Bad pilot

[EpicFlight]

You know, reading these forums it often feels that when I head out to fly I'm like this

but when most of you go out for some buzzing around it's like this

Discuss

 

[Lob's Falcon]

GUILTY!! Speak softly but carry a big stick(in that tiny packpack) Seriously, most people are just curious. If you take the time to explain things to them(after landing) and maybe show them some footage(not required) then they actually want to see you fly like the first picture. That is when i grin like the 2nd picture and CUT LOOSE! Have fun everyone but be safe and respectful.

 

[Chaosrider]

You know, reading these forums it often feels that when I head out to fly I'm like this

but when most of you go out for some buzzing around it's like this

Discuss

Curious that you should use this comparison.

I ride large fast motorcycles, and I just got my FPV last month, which I now fly in ways I would have considered to be insane a month ago.

I also went to CalTech.

So perhaps I'm some mutant combination of these two!

 

[Eagle Eye 62]

This is how I like to fly.

 

[EpicFlight]

What I had in mind was the detailed, 75-point checklist, 6 weather apps, FAA rule check, poster board with TRUST cert, Registration, and Country Line Dancing First Place plaque displayed.

How do any of you ever get around to flying? Oh, and the anxiety some of you must experience the entire time you're in the air.

Here's how the bad pilot flies:

• Arrive at favorite beach flying location.
• power up equipment
• wait for solid GPS
• Take off and have fun

Now, yeah, I suppose I "check the weather" but that consists of simple situational awareness 99.99999% of the time... I don't need a weather app, or a pocket anemometer! Geez, the trees have never failed me in 7 years to get everything I need to know about the wind, and a look at the sky, and I'm good to go!

I could go on and on. Honestly, I've never, ever encountered another RC pilot – helis and quads – that truly lived up to all the finger‐wagging that goes on around here.

I don't buy it. I firmly believe most of my fellows here are Bad Pilots just like me

 

[Lob's Falcon]

All fun and games until Murphy's Law kicks in and you win the Darwin Award....... Preflight ceremonies go a long way in life. We all have some Bad Pilot in us! I am NOT denying that.

 

[EpicFlight]

I think you missed the point, @Lob's Falcon! To offer a very specific example, how does Murphy come into play if, as I'm parking, I note blue skies all around me, calm windless conditions, shirtsleeve temps, and don't bother checking the weather online?

Yet some here (if they are to be believed) practically put together a Flight Plan and file it with the FAA before flying.

Whole lotta Virtue Signaling going on here, methinks

 

[Lob's Falcon]

Actually, it is you who missed the point. Murphy's Law states that something will happen when you least expect it.(weather can change before one depletes a battery) Although you have started flying with no prep,successfully, many times with no issues that's when you drop your guard. Surprise! Perhaps i have not been as fortunate as you but from my experience, life slaps with a big hand of reality. Just a heads up, my fellow pilot.

 

[Lob's Falcon]

P.S. In your list of things we do, you forgot safety glasses and hearing protection. You got the rest though. LOL

 

[Lob's Falcon]

You know what? Let's keep the party going. I am charging airplane batteries for tomorrow and guess what? They are in a LiPo safe bag while charging! I do this with my drone packs too. >total geek<

 

[EpicFlight]

Actually, it is you who missed the point.

Not possible to miss a point I am making!

Murphy's Law states that something will happen when you least expect it.(weather can change before one depletes a battery).

This is the sort of nonsense I'm talking about. If the weather were that volatile it would be obvious when I arrive.

As I said: Clear, calm, warm conditions. This will not change sufficiently in 30 minutes to present any threat to my flight at all. Checking the weather forecast in this case is an exercise in pedantic stupidity.

 

[EpicFlight]

@Lob's Falcon do you really not see the enormous difference in risk between charging lipos and weather radically changing while flying?

In one case, your house burns down. In the other, you're sadz because you lost your toy.

 

[Lob's Falcon]

I am just glad you have a sense of humor. I am totally yanking your chain Dude! I can tell you have fun with your drone and that's the main thing. HAVE FUN!!!!

 

[EpicFlight]

I am just glad you have a sense of humor. I am totally yanking your chain Dude! I can tell you have fun with your drone and that's the main thing. HAVE FUN!!!!

