|
|
|
|
The
definition of a bush pilot is a person
who has been taught the survival skills necessary to become an old pilot. These
people are made, not born, with trade secrets passed down generation by
generation... THERE
ARE MANY ACCIDENTS and fatalities with
light aircraft today and we hear cries that aircraft are falling out of the sky.
I have been involved with aircraft for the last 30 years, and because of my
experience, people often ask me why this should happen. My answer is,
'Inexperienced pilots, poor maintenance (in some cases no maintenance),
inadequate daily pre- flight inspections and bad fuelling techniques'. My motto is, 'If you cannot afford to learn to fly correctly, you should
quit; if you own an aircraft and cannot afford to maintain it properly, you
should burn it'. The thing most noticeable to me is that as a pilot's hours increase, so
does the ego. This decreases the safety factor in leaps and bounds. A person
"should not be in command of an aircraft unless they can handle every
aspect of flying. This is a very special skill and it should not be abused.
Learning to fly is like learning to play the piano. If you were taught by the
best, only practice will make you as good. Today, the curriculum for teaching
pilots is only the minimum. A student usually secures a private licence within
80-100 hours. Within this time frame, you cannot expect someone to have all the
skills and knowledge of aircraft handling and of the types of situations that
can be encountered. An Examiner of Airmen once told my daughter as he put her
licence into her hand, 'Here is your licence. Now go and get your father to
teach you to fly'. Now, that coming from the CAA must say something! Month after month, pilots and passengers are dying unnecessarily because
the pilot could not get onto the ground in an emergency. Often the pilot detours
several miles hoping to reach another aerodrome but does not make it. The
most important skill of survival flying is landing the aircraft correctly, that
is, being able to place the aircraft on the ground where you want it at the
lowest safe airspeed without stalling onto the ground from a great height, and
being able to do this in any weather conditions from calm to 30 knots of wind.
Today, not everyone is taught to land the aircraft correctly. If you want to do
advanced aerobatics, you have to be taught. If you want to handle your aircraft
in all conditions, you have to be taught. If you want to have advanced landing
skills, once again, you have to be taught. Bush
operations involve all aspects of landing management, including landing on
straight roads and curved roads, landing in paddocks, landing on smooth and
rough surfaces, and heading uphill, downhill, into wind, downwind and crosswind,
to name only a few. An
emergency situation can require any of these skills, but you will never acquire
them on a 3,000-foot bitumen runway clear of all obstacles. Even if you
do not want to become a bush pilot, there could be times and situations that
will require you to put these techniques into practice. Learning how to survive,
therefore, means going out and experiencing the real thing, under instruction or
supervision, until you have developed the necessary expertise to carry out your
emergency procedures. It means going out to a bush strip and being taught to
operate in unfamiliar conditions and experiencing the vastly different
requirements for landing. I promise you that this will change your thinking on
the capabilities of yourself and your aircraft. One of my first lessons
in bush flying was learning to handle my aircraft on and near the ground.
Developed urban airfields are not adequate for teaching ground handling to a
bush pilot. I believe that the only ground handling that can be learnt at these
fields is taxiing out to the runway for a takeoff, then landing into wind or
crosswind, and taxiing back to the tie-down point. Being
able to control your aircraft close to the ground may sound easy, but you will
find it to be one of the most difficult skills to acquire. Once you have the
idea, you then have to practice in windy conditions including into wind,
crosswind and downwind. It is most important to practice this until you have it
down to a fine art. If
your aircraft is fitted with flaps, use full flap and power to reduce your
stalling speed. With practise and a good instructor, you should be able to hold
your aircraft approximately two feet off the ground while keeping the aircraft
in the correct landing attitude and remaining off the ground for as long as you
wish. As the aircraft is already in the landing attitude and you are flying at
the lowest safe airspeed a few feet above the ground, the only thing holding you
in the air is power. When you reach your touch-down point, reduce your _
power and the aircraft will gently settle
onto the ground. This method is used on both nosewheel and tail-wheel
aircraft. Forced landings Can you survive a
forced landing? No
one is ever really taught to do this. I ask you to think back to your training
days. You were taken out to the training area. The instructor pulled the
throttle off and said, 'OK, we are about to do a forced landing'. This was often
onto an airstrip in the middle of the training area, rather than into a paddock
with obstacles such as trees or powerlines. As you approached the field, the
instructor said, 'We are a bit short of the landing spot so we can tack on a few
hundred revs', or, 'You are going to overshoot'. So you added power, and went
around and tried again. What does actually happen when the engine is stopped and
the propeller is staring you in the face? You cannot add power then. Your
judgment and skill have to be at peak performance. Therefore,
forced landings are the most important part of flying to survive. You can fly
1,000 hours and not encounter one problem. You begin to think that you are a
good pilot and that nothing will ever go wrong with the aircraft. You develop
a false sense of security. Then one day it happens. This is something you have
never encountered in your life-not even in training, because this is for real.
