A Passion for Flying...Where are Aviation Safety Ethics Today

Part 5- by Rob Stapleton

Well it seems the NTSBs stats have awakened the aviation training industry to the need for stall, spin training.

This is a topic that Marcus Paine writes about in the Alaska Airmen’s Association quarterly newsletter the Transponder, and has for the many years.

I remember the first meeting with Marcus was at an “alternative CFI meeting” to the FAA’s CFI/DPE meeting in Anchorage some 7 to 8 years ago. While other CFIs were listening to a canned message from the beltway, we were hashing out the meaning of stall recovery and why isn’t it part of flight training for today’s student pilots.

 Paine operates a business part of the year in Anchorage and part of the year in Tucson Arizona called “Unusual Attitudes.” Marcus and I had many an India Pale Ale discussing the need for and a lack of understanding of the concept and need for good stall spin awareness in the primary and flight review syllabus of flight training. Paine's passion is training pilots to be knowledgeable and comfortable with unusual attitude maneuvers and recovery.

Just thumb through any monthly General Aviation News Accident Reports to get the picture. Six out of 11 accident or incident reports are the average for loss of control on landing or takeoff accident reports.

Paine like myself is a disciple of Sammy Mason’s book (and philosophy) Stall, Spins and Safety last published in 1985. 

The loss of control on takeoff and landing in the national statistic has the largest percentage of accidents among Part 91 and Part 135 operators. The reason we concluded was a lack of knowledge about the dynamics of flight and how to control an aircraft while in slow flight, what to look for and to understand the physics of a stall and perhaps an ensuing spin.

It is encouraging that aviation publications the likes of AOPA Pilot who most recently published  in its April 2023 edition in the Proficiency & Efficiency section a story by Dave Hirschman called “The Spin Zone: Confronting aviation’s intimidator,” while I personally am not crazy about the title I applaud AOPA for addressing the topic.

Recently as well the 2013 March/April edition of the Business Aviation Insider published “Flying Fundamentals: Upset Recovery Training” on Page 12 in the NBAA publication, which also printed another article; “Climbing Toward Safer Flying: New Approaches to Resolving Recurring Accident Causes.” OK it looks like the mainstream is now getting the picture that new pilots and old non-proficient pilots are not fully aware of their aircraft’s flight characteristics.

Something has to be done.

This year pilots will see an added effort by the FAA Safety Team to promote the use of Angle of Attack Indicators, thus showing a pilot when they are increasing an aircraft’s angle of attack to the dangerously close, critical angle of attack. Something any pilot can sense by an attitude indicator, or artificial horizon. But what about the airspeed, and weight and balance, or the sudden thermal burst or gust of wind…will these devices be yet another distraction to knowing your aircraft and your limitations?

Going back to the Santa Paula airport and the days of flight instruction and mentoring by our CFIs, the above solution would appear to be a Band-Aid approach to a bigger problem, not knowing your aircraft and your capabilities.

I remember Tony Mason saying,” don’t be afraid if the aircraft ends up in an unusual attitude, focus on knowing and expecting it to do just what you told it to do, now execute your recovery.”

That is exactly what we in the aviation community need to teach, not fear… but knowledge and response.

A Passion for Flying...Where are Aviation Safety Ethics Today

Part Four-

In those days remembering my flight instruction on a case by case, lesson by lesson was easy. Both my brother and I reveled in stories, books, and movies about flying. If it had wings we were interested.

My interest in flying started by building model airplanes. Memories of going to the local hobby shop with my father on a rainy weekend day and picking out a model to buy and take home to assemble might have been the start of a yearning and understanding of aviation.

After the plastic models, were the flying balsa models, then the U-Control plastic Cox gas .049 powered models flown at the corners of our neighborhood. This progressed into larger U-Control balsa and rice paper airplanes. From there we skipped radio controlled to much larger Cessna 150s.

These were obtained by renting from Rex and Mildred Wells, and flown with our flight instructor Tony Mason.

Our lessons consisted of a conversation about what we were going to learn before each lesson. A conversation about what we were about to do while we were sitting in the airplane, then taking off and doing what was discussed. We would perform flight maneuvers or a takeoff and landing at the direction of a cool, calm, Tony Mason.

 Tony was usually around the airport but when he wasn’t you could depend on him to pull up in the families leaf green Toyota pickup truck.

Mason wearing his Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses looked the part of a flight instructor, was a bit quiet and always challenging our motor skills with some exacting activity. He reminded me of a circus act performer or a tight rope walker always practicing precision.

