Civil vs. Military aviation

[MGoBrew11]

Recently, The Atlantic has published a series of articles by James Fallows about the F16/Cessna mishap a few weeks ago. Fallows, I think, enjoys being able to say the military did something wrong; however, I found these articles to raise a few interesting questions and showed quite a bit of disagreement within the USAF aviation community itself. As someone who is pretty fresh out of flight school and has a pretty narrow perspective on flight training, I was curious what some of you all thought about these articles, especially jet guys.

Some highlights:

One former F16 pilot asserts task saturation in the F16 cockpit is so bad that it is "unsafe" to fly approaches at unfamiliar airfields. On the surface, this seems like an absurd statement, but his explanation makes sense.

There is some disagreement on what turn "immediately" really means. I know if I heard that, I'd be going to max AOB if it was VFR. However, one reader (another former USAF pilot) asserts military pilots perhaps don't necessarily respect controllers' vectors because the pilots are commissioned and the military controllers they know are enlisted. In my little experience, I think this one is a pretty long stretch.

A civilian airline pilot suggests that former military pilots in his line of work are arrogant and feel that they are infallible. I have not seen this to be the case in my experience. In fact, throughout flight school, my very experienced instructors always said "I can kill you, just as much as you can kill me. If something isn't right, voice it."


Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Article 4

 

[Treetop Flyer]

Those articles were tough to read. A bunch of anecdotes trying to relate one uninvestigated mishap to military flying culture as a whole.

The supposed F-16 safety officer's take was just flat out ridiculous. If you can't safely fly a fighter on a TACAN approach then you are in the wrong business. The part about controllers being enlisted was too dumb to respond to.

Controllers aren't terribly accurate with traffic calls in my experience. I probably would have started turning left, but been mostly focused on spotting the traffic.

Also, for those who know, how accurate is the claim that F-16's can't fly slower than 300kts? Is than an air start thing? It sounds like bullshit.

 

[wlawr005]

Concur with TFlyer above. They obviously found every idiot they could to speak at the same time.

If an asshole decides to walk down the middle of the freeway during rush hour, he's prolly gonna get hit. Blame the driver of the car for not seeing and avoiding, but the fact remains the asshole was there to begin with.

Could the Viper have cleaned up, maxed out, pulled 9, and missed? Sure. Is that a realistic expectation? No.

About the approach speeds, I'm fairly certain the Viper prolly rolls in at about 160-180ish on approach, very easily 2-2.5 times the speed of Dudley Dooright flying VFR through an approach corridor. Bottom line...Don't walk on the freeway, even if you're allowed to.

About the reaction time of the Viper pilot, maybe a little slow. Maybe he shoulda climbed away, turned faster, who knows? He was absolutely on an IFR flight plan, on vectors, on an approach. Apparantley in civilian land IFR in VMC is a thing, although I've never heard of it. Maybe there's the disconnect. As a military pilot, if I'm IMC or on an IFR flight plan, I presume that "legally" it's not my responsibility to even look outside, although reasonable man theory applies and I'm gonna see and avoid because I like seeing my kids at night.

Bottom line, an asshat put a Viper pilot in a shitty situation and now the media clowns are all over it.

 

[squorch2]

As a military pilot, if I'm IMC or on an IFR flight plan, I presume that "legally" it's not my responsibility to even look outside

Wrong. Legally wrong. Take your wings away in a mishap wrong:

http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_G...934f0a02e17e7de086256eeb005192fc!OpenDocument

"(b) General. When weather conditions permit, regardless of whether an operation is conducted under instrument flight rules or visual flight rules, vigilance shall be maintained by each person operating an aircraft so as to see and avoid other aircraft."

 

[wlawr005]

One other thing, if the Viper turned left and still hit the Cessna, the left probably wasn't the best idea. I'm betting if the controller wouldn't said shit, the planes would have passed each other given the airspeed differentials.

 

[wlawr005]

Wrong. Legally wrong. Take your wings away in a mishap wrong:

http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_G...934f0a02e17e7de086256eeb005192fc!OpenDocument

"(b) General. When weather conditions permit, regardless of whether an operation is conducted under instrument flight rules or visual flight rules, vigilance shall be maintained by each person operating an aircraft so as to see and avoid other aircraft."

How about (e) and (g) then? Head on should alter course to the right and pilots on final have the right of way.

 

[squorch2]

Of course. But that's not what you were talking about, was it?

 

[wlawr005]

although reasonable man theory applies and I'm gonna see and avoid because I like seeing my kids at night.

Sure it was, although I don't need scripture from the FAA to practice common sense. FAA also says I need a safety observer to log simulated instrument time, but SHARP won't let me log a practice approach without sim time. How do I get around that? Common sense.

 

[Gatordev]

How about (e) and (g) then? Head on should alter course to the right and pilots on final have the right of way.

Neither of those is what you said, though. Also, (g) still applies. If you're VMC on an IFR clearance for an approach, you still have to have eyes out for traffic avoidance, even if you have right away. As you said, you would try and do that anyway because it makes sense, but it's not just a "civilian thing."

 

[ChuckM]

"See and avoid" is always in effect. This is why even when under positive control of two aircraft a controler will do thier best to talk the two planes onto visual contact. Once achieved, one or both of the aircraft are on the hook for visual seperation.

That's why the only correct answer when you don't have that traffic in sight is "negative contact". This leaves seperation liability with the controler. This liability is shared under VMC condition or under any reasonable conditions where one aircraft might see the other. Hence the "faa scripture" above.

Skip Instrument Ground School this year? Frankly, as a profesional military aviator, you should be better trained than to make blatently stupid comments like the above. Especially true in an open forum reflecting on the rest of us and our reputation as pilots. Last time I checked, we operated under the FARs with very few exceptions. You might want to read about that in the front of 3710 U under section 1.2.3 (assuming that you only value Navy regs).

 

[webmaster]

 

[wlawr005]

Concur with TFlyer above. They obviously found every idiot they could to speak at the same time.

If an asshole decides to walk down the middle of the freeway duri

"See and avoid" is always in effect. This is why even when under positive control of two aircraft a controler will do thier best to talk the two planes onto visual contact. Once achieved, one or both of the aircraft are on the hook for visual seperation.

That's why the only correct answer when you don't have that traffic in sight is "negative contact". This leaves seperation liability with the controler. This liability is shared under VMC condition or under any reasonable conditions where one aircraft might see the other. Hence the "faa scripture" above.

Skip Instrument Ground School this year? Frankly, as a profesional military aviator, you should be better trained than to make blatently stupid comments like the above. Especially true in an open forum reflecting on the rest of us and our reputation as pilots. Last time I checked, we operated under the FARs with very few exceptions. You might want to read about that in the front of 3710 U under section 1.2.3 (assuming that you only value Navy regs).

Not everybody has four eyeballs in the cockpit. Sometimes you gotta look inside and rely on ATC to do their job.

I'm glad you think I'm blatently stupid, but I've never spoken for you...so I think the butt hurt is kinda ridiculous.

Thanks for taking decent thread and making me not give a fuck. Happens a lot around here these days.

Maybe when can browse around and find out about the next AMDO board.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

Flying an approach in VMC and looking outside isn't hard. It doesn't require four eyeballs and it's required.

 

[wlawr005]

You know, I've come around. It was the F-16s fault. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[wlawr005]

You know, I've come around. It must have been then poor visual lookout that caused this mishap.

Learning has occured.