President's Report

Club Status

Well, things seem to have settled down only somewhat on the quake front - but maybe it's bad luck to say that, because we have been there before. It's pretty obvious that the quakes have had an effect on our aircraft utilization over the last year, as numbers are down. With this let-up in quake activity we can only hope the flying hours will improve.

Last year we had a Special General Meeting to discuss the sale of our Clubhouse with No.1 hangar, and the No.2 hangar. The club voted in favour of the motion, and we are now actively seeking buyers, so we can continue to develop our hub to the West. If you are interested in either purchase, please do ring me on 027 660 5956 to confidentially discuss the options.

The RAANZ AGM was held on Saturday morning, on 19 November in our clubhouse, followed by BBQ lunch. We were intending it to be a fly-in meeting followed by sausage-sizzle lunch, then an afternoon flight ending up at our Oxford field with a BBQ dinner. Sadly for that plan everyone arrived by road, so there was no group flight.

The RAANZ RecPilot magazine notes on the meeting:

here's a quick summary of the AGM...
• Executive- Welcome to new members Peter Collins (CRAC) and Rodger Ward (CRAC). Actually Rodger is a seriously old microlighter (member no 137) from way back in the early days of Dacs, Scouts and other such flying machines. Evan, George and Stuart have been re-elected for another 3-year term, and with Evan having completed his spell as President, Stuart drew the short straw on that one.
• Remits- Passed unanimously.
• General business- Discussion around the age of most pilots and the executive. All getting older with few fresh young pilots coming up through the ranks. Expense? Takes too much time and commitment? Or just not what spins wheels these days?

Though club activities have been slow, building activity has been very active. Graeme Main's Jodel D18 has been commissioned and had a fairly successful - but eventful - trip headed down to Dunedin for the Jodel convention. Brent Thompson was in the hot seat with Graeme when the engine coughed and stopped over water. Brent's quick thinking and great skill saw an emergency landing take place with no damage to either of them, or to the plane, though I bet they were shaking for a bit!

Brent has also been busy testing Jerry's Pulsar with a 912 ULS in it. It goes very well and Jerry and Brent are now at the commissioning stage prior to Jerry having a go.

I am currently involved in assisting a wing covering exercise. I find this work very satisfying, and no, it's not just getting high on the dope, it's the satisfaction of achieving a good looking job. It takes careful attention to detail to produce a good result, and if you rush you soon learn that you just get a messy outcome. A quality job is 'only' a matter of having a few basic skills AND GREAT PATIENCE!

The club benefits greatly from Grant Porter's very effective work as Club Captain. He proactively organises publicity, airfield visits from other clubs and groups, and is always most active on the arrangements for our various fixtures. We have persuaded him to continue in the role, and we have promised him extensive support to take much of the detail work off his shoulders. That means our loyal team of volunteers will continue with working bees, "cooking" (stoking the BBQ) and whatever else we can do to lighten Grant's load. Members have risen to this challenge, and as a result on 10 December the end of year working bee to tidy up the clubhouse was short, sharp and effective.

Also most successful was our end-of-year function in the clubhouse on the evening of 17 December. We had originally "planned" for BBQ, sausages and beer. More a Ho-hum than a plan, perhaps! The feedback on this idea was most unenthusiastic. Doug Anderson fortunately spat the dummy, rolled up his sleeves and acted as head chef to a team of unskilled, but willing, kitchen hands, producing a most appetising menu. Guests brought a variety of deserts, and a sufficiency of pretty good wines was provided. I don't want to know how it was funded, but there was no admission charge. Not surprisingly, most who came brought their partners with them and there were almost 40 happy diners at what turned out to be a most convivial, sociable evening, despite the short notice. Thank you, Doug and team.

Well, it's been a year to remember and with luck we will soon be able to relax a little, spend some time with family, and be together. There will be times ahead that no one in our city has experienced before, it will be a time to be patient but sometimes persistent to ensure you don't fall off the radar.

There will be people changing jobs, moving house, building new houses, repairing existing houses and even moving out of town. We all need to be conscious that this quake has effected everyone in our district, in some way or other. Some may be stressed, so take time to understand and help if someone under stress messes up.

Safe Flying and have a relaxing holiday this summer season.

Mike

Committee

Committee met at Kaiapoi Working Mens Club on 1 February 2012.

Main Points:
• West End Carpark - still awaiting Council.
• JOR parts have arrived, excellent progress is being achieved, and it may be flying within a month.
• New member: Matt Dixon
• Resignation: Derek Upton
• Trial flights continue, but not many go on to become members.
• Ground school and exam courses have been scheduled. Register on the whiteboard in the clubhouse.
• The Saturday roster has been suspended due to lack of instructors. Contact Dave Mitchell or Mike Small, currently the only active instructors.
• A new lawnmower is to be purchased.
• No offers yet for clubhouse - advertising to be undertaken, including under "aviation" in TradeMe.
• Ross Marfell has retired from instructing. A small presentation was made to him for his exemplary service to the club.

Safety

The CAA ran an Aviation Safety Coordinator Training Course on 27-28 October at The Sudima Hotel (Harewood). Peter Collins went on behalf of the club. Altogether there were 25 attendees, including representatives from as far off as Civil Aviation Authority Australia and Air Nuigini Limited.

