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M A Y / J U N E 2 0 0 6
Page 1:
Getting the Maximum fromPersonal Minimums
F E A T U R E S
1 Getting the Maximum from Personal Minimums9 Sun ‘n Fun Highlights
12 An Airport That Cares14 No More Stall/Spin Accidents19 Parachutes—Or How to Let Yourself Down Gently22 Minden-Tahoe Airport — All A Matter of Planning
21 Sport Pilot - Light-Sport Aircraft/Sport PilotTimelines are Approaching
25 Tales from and FAA Inspector 29 MEDICALStuff30 FROM THE LOGBOOK32 Aviation Maintenance Alerts34 FlightFORUM35 AvNEWS
BACK COVER Editor’s Runway
D E P A R T M E N T S
FRONT COVER:You too can make a splash this summer by learninghow to fly a seaplane. For a list of training facilities, you can check
the Seaplane Pilots Association Web site athttp://www.seaplanes.org/. (H. Dean Chamberlain photo)
BACK COVER: Although most pilots add single-engine seaplane totheir certificate as an add-on rating, there are multiengine seaplanes
available such as this UC-1 Twin Bee amphibian operated by SPSPalm Coast, Inc., at the Flagler County Airport, Flagler, Florida.
(Raymond Stinchcomb photo)
U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Aviation Administration
M A Y / J U N E 2 0 0 6
V O L U M E 4 5 • N U M B E R 3
Norman Y. Mineta, Secretary of TransportationMarion C. Blakey, AdministratorNicholas A. Sabatini, Associate Administrator
for Aviation SafetyJames J. Ballough, Director,
Flight Standards ServicePeter W. Dula, Manager,
General Aviation and Commercial DivisionCopper Perry, Manager,
Plans and Programs Branch
H. Dean Chamberlain, EditorLouise C. Oertly, Senior Associate EditorA. Mario Toscano, Associate Editor/Designer
The FAA’s Flight Standards Service, General Aviation andCommercial Division’s Plans and Programs Branch (AFS–805)publishes FAA Aviation News six times each year in the interest ofaviation safety. The magazine promotes safety by discussing cur-rent technical, regulatory, and procedural aspects affecting thesafe operation and maintenance of aircraft. Although based oncurrent FAA policy and rule interpretations, all material herein isadvisory or informational in nature and should not be construed tohave regulatory effect.
The FAA does not officially endorse any goods, services, materials,or products of manufacturers that may be referred to in an article.
Certain details of accidents described herein may havebeen altered to protect the privacy of those involved.
Comments or questions about this magazine should be directed tothe Editor at (202) 267-7956. Written comments can be mailed tothe Editor at the following address: Editor, FAA Aviation News,Federal Aviation Administration, AFS-805, 800 Independence Ave.SW, Washington, DC 20591. The fax number is (202) 267-9463.The Editor’s e-mail is [email protected].
The Office of Management and Budget has approved the use ofpublic funds for the printing of FAA Aviation News.
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A D O T / F A A F L I G H T S T A N D A R D S S A F E T Y P U B L I C A T I O N
✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳ 3–DIGIT 342FAN SMITH212J JUN05 R 1 423✳JOHN SMITH212 MAIN STFORESTVILLE MD 20747
I S S N : 1 5 5 4 - 0 2 4 9
however, that a major reason is thatmany pilots—even safety-consciousones—don’t have a clear idea aboutwhere to start, and that many flight in-structors—even conscientious ones—may not know how to guide pilotsthrough the process of establishingpersonal minimums. I confess that Ihave been guilty on both counts. Iconsider myself to be a safety-mindedpilot, but for too many years my per-sonal minimums were little more thana vague mental notion. I also like tothink of myself as a conscientious andsafety-minded flight instructor (CFI),but far too few of my clients would beable to tell you that I even talkedabout, much less taught about, per-sonal minimums. To make amends,here are some ideas that might helpfellow aviators avoid similar sins ofomission.
