Turn Smart Turn Smart
Respect the Margin of Safety NTSB accident investigations
from the past decade reveal: 26% of fatal ag aircraft accidents
were caused primarily by stall/spins. 50% of fatal stall/spins happened during turns. 62% of reported stall/spins occurring during a turn were fatal. Stall/spins are one of the leading causes of
fatal accidents in the ag aviation industry, accounting for over a quarter of all fatalities. We've created this video to bring renewed awareness of the potential dangers associated with low-level
maneuvering and the ag turnaround. It is our goal to provide you, the ag pilot,
with some recommendations to help you recognize when your personal margin of safety has
been reduced below an acceptable level. We want to remind everyone to "Turn Smart". Kyle, thanks for that information.
That's important information for us to know. My name is Mike Rhodes.
I'm chief pilot here at Air Tractor. I've been here almost 20 years and I'm
responsible for flight test operations here at Air Tractor. I want to introduce you guys to a good
friend of ours and also a customer of ours. This is Steve Gustafson. He's from Tallulah, Louisiana. He's been in the air show business and in
the ag flying business for his entire career. Thanks for having me Mike.
Thanks for joining us. So, Steve, since you were a teenager you've been around the ag aviation community, and you've also been around air show flying. Tell us a little bit about your background and we're obviously
real interested in the ag part of your background. I started loading airplanes when
I was 10 years old. My dad was an ag pilot. He flew Stearmans, Travel Airs and then into Stearmans. And
then I started out in Pawnees when I was 20 years old. Into Ag Cats and then into the Air Tractors.
Today we've got an 802 Air Tractor. I'm just flying with the AeroShell Aerobatic Team
all over the country from El Salvador to Nova Scotia, Canada. Enjoying life, man , enjoying it. We're going to talk to Steve today about
how to make safe turnarounds in the ag environment. And he's going to bring not only his ag experience into the discussion,
but he's also going to bring in his air show and aerobatic experience. Because those two things are very closely related. There's
a lot of similarities between ag flying and air show flying. The low-level environment. It's an unforgiving environment.
Requires a lot of professionalism, a lot of practice. Tell me about some of the differences between
the ag environment and the air show environment. Well the differences are, you know, when
you're in ag you're there to do a certain job. You're there to do to the best of your ability for your customer. You know, the air show business is more of
an entertainment business. But the similarities are, obviously, what you said...
You're in the environment, you know. You're low-level. You're close to the ground. And you
need to be always wary of that and understand where you are. Situational awareness at all times.
Situational awareness in the air show business is very key. You need to know exactly where you're positioned. When we do a maneuver for an air show, we
have to be at the right air speed, at the right altitude. At the center of the show, at the center of
the crowd, or be at where that point is. The Thunderbirds and Blue Angels have to do the same thing. Ag is no different.
You're flying upwind, downwind, cross winds. So every turn you make, you need to prepare for that. And have a frame of mind, in your mindset, of where the wind
is blowing constantly. I can't emphasize that enough. Steve, the purpose of this video is to help people understand
what a safe ag turnaround maneuver looks and feels like. Describe what a safe turnaround maneuver feels like.
First thing, it's a planned maneuver. Before you ever make your first pass in the field
you should have had that planned. And while you're on that pass, you ought to be planning the next pass.
In other words, keep the airplane out in front of you. All of us as pilots, myself included, know
what I'm talking about by having the airplane up in your face. And when you find yourself in that situation.
Not only are you not safe. You're not able to make good judgmental decisions.
So you need to have the airplane out in front of you. Never push yourself into an
uncomfortable situation. Keep yourself comfortable and you'll keep yourself safe. Even when you're in the middle of your air
show routine with the three other airplanes around you. You've preserved that safety margin, right?
Nobody in that group is taking a chance, right? Oh, that's right. Everybody's
acting within their choreographed routine. It's totally choreographed, you know.
We've had things happen before. But believe it or not, if you've briefed it, gone through it, planned for it.