The topics, in summary, included:
• "Why have a Safety Program"?
  • "If you think safety is expensive, try having an accident". The costs include
  • Fixing the plane - (ask almost any flyer for details - it's no joke).
  • Insurance only covers part of the costs.
  • Risk of personal injury, discomfort and even death, to yourself and others
• "Accident Prevention Concepts"
  • Risk Management - making informed decisions - see the CFI column below for more details.
  • Blood Priority - the idea that "if it ain't broke don't fix it" breaks down when there is a bad accident and then suddenly it becomes a priority to put safety guards on a machine - for example.
  • Known Precedent - every type of aircraft accident has already happened many times before. If we make sure we know about all the various causes we can be better placed to see they don't happen to us.
  • Randomness - knowing the precedents might not help predict the random outcome - a fuel pump may fail, but the outcome could be very different if it happens while taxying, compared with over Fiordland.
  • Chain of Events - few accidents have a single cause. Some "Pilot Error" cases can be just as reasonably put down to confusing cockpit layout or the random nature of weather differing from the forecast. Or all three.
  • Active versus Latent - some accidents (active) occur because of something that happened at the time. Others are latent - what we would call "an accident waiting to happen". We need to deal with both.
  • Safety Committee - "small organisations don't need a formal safety group" provided there is a venue or person who can raise safety concerns. CRAC appoints Safety Officers chosen for their level-headed approach to Safety, to help us all reduce our risks, and to assist with reporting incidents.
• "Risk Awareness"
  • Risks may be Informed (we know about them), Uninformed (we aren't aware of either the problem, or it's potential severity), Pointless (enough said!) or "Benefit driven (Get-there-itis, when there seems more benefit in getting there than in being safe!)
  • Denial: we may be aware of the risk but Ignore it, Tolerate it (we've always done that), Trivialise it (if it happens it won't be that bad), or Down-play it (I haven't killed anyone yet so why worry).
  • There are levels of risk (very Likely down to very Unlikely) and of Severity (Trivial consequences down to Fatal). We need to concentrate guard against concentrating on the Unlikely Trivial - our effort needs to go firstly on those that are Likely Fatalities. You can form a matrix that helps distinguish which category each risk belongs to, then either: Fix Now or don't fly; Fix after the flight but before going up again; Fix this week; Fix at the next inspection interval; Leave unchanged but be aware; or if it's trivial and unlikely - ignore it.
  • You can deal with hazards by Eliminating them, Isolating them or Minimising them. My personal examples have been stone damage to a gyro radiator (can't readily eliminate it by clearing the runway of stones; can isolate it with a stone guard; can somewhat minimise them by training the pilot to use the better grassed part of the runway) and a heavy landing due to hangar vortex at the numbers on 07 (can't readily eliminate it for that would require removing the hangar; can isolate by further displacing the threshold; can somewhat minimise it by advising pilots to take a high approach speed through that zone). Whatever the hazard, in practice there are only these three options to dealing with it.
• "Attitudes and Accidents"
  • The principal here is that you can change people's behaviour in the short term (using speed cameras, for example) but if they have the attitude that excess speed is okay, that will show itself once they are away from the cameras. Who of us always keeps below the limits, even way out in the boonies?
  • Personal attitudes: to keep ourselves, and others, as safe as practical, we need to develop attitudes that avoid: Over-confidence (I can cope with a bit of bad weather); Complacency (it's only a little ding so there's no need to report it as an incident); Arrogance (I'm so good I can push the envelope way too far - and still deal with the consequences). Where would you put smoking while refuelling?
  • Making rules is easy - but ineffective. Instead it would be great if we could change the culture so that there is more focus on defensive flying and courtesy, less talk of 'Human Factors' and more on 'Airmanship' - all of which may require some shift in our initial and recurrent training strategies.
• "Accident Reporting and Investigation"
  • Why report? So that we, and all other fliers, get a realistic picture of the hazards and risks, because it's hard to avoid them yourself if you don't know that they are happening, what the causes are, or how likely they are to affect us.
  • But many of us don't report incidents. Why not? Reasons include: 'too minor' - but it might be indicative of a pattern, or a problem with a particular model which with publicity could be corrected, overcome or avoided; embarrassment; concerns about confidentiality; fear of prosecution; no time; lack of feedback (people say they send in the form and never hear back - CAA is working to improve responsiveness).
  • In order to increase safety the CAA needs the latest data on accident causes, and therefore to encourage reporting, all reports are confidential and are never prosecuted provided you make the report yourself and are truthful. They only ever disclose reports on a court order. Maybe 6 prosecutions are brought for 3000 reports, and even then, only when some other person has made the report about your deliberate and careless breaches of the rules, or for perjury.
  • This section of the seminar concluded with a heartfelt appeal please to report everything, even if it seems too trivial to be bothered with - it may provide focus on a pattern, leading to preventive action that could help save a life. Maybe your own.
• Other sessions, less relevant to CRAC, included a "Case Study" on "Road Safety"; "Managing a Safety Program"; "Safety Program Problems"; and "Commitment and Plan"

Thank you, Peter, for providing these notes - which we should work to apply to our own flying, especially when dealing with Threat and Error issues, which our CFI has recently been reviewing for us (below).

Doug Anderson

CFI's CORNER with Dave Mitchell

Threat and Error Management

Recently I attended the CAA Annual Flight Instructors Seminar. It focused on Threat and Error Management and provided a timely reminder of ways in which we can all potentially improve our safety factors. Here are the key points: