My Heart Go Out to Those in Moore, Oklahoma

My Heart Go Out to Those in Moore, Oklahoma

Oklahoma City 

The May 20th tornado that destroyed through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore left in its wake a path of destruction and devastation over a mile wide. This is what I can observe on the news and the media.

In the aftermath of the tornado, the Country is gathering behind the great people of Oklahoma. And so, I have been very sad, because I had the opportunity to know this beautiful City and share pleasant moments with your people when I was doing my training with the TSI (FAA Academy Training Center at the end of 2011.

I want the people of Oklahoma to know that you are in my thought and prayer for the victims of this terrible event. 

Takeoff Safety

Takeoff  Safety

The Goal of this post aid is to focus all Pilots to read and review this material. I want to share with the Aviation Community all around the world this interesting understanding guide to Takeoff Safety and reduced the number of RTO related accidents by improving the pilot’s decision making and associated procedural accomplishment through increased knowledge and awareness of the factors affecting the successful outcome of the Go /No Go decision.

 Perhaps you as a Pilot never have had the experience to reject a takeoff in the real life, but anyway of course this is a normal procedure you practice on your simulator training, but the day that you have to, you need to be understand and be prepared regarding several lessons can be learned from these RTO accidents in the past. First the Crew must always be prepared to make the Go / No Go decision prior to the airplane reaching V1 speed.

A good brief statement of these lessons is, as speed approaches V1, the successful completion of an RTO becomes increasingly more difficult.

The Takeoff Rules

It is important that all pilots understand the takeoff filed length / weight limit rules and the margins these rules provide. Misunderstanding the rules and their application to the operational situation could contribute to an incorrect Go/ No Go decision and could be ended in an incident or accident.

Decisions and Procedures / What Every Pilot Should Know

There are many things that may eventually affect the outcome of a Go / No Go decision. The Goal of the Takeoff Safety Training Aid is to reduce the number of RTO related accidents and incidents by improving the pilots decision making and associated procedure accomplishment through increased knowledge and awareness of the related factors.

V1 Sped Defined

What is the proper operational meaning of the Key parameter V1 Speed with regard of the Go / No Go decision criteria? This is not such an easy question since the term V1 Speed has been redefined several times since commercial jet operations began more than 30 years ago and there is possible ambiguity in the interpretation of the words used to define V1.

The FAA regulations on paragraph 25.107 defines the relationship of the takeoff speeds published in the Airplane Flight Manual, to various speeds determined in the certification testing of the airplane.

The most important statement within this official definition is that V1 is determined from … the pilot’s initiation of the first action to stop the airplane during the accelerated –stop tests.  

One common and misleading way to think of V1 is to say V1 is the decision speed. This is misleading because V1 is not the point to begin making the operational Go / No Go decision. The decision must have been made by the time the airplane reaches V1 or the pilot will not have initiated the RTO procedure at V1, therefore by definition, the airplane will be traveling at a speed higher than V1 when stooping action is initiated, and if the airplane is at a Field Length Limit Weight, an overrun is virtually assured.

Another commonly held misconception V1 is the engine failure recognition speed, suggests that the decision to reject the takeoff following engine failure recognition may begin as late as V1, again, the airplane will have accelerated to a speed higher than V1 before stopping action is initiated.

The certified Accelerated – Stop Distance calculation is based on an engine failure at least one second prior to V1. This standard time allowance has been established to allow the line pilot to recognize an engine failure and begin the subsequent sequence of stopping actions.

In an operational Field Length Limited context, the correct definition of V1 consists of two separate concepts:

First with the respect to the No Go criteria, V1 is the maximum speed at which the rejected takeoff maneuver can be initiated and the airplane stopped within the remaining field length under the conditions and procedures defined in the FARs. Is it the latest point in the takeoff roll where a stop can be initiated?

Second with respect to the Go criteria, V1 is also the earliest point from which an engine out takeoff can be continued and the airplane accomplishes a height of 35 feet at the end of the runway.

