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CARLOS W

CARLOS W

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Dec 29, 2016
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Wild2fly
Hi everyone. Well my journey started in 2008 when I took a discovery flight at the St Petersburg Florida airport. Flying along side the coast was amazing. I was going to start my lessons but I knew it would of been hard during anesthesia school and I got a bit nervous after I had a friend die along side his dad in a single engine. Now fast forward 8 years , 37 years old and have been out of school for 5 years and ready for my lessons. I currently live in San Antonio and am looking at Sky Safety for school. But now I have my wife sending me daily plane crashes and making me feel like I'm going to kill my self.. it brings back bad memories from my friends death years back. So I am getting hesitant . I have been studying ATC communications for few months and also was going to start studying from the Kings package. I guess I will see. I am going to pass by the flight school to chat and get a feel. I am happy to be on this site and enjoy reading all the posts.



Update: passed my commercial checkride this weekend!
 
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Welcome Carlos. YOU have to make the decision. There have been too many accidents the past 2 weeks but remember, the news doesn't write about all the successful flights every day. I mean just the airlines alone and the number of flights each day they fly. Maybe get your wife to take a Pinch Hitter course?
 
CARLOS W said:
Hi everyone. Well my journey started in 2008 when I took a discovery flight at the St Petersburg Florida airport. Flying along side the coast was amazing. I was going to start my lessons but I knew it would of been hard during anesthesia school and I got a bit nervous after I had a friend die along side his dad in a single engine. Now fast forward 8 years , 37 years old and have been out of school for 5 years and ready for my lessons. I currently live in San Antonio and am looking at Sky Safety for school. But now I have my wife sending me daily plane crashes and making me feel like I'm going to kill my self.. it brings back bad memories from my friends death years back. So I am getting hesitant . I have been studying ATC communications for few months and also was going to start studying from the Kings package. I guess I will see. I am going to pass by the flight school to chat and get a feel. I am happy to be on this site and enjoy reading all the posts.
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I nev
mscard88 said:
Welcome Carlos. YOU have to make the decision. There have been too many accidents the past 2 weeks but remember, the news doesn't write about all the successful flights every day. I mean just the airlines alone and the number of flights each day they fly. Maybe get your wife to take a Pinch Hitter course?
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Hi thanks. I never thought about the pinch hitter course. That's a great idea. I might pitch that tonight. She already put the news on and of course plane crash .
 
CARLOS W said:
I nev

Hi thanks. I never thought about the pinch hitter course. That's a great idea. I might pitch that tonight. She already put the news on and of course plane crash .
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Wives/GFs zoom right in on the accidents. She might enjoy being exposed to what you're training for and feel a bit safer knowing a little about what you're doing, or about to do to her! ;)
 
Show your wife some pictures that show the beauty of places you would be able to fly to, once you have your license... :)
 
Well king school is great, kinda the gold standard and has worked (zero failures for oral or written tests) for my students and myself.

As far as you killing yourself, well if you're not a idiot, have good common sense, and have a good feel for machines, like grew up on a farm or ride motorcycles, etc, you'll be fine.
 
Take one step at a time, and tell her you'll do so. Take some lessons, see how it goes. Make a goal to get to solo. Then cross countries. Then your license. Then see where it goes. You (and she) don't have to feel like ya gotta go "all in" from the git-go.
 
James331 said:
Well king school is great, kinda the gold standard and has worked (zero failures for oral or written tests) for my students and myself.

As far as you killing yourself, well if you're not a idiot, have good common sense, and have a good feel for machines, like grew up on a farm or ride motorcycles, etc, you'll be fine.
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I grew
455 Bravo Uniform said:
Take one step at a time, and tell her you'll do so. Take some lessons, see how it goes. Make a goal to get to solo. Then cross countries. Then your license. Then see where it goes. You (and she) don't have to feel like ya gotta go "all in" from the git-go.
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That's true. I probably just overwhelmed her. When I do something I go all in. And she also knows that. The Funny part when we first met she knew how I loved aviation and a week later for Xmas she bought me a book on flight training lol.
 
If she really loves you, she'll not only let you fly, but want you to fly.
And if she is really good, she'll want to become a pilot herself (or at least a pinch-hitter).