Let’s start with the basics. Whatexactly do we mean when we talkabout “personal minimums?” In for-mal terms, personal minimums refersto an individual pilot’s set of proce-
You don’t have to be involvedin aviation very long beforeyou hear the time-honoredadvice on personal mini-
mums. It goes something like this:“Legal weather minimums are just astarting point. You should establishyour own personal minimums for fly-ing, and you must have the disciplineto stick to them—no matter howmuch you want to make the trip.”
Sound familiar? It’s good advice.Most pilots would agree that it’s agood idea, and it’s probably true thatmore accident pilots—not to mentiontheir innocent passengers—might bealive today if they had followed it. Sowhy didn’t they? And why do somany pilots who appear for flight re-views or other training look sheepishand make excuses for why theyhaven’t managed to write down theirown personal minimums?
There are probably many reasonsthat the concept of personal mini-mums is more honored as an ideathan as a regular practice. I suspect,
1M A Y / J U N E 2 0 0 6
dures, rules, criteria, and guidelinesfor deciding whether, and under whatconditions, to operate (or continueoperating) in the National AirspaceSystem.
While this definition is accurate,there are several reasons why youmay not find it particularly helpful as astarting point. First, it tends to de-scribe the product rather than explainthe process, which is where many pi-lots have trouble. Second, and moreimportantly, the formal definition of theend product—your personal set ofprocedures, rules, criteria, and guide-lines—does not really convey one ofthe core concepts: personal mini-mums as a “safety buffer” betweenthe demands of the situation and theextent of your skills.
Think of personal minimums asthe human factors equivalent of re-serve fuel. When you plan a flight, theregulations require you to calculatefuel use in a way that leaves a certainminimum amount of fuel in the tankswhen you land at your destination or
Getting the Maximum from Personal Minimumsstory and photos by Susan Parson
your alternative. The reserve fuel is intended to provide a safety buffer between fuel required for normal flight and fuelavailable to avoid total quiet in your engine compartment.
In the same way, personal minimums should be set so as to provide a solid safety buffer between the skills re-quired for the specific flight you want to make, and the skills available to you through training, experience, currency,and proficiency. In fuel calculations, you wouldn’t dream of planning a flight that would force you to use your reservefuel, or (worse) take you to the “unusable fuel” level in the tanks. In skill calculations, you shouldn’t consider making aflight that requires use of skills at the “reserve” or (worse) “unusable fuel” level of your piloting ability.
So where do you start in developing personal minimums? There is no single “right” way to proceed, but if you’reunsure of how to proceed in establishing your own personal minimums, this method offers a reasonable place tostart.
Step 1 – Review Weather Minimums
Most people think of personal minimums primarily in terms of weather conditions, so begin with a quick review ofweather definitions. The regulations define weather flight conditions for visual flight rules (VFR) and instrument flightrules (IFR) in terms of specific values for ceiling and visibility.
For our purpose, we will define IFR as a ceiling less than 1,000 feet AGL and/or visibility less than three miles.LIFR is a sub-category of IFR. VFR is defined as ceiling greater than 3,000 feet AGL and visibility greater than fivemiles. MVFR is a sub-category of VFR.
Step 2 – Assess Your Experience and Comfort Level
At first glance, this part of the process might look a bit complicated, but please bear with me. It might take a fewminutes to review, record, and summarize your personal experience, but I think you will find that the finished productis well worth your time.
First, think back through your flight training and complete the “Certification Training, and Experience Summary“chart on the next page. The Certification, Training, and Experience Summary Source is adapted from the FAA’s Per-sonal and Weather Risk Assessment Guide (October 2003). It can be found at:
<www.faa.gov/education_research/training/fits/guidance/media/Pers%20Wx%20Risk%20Assessment%20Guide-V1.0.pdf>.