The Go / No Go decision must be made before reaching V1 A No Go decision after passing V1 will not leave sufficient runway remaining to stop if the takeoff weight is equal to the Field Length Limit Weight .

When the airplane actual weight is less than the Field Length Limit Weight, it is possible to calculate the actual maximum speed from which the takeoff could be successfully rejected. However, few operators use such takeoff data presentations.

It is therefore recommended that pilots consider V1 to be a limit speed. Do not attempt an RTO once the airplane has passed V1 unless the pilot has reason to conclude the airplane is unsafe or unable to fly. This recommendation should no matter what runway length appears to remain after V1.

Most of the information gathering related on this support to all pilots regarding this Takeoff Safety subject, it is very important to understand that all crew members on the flight deck play an important role in the Go / No Go decision and RTO maneuver. Company policies shape these roles. However, how team is organized for each takeoff can make a difference in team performance.

Knowing your own capabilities and that of the other crewmembers is part of Situational Awareness and should be used in planning for a given takeoff.

Always consider the possibility of an RTO when assigning takeoff duties.  

CRM is very significant and each airline approaches the use of a good Crew Resource Management in a slightly different manner, but the goal of effective teamwork remains the same.

CRM is good example information that could be used to promote a common perception of RTO problems and actions.

Tradewinds Boeing 747 Rejected Takeoff Crash. Click on the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj8UPEfO1Oo

Stay Safe, Someone at Home is waiting for you. Always Fly Safely

AIRCRAFT WEIGHT AND BALANCE

AIRCRAFT WEIGHT AND BALANCE

 Weight and balance illustrated.

An Important Safety Consideration for Pilots. Aircraft Performance and Handling Characteristics are affected by the gross weight and center of gravity limits. If every pilot, dispatchers and operators were to understand and respect this fact, general aviation accidents could be reduced dramatically.

An overloaded or improperly balanced aircraft will require more power and greater fuel consumption to maintain flight, and the stability and controllability will be seriously affected.

Weight and Balance suggests the concern is not only with the weight of the airplane but also the location of its center of gravity (CG). The importance of the CG should have become apparent in the discussion of stability, controllability, and performance.

If all pilots, dispatchers understood and respected the effect of CG on an airplane, then one type of accident would be eliminated from the records: PRIMARY CAUSE OF ACCIDENT AIRPLANE CENTER OF GRAVITY OUT OF REARWARD LIMITS AND UNEQUAL LOAD DISTRIBUTION RESULTING IN AN UNSTABLE AIRPLANE. PILOT LOST CONTROL OF AIRPLANE ON TAKE OFF AND CRASHED.

The distribution of the overall load within the aircraft – important for monitoring the maximum permissible masses – and the aircraft’s center of gravity – the trim – are included.

The trim must also remain within a prescribed tolerance during takeoff, the entire flight, and landing.

When preparing the loading plan, it is necessary not only to consider the positions, weights, and sizes of cargo units but especially also whether the IATA rules permit them to be stowed adjacent to one another in the aircraft.

Axis of Rotation

The Weight and Balance issue is particularly important for Cargo Operations.

Two fatal cargo plane crashes occurred in the United States in recent years because of a failure to load the airplane within weight and/or center of gravity (CG) limits.

The first crash involved the Aug. 7, 1997 fiery impact moments after takeoff of a Fine Air DC-8 cargo jet at Miami. The second crash, involved the Feb. 16, 2000 crash seconds after takeoff from LA  California  this time of an improperly loaded Evergreen Worldwide Airlines DC-8.

My best recommendation to all folks working in the aviation industry always must be alerted,  we are humans nothing is perfect; remember before each flight the pilot and dispatchers must ensure that the aircraft does not exceed the maximum gross weight. Constantly must also determine the Center of Gravity (C of G) of an aircraft before each flight to ensure it is between the maximum rearward and maximum forward positions (the C of G Range). Check and Re Check always all the time before your flight.