Mason would first show you how to perform then talk you through your takeoffs and landings and then would require you to do the same by telling him what you were doing. If you slipped up instead of yelling at you or grabbing the controls he would tell you to go around. Start over, or would perform the required action again.

Quick look for this or that, airspeed altitude attitude questions  could come at any time, best of all were the lets do that again and see how you do replies…meaning I did a poor job the first time around. This would allow me to re-think and perform a more masterful approach, or turns with no loss of airspeed or altitude. In short he demanded perfection and mastery of the aircraft.

My favorites were learning to spin the aircraft and recovery from stalls in a turn. Today most flight instructors would be terrified to teach a student these very essential aspects of flight.  The theory of how an aircraft will recover, and the reality are sometimes very different.

For example the stall in a turn, a scenario that we in Alaska call a Moose stall meaning that while looking at an animal, in this case a moose, while flying low and slow you stall the aircraft low to the ground the result is usually fatal.  Why the aircraft gives you no warning, buffet or indication and suddenly flips on its back in the opposite direction of your turn, with one wing stalling and the other still creating lift, or drops nose down too low to recover airspeed before planting the aircraft like a lawn dart in the  ground.

 Most pilots will immediately yank on the ailerons to correct the action when adding rudder to stabilize the gyration is the solution to the stall. Of course the rate of gyration or in some cases a half snap roll is exaggerated by adverse yaw due to the direction the spinning propeller. If you fight it or use ailerons you will lose a fair amount of altitude.

 If you understand this stall entry you can recover in a few hundred feet, or less if you are ready and aware.

Tony once showed me this and I was amazed at how the aircraft stalled rolled on its back and by quickly pushing forward on the elevators while inverted with neutral aileron and by using the rudders to re-position the nose the plane rolled right out almost on the point that we entered the stall albeit some feet lower.

You never forget those violent maneuvers, but when your flight instructor says ok let’s do it in the other direction and follows you through… it makes more sense.

Just a note; Mason then remembered that we did not cage the artificial horizon, said I’ll take the controls and proceeded to do a series of maneuvers to right the gyros.

 His explanation was like this: “This is a rented aircraft and if we return with the horizon out of kilter the owners will think we were doing aerobatics. You and I will then be restricted from using the aircraft again.”

Well Tony might have been teaching on the edge according to the aircraft rental agreements which amounted to a lecture from Rex Wells (who incidentally flew with Sammy Mason and the Hollywood Hawks) but it left me with a better understanding that the aircraft and its controls will react if the aircraft has airspeed and altitude and what the correct inputs are at the right moment. 

A Passion for Flying...Where are Aviation Safety Ethics Today

Sammy Mason of the Hollywood Hawks

Flight Instruction—Part 3-

Our days at the Santa Paula airport, getting on the airport with our bicycles, observing and asking questions to pilots and aircraft owners were a direct result of the early days of aviation culture.

Let’s look at the origins of flight instruction.

Flight instruction started out for most people when they learned to fly after they bought a plane. They would take instruction after they saw barnstormers who crossed the country, took a ride and realized the advantages of flying above the terrain.

Farmers, ranchers, and businessmen were all enchanted with the idea of getting from point “A” to point “B” when they wanted, weather permitting.

This led to flight instruction that consisted of getting just enough flying time with an experienced pilot to know the controls and learn how to get the aircraft aloft, and return to earth. Most of the time the experienced pilots would jump out and solo a prospective pilot, not so much when the newbies were ready, but for self-preservation.

Better flight instruction and aviation would have perhaps progressed more rapidly during the period of 1910 to 1920 if there had not been World War I.

Some might argue this point but German aviation records show that the average pilot’s time aloft as a fighter pilot lasted only 14 days. When they were shot down, or killed in action. This may have elevated the need for flight instruction to make new replacement pilots every two weeks but did not sufficiently explain aerodynamics in a manner whereby the pilot might experience the result of aerodynamics.

Many of the maneuvers developed during the conflict were to avoid being shot down, quick instincts appeared to be thwarted by jammed guns, engine and structural failures, fires and so on.

World War II flight instruction was developed in a more systematic manner developed with a pause in war between 1917 and the late 1930s (in Europe).

Knowing  that air superiority was just as, and in some cases more important the that of ruling the oceans the U.S. developed flight programs for every aspect of military planning.

The regime of flight instruction was based on some solid recognition of aeronautics, and a lot of interest in speed, weapons, and delivery of explosives. So in a nutshell the military approach required some expertise or at least some exposure to pushing the envelope both in speed and payload.