Next, think through your recent flying experiences and make a note of the lowest weather conditions that youhave comfortably experienced as a pilot in your VFR and, if applicable, IFR flying in the last six to 12 months. Youmight want to use the charts below as a guide for this assessment, but don’t feel that you need to fill in every square.In fact, you may not have, or even need, an entry for every category. For example, suppose that most of your flyingtakes place in a part of the country where clear skies and visibilities of 30 plus miles are normal. Your entry mightspecify the lowest VFR ceiling as 7,000, and the lowest visibility as 15 miles. You may have never experienced MVFRconditions at all, so you would leave those boxes blank.
In my part of the country, normal summer flying often involves hazy conditions, but over relatively flat terrain. I
2 F A A A v i a t i o n N e w s
know the local terrain and, since I have regularly operated inhazy daytime MVFR conditions (e.g., 2,500 and four miles), Iwould use the MVFR column to record these values. Evenin my home airspace, though, I would not consider flyingdown to VFR minimums at night—much less in the range ofconditions defined as MVFR. For night VFR, I would not becomfortable with anything less than a ceiling of at least5,000, and visibility of at least seven to eight miles. How myentries would look in the Experience & “Comfort Level” As-seement VFR & MFR chart:
If you fly IFR, the next part of the exercise is to recordthe lowest IFR conditions that you have comfortably, re-cently and regularly experienced in your flying career. Again,be honest in your assessment. Although I have successfullyflown in low IFR (LIFR) conditions-–down to a 300 foot ceil-
3M A Y / J U N E 2 0 0 6
ing and 3/4 mile visibility—I would never claim to have been“comfortable” in these conditions, especially since I was op-erating in a single pilot/single engine configuration. I wouldtherefore leave the LIFR boxes blank, and my entries forknown “comfort level” in Instrument Meteorological Condi-tions (IMC) would be as shown below:
If I combine my entries into a single chart, the summaryof my personal known “comfort level” for VFR, MVFR, IFR,and LIFR weather conditions is as follows:
Step 3 – Consider Other Conditions
Ceiling and visibility are the most obvious conditions toconsider in setting personal minimums, but it is also a goodidea to have personal minimums for wind and turbulence.As with ceiling and visibility, the goal in this step is to recordthe most challenging wind conditions you have comfortablyexperienced in the last six to 12 months—not necessarilythe most challenging wind conditions you have managed tosurvive without bendingan airplane. As shown inthe chart to the right, youcan record these valuesfor category and class,for specif ic make andmodel, or perhaps both.
In addition to winds,your “comfort level” in-ventory should also in-clude factors related toaircraft performance.There are many variables,
4 F A A A v i a t i o n N e w s
but start by completing the chart with reference to the air-craft and terrain most typical for the kind of flying you domost. Remember that you want to establish a safety buffer,so be honest with yourself. If you have never operatedto/from a runway shorter than 5,000 feet, the “shortest run-way” box should say 5,000 feet. We will talk more aboutsafe ways to extend personal minimums a bit later. (Seechart on the right.)
Step 4 – Assemble and Evaluate
Now you have some useful numbers to use in estab-lishing baseline personal minimums. Combining these num-bers the Baseline Personal Minimims chart on the next pageshows how the whole picture might look.
Step 5 – Adjust for Specific Conditions
Any flight you make involves almost infinite combinationsof pilot skill, experience, condition, and proficiency; aircraftequipment and performance; environmental conditions; andexternal influences. Both individually and in combination,these factors can compress the safety buffer provided byyour baseline personal minimums. Consequently, you need apractical way to adjust your baseline personal minimums toaccommodate specific conditions. See the chart on page 6for an example of how this can be done.
Note that the suggested adjustment factors are justthat—a suggestion. If your flying experience is limited or ifyou don’t fly very often, you might want to double these val-ues. In addition, if your situation involves more than onespecial condition from the chart above, you will probablywant to add the adjustment factor for each one. For exam-ple, suppose you are planning a night cross-country to anunfamiliar airport, departing after a full workday. If you de-cide to make this trip—or you might decide that it is safestto wait until the next day—this chart suggests that youshould at least raise your baseline personal minimums byadding 1,000 feet to your ceiling value; one mile to visibility,and 1,000 feet to required runway length.