Human Errors always going to be, the most important is to detected on time to prevent accidents.

Maintain knowledge and understand that aircraft performance and handling characteristics are affected by the gross weight and center of gravity. This could dramatically reduce aviation accidents.

Any airplane must be carefully loaded to maintain the center of gravity within a carefully designed and tested zone of the airplane

Think Safety Work Safety !!!!

Meteorology and Flight

Aviation Weather 

Weather influences all pilots on every flight. So, there is a serious to all pilots understanding this critical area of Aviation Information. As pilots, how can we be anticipated to develop the needed skill in this area? What is the difference between Weather and Climate?

Weather is a major cause of fatal Aircraft Accidents and has the highest rate of fatalities, over 80%.

Between one-quarter and one-third of fatal GA accidents are weather related.  

FAA (Safer Skies: A Focused Agenda.

What is the difference between weather and climate?

WEATHER: Weather is principally the way the atmosphere is behaving, mainly with respect to its effects.As Pilots we ask what is the weather in terms of temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, visibility, wind, and atmospheric pressure, as in high and low pressure etc. In most Countries and places, weather can change from Minute-to-Minute, Hour-to-Hour, Day-to-Day, and Season-to-Season.

CLIMATE: Climate is the report of the long-term pattern of weather in a particular area.

Some meteorological experts define climate as the typical weather for a particular region and time period. When  meteorologists experts  talk about climate, they're looking what that means the terms  of precipitation, temperature, humidity, wind velocity, phenomena such as fog, frost, and hail storms, and other measures of the weather that occur over a long period in a particular place.

According to the NASA.gov information, the difference between weather and climate is the measure of time. Weather is what the conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time and climate is the average weather over a very long period of time.

Keep in mind deeper information of weather also allows you to adjust your flights, and avoid potential weather hazards.

Always Remember Fly Safely, the weather plays a huge part in your flying all the time.

Safety is the First gate to Success / Working without Safety means Failure.

http://aviationweather.gov/

Situational Awareness and Human Factors in Aviation

Situational Awareness and Human Factors in Aviation

I would like to share this interesting issue and my motivation to write these words and, also I hope it is going to help all Pilots flying around the world, to study more how people interact with their environments. Human Factors and Situational Awareness are two important concepts in General Aviation, we need to define what is meant by those concepts , to stay away of incidents and accidents, and the interaction and communication with the other pilots and crews following  my Safety Blog and my encouragement to share  different safety perceptions with the Aviation Community.   

The organized concepts of Situational  Awareness and Human Factors in aviation are essential to flying safely all the time.

Three components of Situation Awareness are: Spatial Awareness, System Awareness, and Task Awareness. Each of these components has real-world implications for the attention to prevent incidents and accidents in General and Commercial Aviation.

What is Situational Awareness?

- To have a correct perception of the situation.

- Be able to rapidly recognize a change in the situation.

- Understanding the impact of any change in the situation.

- Be able to development the situation in the near future to avoid a fatal condition.

Situational Awareness is not a specific behavior. Is the product or result of the attitude, and the behaviors and actions.

Mental discipline is necessary while flying to keep you as a Pilot aware of all factors around you.

Always you need to track of your position, using all your navigation equipment as well your implements that you have in to your cockpit. You must always be vigilant your flight which requires constant discipline.

You must monitor everything and of course also you need to pay attention to your passengers and crew assuring their comfort and safety of the flight.

The moment you lose track of any of these, you have diminished your Situational Awareness.

Remember, this makes you more vulnerable to mistakes, particularly if a situation arises in which you feel pressure or stress, flying bad weather, in any abnormal or emergency situation etc.

What is Human Factor ?

Maybe you have a different concept what that mean Human Factor, the concept Human Factors is about people in their working and living environments , and of course is the relationship with the equipment procedures and the environment . Human Factors involves all the performance of human beings, related in our career as Pilots.