I hate to say it's really a non-event. As it should be. It's a non-event, because you've placed that
margin of error out where you can deal with it. Instead of bringing it into where there's no
room for dealing with that margin of error. You built in that margin of
error at the beginning, right? Let's talk about some of the elements of an unsafe ag turn.
Things like uncoordinated flight, misuse of rudder... Help us understand what some of the elements of an
unsafe turnaround maneuver are. You know every Air Tractor, if you look in the middle of it,
says "maintain coordinated flight at all times". Well that's in there for a reason,
and it's a very important reason. Because we're flying an airplane with a loaded wing.
It's a loaded wing. Whenever you step on a rudder, be it the left or the right,
if you're uncoordinated you just took some of the lift off of that. Whichever one you're pushing on, you just took some of that
load off and you just put it on the other side. That is how you can end up in an unsafe situation.
And when the airplane does finally break. One wing is flying, and one wing isn't.
It's going to roll you over on your back. And the direction it's going to go is
whichever foot you're pushing on. Whichever rudder that you're pushing
on it's going to go that way. So if you're in a left turn, and you're pushing on the left rudder, it's going to go to the left. Which is obviously a bad place to be in an ag plane. Or any plane for that matter,
if you don't have the altitude to correct the maneuver. If you're pushing on the top rudder, then
it's actually going to break and go over the top. Now obviously, you have to have the correct
inputs to control that but... In the environment that we're flying in, you don't ever need to get
the airplane in that situation in the first place. Ever, ever, never... Steve, let's dig even deeper into what can cause the airplane to depart
controlled flight during an ag turnaround maneuver. We all know that drag increases with increased angle of attack. An aileron that is deflected, trailing edge down, produces more lift and more
drag than an aileron that is deflected trailing edge up. This imbalance of drag force is what causes adverse yaw. When we use poor pilot technique during slow flight,
and try to pick up a low wing by using ailerons. We have to remember that we're also adding an
undesirable pro-spin yawing force toward the low wing. A wing that is on the edge of stall might go ahead and stall when the
aileron moves toward a higher angle of attack. The unique mission of the modern turbine ag airplane
dictates certain design features. It has a heavy propeller and a powerful engine, sitting in front of a
large hopper. All out in front of the pilot. Forces exerted by the engine propeller have a lot of leverage on the
airframe, because of the long nose. It has a lot of leverage.
Like a long cheater pipe but way out in front.
It's going to be sent down the fuselage. And you have to compensate for that. So the rudder and the fin;
their job is to compensate for those yawing forces. As the airplane gets slow in a turn, the rudder and fin kind of
loses its ability to correct for those yawing forces. As student pilots, we all learned about the four left turning tendencies. Let's briefly review them, and talk about how each one acts
on our ag airplane during the turnaround maneuver. Torque is probably the easiest for most of us to understand.
Sir Isaac Newton said that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When the engine and propeller turn clockwise,
the airframe wants to turn counterclockwise just as hard. During takeoff roll, torque causes the left main tire to
carry more weight. And therefore have more rolling resistance than the right main tire.
Pulling the airplane to the left side of the runway. In-flight at cruise speeds the torque of the engine and
propeller is resisted by the airflow over the wings, and is
easily corrected by a small amount of aileron trim. The airplane loses energy and slows down during the turnaround maneuver,
and ailerons lose some of their effectiveness. Slightly more aileron deflection is necessary to counteract the
torque produced by the engine and propeller. The next left turning force on our list is P-factor.
Also known as asymmetric propeller disc loading. The propeller disc on an airplane that is going
through the air in level flight is relatively equally loaded. But a propeller that is going through the air with an angle of attack,
like an airplane that is climbing or turning or slowing down, isn't equally loaded. In that case the right half of the propeller disc generally
produces more thrust than the left half. Due to the difference in angle of attack
of the ascending blade versus the descending blade. Next on the list is spiraling slipstream.
