Billionaire Fossett missing

[fatathaland]

I agree that flight following is a better and easier than filing a flight plan for a vfr flight.

Anyway, word is they dont have an ELT going off from his plane, which is a good thing since they only go off after a pretty decent impact (or it hit so hard it's destroyed).

 

[xj220]

Or it's bad that it isn't working due to a dead battery, being switched off or some other reason.

 

[FrankTheTank]

Quote:
Originally Posted by theblakeness
..... Laziness tends to come with experience.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HH-60H
....AKA complacency

Disagree .... I've flown with and flight checked hundreds of pilots for over 35 years ..... lazy guys are always lazy and complacent guys are always complacent .... in the air or on the ground, young, old, or in between. Experienced or beginners. Somewhere along the line, the "good" complacent guys begin to learn how much they can "get away with" ..... and the slide begins. Those less capable, complacent beginners just don't get very far in the program.

Take a look at their personal lives, their houses, cars, personal habits, how they dress, the condition of their uniforms, how they flight plan, how they preflight, etc., etc. for confirmation. You can tell a LOT about a guy just by watching him or in the case of the Navy, by cruising with him. To say that "experience" breeds laziness or complacency is just wrong.

It's just harder to "catch 'em" when they're experienced --- as they KNOW how to do it --- they just "don't care" enough to "do it right" when someone is not "watching" ... this again, speaking from a Check Airman point of view. I can brief with a guy for 5 minutes and tell you how the flight is going to go and whether or not he's prepared .... and I'm probably right 95% + of the time .... as someone will always surprise you .....

With over 20K of flight hours ... I've may have been criticized for some things, but no one ever accused me of being "complacent" or "lazy".

Again, the true test of the man -- Aviator in this case -- is what he does "when no one's looking" .... at least that's been my ..... dare I say it (???) .... EXPERIENCE.

Agree 100%; however If I may add... On occasion there is the BAD day but seeing the whole picture, you can usually feel those folks out.. And for us backside of the clock folks there is big time FATIQUE issues.. Flying tired are the scary ones; both when they occur to me or the dude I am sitting next too... Those are about the only few times I have seen guys/gals not fall into your above comments but again I have been in this game not as long..

 

[RAS]

VFR -- area flight -- not going anywhere in particular; why file a flight plan? What would a flight plan provide in addition to what is already known?

On a flight like the one Fossett was on the best thing would be to have your personal survival gear (who knows what the plane may have had) and in that gear have a PLB.

 

[A4sForever]

.... Flying tired are the scary ones; both when they occur to me or the dude I am sitting next too... ...

Agree.

We always anticipated nodding off and planned to sleep/nap inflight with the full knowledge and concurrence of the other two cockpit crew members. Verbally announced: "I'm tired, how are you doing?? Are you awake enough to take it for a little while"? Stuff like that .... ovbiously on un-augmented crews ... but even with extra crew, the problem exists. And of course, the "quality of sleep" in the cockpit seat is problematical, at best.

You notice I said .... "other two" .... that's why I'm a big fan of the three man cockpits. Flight hour regs and limitations aside, it's just "safer" ... usually a relative term ... with three warm bodies in the cockpit vice two when flying on the backside of the clock.

There's just no way around extreme fatigue with international 10-13 day trips and multiple crossings --- most of them involving flying when your body wants to be sleeping. The domestic guys crack us up when they whine about "redeye's" and "backside of the clock flying" .... across 3 time zones. Try 16-18 time zones. And then, on the layover, you try to sleep when your body wants to stay awake. Great ....

Do that for 1/2 of every month, every year, for 25 years ..... and consider yourself lucky if you live long enough to enjoy your retirement.

Someone ran the numbers once and figured there was 2 nights of "sleep" in every 3 days to be had on an Orient trip. Do that for 10-13 days running then multiply by 25 years ..... obviously, this guy was not a company man.

 

[wink]

VFR -- area flight -- not going anywhere in particular; why file a flight plan? What would a flight plan provide in addition to what is already known?

On a flight like the one Fossett was on the best thing would be to have your personal survival gear (who knows what the plane may have had) and in that gear have a PLB.

Don't understand the question. What is already known and by whom? How big is the "area" and what is the terrain and access in the "area". If you consider your local area 50 miles around home plate, just take a look at the variety of terrain. Then break out the calculator and figure how many square miles that is. Next, talk to someone with airborne search experience and ask him how long it will take to cover the area and how hard it will be to locate a small plane in that area with no other amplifying info. Wrecks have been found days later barely a mile off the end of a runway.