It is very important to understand the concept, to be very objective as Safety and Efficiency in all flights.

As I said Human Factors is the study of how people interact with their environment, is very important to know in the case of General Aviation, to study of how Pilot performance is influenced by such issues in the new generation with the new technology that could be effect of emotions, and the interaction and have a good communication with the other crews to prevent accidents.

Don’t forget the primary cause in the majority of accidents; Pilot Error is an action or decision of the Pilot that if not caught and corrected on time, could contribute to the occurrence of an incident or accident. I want to explain and be emphasizing that the term Pilot Error, does not indicate that all errors are the fault of the Pilot. Occasionally in my experience as an Aviation Accident Investigator, external circumstances are the causes of the fatal occurrence too.

Remember we as a Human being everybody make mistakes , nobody is perfect , we are humans, but the most important is to recognize on time that error, and understand due to human error are often the result of a series of events which lead to an accident if we don’t broke that  link of the chain .

Always Follow the procedures, keep Safety in Mind

What is CFIT? Controlled Flight into Terrain

What is CFIT?

Controlled Flight into Terrain (CFIT) occurs when an airplane under the control of a pilot is inadvertently flown into terrain, water, or an obstacle with inadequate awareness on the part of the pilot of the coming disaster.

CFIT Accidents occur most frequently in GA operations, comprising 4.7% of all GA accidents and 32% of GA accidents in IMC. On average there are 1.4 fatalities per CFIT accident, versus 0.33 fatalities per GA accident overall.

Aircraft Accidents caused by CFIT (Controlled Flight into Terrain), are one of the accidents affecting the world in general aviation, usually is as a result of flying into IMC, on or a visual flight (VFR).

According to the statistics, 80% of all CFIT Accidents are involved in general aviation aircraft, with a fatal consequence in 75% of cases.

Generally there are two major accidents profiles after the Pilot get in to inadvertent entrance into IMC on VFR flight.

• Loss of Control: the loss of the spatial orientation by the pilot after inadvertently entering into clouds. Disoriented without visual references and inexperienced in instrument flight, lose control during the flight.

• Final Unexpected: the pilot inadvertently enters into clouds without following an instrument flight plan, usually after trying to maintain visual below the ceiling until the increasing and the pilot try to stay below the layer cloud. The pilot tries to reach an area with higher ceilings regardless of the terrain ahead and just colliding with the mountain in a level flight attitude and high speed.

               17% of all GA fatalities are due to CFIT.

                CFIT accidents are fatal 58% of the time.

                CFIT accidents occur 64% of the time in daytime and 36% at night.

                51% of CFIT accidents occur in IMC, 48% in VMC and 1% unknown.

                Impacted terrain was flat 45% and mountainous 55%.

My best advice to all pilots, be alert when transition from VFR to IFR safety; and avoid equipment problems, air controller error, or your own complacency.

Constantly use all the most effective aviation safety tools available inside the cockpit, also always controlling Pilot Error" , the causes of up to 80 % of aviation accidents – are pilot mistakes.

Read and study related CFIT Accidents, respected "Save Yourself" techniques and safety tips; and clear and stay away and be concise as a Safety Pilot all the time.

Keep in mind, most CFIT accidents occur under or adjacent to the intermediate or final approach path.

The importance of GPWS and MSAWS (Minimum Safe Altitude Warning Systems) needs to be clarified. Both systems have been designed to provide alerts and warnings.

Training in procedures that include all appropriate points described above will help promote a healthy ‘CFIT Avoidance’ attitude.

Good Crew Co-Operation and development and excellent (CRM) Crew Resource Management.

 Crews must then be trained in their use and understand the concept of CFIT.

CFIT Accidents and Incidents that might have turned into CFIT accidents continue to occur and remain a cause for concern. Always fly safely your airplane.