OH BOY, DO I!!!!!!

 

[Chaosrider]

What I had in mind was the detailed, 75-point checklist, 6 weather apps, FAA rule check, poster board with TRUST cert, Registration, and Country Line Dancing First Place plaque displayed.

How do any of you ever get around to flying? Oh, and the anxiety some of you must experience the entire time you're in the air.

Here's how the bad pilot flies:

• Arrive at favorite beach flying location.
• power up equipment
• wait for solid GPS
• Take off and have fun

Now, yeah, I suppose I "check the weather" but that consists of simple situational awareness 99.99999% of the time... I don't need a weather app, or a pocket anemometer! Geez, the trees have never failed me in 7 years to get everything I need to know about the wind, and a look at the sky, and I'm good to go!

I could go on and on. Honestly, I've never, ever encountered another RC pilot – helis and quads – that truly lived up to all the finger‐wagging that goes on around here.

I don't buy it. I firmly believe most of my fellows here are Bad Pilots just like me

I think I'm a Bad Pilot with Good tendencies, or a Good Pilot with Bad tendencies...



I've been a weather fanatic for over 50 years, long before I started flying. This was back in the days when the "Weather Channel" consisted of a camera that endlessly scanned back and forth across a few gauges, like temp and wind speed and the like.

The first thing I do every day, without fail, are a quick scan of the news, and a review of the Weather Channel. The weather at my house is different from the weather at the reporting station, what with me being out in the boonies up a canyon, but I've got that well calibrated now, and I don't even have to think about it anymore.

And as you suggest, my entire canyon flying area is carpeted with big, green anemometers, which give me an excellent 3D picture of the canyon winds in real time, just by looking out the window.

But to your more general observation, the point of flying is not to follow the rules and be safe. Doing both are necessary to some degree, but the point of lying is to have fun with it!

Which I've always been good at, and that's a skill that hasn't seemed to diminish with age...

About a dozen years ago I bought a used homebuilt fat ultralight after years of flying conventional factory built airplanes. It was a Challenger II Clipped Wing Special, and a delightful little bird! But there were some major differences. For example, there was no Pilot's Operating handbook, and no checklists!

I've always been a huge believer in checklists, and this bothered me greatly. I had gotten my BFR and check out in the model without checklists, but that was with a very experienced instructor.

I scoured the web looking for checklists, and what people did covered the entire range, from just firing it up with no preflight at all, to doing what amounted to an annual inspection before each flight.

Both of those struck me as dumb, so I wrote my own checklist that looked a lot like a C-172 checklist, streamlined a bit for the simplicity of the Challenger.

In the end, every pilot gets to decide for themselves, but for me, the point of flying is to have fun with it. Following rules and procedures is occasionally necessary, occasionally evil, and sometimes a necessary evil.

But it's never the point.

 

[EpicFlight]

I'm one of those blessed/cursed with the risk-taking gene, so I've been drawn to more challenging and dangerous activities than the average yabbo. SCUBA (technical, decompression diving), hangliding, single-track mountain biking, and much more.

I am hardly hostile to rules and safety practices.
As an example, some of the rules about VLOS and FPV. I wonder if those apparatchiks have ever even flown FPV...

Funny thing about us risk-taking mutants... we tend to be very conscious of and attentive to safety. We just don't waste time with BS. Like checking the weather when it's obvious to my own, quite excellent native sensors.

 

[Chaosrider]

I'm one of those blessed/cursed with the risk-taking gene, so I've been drawn to more challenging and dangerous activities than the average yabbo. SCUBA (technical, decompression diving), hangliding, single-track mountain biking, and much more.

I am hardly hostile to rules and safety practices. I welcome them.

However, I also have little tolerance for rules that amount to nothing more than power-mongering by little low self-esteem mandarins in government getting off on dictating to the public so they can feel big.

As an example, some of the rules about VLOS and FPV. I wonder if those apparatchiks have ever even flown FPV...

Funny thing about us risk-taking mutants... we tend to be very conscious of and attentive to safety. We just don't waste time with BS. Like checking the weather when it's obvious to my own, quite excellent native sensors.