PLBs are great, if you are in a condition to activate it. Talking to ATC for following is even better. if they will give you following. Sometimes they don't. I like to fly at altitudes, out here in the west, where ATC does not have radar coverage. In those cases I maintain a listening watch on Center freq so I can just give them a yell if I go down.

 

[RAS]

Wink,
The search for Fossett started very soon after he didn't return to the Flying-M Ranch because the folks there knew when he didn't return. Would ATC flight following work? Sure, but Fossett probably didn't want to talk to anyone, he was out goofing off sightseeing and didn't want to be bothered. Was radar coverage solid where he was flying or was he in and out of radar? Besides, what's the fun in flying VFR squawking 1200 if you treat it like you're flying IFR? This was a supposed to be a fun flight.

As for the PLB, if you auger in it doesn't really matter much if they find you sooner or later -- dead is dead. The aircraft's ELT may or may not work, the 121.5 beacons don't have a great rep, especially if it's destroyed on impact or the aircraft goes belly up. If you regain consciousness though, it doesn't take much to turn on a 406 MHz PLB and the signal carries lots of data, including lat-long if you have one of the units with an embedded GPS -- takes the search out of search and rescue.

 

[plc67]

I was under the impression that Fossett was wearing a Brietling ELT watch. I don't know the criteria for activating it but would assume G foreces would have something to do with it
As for the compacency issue one of the first things I look for when line checking a crew is checklist discipline. Some who have been in an aircraft for years have the checklist committed to memory and may tend to not use the textual reference but when fatigued or stressed critical omissions will be committed. I emphasize the need to use the checklist, especially for those of us flying the backside of the clock.

 

[xj220]

I was reading about it at Breitling's website, pretty interesting. I don't know if there's other ways of activating it, but it sounds like you have to do it yourself. They say you have to unscrew a cap and then pull out an antenna. It has a 100 mi range with aircraft at 20,000 ft which is pretty impressive, assuming you'd be able to go through the motions one you landed.

 

[RAS]

Considering the cost of a Breitling, I'd rather have a Casio G-Shok. The Breitling is all manual and has the same LOS limitations as any 121.5 ELT. I read one report that indicated he didn't have the watch with him.

As for taking stuff for granted, when we fly in the Navy/military we always have our supplied emergency/survival gear -- flotation, signaling, radio, flares et al. Not so in the civilian world. I'll be getting this 406 MHz PLB for XMAS this year.

 

[KSUFLY]

Lazy and complacent...neither one of which describes Steve Fossett. He was a very deliberate and mythodical person. He took a lot of risks but everyone of them was well thought out and he typically wasn't happy until he thought of every risk possible.

My hopes are high for him and I'm praying for his wife and the entire team at Hilton's ranch that's looking for him. For some of the best and most accurate information go to www.stevefossett.com

 

[scoober78]

Lazy and complacent...neither one of which describes Steve Fossett. He was a very deliberate and mythodical person. He took a lot of risks but everyone of them was well thought out and he typically wasn't happy until he thought of every risk possible.

Have you flown with him? If not...



You want to talk about a tragedy??? Let's talk about the multiple aircraft that were discovered on this search for one pilot that were never located when they were lost. Talk to me about feeling sorry for their families and this weeping might have some meaning. Too bad all this effort and coverage wasn't available for the average guy...

 

[HuggyU2]

Too bad all this effort and coverage wasn't available for the average guy...

Yes, too bad, but that's the reality. Steve Fossett is a national flying icon. If Yeager, Crossfield, a Senator, or someone of that type went missing, it would happen again.
And I'm guessing that Fossett's fortune is heavily involved in subsidizing the effort. But maybe not.
Let's also not forget that he's a very close friend of Richard Branson. There are plenty of private $$$ available.
In any case, I'd say "the glass if half full": as a result of this intensive search, they've found some other crash sites, and can maybe put some closure there.

 

[RHPF]

This is the first time I have ever heard of people using Google Earth to search satellite pictures in this manner. More information about it on Amazon's website, and Fossett's. Very interesting.

I was flying gliders out of Minden-Tahoe just a couple days before he took off out of Hilton... which was one of our landing spots in case the winds became unfavorable. I hope they find him in good condition soon. Certainly, the present day aviation icon.

 

[RAS]

Latest from CNN mentions that Breitling watch again, maybe he did have it with him, you just can't trust early reports. Still, no signal from the Citabria's ELT or the watch. There's another guy saying he should have had a flight plan, but since he didn't know where he was going until he got there (probably not unlike those other six planes) a flight plan wouldn't have done much. The ranch knew when to expect him back and what the plane looks like, and that's about all that a flight plan could have offered.

It's good that they've found those other crash sites, probably helps that Barron Hilton is donating his private airport/ranch to the search effort. Wonder who's picking up the fuel bill.