Absolutes in Aviation

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LJS1993

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LJ Savala
Well guys among all the things you have learned during your time as pilots what is the one absolute you would give either a student pilot, newly minted pilot, or someone looking into getting a PPL? By absolute I mean the one most important tip in terms of safety you feel overrides all the rest?
 
Fly the plane ,fly the plane no matter what happens fly the plane.
 
Better to be on the ground, wishing you were flying, than flying, wishing you were on the ground.
 
If there's any doubt, land and figure it out.
 
The fuel on the ground is worthless,
The altitude above you is worthless,
The runway behind you is worthless.

Oh! Landings are not optional. :rolleyes:
 
LJS1993 said:
Well guys among all the things you have learned during your time as pilots what is the one absolute you would give either a student pilot, newly minted pilot, or someone looking into getting a PPL? By absolute I mean the one most important tip in terms of safety you feel overrides all the rest?
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Don't sweat the landing, it's not optional.
 
Never run out of altitude and airspeed at the same time.
 
Airplanes fly better over gross than out of gas.
 
Every pilot has an opinion on everything...and they are always right.
 
A pilot saying "watch this" is about to do something you should not watch or do!
 
"Son, they's always a place to land. Some of them is just better than others."
 
Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person
on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it.

Airspeed, altitude and brains. Two are always needed to successfully
complete the flight.

The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Try to keep the number of your landings equal to the number of your takeoffs.
 
Geico266 said:
The fuel on the ground is worthless,
Click to expand...
Unless you're on fire. Then you may reconsider topping off.
The altitude above you is worthless,
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Unless you're in an icing layer and need to climb.
The runway behind you is worthless.
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While partially true, in an emergency situation, don't aim for the numbers if you have enough runway in front of you. Better to come up short while aiming for a point 1000' down the runway than to come up short while aiming for the numbers.

There are no absolutes in aviation.
 
The three most important things in aviation:
Fly the airplane
Fly the airplane
Fly the airplane

Humans are by nature distractible animals. It takes some mental discipline to maintain focus, and even then it doesn't work. Fly the airplane.
 
steingar said:
The three most important things in aviation:
Fly the airplane
Fly the airplane
Fly the airplane

Humans are by nature distractible animals. It takes some mental discipline to maintain focus, and even then it doesn't work. Fly the airplane.
Click to expand...

Amen. If you don't do anything else, fly the airplane. Don't drop the airplane to fly the microphone.
 
Forget the gas gauge.
Forget about your location relative to where you planned to stop.

Fly by the clock.
When the clock says you're done; LAND!
No "ands, ifs, or buts"
 
(watch this)

Steer the airplane with the rudder, not the wheel.
 
Nothing more useless than the sky above you ,the runway behind you,and the gas you didn't take.fly the airplane
 
When faced with an emergency, short of a cockpit engulfed in flames, get straight and level, stop what you are doing, and count to 10. Okay, don't actually literally count to 10, but don't just do something right away or mindlessly start doing checklist items. I don't care if they are boldface/memory items. You have to take a few moments to analyze what is actually happening, and determine if you are about to make things worse. If you have a burning engine, nobody is going to give you any grief about waiting an extra few seconds to figure out which engine it definitely is.......but they are going to give you hell for shutting the wrong motor down in a hurry to just do something. I always thought that specific anecdote was a funny almost unbelievable one.....how could anyone shut down the wrong motor? Then one day I had an engine problem that called for me to shut one down. Before shutting her down, I brought the throttle to idle to make sure the issue wasn't going away. After a few seconds of thought, and telling my wingman what was going on, I realized "wow, you really are as dumb as you look....that was the wrong damned motor". Verbalizing the warning I was looking at, and then comparing that with the position of my throttles cleared up what a little bit of heat-of-the-moment dyslexia almost caused. Pushed that hog back up to mil, and brought the other back to idle. You probably would have been reading about it in national news had I just slammed her home to "off" when I saw the red light. Not a smart initial move, but it was a good lesson in allowing the surprise to wear off before you do anything that can't be un-done.
 
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The only absolute is "fly the airplane" always
 
"not a penny more.....when I think I can learn it for free!"...and....
"I have no need of that.....even though I can't possibly know what I don't know...."
 
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