Also, nothing wrong with reading about aviation accidents. That's a good way to learn to become safer, and realize that it typically takes utter recklessness to crash a plane, much more so than in road accidents.
 
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Im betting your wife has NO IDEA how many people died in car crashes locally or nationwide in the past two weeks. or how many car crashes/accidents there were in the same time period.

Dog bites man - no news. Man Bites dog - big news.
 
The vast majority of small plane accidents are the result of stupid pilot tricks: overloading the aircraft, running out of fuel, intentionally flying in marginal weather, exceeding your own limits or those of the machine, not being meticulous with maintenance. Stay away from those and you can be quite safe.
 
You'll quickly find that pilots also like to zero in on accidents, especially really nasty ones.
 
I am in San Antonio and did my training at Bario Aviation in Castroville and had a great time. Boerne Stage Field also has a good program. PM me if you want details.
 
RotorDude said:
Also, nothing wrong with reading about aviation accidents. That's a good way to learn to become safer, and realize that it typically takes utter recklessness to crash a plane, much more so than in road accidents.
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This. We all read about accidents, we discuss them and are just as concerned about them as our spouses are. The moment we stop being concerned to the point where to chalk it up to a lesson learned is when we become really dangerous. Just this past week, we've had 3 GA accidents where pilots with planes filled with passengers flew into weather they had no business flying in. Many GA accidents are not due to dangerous little airplanes or really even poor training necessarily. It's bad decision making more often than not.
 
Doggtyred said:
Im betting your wife has NO IDEA how many people died in car crashes locally or nationwide in the past two weeks. or how many car crashes/accidents there were in the same time period.
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Or think about how many people die in Chicago alone on a routine basis. Three people dead? They call that "Thursday."

And just as you can increase your Chicago survival odds by not joining a gang and avoiding nocturnal walks through suspicious neighborhoods, you, as a safe and proficient pilot, can avoid putting yourself in dangerous situations and minimize the risk. Most of the time, GA fatalities/injuries are pilot error and flat-out bad decision-making, plain and simple.
 
SoCal RV Flyer said:
Or think about how many people die in Chicago alone on a routine basis. Three people dead? They call that "Thursday."

And just as you can increase your Chicago survival odds by not joining a gang and avoiding nocturnal walks through suspicious neighborhoods, you, as a safe and proficient pilot, can avoid putting yourself in dangerous situations and minimize the risk. Most of the time, GA fatalities/injuries are pilot error and flat-out bad decision-making, plain and simple.
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Hey now be nice. Chicago only averaged 2.08 homicides per day this past year. Besides, 3 is more like a Friday or Saturday night number. Thursday? Come on man!
 
Everyone thanks for the reply's. She didn't bite on the pinch hitter course yet. she said if i started flying then would think about it. Of course she then brought up yet another accident family of 4 Cessna that went down. Either or I visited one school today think i near my work. The CFI was verynice and took the time to answer all my questions, show me the fleet of planes, talked about each plane from the c152, c172, and symphony 160, etc. ( has anyone flown a symphony 160?). I was going to take my written first before any lessons to get it out of the way. I was going to buy the kings ground school but remembered back in 2012 i purchased Gleim and found my login. So might just use gleim for the written and other sources when doing my actually flying lessons.
 
I kind of cringe when I hear pilot's talk about the statistics of Aviation vs road accident deaths. We GA folks shouldn't use the major airlines safety record to suggest to our GA pax that "flying is safer than driving". It sounds good and sure makes us feel better but the brutal truth is that statistically it is not.

The bright side of this reality is that you're in much more control of your safety than you are on the roadway where some texter or drunk guy can ruin your family.

I don't lie to myself or my pax regarding that reality. Rather, I use that reality to make a strong effort to eliminate the biggest reason for GA being more dangerous. I try to eliminate pilot error. I don't pretend that bad weather won't get me. I carry more fuel than I need. I'm currently working on my IFR. I installed a good engine monitor and know what it's telling me. I do thorough preflight's. I live by the saying "altitude is your friend". Etc...

One of the most helpful things to beat the odds is to not pretend it's some super safe activity. Admit to yourself and your pax it has its risks and your likelihood of adding to those bad statistics declines significantly.

Good luck in training! Ibe only been flying for a couple years and it's the most enjoyable thing I've ever done!
 
