Topic: Warbirds in Town

[TwoTired]

Fair enough. I actually  only watched Sully a couple of weeks ago.
Would you say it was an accurate telling of what happened?

Yes. For sequence of events. But, not for the ending praise attitude portrayed by the FAA actors.  They would never admit to getting it wrong.

It appeared that they wanted to throw the book at him.

They always want to blame the pilot's decisions.  It's an easy box to check on the report form.  The FAA is a bureaucratic paper mill, funded by bureaucrats, which has evolved to remove as many pilots as they can, in order to improve safety numbers.  Humans ARE fallible.  Accidents are going to happen, even if rare. The FAA would have a perfect safety record if no pilots were allowed to fly.  And the appearance of an action taking watch dog enforcer, plays well on capitol hill, regardless of the actual facts.  Blame must be assigned when sigificant property is lost, and the news media makes it into a show, for politicians/ bureaucrats to get in their sound bites, seldom do they have the slightest knowledge about what it takes to be a good pilot.
Pilots are a minority, which makes them an easy target from those less educated about their abilities/capabilities.  If motor vehicle drivers were required to have similar training, there would be 90% less drivers out on the roadways, imo.

Cheers,

[ken65]

Thanks for the insight.  cheers

[jlh3rd]

not a far off remark by twotired but in this case they exaggerated the FAA and NTSB actions to build suspense for the movie. what they did not show and does support twotired comment is that sully made a comment, after takeoff and before hitting the geese, that it was a nice day to fly.Technically, that violates the sterile cockpit rule. The FAA initially wanted to pursue that but the pilot's union and American officials basically said really? are you serious?....so it was dropped
     a friend of mine who i fly with sometimes made a comment saying that the FAA is always out to get us. I said, well...not necessarily'...but there are a lot of things they can get us for...
    i've been an airline pilot since 1986.....guess who i fly for...

[Geeto67]

not a far off remark by twotired but in this case they exaggerated the FAA and NTSB actions to build suspense for the movie. what they did not show and does support twotired comment is that sully made a comment, after takeoff and before hitting the geese, that it was a nice day to fly.Technically, that violates the sterile cockpit rule. The FAA initially wanted to pursue that but the pilot's union and American officials basically said really? are you serious?....so it was dropped

Am I wrong in thinking that the Sterile Cockpit rule is outdated? I get the need for it, esp in the wake of Eastern 212, but it was a rule instituted during the days of needle ball and airspeed commercial flying without the aids they have now. The biggest area of concern is around the communications between the PIC and the cabin attendants. I feel like the FAA's over-zealousness in enforcement in this area scares crews away from having communications regarding potentially proactive approaches to things prior to them developing into actual emergencies. There are plenty of cases where the air crew waits untiil the emergency develops before notifying the Flight deck.

I don't know a single GA pilot that doesn't think the FAA is out to get them and all I have met believe that the FAA thinks of GA as a nuisance. The FAA's approach to GA hasn't exactly been friendly and has spawned groups like the EAA and AOPA to become advocate groups to protect GA rights instead of the clubs they were started as. Where I get worried is when the insurance companies start to push more to the hardline FAA guidelines instead of the usual GA practices as a means of denying claims. For decades insurance companies didn't really care about expired medicals if they expired close in time to the incident and the individual would have passed a medical subsequent to the incident. Now, some (like AIG) are hardline about the medical - 1 day expired? yeah you aren't covered. The worst part is some how they got the AOPA to go along with this and now push these policies to AOPA members (AOPA acts as an ins broker for those who don't know).

[jlh3rd]

make sure you don't mis understand me. i am always on the pilot's side. you are very much spot on with the FAA and GA. the FAA did their best to destroy one of the best pilots ever in Bob Hoover. I will never forget that. neither have others. I"ve also known pilots who have killed themselves and others because of their brashness and disregard of rules....it's a balance...
don't get me going on the medical and the FAA, thank god we were able to stop that sleep apnea/BMI bull....
    actually, the sterile cockpit rule is even more scrutinized today. in company training, line checks and FAA observation. It doesn't matter what i think. this is my training, and there's no arguing with the results.      too bad about AOPA complicity
    however, in this case (sully). obviously it was moronic for the FAA to pursue that enforcement. which does illustrate the FAA knee jerk reaction sometimes...

[Geeto67]

make sure you don't mis understand me. i am always on the pilot's side.

No misunderstanding here. I do happen to think some GA pilots take their paranoia of the FAA too far but it isn't without a long justifiable history. My comments were not accusatory, just observational.

you are very much spot on with the FAA and GA. the FAA did their best to destroy one of the best pilots ever in Bob Hoover. I will never forget that. neither have others.

I met Hoover several times as a kid through my father's friend Charlie who knew him from the airshow circuit. Even flew in the Shrike once in the 80's. I will never understand the FAA's approach to the situation, I'm not saying they didn't have some merit but it seems to be the FAA's SOP to handle things in the least sensitive manner possible. In my mind they earned every inch of that hate from pilots.

don't get me going on the medical and the FAA, thank god we were able to stop that sleep apnea/BMI bull....

yup. It was pretty crappy. Then again I have known more than one GA pilot to cover up their open heart surgery scar with pancake makeup when they go to their physical so....you said it before it's a balance.

   

actually, the sterile cockpit rule is even more scrutinized today. in company training, line checks and FAA observation. It doesn't matter what i think. this is my training, and there's no arguing with the results.

Rather than adjust their hardline policies, they put it on the airlines to manage. I am skeptical of this because it creates a situation for inconsistency from airline to airline, and the FAA just sits in judgement as it comes up.

     too bad about AOPA complicity

yeah it's a real mess, and I don't think a lot of pilots realize the situation. There is some talk right now of a class action law suit against AOPA because in recommending any of this insurances there is a question as to whether they broke their duty to the client as a broker by recommending insurance that had greater restrictions than what is industry standard. A friend of mine is going through this at the moment - blew a tire on landing and veered into the woods in his new taildragger (not new to him, a 6 month old airplane) - now the ins company is telling him to go screw because his medical was 3 days expired at the time of incident. he's fine but he's superfly pissed at the AOPA because he doesn't feel they did a good job explaining the policy to him and really hard pushed to sell him an inadequate policy. we will see how it all shakes out.

[edwardmorris]

I'm lucky.  The Blue Angels are doing a show over Huntington Beach this year in late September.  My buddy is going to anchor offshore so we can watch the planes fly overhead.

They are spectacular.  I take my kids to see them every year when they are in Seattle for SeaFair!
They practice for a few days before their show.  Freeways need to be closed to keep the cagers from crashing into each other 

I'm lucky as well, as I've been watching the BAs practicing from our 27 floor terrace at work in downtown Chicago for some years. Nothing short of spectacular. Totally agree about closing the freeways, Lake Shore Drive in Chicago tends to get out of hand with distracted drivers during these events. It used to be really bad when the former Prez would drop by and his Ospreys (Chinooks earlier) just start descending in a parking lot out of the blue.