How about adjustments in the other direction? Somepilots fear that establishing personal minimums is a once-and-for-all exercise. With time and experience, though, you
can modify personal minimums to match growing skill andjudgment. When you have comfortably flown to your base-line personal minimums for several months, you might wantto sit down and assess whether, and how, to safely pushthe envelope. If, for instance, your personal minimums callfor daytime visibility of at least five miles, and you have de-veloped some solid experience flying in those conditions,you might consider lowering the visibility value to four milesfor your next flight.
Two important cautions:
• First, never adjust personal minimums to a lower valuefor a specific flight. The time to consider adjustmentsis when you are not under any pressure to fly, andwhen you have the time and objectivity to think hon-estly about your skill, performance, and comfort levelduring last the few flights. Changing personal mini-mums “on the fly” defeats the purpose of having themin the first place.
5M A Y / J U N E 2 0 0 6
• Second, keep all other variables constant. For exam-ple, if your goal is to lower your baseline personal min-imums for visibility, don’t try to lower the ceiling, wind,or other values at the same time. In addition, younever want to push the baseline if there are specialconditions (e.g., unfamiliar aircraft, pilot fatigue) pres-ent for this flight.
You might find it helpful to talk through both your newly-established personal minimums and any “push-the-enve-lope” plans with a well-qualified flight instructor.
Step 6 – Stick to the Plan!
Once you have done all the thinking required to estab-lish baseline personal minimums, “all” you need to do next isstick to the plan. As most pilots know, that task is a lotharder than it sounds, especially when the flight is for a tripthat you really want to make, or when you are staring into
6 F A A A v i a t i o n N e w s
the faces of your disappointed pas-sengers. Here’s where personal mini-mums can be an especially valuabletool. Professional pilots live by thenumbers, and so should you. Pre-es-tablished hard numbers can make it alot easier to make a smart “no go” or“divert” decision than a vague sensethat you can “probably” deal with theconditions that you are facing at anygiven time. In addition, a written setof personal minimums can also makeit easier to explain tough decisions topassengers who are, after all, trustingtheir lives to your aeronautical skilland judgment.
Susan Parson is a Special Assis-tant in Flight Standards’ General Avia-tion and Commercial Division and anactive general aviation pilot and flightinstructor. She welcomes yourthoughts and ideas on best practicesfor establishing and adjusting yourpersonal minimums. Send com-ments to: <[email protected]>.
5
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inimum
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reserve fuel. Personal m
inimum
s should be set so as to provide a solid safety buffer betw
een the skills required for the specific flight you w
ant to make, and the skills available to you through training,
experience, currency, and proficiency.
CE
RT
IFIC
AT
ION
LEV
EL
C
ertificate level (e.g., private, com
mercial, A
TP
)
Ratings
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Endorsem
ents (e.g., com
plex, high performance, high altitude)
TR
AIN
ING
SU
MM
AR
Y
Flight review
(e.g., certificate, rating, Wings)
Instrument P
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Tim
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Tim
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Tim
e since checkout in airplane 3
Variation in equipm
ent (e.g., G
PS
navigators, autopilot)
EX
PE
RIE
NC
E T
otal flying time
Y
ears of flying experience
RE
CE
NT
EX
PE
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onths)
Hours
H
ours in this airplane (or identical model)
Landings
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ight hours
Night landings
H
ours flown in high density altitude
H
ours flown in m
ountainous terrain
Crossw
ind landings
IFR
hours
IMC
hours (actual conditions)
Approaches (actual or sim
ulated)
Review
and record your certification, training, and recent experience history on the chart below
.
Experience &
“Com
fort Level” Assessm
ent
Com
bined VF
R &
IFR
Weather
Condition
V
FR
M
VF
R
IFR
LIF
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Ceiling
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Night
Visibility
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values for turbulence & perform
ance.
Experience &
“Com
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Wind &
Turbulence
S
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ME
M
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urface wind speed
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