And to address one of the questions in your most recent post... I would suggest getting a few hours of instruction before taking the written. A lot of the written will make more sense if you've applied it in real life. Not saying it can't be done but I believe flying will help with your written more than the written will help with your flying. Does that even make sense?
 
CARLOS W said:
Everyone thanks for the reply's. She didn't bite on the pinch hitter course yet. she said if i started flying then would think about it. Of course she then brought up yet another accident family of 4 Cessna that went down. Either or I visited one school today think i near my work. The CFI was verynice and took the time to answer all my questions, show me the fleet of planes, talked about each plane from the c152, c172, and symphony 160, etc. ( has anyone flown a symphony 160?). I was going to take my written first before any lessons to get it out of the way. I was going to buy the kings ground school but remembered back in 2012 i purchased Gleim and found my login. So might just use gleim for the written and other sources when doing my actually flying lessons.
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You need to be prepared for the possibility, nay PROBABILITY, that she may never enjoy small planes and may never fly with you on a regular basis no matter how much experience and time and money you put into it. This may end up being YOUR hobby and passion.. not hers.
 
SkyDog58 said:
Hey now be nice. Chicago only averaged 2.08 homicides per day this past year. Besides, 3 is more like a Friday or Saturday night number. Thursday? Come on man!
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Extra points if you did the math with an E6B. :D

Carlos, assuming mild risk is what makes a lot of things fun...motorcycling, open track days in a performance car, rock climbing, whatever, and flying is the same way. What could possibly kill you makes you feel more alive.

There's sooooo much you can do in your flying to mitigate the danger, but the occasional accident will happen. I'm probably not much help with your wife here, but we're sometimes a blunt crowd.
 
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Aviation accidents are very predictable, statistically. Therefore, they are easy to avoid by taking proper counter-measures. For example, every year there is a certain number of people hit by a turning propeller on the ramp, usually during entry/exit of an aircraft with its engine running. If you (as pilot) want to avoid that category, just make it a rock-hard rule to never let anyone in or out (or too close) with the engine running. Might be inconvenient sometimes, but having to deal with a chopped-up passenger is even less convenient. Similarly for all other known causes, like weather, maintenance, pilot health (IMSAFE), low flying/buzzing, etc. By removing the dumb type of accidents (which are nearly all), you can reduce your chances for an accident to the point it competes with the airlines, or being hit by a meteor. Eventually we are all going to die anyway, one way or another; a safe pilot will ensure it to be "another".
 
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labbadabba said:
T Just this past week, we've had 3 GA accidents where pilots with planes filled with passengers flew into weather they had no business flying in. Many GA accidents are not due to dangerous little airplanes or really even poor training necessarily. It's bad decision making more often than not.
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Absolutely. If you eliminate flying into adverse weather and fuel exhaustion, I'd estimate you've eliminated 80-90% of the fatals you read about. Get good training, exercise good judgement.
 
arkvet said:
And to address one of the questions in your most recent post... I would suggest getting a few hours of instruction before taking the written. A lot of the written will make more sense if you've applied it in real life. Not saying it can't be done but I believe flying will help with your written more than the written will help with your flying. Does that even make sense?
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Lol it makes sense. I just wanted to get the written out of the way so I can focus more on learning real material that is geared toward actually flying and the flying lessons itself. I was told that gleim is more towards written that's why I decided just to use it for that. And I will use other material for my learning as well.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Absolutely. If you eliminate flying into adverse weather and fuel exhaustion, I'd estimate you've eliminated 80-90% of the fatals you read about. Get good training, exercise good judgement.
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Exactly. In the case of fuel exhaustion, if you simply make your own rock-hard rule to never arrive with less than an hour in the tank (as I do), you remove yourself from that category, pretty much. So if anyone is really safety minded, it's very easy to overwhelmingly "rig the stats" in your favor.
 