A spinning propeller doesn't push the column of air straight aft. It imparts a rotation on the air, and this spiraling tornado
hits the rest of the airplane from different angles. In general the spiraling slipstream pushes on the left side
of the vertical fin, resulting in a yaw to the left. When the airplane is going fast in cruise flight,
the spiraling slipstream stretches out and becomes very weak. As the airplane slows down, the spiral tightens and becomes a stronger force. Of the four left turning forces, gyroscopic
precession might be the most difficult to visualize and understand. Some flight instructors just gloss over this one, but it might be the most important one for us to understand, because it's a really powerful force in turbine ag airplanes. A gyroscope is a spinning mass that exhibits two
basic properties; rigidity in space and precession. The physics of gyroscopic precession says that
a force applied to a spinning object will have a maximum reaction 90 degrees
in the direction of rotation ahead of the force that is applied. Basically when we push on the top of the propeller disc,
that force is felt on the right side at the three o'clock position of the propeller disc. Gyroscopic forces on the propeller are small when the airplane is in steady-state level flight, but become large when the airplane is maneuvering. At slow speeds in a steep bank to the left, when the
pilot relaxes back pressure on the stick, which is the correct recovery from a stall, gyroscopic forces produce a skidding yaw to the left. By now it should be pretty clear to see that all
of these left-turning forces become strong. And reach their maximum at high power settings, at high angles of attack,
at slow speeds, and while maneuvering. P-factor and gyroscopic precession both produce very strong forces at high power settings. Especially while maneuvering. As the airplane slows down on the turnaround,
the vertical fin and rudder effectiveness naturally fades. And if flown with poor technique can eventually decrease to the point where the rudder is simply unable to provide enough yawing moment to counteract the forces. And the airplane begins to roll, yaw and
rotate. At very low air speeds, there is simply insufficient airflow over
the wings and tail to produce the necessary control forces to correct for the
left turning forces exerted by the engine and propeller. Remember that steep bank angles, aggressive maneuvering, high angles of attack,
low air speeds, and poor pilot technique are all ingredients for a spin. And most of the time
this happens without enough altitude for recovery. All that happens when you're right on the edge of
controlled flight, right. That's a slow airplane and then the uncoordinated inputs when the airplane's
slow that's when you're really stacking the deck against yourself. Downwind.
You know and I've actually noticed over my years, when people
make that mistake they're doing it with not quite a full load. It's like when they have a full load all their senses are are in place. But once they get down about a half load, or say a third just under a half,
it seems to me that, "I can do anything with this thing I want to do". "If I want to horse it around
or rush this turn it'll be okay." That's not true at all. You need to maintain coordinated flight at all times. And the torque, the propeller, on these airplanes is way out in
front of us to keep the center of gravity. I think you hit on a really important point with that. There's another factor that influences flight characteristics.
The airplane's center of gravity has a lot to do with its stall and spin behavior. At the beginning of the flight the airplane's center of gravity
is fairly far forward because of the hopper load. As the contents of the hopper are sprayed
out the airplane's center of gravity moves aft. Its elevator effectiveness is reduced, and its stall spin behavior
can become more aggressive and more pronounced. Keep in mind that most ag airplanes are at or near their aft
CG (center of gravity) limits when the hopper is empty. Don't be aggressive and start snatching controls around
because you're just aggravating it. It's not going to make it any better at all. Smooth and steady wins the race every time.
A smooth and steady pilot in my book is a safe pilot and a better pilot. Then eventually smooth and steady becomes human nature, right?
Exactly, it becomes part of the way you fly. I'm not saying there's only one person that's right or wrong, but
I guarantee you to be a good pilot you need to be a smooth, precise pilot. Not jerky, snatchy, waiting on the airplane. If you're moving the control so fast that you're having to
wait on the airplane to catch up, you're doing it all wrong. Not only that, but that's hard on a human body
after an eight or nine or ten hour day. Trust me, if you survive through it you're going to finally at the end of the day go,
"I'm slowing down," and do it the right way. Fatigue has a negative impact on your decision making and your reflexes.
And all those things that have to be sharp. And that gets back to what we talked about earlier.
