Pilot training like rider training?

There’s an entry I’ve been meaning to write for months now. I try and delete and try again and delete again—one of these days the words will come.  Meanwhile, I’ve been working intensely on a project I’m not ready to discuss and, of course, been taking a closer look at various states. All that was on my mind this morning when a story on CNN this morning got my attention, “Florida’s Pilot Factory”.

And it fit so neatly into this whole rider ed/motorcycle safety thing—and, hell, life itself these days—that I looked into it a little more and I thought I’d share it with you all:

On February 12, 2009, pilot Captain Marvin Renslow, and co-pilot Rebecca Shaw, were flirting and chatting as they approached Buffalo, NY in deteriorating weather conditions. Minutes from the airport, they noticed how much ice was on the wings of the Bombardier Q400. Shaw confessed her total inexperience with icing and deicing and her nervousness, “I don’t want to have to experience that and make those kinds of calls. You know I’dve freaked out. I’dve have like seen this much ice and thought, `Oh my gosh, we were going to crash.’ “

Renslow responded, “I would’ve been fine. I would have survived it. There wasn’t, we never had to make decisions that I wouldn’t have been able to make but … now I’m more comfortable.”

As it turned out, Shaw was wrong about the reason but right about the effect and Renslow was wrong all around:

Moments later the turboprop stalled out on approach to Buffalo NY and the plane dropped straight down on a house. Renslow’s last words were, “Gear up. Oh (expletive).

All 49 on board and someone in the house were killed.

The National Transportation Safety Board found several problems when it investigated but they could be summed up as pilot error or “poor airmanship.”  And poor airmanship, experts believe, is often the result of poor training.

In fact, Renslow did exactly the opposite of what pilots are trained to do in those circumstances: he yanked the nose of the plane up and slowed down the plane even more.

In all regional airline crashes, “The one thing that ties them all together is poor airmanship,” said Captain Jack Casey, Chief Operating Officer of Safety Operating System, an aviation consulting firm. “You cannot build sophisticated airline pilot skills on top of a soft foundation.”

Training itself and allowing poor students to proceed to licensure may have played a very large role in the crash of Flight 3407. Pilots go through far more extensive training than motorcyclists do:

They are first learn to fly a small plane, then go to flight school to learn to fly commercial planes and then are trained by the airline that hires them. Unlike motorcycles, those in aviation don’t think all airplanes are basically alike—pilots have to be trained on each kind of plane they fly. They also have to pass written tests and FAA “check flights” which are basic proficiency tests.

Renslow, it turned out, had flunked five of them though he was able to pass each one when he retook it—iow, he failed then passed then failed then passed then failed then passed then failed then passed then failed then passed over the span of his training and career—yet Colgan Air said his skills were “adequate” and claim they didn’t know about two of three of the failures that occurred prior to his employment. However, two of the failed check flights happened while he was employed by Colgan Air—the last occurring 16 months before the deadly flight to Buffalo.  In the weeks following the crash, at least two of its senior management pilots—those responsible for those flight checks—are not longer employed in that capacity.

It’s almost as if Colgan Air had told its instructors that they shouldn’t consider themselves to be gatekeepers to the business of flying… And it makes me wonder about that policy of not counseling out often and early. And it makes me really wonder—given the rise in passing rates and the drop in fail rates in two of the three states we’ve examined so far and the subsequent rise in fatalities if there isn’t a connection after all.

Does it matter if Renslow failed so many times if he passed ultimately? Does training matter?

So let’s walk back through Renslow the five-time failure’s training:

Colgan Air’s FAQ on Flight 3407 strenuously defended it’s training program:

Its training is certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and crew training programs “meet or exceed all regulatory requirements for all major airlines” requiring “double the amount of flight training time prior to flying this type of aircraft” than the FAA demands and has the pilot observe crews operating that kind of aircraft. And they use simulators and have a quality control program and their program “thoroughly address emergency situations” and their crews are prepared to handle them.

Colgan also said that Renslow had 3,379 total flight experience though only 109 on that particular plane as captain. He had a 172 hours of formal training including classroom and flight simulator) for a total of 261 hours. Ironically, five minutes before the plane fell out of the sky, Renslow himself told Shaw that he had only flown for 625 hours total before he was hired by Colgan—and referred, as we’ll see, to how many of those hours were flown in commercial flight school.

In contrast, Shaw also spoke of her experience totally unaware she would be dead in a less than six minutes. She had far more experience with the Q400 than Renslow–772 hours total—and she had 1,600 hours flight experience when she was hired and 2,220 total flight experience at that point.

At the hearing, Colgan rushed to blame Renslow and Shaw who, they claimed, had been well-trained and just hadn’t done what they were supposed to do. It wasn’t Colgan’s fault. It wasn’t the training’s fault.

And doesn’t that remind me of rider instructors and MSF! It’s not their fault—it’s the rider’s fault. Whatever happens to them once they left the range—it’s on them.

However, a Chicago Tribune article stated, “The board also released documents showing that safety investigators were told by one training instructor that Renslow “was slow learning” the Dash 8 at the start but his abilities “picked up at the end.” The training instructor said Renslow struggled to learn the Dash 8′s flight management system, a critical computer, and–had difficulty learning switch positions which were opposite from the throws he had been used to on another aircraft. This instructor described the captain’s decision-making abilities as very good.”

