at the Columbia County Airport (1B1).

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 29