Know which way the wind's blowing, all the time. Use the wind to your advantage and you
won't be nearly as fatigued at the end of the day. Trust me, it'll be like, "Wow, that wasn't a bad day at all". But if you fight the wind all day long. Trust me, it's going to show up at the end
of the day, and it'll show and it'll show up in your work too. You're out there to do a job and you want to do it
as best you can, to the best of your ability. So don't be sloppy. Don't be sloppy. Do the best you can. Steve, there're several different
ways to turn an airplane around. Talk to us about the different methods of turning
an ag plane around. Well, every pilot does have his favorite pattern that he likes to use.
Most of the time I like to use racetrack patterns. Why is that best?
Because once I set my A/B line, I've already looked at the field. So I pretty much already know by the time I set my
A/B and then I go to the other side of the field to C. I already know when I come around to make my fourth pass,
that it's going to be dead in the middle of that field. I already know where I'm going to be. So it's back to what I said;
plan every pass. While you're on this pass, plan the next pass. Now I do like a back-to-back if the wind's blowing harder than I'd like.
Because I'll use the wind in my advantage. I'll turn down and go into the wind and I'll just chop my way into the wind.
Especially fertilizing or something like that. Instead of doing a parallel. Sometimes I'll do a squeeze but that's very rare.
Most are racetrack or back-to-back. I use a quick track every now and then.
For people that don't use a quick track, That's when you put your A/B down, then you come around
and you set your own line for the C. For the racetrack, you go to the far opposite side of the field and set the line.
But I like a racetrack. It doesn't require as aggressive of a turnaround maneuver.
It doesn't.
The radius of the turn is the same on every turn, right. So you kind of get into a rhythm, it seems like.
Exactly and with the quick track that's the exact opposite. Because when you pull out of the field; if you made that aggressive turn
and you set the C line, well, that's set in stone. That's what you're going to have to do for the rest of the field.
I don't like that. I like going out and I like setting it up at my pace. Steve, just round numbers, how many turnarounds
would a guy make in a day? A thousand? If he's in the Delta, obviously yeah. You could make
up to a thousand times a day, you sure could. It depends on the region you're in.
Between 40, 50, and 60 takeoffs and landings a day on top of that. That highlights how important it is that we always
kind of preserve our buffer, right. Our margin of safety. This would be a good time to introduce Colonel Mike Mullane. Colonel Mullane is a three-time space shuttle
Astronaut Mission Specialist. He's a West Point graduate. He flew a combat tour in Vietnam,
and he studied the phenomenon known as normalization of deviance. And he has some great ideas
about how that relates to our industry. Normalization of deviance. That's a strange
combination of words. What does it mean? Normalization of deviance is that process in which
individuals who operate in hazardous environments, as each of you do, repeatedly violate the line of safety that has been established by their training and procedures. These lines of safety, when we're on the safe side of these lines,
we have margin to deal with the unexpected. And in aviation we all know the unexpected is out there. Self Inflicted Pressure What motivates people to step over these
lines of safety? It's almost always self-inflicted pressure. For example, you can rationalize that by operating at higher
angles of attack and greater G-loads in your turns, you can finish
one job quicker and get on to the next job. That will translate into more money at the end of the day.