In short American pilots were getting trained using a syllabus, and practical experience with knowledgeable flight instructors who had flight experience in less capable aircraft, thus the knowledge of how far to push the envelope, and once busted how to return to manageable flying.

Cases in point are the test pilots of the Sammy Mason era, who knew how to fly out of an aircraft’s negative characteristics by a thorough understanding of aerodynamics (a lot of altitude and a bit of luck). They knew what a good flying machine was, and what a bad machine with some flying characteristics they should beware of.

History shows us that the first Civil Aeronautics Administration leader came from the Army Air Corp, thus the strict regime of pilot training and regulations directly after WWII.

Today there are few instructors that will routinely approach spinning an aircraft without a lot of altitude, parachutes and a few Hale Mary’s before the flight. The reason is that they are only biding their time to build flight hours, move on and fly commercially by climbing the ladder from First Officer to Pilot in Command (PIC). Besides the regulations now don’t require it…

Basically their cop out, or shall we say the system’s ability to allow this cowardly approach to teaching physics has created FAA certified flight baby sitters.

So the FAA had to create Practical Test Standards to guideline certain areas and regulations necessitating demonstration to a designated pilot examiner before achieving a new authorization or license.

Strangely spinning an aircraft has been left out of basic maneuvers and not a requirement to become a flight instructor (unless you fail an oral and practical test to identify the incipient stages of a stall spin). The PTS has served only to create “Aviation Ego Gods” of Designated Pilot Examiners beyond reproach not better pilots, but better rule followers.

This comes at a time when FAA and NTSB statistics show that the increasing and overwhelming cause of accidents among Part 91 and General Aviation accidents and incidents nationally on take-off and landing, are categorized as a “loss of control” by the pilot.

What an embarrassment to those test pilots, instructors and CFIs of the past who mentored, watched advised and policed their apprentices until they earned wings of flight knowledge.

More soon in part 4-

A Passion for Flying...Where are Aviation Safety Ethics Today

Part 2-
Continued from 2/09/2013

The concept of mentoring and decision making was used as part of the Certified Flight Instructor’s mantra, at least with the flight instruction that I received in the 1960s. 

While my first lessons were with Mike Dewey of Dewey Aviation at the Santa Paula( KSZP) airport, and he was good…he soon became too busy. Dewey’s business was like this...flying from 7 a.m. on the weekends until dark.

As my father was getting his license I was hanging around the Dewey’s Fixed Base of Operations (FBO) during his instruction.

All the students were watching their wrist watches to see if it was their time to fly. When a plane landed and was five minutes late it backed up the schedule. My first lessons were only half-hours and this put a crimp in Dewey’s days.

Once my friend Tony, the son of Sammy Mason turned 17-years old he got his Private License and immediately started on getting his Commercial license and Certified Flight Instructor ratings.

He did both all in one day…on his 18^th birthday.

This thrilled my other airport friends Johnny, Harrison and Pete and my bother Vince as we spent our free time riding bicycles all over the airport checking each hangar to see what new was going on, or who was getting ready to go flying.

This meant that we could go flying, get instruction by renting a plane with fuel and pay our buddy now a professional pilot for our dream of learning to fly.

I mowed lawns, cleaned yards, raked leaves and pulled weeds every weekend to earn money to go flying. Once my lawns were done I hopped on my 10-speed bike and peddled down Ojai Road to the airport south of town.

Tony was professional, ethical and was a mirror of his father, dark complexion, bushy blondish eyebrows six feet tall wearing Ray-Ban aviator’s glasses. While he didn’t wear white dress shirts with epaulets, usually blue jeans, and a T-shirt with tennis shoes, his instruction style was thorough to the point and well explained.

Flying lessons with Tony were discussion before we flew, and after each lesson then he would sign his observations and pass you your logbook.

He posted progress and what we were going to do next on every entry in my logbook.

“Air work practicing power-off, power on stalls, slow flight…good recovery. Next lesson landing approach work. Anthony Mason, CFI #XXXXXX 1/29/68”

Tony had the inside scoop on everything airport at Santa Paula as not only was his father connected but his older brother was also flying almost daily.
 The Mason’s hangar was close to Dewey’s outfit and we used to all gather in the hangar and talk flying while we were challenged by Tony to questions about aeronautics.

One time we entered the Mason’s hangar and found two or three wooden crates in the back of the hangar covered with a foreign language shipped to a M. Slovak.
This piqued our curiosity and became the center of conversation...what aircraft could be in those huge wooden crates?

