I think everybody knows of someone that predictably died in an airplane but I am totally unconvinced that all people that die at the controls are people that would give you stupid answers if you posed a situation on the ground.   Under the stress of circumstances people do some pretty weird things.    Flight Safety appears to go after this problem by strapping you in the sim and inflicting you with these situations over and over until your reactions are the correct ones.    A really obvious example is engine failure in a twin near Vmc.  That particular one is not one you get in a Lancair but other things and degenerate pretty quickly.

 

    My question:   How much of that sort of hands-on, deal-with-it-in-realtime exposure do you get with the HPAT program?

Colyn,

 

Shannon's accident was predisposed by his willingness to accept a whole lot of risk contrary to the advice of some real smart folks who have been in the aviation industry for a LONG time. He got more than an earful from several of us in the 24 hours before his accident--but chose to ignore all of it.  Shannon was a "newbie". He only started flying two years before the accident but thought that because he was smart and successful in his day to day job it translated to his flying. It did not.  I saw this in his conversations with me. What people say and do sometimes are two different things. I have given checkrides to folks who could give you all the right answers on the ground and they couldn't fly for beans. No air sense whatsoever.

 

To answer your second question-- HPAT is oriented to providing quality flight training that is Lancair aircraft specific. What we do is get owner pilots up to speed flying 250 knot+ aircraft in the IFR environment. Of course there is basic VFR orientation, maneuvers,  lots of approaches and engine out training. We discuss risk management, apply it in the air but cannot do "hair on fire" hazardous training more appropriate for a simulator.

 

Regards,

 

Jeff Edwards