So that's exactly what you do. You successfully operate closer to the stall and end up
finishing the jobs quicker and pocketing more money. All appears well. But what this success does is it opens the
door to doing it again and again and again. Until that unsafe behavior is normalized into
your air operations. Normalization of deviance. In fact, you will in all likelihood use your success to justify
pushing your line of safety deeper into unsafe territory. Eating away at the margin that line of safety has provided you. Until at some point the unexpected occurs and
you have no margin of safety to deal with it. A bird strike, an obstacle, a shift in the wind, and in
that case a fatal crash is a very real probability. Normalization of deviance has brought grief to
countless aviators and astronauts. The 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster which killed seven
astronauts (including four of my astronaut classmates), was a result of a
four-year normalization of deviance process. Challenger was lost because of a failure of
an O-ring seal on the right side solid rocket booster. That allowed 5,000 degree Fahrenheit gas to penetrate the casing of
steel wall of that booster and cause the catastrophe. Schedule Pressure But this O-ring defect was first seen when the
boosters were recovered from the second shuttle mission. Challenger was the 25th mission. So the obvious
question is: Why did flights continue with this known danger? And the answer is schedule pressure. The NASA contractor team was under immense schedule pressure to achieve an impossible goal of a mission approximately every two weeks. In other words, just as pressure can motivate you to
accept more and more risk in your air operations, pressure motivated the NASA contractor team to accept more and more risk in their space shuttle operations. Eventually for NASA, the O-ring margin of performance
was fatally compromised by the unexpected. Extremely low temperatures on
that January morning that Challenger was launching. That super cold temperature stiffened the O-ring, made it impossible
to form a seal, and guaranteed that tragedy would result. Risk Has No Memory Challenger is a warning for all of us and we
should take to heart the lessons that can be learned from that tragedy. As well as the lessons that can be learned from the near misses and
disasters that have occurred in your air industry. The first lesson is this: Risk has no memory. I think as humans we have
an incredibly difficult time getting our heads around this. We tend to believe that a risk successfully taken is a risk
diminished. It does not work that way. The laws of physics have no memory. I want you to think about
this. NASA flew 24 missions before Challenger. On each of those missions, the risk to a catastrophic O-ring
failure remained exactly the same. It didn't matter how many
times NASA was getting away with it. The risk remained exactly the same for disaster for all of those missions. Including my first mission, which was the 12th mission. The same applies to you.
I don't care how many times you've operated close to the stall. The risk of a stall, spin, and fatal crash remain the same. You could have operated razor close to the stall for a thousand times,
ten thousand times. And the risk has never changed. It remains exactly the same for you as it did for us
as astronauts in those 24 missions. Risk has no memory.
Never be victimized and think that it does. Another lesson, follow your procedures to the letter every single time.
They are figuratively "Written in Blood". On the very first day of my aviation training in the Air Force, the instructor held up the checklist and said, "Gentlemen, this document is figuratively Written in Blood." He said, "You can go back in history and you will find
crashes that occurred, crews died, lessons were learned. These lessons have now been incorporated into
these procedures to protect you. Follow your procedures." The same applies to your procedures. They are certainly
figuratively, "Written in Blood". You can go back in history and find where tragedy occurred.
Those lessons have been learned and put into your procedures to protect you. Follow your procedures every time to the letter. One Safety Shortcut Can Lead To More A final lesson is this; it only takes one
safety shortcut to open the door to normalization of deviance. For NASA, the door was opened when
flights continued after the near miss of flight 2. There are numerous instances of O-ring anomalies on
subsequent missions, but each time the risk was accepted. Why? Based on the risk rationalizations that had occurred in the past. The same thing could happen to you.
Just one successful flight of risk-taking. Stepping across your line of safety. Could open the door for you to do it again, and again, and again until you're a victim of normalization of deviance. There is no such thing as one and done when it comes to a safety shortcut.
The one always leads to more. Don't become a victim of normalization of deviance.
Fly safe, fly smart, stay on the right side of your line of safety. Give yourself margin to deal with the unexpected, because I
guarantee the unexpected is lurking out there ready to bite you. Colonel Mullane's message about normalization
of deviance is a really powerful message. Very applicable to our industry. Steve, let's dig a little deeper into the technical aspects of what's
going on when an airplane stalls and when an airplane spins. When we learn about spins we're taught that an airplane has to
be stalled and there has to be a yaw to cause the spin. Now in an air show routine, usually the pilot causes
the yaw with rudder inputs on purpose, right?
Right In the ag environment, the spin is very much an unintended maneuver. That yaw is caused by gyroscopic forces on the propeller.
Or by incorrect flight control inputs. You can stall an airplane where both wings stall. The difference in the spin is one wing is flying and one wing is not flying. What is the reason for that wing to all of a sudden not fly?
It's because of yaw, and it's always with the rudder. If you're pushing on the left rudder you're going to stall the left wing.