Growing up around this airport was like reliving the different stages of aviation from the 1920s to the apex of general aviation’s aircraft manufacturing in the 1900s. DeHavilland DH-5 mail plane, Travelair, Curtiss Robin, Monocoupe, Curtis PT-19, PT-22, Ryan STs, Aeronica Bathtub, Staggered Wing Beechcraft, Howard DGA, Stearman Biplane, Cessna T-50 “Bamboo Bomber,” AT-6, SNJ-4, Pitts Special S-1,2, Thorpe T-18, Cosmic Wind Goodyear Racer, Cassutt Racer, etc.

All these wonderful aircraft on one airport and all flown by professional pilots many who flew during the week at Van Nuys, Burbank, or Los Angeles International airports, keeping their personal aircraft at Santa Paula.
Soon we would find out what was in those boxes and what new aircraft would join our bevy of flying machines at the airport.

To be continued...Next: Our Brother in Flight Joins the Angels

A Passion for Flying...Where are Aviation Safety Ethics Today

 Teaching us to fly right!

               Sammy Mason


by Rob Stapleton

Its not hard to imagine how those of us who have been watching birds fly while growing up and admiring nature would yearn to fly ourselves.

It was not just the flapping of wings, or the circling above that first caught my eye it was the precision and exactness of a birds landing that interested me.

The glide into the area, the change in their wing's angle of attack, and then the back winging motion to set down in an exact spot.

Amazing, truly amazing, to see small and large birds land on telephone and power lines high above the streets were we were playing below.

Later I took this fascination to the local airport where I grew up.

Santa Paula, California had a family owned airport and once I could break away from my weekend chores it was a race to head to the airport. I rode my bicycle down Ojai Road as soon as the chores were done, once arriving it was pure joy to watch aircraft taxing for take off, rotating for take-off and the engine at full power climbing above.

Of course I always imagined that it was me, pushing the rudder pedals, checking the mags and then fire-walling the throttle to thrust forward and lurch into the sky.All the time adjusting the pitch for climb and soaring above my home town toward the clouds above.

This would become a passion that witnessed pilots from all over the world coming to our airport. Mira Slovak, Rex Wells, Mike Dewey, Steve McQueen, Cliff Roberts, others and then there was Sammy Mason.

Mason was a quiet man, religious balding with caterpillar bushy eyebrows, and a quick smile... a man of precision and decisive action.

He was the father of my friend, later to become my flight instructor Anthony "Tony" Mason. Named after Tony LeVier a aviation racer, and test pilot for Lockheed.

Tony's father Sammy was also a test pilot for Lockheed, and well known for his flying from his days when he led the Hollywood Hawks barnstorming group to aerial antics over California.

Has I transitioned from a nameless boy on a bike to a boy who liked to help clean aircraft and polish wind screens, conversations about aviation safety were easily heard in the hangars among aviators that used my talents.

My style was to work hard, act like I wasn't listening and then focus on what they were saying. This way they wouldn't stop, thus continuing the conversation about airspeed, engine settings, short field take offs and landings. Just the stuff any teenager would love to know, and do and do it I would.

What does any of this have to do with ethics or aviation safety you may ask? Most conversations rallied around the topic of flight safety. Be it aerobatics, racing or flying cross country it seemed that safety was the key word, and objective of these professionals.

Sometimes the rumor mill (which all airports possess) would be how one of the more experienced pilots would talk to another less experienced pilot to give him or her an idea of how close they were coming to their demise with their manner of flying.

Those of who feared and admired these pilots, and Mason was one of these were our idols.
To be continued-

It's time to make flying cheaper:Support Sport PIlot changes

Its time to take a stand and get the Sport Pilot flying time rule changed

National aviation groups are pondering how to attract new pilot starts and are luring existing pilots back into flying to counter the dwindling pilot population.

The Aircraft Owners and Pilot Association recently came up with an idea to support flying clubs nationwide. While the clubs would initially cut the cost of flying by already licensed pilots, it may do nothing to attract new pilots needing flight instruction. Nothing yet has come from AOPA on the issue of reducing the cost of professional flight training.

However, where there is a will, there is a way.

AOPA and EAA are lacking the vision to once again approach the FAA to change the validity of sport aviation instruction time by Sport Pilot Instructors, or
Sport Pilot Instructor Examiners to qualify for time toward a Private or Commercial license.

Isn't flying a plane by yourself valid flying time...? If you have ideas on this join in the conversation. For background check out my story "Let's Fix Sport Pilot..."

Sport Pilot Series by Alaska's Rob Stapleton

Please read these and comment.

First in the series: Sport Pilot stalled over bureaucracy
Second installment: The safety dangers, limitations and costs of Sport Pilot
Third installment: The death of an aviation activity

Thanks,
RS