Blog

May 08, 2023

Fear of Landing

Ok, I’m the old, hard nosed Marine. When you do your control check, look out the

Ok, I’m the old, hard nosed Marine. When you do your control check, look out the window and watch the control surfaces go up and down. If you are turning right and the left aileron on the PIC's side of the plane is going up instead of down, Captian, you got a problem.

But those checks only happen on Carrier decks these days. Civil Aviation has come to rely on automation and repeated reliability. When that reliability fails, crashes happen.

As Brian Shul said, "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing."

These Pilots were some good Jocks to get the plane back on the ground without killing anybody. I would love to buy them a Pint and hear the stories of Butt Pucker Factor.

We had some plumbing issues lately, in the back garden we had a Backhoe, 2 tractors and a DitchWitch, working away to make our black water go away. I went out to find the Forman with a shovel, digging away. He looked at me and said, "$175,000 worth of equipment and it all comes down to this, a Man with a Shovel"

Piloting a plane is no different, you can have a Glass Dash, the best Autopilot, Radar, StormScope and bluetooth everything but when the shit hits the fan; you need a man with a shovel in the cockpit.