I don't have a risk-seeking gene that I'm aware of, but I do have risk-tolerance gene. I fly regular airplanes and I ride big motorcycles fast on mountain roads.

Both of those activities involve some risk, but there's not an attraction for me to risk per se. I actually consider it to be a negative side effect.

I'm a cool-seeker, not a thrill-seeker. I like to go high far and fast, because it's cool. The risk is something that I need to understand and take appropriate steps to mitigate, which I do, But the risk is an annoyance, not an attraction.

I've worked directly for, or as a contractor to, governments for the majority of my adult life. There are indeed some of the cretins that you describe, but they are a small minority. But on the other side, government is far more risk-averse than other environments. Most of my best successes in government have come from my substantial indifference to the "way it's always been done."

Most of the problems I have with the current drone rules results from the "one size fits all" approach that government regulations frequently take. An absolute ban on BVLOS is excessive, and on balance my be detrimental to safety, by fostering a disrespect for the rules in general. However, not everyone should be allowed to fly BVLOS. Not all drones should be allowed to fly BVLOS. And BVLOS shouldn't be allowed everywhere.

Some unlicensed, untrained dingbat who builds a drone in their basement, with few if any safety features, and then goes and flies it BVLOS in a crowded urban environment, shouldn't be allowed. However, a 107 licensed pilot, with at least non-trivial experience, who flies a well made, reliable drone with many safety features (the Mini-2 fully qualifies), BVLOS in uncontrolled airspace over sparsely populated ground, should be allowed.

In this realm, government needs to learn how to do something it's traditionally awful at doing...making different rules for different people under different conditions.

Setting aside the raw test of the rules, which is only part of the effective rules, the FAA does a really good job of expending their scarce enforcement resources on actual safety risks, rather than trivial edge violations. As long as that continues, things will be fine.

 

[EpicFlight]

Setting aside the raw test of the rules, which is only part of the effective rules, the FAA does a really good job of expending their scarce enforcement resources on actual safety risks, rather than trivial edge violations. As long as that continues, things will be fine.

To be clear, I'm stimulated by the challenge of engaging in high risk activities in such a way as to mitigate the risk, so that the thrill can be experienced without dying or getting hurt.

I agree 100% with your thoughts on BVLOS, your own flight area being a good case in point. I deferred from using that example given how radioactive the topic is

As for your last paragraph above, also agree, and find that sort of sensibility among the public facing troops responsible for enforcement in most agencies and departments. It's what makes it possible to still live free.

It's the rule MAKERS that seem to lack basic sense (needless rule) or lazy (one size fits all, lowest common denominator).

 

[Chaosrider]

To be clear, I'm stimulated by the challenge of engaging in high risk activities in such a way as to mitigate the risk, so that the thrill can be experienced without dying or getting hurt.

I agree 100% with your thoughts on BVLOS, your own flight area being a good case in point. I deferred from using that example given how radioactive the topic is

As for your last paragraph above, also agree, and find that sort of sensibility among the public facing troops responsible for enforcement in most agencies and departments. It's what makes it possible to still live free.

It's the rule MAKERS that seem to lack basic sense (needless rule) or lazy (one size fits all, lowest common denominator).

To a large extent, our continued freedom...in many realms...depends on fuzzy enforcement.

 

[Hayds]

What I had in mind was the detailed, 75-point checklist, 6 weather apps, FAA rule check, poster board with TRUST cert, Registration, and Country Line Dancing First Place plaque displayed.

How do any of you ever get around to flying? Oh, and the anxiety some of you must experience the entire time you're in the air.

Here's how the bad pilot flies:

• Arrive at favorite beach flying location.
• power up equipment
• wait for solid GPS
• Take off and have fun

Now, yeah, I suppose I "check the weather" but that consists of simple situational awareness 99.99999% of the time... I don't need a weather app, or a pocket anemometer! Geez, the trees have never failed me in 7 years to get everything I need to know about the wind, and a look at the sky, and I'm good to go!

I could go on and on. Honestly, I've never, ever encountered another RC pilot – helis and quads – that truly lived up to all the finger‐wagging that goes on around here.

I don't buy it. I firmly believe most of my fellows here are Bad Pilots just like me

I thought everyone flew like it's PlayStation!!