bowe96

Apparently I misjudged the amount of sarcasm this board can handle. Accidents can happen to anyone, but there is a difference between an accident and things like landing at the wrong airport. That's called being an idiot. My point was that I suspect this is a case of the latter.

So many I'm already forgetting, wonderful.

This mantra gets rolled out every incident, maybe our crews are actually ######ing up? I'm tired of this attitude. We are professional aviators, when did we lose the ability to call people out? Every incident I hear the "it could happen to anyone crowd" fire up the propaganda machine. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it won't happen to me because I take my job seriously and still expect excellence out of my crew. These aren't act of god incidents, landing short, wrong airport, no gear are all pilot error. And before you say microburst, reference ground speed check, do we not look at this stuff anymore? *Waiting with my popcorn to find out how I'm going to eat crow on this one*

Maybe we should use stricter criteria than year group and hours to determine upgrades? IMO the C-17 has a growing number of CPs flying around coded as ACs and IPs. Get enough of these on one crew and you get buffoonery like we've been seeing.

If you've ever read any of Levitt's work, he's just trying to figure out how things tick. He's the guy who explained the drop in crime rate in the 90's was because of Roe vs Wade.

Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, would argue that it's not the name. It's that the kid's parents were stupid enough to name him that in the first place, so he was already doomed to failure because of poor genetics and a horrible home life...

Actually, they were Brits. So yeah that's exactly what they were expecting. Brits would rather get shanked with a sharpened screwdriver than have scary guns in their country....

Please let me know how this attitude works for you next time your airplane decides to hand you an emergency you didn't plan for ahead of time, or the next time you venture through a few fields with less than awesome controllers (UAFM or OKAS come to mind) . You do realize this is pretty much the only reason pilots haven't all been replaced by remote control yet right? We get paid for that one time shit hits the fan and there needs to be a warm body in the seat to safely recover the airplane and/or pax. You can train a monkey to pull back on the stick. The growing trend I see is "pilots" with the attitude the above statement exudes who never challenge themselves and never stray from the script. When shit actually does hit the fan they will be found severely wanting.

This. If you can't determine if you are landing on the correct airfield, why were you given the A code? All mitigating factors aside this is pretty basic. I've had some pretty epic helmet fires, but put the gear down and land on the correct piece of asphalt I still managed to pull off without much angst.

My solution? Get banned from said location. If we all do it the Chiefs will have no where to go.

You forgot 3) an ingrained sense of "that's just how we've always done it" that is liberally applied to any new and innovative idea.

I recall hauling some helium before, definitely not light... Had to hit a tanker to make it across the pond. Damn liquids vs gas.

I've never really had serious issues with ATC, I'd say they do quite well for what they have to deal with. Now the I Suck At Flying traffic is a whole separate issue. Between them not being able to make a radio call under 1 minute in length or follow basic directions like climb and MAINTAIN, sometimes I wonder how they don't get vectored into a mountain. We should get HFP and CZTE anytime we are in the same airspace as these idiots.

Doesn't the latter cause the former? Therefore 100% of crashes would be caused by "excessive negative vertical velocity combined with an unsuitable landing surface".

I could argue the merits of pilots receiving HFP and CZTE from both sides convincingly. The real issue anyone trying to get this taken away should be concerned with is retention. If you take away the per diem and HZTE, you make working a civilian job a lot more attractive. If I were to lose the money I make from flying trips I can guarantee that the day my commitment is up I will be out. A big part of the reason all the deployments and 200+ days away a year are tolerable is because I am essentially compensated for them with per diem and HZTE. Take that away and the abuse our families receive becomes a whole lot less tolerable and makes the decision to get out a whole lot easier.