If you're pushing on the right rudder you're going to stall the right wing. What happens is, whenever it goes to break into that spin, if you push
on the left rudder too much, this wing [gesturing] is actually slower. [gesturing] This wing is actually speeding up.
What happens is it tends to break it tends to roll over on its back. Because this wing is doing what its job is; it's producing lift. You've lost all the lift on the bottom wing and it
tends to rotate over onto its back. [gesturing] We're going to go out and do some of that in the T6. We're
going to really screw up some turns. Try to stall it and make it do this exact same thing
and recover from that. But air show environment you're doing it because
you've pre-planned it. The airplane is designed for that. You're showing those aspects. In an ag plane you don't ever
want to do that. Don't ever let it get to that point. The main thing, to get into a spin you have to have loaded the
wing. In other words you have to have some G on the airplane. Well what's an ag plane?
The wings you're constantly loading them, they're always loaded. When you're pulling on that wing on that turn, both wings are doing their job. So you need to stay coordinated to keep both wings flying.
In the event that something happened. You were turning on the A/B line too much, and you exacerbate the situation by pulling on it and trying to roll the rudder, and it does break... You've literally lost the lift on this wing, [gesturing] this one's going to try to roll you on your back. Now you've got 300 feet to recover. We're going to show all that in the T6. We're going to screw up
some turns and make people realize how important it is to stay coordinated. Making those left turns riding the inside
rudder is nothing you need to be doing. Some people get confused on that stuff they get
in a situation where they can't think straight. If you'll think, "rudder hardest to push," is going to
be the right rudder every time. No matter what. Spinning the left, spinning the right. Whether
you're inverted, whether you're right side up. "Rudder hardest to push," is the correct rudder, never forget that. Steve, I can sit around a hanger and talk about
airplanes all day. You probably can too. What do you say we go out on the ramp and get in the T6
and go put some of this stuff to practice? Let's do it, let's go mess some turns up and see what happens. Sounds good.
Good deal.
Let's go! That air is smooth as glass this morning.
It's going to be a nice fight.
Yeah Perfect morning for an inversion.
Haha.
Yep. What are you feeling like you want to do first?
I figured we'd start out with an A/B line. Ok And then we'll do a turn.
We're gonna simulate what not to do. Okay, so we'll do an incorrect left turn.
Correct. First we're going to set our A/B line and then we're gonna make an incorrect turn. We're gonna make our initial turn into the wind. Which is actually gonna feel good at first.
But then you're gonna pay for it later. So here we go, we're at 5,000 feet roughly. Got our power set.
All right.
I'll turn some smoke on. We're at 5,000.
5,000 here we go. Pitching out of the field...
Coming back around... We're starting to turn downwind... There she goes.
There it goes. I'll move it on through. That's how you want to do it, but we lost 200 feet . That's right, in our ag mission and ag environment
we don't have that two or three hundred feet to play with. Nope, not at all.
And number two is, you're not gonna be expecting it. I'm gonna do one to the right.
And this time I'm gonna try not to roll through. I'm gonna try to picture myself trying to just straighten the airplane.
All right, here we go Turning back to the right.
Turning back to the right. Bam! I hit the ground.
You see that?
I sure did, yeah. Every ag pilot needs to do some of that.
They really do. Especially some of these beginner
guys that just never have been in that situation. I've talked to people before who were kind of afraid of doing
that kind of stuff and I don't I don't know if that's a good thing. The fear of it is probably not a good thing.
It's not, it's really not a good thing. You need to do just what you did.
And then you go, "I see, I see". And when you see, you recognize. All right, one last time gears down and locked.
Looking good. A lot of times you hear from people who are uncomfortable
with stalls and spins and that sort of thing. And I I don't think anybody in our industry
ever needs to be uncomfortable with those maneuvers. I think we need to be very comfortable.
I agree. So maybe during the off season or maybe occasionally
during the regular part of your season. It would be a good idea, if you're uncomfortable doing stalls
and spins, to get with an instructor who's experienced in aerobatic flight. Find an airplane that's appropriate for practicing and
experimenting with those kinds of maneuvers. I think it's a good idea for everybody in our industry to constantly practice those maneuvers and the recoveries from those maneuvers. I totally agree, I mean, you need to be comfortable. If you're uncomfortable with doing stalls and spin recovery.
