Tell me what you think of this flight profile.

Morgan3820

Morgan3820

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Jun 29, 2013
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New Bern, NC
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El Conquistador
Are you referring to the low altitude? Seems like they were at least 500 agl.
 
If you aren't in the plane with him, what business is it of yours?
 
Morgan3820 said:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N33372/history/20220420/1815Z/KEWN/KEWN

This is the flight profile of somebody who rents our airplane. He volunteers to fly some tree huggers to take pictures of farms that they are interested in. From a safety point of view, what do you think? I’ve told him before that I’m not comfortable with what he’s doing but before I tell him in firmer terms, I wanna make sure I’m not overreacting.
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You're overreacting.

However, your airplane, your rules. Don't rent to him anymore if you don't want him flying below xxx feet except for t/o and landing.
 
EdFred said:
You're overreacting.

However, your airplane, your rules. Don't rent to him anymore if you don't want him flying below xxx feet except for t/o and landing.
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Guess I should of set it up as a poll
 
If the regs are kept (500 or 1000’ etc.) than that’s OK, but if I owned the plane and I was concerned about exposure if someone is flying “low and slow” with lots of maneuvering with pax onboard, than I’d be a little nervous too. Personally, I would not allow it anymore. You have to decide what you’re Ok with.
 
Is it *really* a problem with the flight profile you have or a problem with the mission of the flight?

The latter is really none of your business, but that you bring it up makes it sound like that's the root cause of your concern. There are plenty of pilots perfectly capable of low level maneuvering safely. If you doubt their piloting ability then you shouldn't have let them rent in the first place.
 
The whole point is it’s his airplane and he makes the rules and if he doesn’t want the liability exposure than he doesn’t have to allow it. That’s not overreacting, that’s a normal concern that someone may auger in his airplane with passengers aboard. Sure the treehugger comment could have been left out, but he did say “from a safety standpoint” what are our thoughts.
 
Looks like the he was below 500' a lot on the 16 April flight. If he was flying that low over my farm, I'd be more than a little ****ed, especially if I had livestock.

No valid reason to fly that low. You can get good photos from 1000' agl and higher.
 
Bob Noel said:
Looks like the he was below 500' a lot on the 16 April flight. If he was flying that low over my farm, I'd be more than a little ****ed, especially if I had livestock.

No valid reason to fly that low. You can get good photos from 1000' agl and higher.
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Even if below 500' AGL, may still have been more than 500' from any person or structure, and looking at the overlay on the sat view, that appears to be the case.
 
Morgan3820 said:
Well it’s my plane and he’s a renter. If he does a low level stall, my life will get very complicated.
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Your life got complicated when you decided to start renting the plane out. I really don’t see an accident adding much more complexity.

It sounds to me like you might be trying to place restrictions on the use of the airplane based on your personal skill/comfort level with a specific operation, rather than looking at it from a legal vs. not legal standpoint.
 
Safety/legality wise I don't see any inherent issues. But it's your plane so whatever the reason, if you're not comfortable with it then have him cut it off or find another plane to rent.
 
Morgan3820 said:
Well it’s my plane and he’s a renter. If he does a low level stall, my life will get very complicated.
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That's different. I read the "our" more as you were also renting the same plane. In that case, who cares what we think? It's your plane. Is his rental income worth the risk to you? Your call.
 
Looks like good use of an airplane, although it appears they climbed excessively on the ends.
 
Bob Noel said:
Looks like the he was below 500' a lot on the 16 April flight. If he was flying that low over my farm, I'd be more than a little ****ed, especially if I had livestock. No valid reason to fly that low. You can get good photos from 1000' agl and higher.
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To me that profile looks like TO and landing practice.

Quite interesting to run the playback at 10x. Some of those 360s seemed awfully quick.
I don't have any advice on what to do, other than repeat what others have said. I am curious as to what he was doing on the right side of the profile in dropping from 2000' to 1000', then back up.

Does Flightaware profiles report AGL? or MSL?
 
Velocity173 said:
Are you referring to the low altitude? Seems like they were at least 500 agl.
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Morgan3820 said:
Yes. Specifically the tight turns at low level.
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Well, all of us had to do rectangular courses, turns around a point and S-turns across a road at 600-1000AGL per the ACS. You could (gently) point out that he's a little lower than the ACS standard, if it was less than 600AGL (I'm too lazy to look up the terrain elevation).
 
and was that low level flying consistent with being a good ambassador for small GA?

maybe it was legal (I doubt it), but for sure and for certain it wasn't necessary.
 
Having flown and maneuvered low level for a few hours I wouldn’t trust a renter in that environment without giving the checkout my self. As a pilot that earned a living working in production agriculture for ten years I would kick him to the curb for the mission as well. I interacted with environmentalists occasionally. Their ignorance was epic. I would not make it any easier for them to be “interested” in a farm.
 
Your plane your rules. Don't see a big issue with the flight profile but I live and fly in a very rural area. Places to land are abundant if there is a problem.
 