You become frightened. Your heart pumps with adrenalin and you cannot think
straight. You panic and your judgment goes out the window. The aircraft stalls
and spins into the ground before it reaches a suitable landing place. All
of this could have been avoided with proper training. Part of bush flying is to
treat every landing as if it were a forced landing practising your technique
all the time from any height and from any direction until it becomes second
nature. Just
remember you never know when this will happen and, given Murphy's Law, it probably
won't happen over a large cleared paddock or an airfield. Obstacles It seems that most pilots have been taught to be very
afraid of trees and powerlines. Some pilots have told me that the trees seem to
draw you into them-like looking over a high cliff or a tall building. If this
does happen it is almost certainly because they are afraid. In
short-field landings, trees and powerlines cause disaster. You can either come
in too high and crash on the far end of your landing field, or come in too slow
and stall into the obstacle. If you could fly between the trees or under the
powerlines, you would survive. It is easier to judge the height of your aircraft
above the ground than to judge your distance from the top of a powerline. This
is because you judge your height above the ground every time you land your
aircraft. When you try to go over powerlines, the fear factor becomes involved
the fear of hitting them. On an emergency approach into a restricted paddock
that has powerlines running across it, the best procedure could well be to go
under the powerlines, not over them, because airspeed is the most important
factor going for you. If you raise the nose in an attempt to fly over them, the
airspeed will decrease rapidly and could cause your aircraft to stall or to
become so high that you cannot get into your forced-landing area. Try to touch
down right under the powerlines, or, if you have to go further along the paddock
or road, try to fly only three feet above the ground. If you misjudge and hit
the ground, you will bounce your aircraft but you won't die. Fuelling Power losses in flight can result from poor refuelling
techniques. Bush flying involves refuelling aircraft from drums and other
containers. You are asking for trouble if you refuel from containers without
straining the fuel through a properly filtered funnel. No fuel should go into an
aircraft unless it is properly strained. If
you are forced to refuel with Mogas you must consider certain hazards. Mogas is
more prone than Avgas to vaporise in hot conditions. Leaving the aircraft shut
down with cowls closed for 10 to 15 minutes after landing, increases the risk of
vaporisation which could lead to a loss of power during the next takeoff. To
prevent this, either head the aircraft into wind and keep the engine running or
shut the engine down, open the cowls, and remain on the ground for at least 30
minutes. You
can never be sure that Mogas in drums is clean. Even Avgas in drums is suspect.
Never refuel from drums without filtering the fuel through a funnel equipped
with a filter such as a chamois. If you are forced to use Mogas, use Super. Do
not use Unleaded. We
are all taught to carry out a water check after refuelling. This is essential
even if only 20 litres of fuel have been added. Always ensure that the tank caps
are secure. This may be a little more difficult on high-wing aircraft, but it is
vital nonetheless. An insecure cap can lead to fuel being drawn out of the tank
in flight, significantly reducing endurance. Spark Plugs Older low-compression engines using high-lead Avgas
need to have their spark plugs cleaned at least every 15 hours. Small balls of
lead form on the plugs and will eventually short out the terminals if not
cleaned. I have had two engine failures followed by forced landings due to
leaded plugs. Fortunately, by applying what I had learned about forced landings
I was able to land, clean the plugs and continue without damage to the aircraft
or injury to people. Visual navigation in the outback and visual navigation
in the coastal regions are as different as chalk is from cheese. Outback regions
contain large tracts of land that are quite featureless compared to the
populated areas. You may be operating in areas not served by radio navaids. If
you want to operate in the outback, then you need to be taught to navigate in
the outback because what you have learnt while flying around the coastal regions
may not be adequate. You
should be trained by a competent instructor with significant experience of
flying in the outback, using only a map, compass, clock, and hand-held flight
computer. You must be able to determine your drift without navaids. If you learn
these skills, you will never be lost in the outback. You will be flying to
survive. Artie's
bush-flying career has spanned 30
years. He has flown extensively in support of oil exploration in
places ranging from Princess Charlotte Bay (Qld) to the Simpson Desert
and Lake Mackay (WA). He flew full-time in the outback from 1964 to 1975.
|
|