The risk of CFIT cannot be left to back-up systems such as GPWS and MSAWS to solve the problem , but it can be reduced if all flight crew members are given well thought out the procedures to pay the attention needed , are properly trained in their use, and apply them carefully.

Pilots and Operators are refreshed to review their procedures for ‘CFIT Avoidance’ content and explanation  as  I described above writing this words to share with the community   and to make sure that, once established as appropriate and review , they are applied in all operations to fly safely all the time , particularly Crews who fly in to terrain conditions.(Example South American Region etc.)

My personal observation in this post is only issued for information and the prevention of incidents and accidents in General and Commercial Aviation, leadership it is very important during your flight.

Be Safe all the time, and Do it safely

The Pilot and the Leadership Command

The Pilot and the Leadership Command

Being a good leader as an Airmen or any other profession is very important.

Being a good leader involves many factor as such working with a good team, also deal with a difficult situation that are existing to us in any situation during the flight and of course to handling of any event during an emergency situation, the most important is the safety of the passengers and all the entire crew when you as a pilot in command have the responsibility to fly and valuable aircraft.

Being a good  leader however, means sharing the responsibility to work together to get a common goal as a team, sharing all that information in your cockpit, evaluating any risk that it may be present during any phase of your flight and  management of all the resources in the cabin are principal task .

The good administration of an excellent CRM: This is the most important section for the prevention of accidents.

Leadership is the skill of making a person to do something you want and done because he wants to do and much better, so it should know you as a pilot in command, must lead and always keep your cockpit open for any concern, a good communication will avoid a difficult situation that if not fixed on  time it can contribute  to an incident or accident at any phase of the flight .

Like a good airmen leader, you have to guarantee that everything is running efficiently inside the cockpit, make sure that your team works with you and always are happy and motivated, if something bothers them, or if they have other things to tell you in which not are agree with you, always try to express in a good manner and  their flights must be  always safer, the good leader is the one who shares his knowledge with his team, there is no better thing to share what has been learned in our  of life experience and understanding that we shared, everyone in this profession as pilots we  have learned from fatal accidents , Leadership and Learning are always indispensable.

 If you as a pilot has accumulated many flight hours and many years in this profession, this does not mean you are perfect and cannot be involved in an emergency situation, maybe one day you can be involve in any one, a good leader always learns from their students , coworkers and also from the mistakes of the past fatal incidents and accidents, maybe you as a pilot in command  have more experience and a lot of accumulated  flying hours  more than your colleagues in aviation , but never think and assume you know everything.

Each day of our life brings a new experiences to all of us, and remember always every flight that has been done is different from the last flight we done already.

As pilots we constantly learn new things in our profession. Always learn from the mistakes of the fatal accidents and consequences in the past, those accidents teach us that we must never lose the track that accidents can be avoided.

To be a great leader Airmen, always must be interconnecting and working together inside the cockpit, and maintain a good environment with your team and managing all these resources we have inside the cockpit to flying safely all the time.

It is good to learning the past fatal accidents in general and commercial aviation , this will teach you much more in this profession as pilots , leadership is an action not a position, most things in our life are difficult before they become easy, always fly with safety and  thanks all the time  because you have a good luck to be a good airline pilot  and be grateful to have  that position where you are in the present  ,  it is important  to have a good luck , but do not think you have a good luck in case of an emergency, the pilot leader must always be prepare and be  trained for the unexpected in any difficult situation that is present inside your cockpit at any time.

Always test your crew to maintain a high standard for all its flights and of course you as you as a good leader too.

Always listen and keep your cockpit open for any information, always remember that it is better to reach our destination late but safely.

Always is a good time to remember the right things and follow the rules to fly conservative, if you fly with a respectable safety you can get it and never be involved in any badly situation , make sure always that flying  is very  safely, air safety is the  principal commitment to all Pilots Leaders  .

Learn from others mistakes; don't have others learn from you/ Safety is the best way to work.

Always Fly Safely.