RotorDude said:
Aviation accidents are very predictable, statistically. Therefore, they are easy to avoid by taking proper counter-measures. For example, every year there is a certain number of people hit by a turning propeller on the ramp, usually during entry/exit of an aircraft with its engine running. If you (as pilot) want to avoid that category, just make it a rock-hard rule to never let anyone in or out (or too close) with the engine running. Might be inconvenient sometimes, but having to deal with a chopped-up passenger is even less convenient. Similarly for all other known causes, like weather, maintenance, pilot health (IMSAFE), low flying/buzzing, etc. By removing the dumb type of accidents (which are nearly all), you can reduce your chances for an accident to the point it competes with the airlines, or being hit by a meteor. Eventually we are all going to die anyway, one way or another; a safe pilot will ensure it to be "another".
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I see a lot of "invulnerability" in this post. Many of the categories mentioned have fuzzy edges. How much wind is too much? 30 knots? How about 30 knots with gusts? What about variable direction? How about 30 knots reported by a 50 minute old ATIS that's really 45 knots? How do you prevent weather from changing in flight?

The trick is to have margins, but the only way it will ever be comparable to being hit by a meteorite (which has been recorded exactly once, ever) is to not fly. There will always be the passer-by on the ramp you don't have control over, fuel leaks, mechanical difficulties, emergent illness, changing or unforecast weather, critters, and so on. You're not doing anyone any favors by pretending these hazards don't exist.

There ARE additional risks to flying. Do your best to reduce and mitigate them, but don't fool yourself they are gone. You can't break an accident chain if you assert it's impossible.
 
MAKG1 said:
There ARE additional risks to flying. Do your best to reduce and mitigate them, but don't fool yourself they are gone. You can't break an accident chain if you assert it's impossible.
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Nobody said accidents will completely disappear if you fly safely, but they can be easily reduced such that your chances of dying while flying will be vastly smaller compared to all the other lethal dangers in your life.
 
RotorDude said:
Nobody said accidents will completely disappear if you fly safely, but they can be easily reduced such that your chances of dying while flying will be vastly smaller compared to all the other lethal dangers in your life.
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YOU said it would be reduced to the level of getting killed by a meteorite, which is zero (actually, you said a meteor, which is physically impossible on the surface of the earth). It has never happened. Only one hit has ever been recorded, and it resulted in a bad bruise.

It is also quite false that flying a spam can can be reduced to the level of airlines. The last airline fatality in the US was in 2013, and there have been tens of millions of flight hours since then. Do you REALLY mean to say your odds of an unpredictable emergency are anywhere near that low? 'Cause you're not even close if you do.
 
MAKG1 said:
YOU said it would be reduced to the level of getting killed by a meteorite, which is zero (actually, you said a meteor, which is physically impossible on the surface of the earth). It has never happened. Only one hit has ever been recorded, and it resulted in a bad bruise.

It is also quite false that flying a spam can can be reduced to the level of airlines. The last airline fatality in the US was in 2013, and there have been tens of millions of flight hours since then. Do you REALLY mean to say your odds of an unpredictable emergency are anywhere near that low? 'Cause you're not even close if you do.
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I said "meteor", not "meteorite", because it's impossible to be hit by space object that hits the earth's surface first (which is the definition of meteorite) and I didn't want to exclude getting hit while flying (which would be an overlap of causes, I suppose :)). The point I was making is that we all know we will die from some cause, and statistically we can line those causes up by highest to lowest probability. Your goal as a pilot is to ensure that "dying while flying" is as near the bottom of that list as possible. The most recent GA fatal accident rate is about 0.5 per 100,000 hours of flying (meaning you effectively have to fly 200,000 hours to die while flying, if you are an average pilot). Airline accident rate is around 100 times lower (though very hard to compare apples-to-apples, and presumably if you fly outside the US it gets worse -- for me personally much of my airline flying is outside the US). If you look at the causes of GA accidents, they are virtually always "pilot error" in the broader sense of the term. IOW, even if your plane lost its engine, a well-trained pilot should be equipped to deal with it and hopefully survive. If you don't train and keep yourself proficient, that's an "error". Same goes for the maintenance aspect: if you don't take good care of your engine (or carefully choose an FBO that does), that's an "error". Same for flying while not in good health, etc. So by that broad definition of "pilot error", if you remove that from the NTSB's list of GA accidents, you end up with a very minuscule accident rate, and push your odds of "dying while flying" near the end of the above list. Whether the thing that gets you at the end is a meteor, a meteorite (that bounces off the ground and kills you), or a lightning bolt, they are still all extremely unlikely causes of your demise, just like the flying bit if you fly safely.
 
