[ventus45]

It all sounds strangely like that old thing, we used to have – open, fearless admission of error, then taking in and passing on the lesson learnt - and the flack, as part of the game.  Called aviating - wasn’t it ?

Alas it was, indeed it was, once-upon-a-time, way back then.
Not in today's sterile "strict liability" legal climate though.

That week on the Leeton Summer Camp was quite a time for me - good and bad.
The "fall-out" from that incident is another tale, a "part B" if you like.
For another time - perhaps - no - bugger it - the legal types would probably go into salivation overdrive, even now !

To put things in context.

There used to be a regular column in the old Flying Magazines of the 50's, 60's and 70's, usually with a title like "I learned about flying from that ..." or similar.

There were many good "don't get caught out like I did" take-away lessons - free (for the price of the magazine) in those old magazines.

Nothing like them today, not anything like the "warts-and-all" honesty of the old days - that's for sure.

The "hangar flying" in the pub at the end of the day was also a "gold mine" for the fledgelings - if they listened !! 

Some of "the best anechdotes" only came out after three or four schooners !   (My instructor - Bert - was a Resches Pilsener man - "on tap" back then, not today !)

None of this happens today though, not to the same degree.
For starters, you can't drink & drive.
But the greater risk, is someone with an axe, may well see you as a handy "oil-stone".

Forewarned was once forearmed, but not today.  All the stuff that's NOT "in the books" has been discredited, discounted, and discarded, to the peril of the modern day fledgelings.

I wonder, indeed I worry. 

As incident after incident occurs, it seems to me at least, that more and more fatals are falling into the "simple" disaster box, that should never have happened, which leads one to think that "basic safety and airmanship" is in fact "regressing", which then poses the question - WHY ?.

I would therefore like to ask the CASA Legal Department, and indeed the on-again-off-again- Bearded-one, something along the lines of the following:-

"How many young fledgling pilots today, are dying (correction - becoming fatally injured) because they are NOT getting the SAFETY AND AIRMANSHIP BENEFITS of the "anechdotes" from the venerable old buzzards, simply because, in your rampantly "strict liability" regime, the legal risks to said buzzards, of "owning-up", and/or "speaking-up" are too high, thus INHIBITING THEM from "passing-on" the "lessons" of their "experiences", and thus, how many of the fatal-injury accidents over the last ten years, could reasonably be expected to have been avoided, if the young fledgling pilots had been able to absorb the lessons of those "experiences" in a truly (joke ?) "open and frank" telling of the relevant "tales" - warts and all ?"

I doubt if anything like that has been factored into all their supposedly all-singing-all-dancing-fancy "risk assessment models", let alone what those "factors" might be, and god-forbid any realistic "cost-benifit" analysis !

Perhaps Zeno, of Heff, or Dave-F, could ask them that question, next time they "have-a-chat", in the grass roofed house ?