we were doing um the cap 1 departure I had the autopilot on and it was bumpy as hell I want to help more low time Pilots to not end up dead hey there all my fellow aviators welcome back to another video on the fly with Trent Channel my name is Trent a a couple of days ago three days actually to be specific I posted a reel on Instagram too many low time Pilots die every year how to not be one of them and in 3 days it got reached 181,000 Accounts at 4,400 likes and 180 comments 177,000 views which blew me away so seeing seeing that real I posted that because of a recent flight um I did a trip with my wife in the Cirrus down to Palm Springs and when we departed Palm Springs and the Palm Springs Airport is got tall mountains on both sides and on one end of the the the canyon so to speak there is a lot of windmills so there's a lot of wind coming through and I remember doing the departure we were doing um the cap 1 departure I had the autopilot on and it was bumpy as hell my poor wife was uh was a little scared and I looked over to her and I said you know hey sure glad I got autopilot and we're not taking off at night in IMC and and I thought more about that on the flight and I thought man I I wouldn't have done that I wouldn't have taken off if the winds were like that and it was IMC and I was in that Canyon and those mountains were around I wouldn't have done that at night and so in today's video what I want to do is dive more into what I talked briefly about in that reel and part of this was actually I was motivated by the troll comments cuz there was you know here I am making this safety video and I'm talking about my my strike system and some people are calling me a because I'm too scared to go fly or in in in these adverse conditions or I must really not know what I'm doing or I'm incompetent and and those were a very small portion of the comments but I was just like wow guys you really don't get this I think maybe you need to spend some time going to read the hazard dis attitudes and just having a look in the mirror so the the idea behind this video is not to say hey like I'm Mr Macho and I can fly and anything the idea behind this video is I want to help more low time Pilots to not end up dead so I think that's a pretty good reason to make a video so with that said let's dive into it I really hope that you enjoy uh hearing what I record in this video as a result of the research that I've done and uh I guess I'll find out when uh when you guys leave me some comments so let's dive right into it so every year far too many low time Pilots lose their lives in aviation accidents and it's a sobering reality that we cannot afford to ignore so before we dive into all the nuts and the bolts of this video I want to share with you some data from the NTSB according to the NTSB Pilots with between 50 and 300 flight hours have a significantly higher accident rate compared to Pilots with over 300 hours specifically the ntsp has found that Pilots with between 50 and 300 hours of flight time are involved in accidents at a rate of around 24 accidents per 100,000 flight hours in contast to that Pilots with over 300 hours have a significantly lower accident rate with only about 10 accidents per 100,000 flight hours so the nb's data underscores the critical importance of continuous learning and experience accumulation in aviation safety Pilots with higher higher flight hours not only have more experience but also likely have encountered and learned from a broader range of situations contributing to safer decision making and flight operations so if you'd like to learn more about the data that I'm talking about I suggest you pick up a copy of the book The Kill Zone by Paul Craig and if you're not a fan of the book you don't need to tell me about it in the comments because I really don't care what you think about the book and you don't need to tell me anything about it now let's talk about the risks according to my research uh here's a list of the biggest risks that are faced by low-time pilots and and and I'm sure that they're faced by alltime all Pilots as well but my risk uh my research was specifically around low time pilots in that 50 to 300 window so number one lack of experience obviously lantime Pilots often lack the experience needed to handle challenging flight situations effectively inexperience can lead to poor decision making uh difficulty managing emergencies or heightened susceptibility to making errors in flight number two is limited exposure to various flying conditions so low time Pilots may not have encountered a wide range of weather conditions they may not have gone on many long trips they may not have a adequate understanding of airspace complexities or airport environments and this lack of exposure can increase the risk of encountering unfamiliar situations that they may not be adequately prepared to handle number three is insufficient training low time Pilots may have completed the minimum required training for a given certification but may not re have received comp comprehensive instruction in areas such as flight planning or Mountain flying or navigation or aircraft systems or emergency procedures or what have you and inadequate training can leave Pilots ill-prepared to deal with unexpected challenges in Flight especially if there are multiple unexpected challenges happening at the same time the next one is overconfidence and man oh man in the comments that I saw on the real and some of these guys you would not get me in an airplane with them just based upon the comments and how Macho they were and how I can handle anything and cross Windsor for blah blah blah I mean it was mindblowing to me so some low time Pilots May overstate uh overestimate rather their abilities or underestimate the risks associated with certain flight operations overconfidence can lead to complacency Reckless decision-making and a reluctance to seek Assistance or advice for more from rather from more experienced pilots in other words bigie go I don't need anybody's help next one is pressure to complete flights slowtime Pilots particularly those flying for personal or recreational purposes may feel pressure to complete flight flights despite adverse weather conditions potential mechanical issues uh or other safety concerns and this pressure to reach a destination can lead to risky decisionmaking and compromised safety margins like giv we call this get their itis so let's give an example you got a really sweet deal on some hotel somewhere and you're going to fly your spouse there and you don't want to L lose the money because you didn't get there so even though the weather's sort of sketchy you think ah I'm going to go anyway because we got to get our money's worth and you end up crashing and killing the two of you so obviously that was not a very good situation and so that get get there itis can really be a big risk for for any pilot but in particular for low time Pilots the next one is limited resource management skills so low-time Pilots May struggle with effective Resource Management including time Fuel and cockpit workload poor Resource Management can result in distractions task saturation and reduced situational awareness increasing the likelihood of errors and accidents next one is aircraft handling skills based stick and Rudder skills slowtime Pilots may still be developing their Proficiency in aircraft handling including takeoffs Landings and Maneuvers poor aircraft handling skills can contribute to the loss of control and cause accidents Runway incursions and other safety incidents and the next one is inadequate risk assessment so lowon Pilots may have difficulty accurately assess assessing the risks associated with certain flight operations and I'm going to talk more about that later in the video such as flying in marginal weather or over mountainous terrain or at night failure to conduct thorough risk assessments can result in poor decision-making and an increased exposure to hazards which obviously can have an undesirable outcome the next one is limited knowledge of regulations and procedures so low time Pilots may not be fully familiar with Aviation regulations airspace procedures and air traffic control Communications this lack of knowled can lead to airspace violations Communications errors and non-compliance with regulatory requirements next one is pressure to impress or keep up with peers just think of how many 20-year-old dudes killed themselves in cars and motorcycles for this reason alone so low time Pilots may feel pressure to impress others or keep up with more experienced peers leading them to take unnecessary risks or push their limits beyond safe boundaries so now that we've talked all about that I want to also talk a little bit about situational awareness situational awareness is your ability to understand what's happening around you and to anticipate potential hazards from thorough pre-flight planning to staying Vigilant during the flight it is crucial for staying safe so when it comes to situational awareness I would suggest you focus on two things number one is strategies and number two is tools so let's talk about strategies first maintaining situational awareness in the cockpit is crucial for flight safety and so here are some of the best strategies that I believe you can use to achieve and maintain situational awareness so number one pre-flight planning thorough pre-flight planning is essential for setting the stage for situational awareness during a flight this includes studying the road studying the weather conditions studying alternate airports and any potential hazards that you are going to be exposed to along the intended rout of your trip use of checklists utilize checklist to ensure that all necessary tasks and procedures are completed before and during flight this helps prevent oversights that could compromise situational awareness so use your checklists for climb use your checklists For Crews use your checklists for descent and for before landing and so forth we interrupt this program to bring you a special message I realized as I was reviewing this video that there was something that I forgot to include and that is this I have built a software-based workflow that I use for every time I am planning a CrossCountry flight and doing my weather briefing and in that workflow is all of the a lot of what I talk about in this video including my strike system plus a bunch of other stuff and if you'd like to learn more about that and get maybe a copy for yourself there will be a link down in the description below for you to do so now return you to your regular programming take care bye-bye so the next thing we have is instrument scanning so regularly scan coant instruments to monitor aircraft parameters such as altitude air speed heading and most maybe most importantly if you're in VFR engine performance how's the oil temp how's the oil pressure how's the carb heat all of those things are incredibly important how's your level of fuel so this helps you to stay aware of the aircraft's current state and in deviations from what you thought the current state was going to be at that point in the flight uh now communication effective communication with air traffic control and other aircraft in the vicinity enhances situational awareness by providing information about traffic weather updates and changes in Flight conditions so for example on the recent flight I chose to do a descent through the clouds in instrument conditions when if I from the West and I could have come in from the East and done a visual approach but I wanted to practice the approach and so I got on to ATC and I said hey guys do you have any report it was cold and there was clouds and I knew I was going to be in the clouds for a couple of minutes so I said do you have any reports of icing and they said no we did not so I felt comfortable to do that particular approach now even if there was Trace Amounts of ice I still would have done the approach because I was in an aircraft that was capable of flying into no nicing conditions and I had an escape rot were just descending lowerer because it was relatively High ceilings that day so I had strategies to mitigate that particular risk uh next one is traffic awareness so maintain awareness of nearby traffic through Visual scanning um which can sometimes be challenging if the aircraft is a few miles away you're going to have a hard time seeing it listening to radio communications especially when you are in approaching or in the traffic area of a non-towered airport and then using traffic ad advisory systems like tcast which stands for traffic collision avoid system and adsb um which you're going to have the alerts on both your iPad if you're using foreflight and on if you've got a glass cockpit with a moving map that has traffic on it you're going to get an alert from that as well and let me tell you those alerts are worth their weight in gold now we have weather monitoring so continuously monitoring weather conditions along the Route and at the destination airport so if you have a two or three-hour flight yeah I'd be checking that destination airport and I do this on a regular basis so that you can stay informed about changes in weather patterns and be prepared to adjust your flight plan accordingly to avoid Hazard hazardous rather weather conditions so now let's talk about tools to help us execute those strategies so here's my top five tools number one have an electronic flight bag that's basically a device or an application that provides Pilots with access to a variety of information including digital charts weather updates flight planning tools navigation AIDS and so forth these the flight bags these days are absolutely fantastic in addition to a flight bag which is typically on an iPad uh having a GPS system in the plane it provides real information about the real time rather information about the aircraft position track ground speed and other relevant data GPS systems enable precise navigation and situational awareness especially in areas where tradition groundbased navigational AIDS may be limited I talked about tcast already it's not only a strategy but it's also a tool so I would highly recommend that you have some type of electronic system in the cockpit with you helping you to be aware of the traffic that is around you for me I'm I I'm ultra paranoid about other traffic because I've had a number of incidents in non-towered uh airspace so that is a very big one for me and then weather and uh weather radar and satellite imagery so weather radar systems and satellite IM imagery provide Pilots with valuable information about weather conditions along the Route including precipitation thunderstorms clouds and turbulence and so by monitoring weather radar and satellite imagry Pilots can anticipate and more importantly avoid hazardous weather conditions maintaining sit awareness situational awareness and flight safety so for all of those above all those tools personally I use forf flight on my iPad I another copy of on my iPhone plus I take a backup battery with me on every flight so I would have to have my battery go dead and my iPad go dead and my phone go dead all at the same time for me to lose out on that so as I mentioned earlier when after doing that flight down to Palm Springs and back um someone had told me about Mike P's points system or not points strike his three strike video and so I I I wanted I went and I watched that video and in it he talks about how he lost four friends in 60 days and the three strike system that he' created a result and I'll leave a link to the video down in the description so as a result of watching Mike's video and seeing his system I decided to create a modified version of his three strike system for my own use and I want to share with you the current version of it and as you watch what I explain next I ask that you keep a couple of things in mind number one my system is not perfect it's new and it is uh will ever be evolving um number two is I didn't develop it for you I developed it for me so if you feel the need to tell me that I'm a in the comments for wanting to be safe I honestly really don't care I go ahead and keep your comments to yourself just know that if you're leaving them comments in my video you're actually helping me to get more views so you if you want to be a troll go ahead and be a troll I really don't care my system will number three my system will undoubtedly evolve over time so depending on whether you watch when when you watch this video it may have evolved significantly from what I'm about to explain and at the time of this recording I have about 750 hours so here is my strikes that are in my strike system so known icing along my intended route is a strike arriving at a new airport at night is a strike night flying in general is a strike Gusty variable wind is a strike questionable weather which is kind of a broad term and Gusty variable wind obviously is a subset of questionable weather but there's a lot of different kinds of weather but that's a strike less than 10 hours in whatever plane I'm flying is also a strike I'm feeling tired that's a strike a long triple over a remote area at night is also a strike because I might not even if I could manage to land the plane if I'm in a remote area maybe I'm still going to starve or freeze because I'm so far from anything that nobody can get to me any and all IMC departures are a a strike no autopilot for a long trip where I anticipate being in IMC for extended periods of time is a a strike no glass cockpit for that same trip in IMC is also a strike now my iPad could well be the glass cockpit that I'm referring to but I would rather have a glass cockpit with an MFD and a PFD and on the MFD I've got terrain which I do get on my iPad and on the PFD I've got a synthetic Vision so I can actually see the terrain uh high density altitude is a strike and at or near Max takeoff weight is a strike so how does all how does all these strikes work so anytime I get three strikes or more I'm going to take a really hard look at whether or not I need to be going on that trip because let's be honest at this point in my career unless I'm applying to train students all my flights are personally are purely recreational so I really don't have to go and so again I want to be uh having a a system to help me make the best decisions possible about whether I should go all right so if you've enjoyed today's video I would love it if you would smash the like button and consider subscribing to the channel and if you would like to leave a comment hopefully it will be a positive one if it's going to be a negative one telling me what a I am for all my strikes maybe you need to go and read up on the Hazardous attitudes because I would suggest to you that you have some of them and just know as I mentioned earlier if you do decide to let your ego get the better of you and you're going to leave me a negative comment because you think that's going to hurt you're actually going to be helping me because the more comments that appear under this video the more the YouTube algorithm sees it as engagement and it's just going to show it to more so people so all of you trolls out there knock yourselves out thank you very much guys I'll take all the support I can get even if you think you're not actually supporting me thanks very much everybody we'll see you in another video soon take care bye-bye