Rotordude while most of us are fully aware that pilot error is by far the biggest issue, where we drift apart is in the thought that we can fully eliminate ourselves from the "pilot error" pool. I'd venture to guess that the vast majority of those involved in pilot error GA accidents felt they'd never be "that guy".

Be diligent in every aspect of flying but don't pretend you're not human;)

I flew out of gulf shores once VFR. It had been a horrible stormy week and we were departing during the only brief break we'd seen in days. There were multiple storms around and maintaining VMC (going around) was easily doable. Just prior to taxiing out I was looking out the windows and looking at multiple weather radar scans. It was a toss up to go NE or NW of the storm that was due N. I chose NE. Upon departure I started my climb but to maintain the best visibility I leveled off around 2500' (I departed at near sea level) until I had gotten around the storms. As I'm working hard to assess the weather out the windscreen I notice a little flashing light about a mile away at my 3 o'clock position and just a little lower. My heart skipped a beat as I immediately looked out front briefly and then down at foreflight and found the tower heights and verified I was well above them.

I made a mistake in missing that key information about the towers while focusing so heavily on the weather. The towers would not have been anywhere my normal VFR route had I not had to go around the storms.

We're all human.
 
arkvet said:
Rotordude while most of us are fully aware that pilot error is by far the biggest issue, where we drift apart is in the thought that we can fully eliminate ourselves from the "pilot error" pool. I'd venture to guess that the vast majority of those involved in pilot error GA accidents felt they'd never be "that guy".
Be diligent in every aspect of flying but don't pretend you're not human;)
I flew out of gulf shores once VFR.
We're all human.
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Sure, we are all human, and all make mistakes (myself very much so). But the safe pilot, while realizing each time he/she takes off might be the last time, also makes sure to have multiple options in case the fit hits the shan. Any pilot that doesn't tell him/herself just before takeoff, "today is the day" (or equivalent), is unsafe.
If you launch VFR-only into marginal weather or even any cross-country, you are already taking a chance. Going IFR, or having an easy option to switch to it on a dime, is part of being a safe pilot.
But certainly, any pilot who thinks he/she is invincible is an accident in the making.
 
Mason said:
The vast majority of small plane accidents are the result of stupid pilot tricks: overloading the aircraft, running out of fuel, intentionally flying in marginal weather, exceeding your own limits or those of the machine, not being meticulous with maintenance. Stay away from those and you can be quite safe.
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what he said. watch the videos here - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCC59953860B62145 -- all of them are accidents and if I remember right, all of them led to fatality. after you watch the videos, there are some analysis, pay attention to them. you will find a common theme... as mentioned above.
 
Welcome and I too agree that reading about accidents (whether related aviation, ground transport or other areas) is a good way to learn and improve your ADM (Aeronautical Decision Making) and risk management.
You will find out very quickly that most accidents were not accidental in their nature (thus grossly mislabeled) and that they can be avoided by paying attention and knowing what one is doing.
Good luck explaining that to your better half. I have this conversation a lot, more so with my mom than my wife, for some reason. It is not easy to explain to them that I try to be careful and smart and always have plan B ... and plan C ... and plan D.

Enjoy aviation and when I'm in SAT again, I can give you a buzz (might be there a few times this month with some pup transports so PM me your # if interested).
Now go fly!
 
RotorDude said:
Sure, we are all human, and all make mistakes (myself very much so). But the safe pilot, while realizing each time he/she takes off might be the last time, also makes sure to have multiple options in case the fit hits the shan. Any pilot that doesn't tell him/herself just before takeoff, "today is the day" (or equivalent), is unsafe.
If you launch VFR-only into marginal weather or even any cross-country, you are already taking a chance. Going IFR, or having an easy option to switch to it on a dime, is part of being a safe pilot.
But certainly, any pilot who thinks he/she is invincible is an accident in the making.
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Dang am I suppose to think today is my last day on my first flight lesson? Lol
 
Carlos, risk management is a factor in any pursuit. you are not the first pilot to worry about the risk! I suggest you talk about these issues with a trusted flight instructor. Most fatal accidents share common basic causes, and if you practice self-discipline you can avoid them.
 
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