Then there's an issue there that needs to be addressed. I totally agree with that.
Go find an airplane that's certificated for that. If you're real uncomfortable, find somebody like myself.
Or if I can't, I know a lot of people that can. There's lots of great places that are out
there that you can take courses that teach you. To where where you get that fear away from you.
Because believe it or not, you don't want to be fearful or afraid of something like that. Because if you catch a situation like that you might freeze up. And that's the last thing you want to do.
That's right, yeah. That's great advice. If you're uncomfortable, go get some instruction.
All of us as pilots create bad habits and don't realize it. Another good point.
Until you go fly with somebody else. He brings it up to you, you go, "Wow, I was doing that."
Or vice versa, you might help him. He might have a bad habit.
Between the two of you get it get it resolved. We get rusty and we get complacent.
There's no substitute for knocking the rust off and practicing. And doing the things that we don't do every day.
Complacency. Let's talk about that.
That's the number one pet peeve of mine is complacency. Being an ag pilot for 40 years,
and an air show pilot for 30. Having a lot of time, I constantly tell
myself, "Don't get complacent. This is just not another air show.
This is just not another day of ag flying." Every day, when you get strapped in you need to have your
mindset wrapped around what you're going to be doing that day. Complacency has killed so many excellent, seasoned pilots
that let their guard down from complacency. I guarantee, if you could back the clock up and talk to the ones that did...
They were like, "I knew better than that." So I try to tell myself, being a pilot with over 31,000 hours,
"Hey Steve, don't let your A game down." So every time I strap in, just like we strapped
in this morning, I tell myself, "Okay, A game on." I want to make sure this is right, this
is right.
Before I go, this is right, this is where we're gonna be. That ties in perfectly with Colonel Mullane's
message about, "Risk has no memory." Just because you've gotten away with something a
hundred times, doesn't mean that the risk was any less. We also learned how important it is to establish what your own personal safety margins are. To realize why those safety margins exist and to obey them. We don't want to step across our safety margin
because they're there for a reason. Totally, those guidelines are written in stone and if you don't
abide by those guidelines it's going to catch up with you eventually. Everybody needs to stick with a set of guidelines
if you want to be an old pilot one day. Steve, I sure had a good time flying with you this morning.
I feel like we had a lot of fun and we learned a lot. Me too, you did a good job. To me, the three takeaways from today are:
To choose your turnaround that's appropriate for the mission. Pay attention to your margin of safety
and don't ever step across it.
Always. And smooth and steady is the best way to fly these airplanes.
Amen, brother. Hey, let the airplane do the work.
I had an old timer tell me one time when I first started. He said, "What's the most important thing about flying ag Steve?", and I said, "I don't know Mr. Charlie, what?". He goes, "Hooking the loading hose up". He said, "Son, if you can't hook that loading hose up...
You're having a bad day if you can't hook it back up." Keep that in mind whenever you're flying and you
find yourself in a situation that you don't like. Wings level.
Go around, this airplane does 140 miles an hour . You'll be back before long. You'll be right back and
you'll never miss it. Never miss it. Great advice. Steve I had a good time today. Thank you for coming out.
The weather was perfect. I think we had a great time. Learned a lot.
Yeah you did a great job, I enjoyed it. That was a nice flight wasn't it? That was a lot of fun, thanks for that.
Yes sir, I enjoyed it.
Thank you for having me. We had a ball didn't we?
Yes we did, thanks for the flight. You're welcome.
Thank you for having me Mike. Turn Smart Be aware of overly aggressive turns. Back off 10%. Maintain your safety margin. A wing at zero-G cannot stall Stay vigilant for "Normalization of Deviance." Practice slow flight, stalls, and recoveries. Coordinated use of flight controls in every turn. Pay attention to operating weight and CG shift Turn using no more than 10 degree flaps. Choose the correct turnaround maneuver for the mission.
