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the likelihood) or just accept (and manage it). That kind of learning is what I am trying to bring to GA.
4. What advice would you provide a non-professional pilot to improve their personal safety standards?
Commit to training and continuous learning. A lot of the GA community has an aversion to training and being evaluated. We need to strive toward training becoming more valued and even desired. The increased knowledge and practice will ultimately make flying more enjoyable. I’d also advise pilots to become a member of their airplane’s type club, read blogs, participate in FAA webinars, read magazines like Twin & Turbine. Learning from others and their experiences is invaluable. When I was a flight student in the Air Force, there were 15 students and 8 instructors in an open-bay classroom. I would actually eavesdrop on pre-briefings and debriefings of other students and learn from their scenarios before I ever ran into them myself.
5. Now in its third year, the EAA Founder’s Innovation Prize is propelling practical solutions to real issues. As a judge, why do you feel this an important approach to improving safety?
The single biggest contributor to fatal accidents in GA is loss of control. Commonly, scenarios where pilots should have been able to get the airplane on the ground but were unprepared or distracted. So, while creating programs like the additional pilot program, another tool we decided to introduce was this Innovation Prize, dedicated to Paul. The idea is to tap into the innovative thinking that already occurs throughout the experimental aircraft community and motivate members to draw up their own solutions to the pr•oblem. You never know where a breakthrough might come from, and we felt it was important to open up the floor to members themselves. Already, it’s been a greatly beneficial in raising awareness of the issue and sparking discussion and ideas. T&T
Two mission commanders (Charlie Precourt
and Vasili V. Tsibliyev) shake hands moments after hatch-opening on docking day of the Space Shuttle Atlantis and Russia’s Mir Space Station.
March 2018
Precourt at the commander’s station of the Space Shuttle Discovery’s ight deck during NASA’s scheduled nal rendezvous operations with Russia’s Mir space station.
Rebecca Groom Jacobs can be contacted at rebecca@ groomaviation.com.
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