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Salty said:
That's different. I read the "our" more as you were also renting the same plane. In that case, who cares what we think? It's your plane. Is his rental income worth the risk to you? Your call.
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No. The story is that the person has always rented from me but then I sold the plane into a partnership and he did not want to buy. But he still wanted to just rent so the rest of the guys in the partnership were OK with still running to him. We are all familiar to one another. But I vouched for him.
 
Regarding the altitude, don't forget that ADS-B is reporting pressure altitude, i.e. 29.92 altitude, not what the pilot is seeing on the altimeter. So even if it looks like they went below 500 ft (and in sparsely populated areas you are allowed to), they may not have according to the altimeter. Therefore, you cannot necessarily infer any kind of reckless behavior.

Second, you really also can't tell how tight the turns were unless you measured the turn radius, got the ground speed, and knew the wind at that altitude.

Third, for the OP, if you don't want to rent to them, it's your airplane, don't rent to them. Whether you're not comfortable with the low altitude flying or you don't like that the pilot wears Nomex flight suits or whatever, you don't even need a reason. But I would definitely stick to the low altitude aspect, not the purpose of the flight, if you rescind their rental privileges.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Having flown and maneuvered low level for a few hours I wouldn’t trust a renter in that environment without giving the checkout my self. As a pilot that earned a living working in production agriculture for ten years I would kick him to the curb for the mission as well. I interacted with environmentalists occasionally. Their ignorance was epic. I would not make it any easier for them to be “interested” in a farm.
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Problem with that is who does the checkout? Is the OP qualified to do so? Or even to determine what constitutes safe operation in that environment?
 
The OP is not qualified to be special in any way whatsoever.
Gee, I think I just hurt my own feelings.
 
MauleSkinner said:
I kinda figured the thread was about the OP's situation. ;)
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It is. If he isn’t qualified to do the checkout hire someone who is qualified. I would do it myself and he can hire someone. Same outcome :-/
Still don’t get what you are trying to say? Is it bad advice because the OP can’t personally do the checkout ?
 
Tarheelpilot said:
It is. If he isn’t qualified to do the checkout hire someone who is qualified. I would do it myself and he can hire someone. Same outcome :-/
Still don’t get what you are trying to say? Is it bad advice because the OP can’t personally do the checkout ?
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Most of the checkouts i've seen for dangerous operations, like, say, landing on a grass runway :rolleyes:, were done by totally unqualified instructors. While you're probably well qualified, someone who doesn't know what he doesn't know is going to have difficulty hiring a qualified instructor to do the job.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Most of the checkouts i've seen for dangerous operations, like, say, landing on a grass runway :rolleyes:, were done by totally unqualified instructors. While you're probably well qualified, someone who doesn't know what he doesn't know is going to have difficulty hiring a qualified instructor to do the job.
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Well. I guess he should just sell his airplane. Don’t know what he don’t know…

It is not rocket surgery. I don’t agree with you at all. I don’t have to be a good attorney to hire a good attorney. Not do I have to be highly qualified as an instructor with low level operational experience to hire someone that does have the experience.

the bottom line is if the OP is worried he should resolve those concerns before allowing the renter to continue operating at low altitudes.
 
mondtster said:
Your life got complicated when you decided to start renting the plane out. I really don’t see an accident adding much more complexity.
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You don't think an accident resulting in injuries or death involving passengers is more complicated than renting out an airplane???

I'm guessing you've never rented your plane or been involved in the aftermath of an accident.
 
Morgan3820 said:
The OP is not qualified to be special in any way whatsoever.
Gee, I think I just hurt my own feelings.
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Reported. :)

I don’t know the economics of the situation, which are your business to decide. But in general I wouldn’t rent my plane to someone I didn’t trust for any reason. I don’t have to look at the flight to know that it makes you uncomfortable. If someone told me I can’t rent his plane anymore because my flying makes him uncomfortable, I would probably be confused and embarrassed but I wouldn’t try to tell him it isn’t his decision to make.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Problem with that is who does the checkout? Is the OP qualified to do so? Or even to determine what constitutes safe operation in that environment?
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The OP owns the airplane. Therefore, he actually is the ONLY one truly qualified to determine if the operation makes HIM feel safe enough to rent the airplane.

He can rent or not rent the plane to anybody dependent on whatever criteria he feels is necessary.
 
RussR said:
The OP owns the airplane. Therefore, he actually is the ONLY one truly qualified to determine if the operation makes HIM feel safe enough to rent the airplane.

He can rent or not rent the plane to anybody dependent on whatever criteria he feels is necessary.
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Did you quote me for a reason there?
 
donjohnston said:
You don't think an accident resulting in injuries or death involving passengers is more complicated than renting out an airplane???

I'm guessing you've never rented your plane or been involved in the aftermath of an accident.
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The decision to complicate his life was already made when he decided to rent the airplane out in the first place.

And no, I really don’t feel things would get that much more complicated in the event of an accident. I’ve dealt directly and indirectly with several accidents that haven’t amounted to much. Dealing with some renters has been far more difficult.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Did you quote me for a reason there?
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Your post questioned whether the OP was qualified to do a rental checkout for this specific operation. My response is that since we're talking about the OP's comfort level with a certain operation, he is actually the ONLY one qualified to determine if he wants to rent the plane for the purposes of that operation.
 
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