Additional Event Information & Acknowledgement of Industry Sponsor(s):
Event sponsored by The Oswego County Airport Association and The Flight School.
All of us can be pressured into taking risks by our circumstances. What causes you to take risks that you might not otherwise take? When you are in a long line of cars at a busy intersection, how long does the gap in traffic need to be before you will risk turning left across and into the traffic? Does the risk gap get shorter as you wait longer? If the driver behind you is honking? If you are in a hurry to catch a plane ? If you have impatient passengers? We take risks in flight for many very legitimate reasons (e.g., transportation, convenience, economics). Sometimes, we make risky choices based on less legitimate reasons as well. After a close call, many people rationalize, “I had no choice, I had to do it.” Safety in our aviation system depends, to a great extent, upon the amount of control we exercise over our choices to take risks.
Personal minimums are defined as an individualized set of decision criteria (standards) to which the pilot is committed. Each pilot manifests a unique and variable set of skills and attitudes. Notwithstanding the well-recognized difficulties inherent in self-assessment, and in the absence of any other outside guidance, the individual pilot is the best judge of the risks involved in the contemplated flight.
In this seminar, participants will develop the knowledge necessary to move into risk identification. In addition, they should be motivated to make risk assessment a priority for their own flying. Finally, they should have developed a level of comfort in sharing ideas with others which will enable them to make informed go-no go decisions.
The purpose of this activity is to expand the pilot’s knowledge base of risk factors concerning aviation decision making and to classify them into categories that are easily recalled when needed. It is expected that better decisions will result from considering more risk factors and knowing how they interrelate. Risk awareness is an effective tool to increase safety but requires knowledge, experience, and a commitment to use one’s knowledge.
Personal Minimum Guidelines. Personal mini-mum guidelines are simple acronyms, rules of thumb, sayings, if-then statements, forms, or memory aids representing what the pilot intends to do about the risk factors identified in this seminar. The development of these guidelines is more personal than the risk factor identification and should be done individually based upon the pilot and the intended flight. In this seminar, pilots can write their personal mini-mum guidelines, and will organize them into an easy-to-use checklist format.
After completing this seminar, participants should have a clear understanding of personal minimums and a set to which each has committed to follow. A side benefit of the briefing is that each will have reviewed the CFR requirements and thus will have a greater knowledge to take away from the seminar. From a teaching perspective, one can hardly do better than to learn rules by determining how they will be applied to one’s own decisions.
Recurrent training is the foundation of safe aviation operations, join the other safe pilots in your area and participate in the New WINGs Pilot Proficiency Program! Attendance at this meeting counts toward the new program, learn all the details, join us and be a safer pilot!
Driving Directions: From the intersection of RT3 and Rt 481 in Fulton take RT3 west to 7th street. Turn left on 7th Street. (becomes Whitaker Rd) proceed about 2.5 miles and turn right on Airport Drive. The Flight School is at the end of Airport Drive.
AEA-S-1-03