Renslow’s dead wrong reaction when the plane stalled out may have happened, the NTSB hearing discovered, because Colgan Air showed its pilots a video of an unusual kind of icing and how to deal with it by pulling up the nose and slowing the plane—even though the particular plane wasn’t susceptible to that kind of problem.

And in a parallel with many aspects of MSF’s training including the failure to adequately address ABS brakes and how to properly use them:

Both Fox News and USA Today reported that Colgan does not train pilots on an important safety device known as a “stick pusher” which would’ve pointed the nose down so the plane would speed up and disaster have been averted.

But the parallel doesn’t end there: When it activated by itself  Renslow overrode it and kept the nose of the plane up. So much for that good judgment that Renslow’s instructor at Colgan—and Renslow himself—claimed he had.

One of the ways the BRC has been dumbed down according to many rider educators is that much of the material on hazards and street strategies has been removed or weakened including the switch from SIPDE (Scan, Interpret, Predict, Decide, Execute) to SEE (Search, Evaluate, Execute). Students, many rider educators—and more and more motorcyclists—believe are less likely to exhibit good judgment as a result.

I have to wonder if MSF curriculum was subjected to as an intensive investigation as Calgon by the NTSB if what so many expert instructors have been saying for years that the public wouldn’t be as appalled as they have been over the revelations about regional airlines.

Renslaw had worked for another regional airline, Gulfstream International, that also flew regional flights in Florida and the Bahamas for Continental Connections as did Calgon Air. Gulfstream International is legally related to Gulfstream Academy, a flight school in Florida.

And that’s where Renslow had been trained to fly commercial planes. He graduated in 2005 and went to work for Colgan Air. There’s been at least four crashes involving pilots trained at Gulfstream Academy and/or who flew for Gulfstream International.

In a parallel with the inter-relationships between the motorcycle industry and motorcycle training—and the deaths in training—at least one of those other crashes involved a plane owned by Pinnacle Airlines, Corp. In that crash, two pilots who both had gained experience at Gulfstream and gone on to work for Pinnacle took a jet for a joyride, flew it too high and ended up in the same ultimate problem Flight 3407—an aerodynamic stall. Colgan Air, Renslow’s employer is a subsidiary of Pinnacle. Colgan Air was quick to deny there was anything similar between the two crashes in its FAQ—the circumstances were “vastly different” and that “any speculation” would suggest that the NTSB and Colgan knew what caused the crash and they couldn’t comment further because the investigation was ongoing.

Of course, we’ve already learned vastly more about what happened on that icy night in Buffalo, NY three months ago than we have about even the first deadly crash in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania back in 1998. In fact, it sounds like Colgan Air’s FAQ was written by the same folks who write MSF’s responses to the NTSB.

In the Gulfstream Academy First Officer program, amateur pilots who have 300 hours of flying time act can pay 30,000 and put in 12 weeks of school and then they’re paid as co-pilots for Gulfstream International flying Beech 1900 aircraft. Gulfstream International is the carrier for Continental Connections flights in Florida and the Bahamas. Incidentally, the Wall Street Journal reported that Renslow had failed the flight check on the Beech 1900 after coming to work for Colgan Air.

And then they can go off as a full-fledged commercial pilot for an airline—usually regional airlines like Colgan Air or Pinnacle.

According to another article in the WSJ,

“Mr. Hackett [chief executive of the airline's parent company, Gulfstream International Group Inc.] said Capt. Renslow’s record at Gulfstream was uneventful and he passed all his simulator proficiency tests and check rides.” Except he had failed three before he was hired by Colgan Air.

Iow, Renslow had to have 300 hours flight experience prior to entering Gulfstream Training Academy, then 250 at the academy—and Renslow says he had a total of 625 when he was hired by Colgan Air. You do the math.

In contrast, CNN reports, “Most major airlines require co-pilots to have a minimum of 1,500 hours of flight time. That’s three to five times the amount of some students entering Gulfstream’s First Officer program.” A quick check of other flight schools that train commercial domestic pilots show that training alone is from 12-24 months. Many programs require their students to act as flight instructors as way of really learning by teaching.

Many pilots have little respect for private flight schools like Gulfstream Academy—they say it’s “buying [flight] time” and essentially buying the right hand seat in the cockpit without getting any real training or life experience. Paying a lot of money to get through faster doesn’t make you better—in fact, it’s the opposite. Gulfstream—and other schools like it—appear to be, as the CNN article says, a pilot factory.

But it’s not really any different from rider training as the United States knows it.  Every version of MSF’s basic training has gotten shorter and shorter and less and less skills are taught. From two full weekends, it’s become a one-day course in at T³RG. And if MSF has it’s way, the classroom will shrink down to a couple hours on-line.

The second WSJ article afforded another parallel to rider training:  It concludes with a note about liability: “In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company indicates that other airlines employ pilots trained by its training affiliate, called Gulfstream Training Academy. “In the event of an accident caused by an academy graduate, it is possible the academy could be named as a defendant in any lawsuit,” according to one recent filing. “There are no assurances our insurance policy will adequately cover potential losses from such claims.”

And what does that remind us of given MSF changing its RERP contract to remove itself from liability—even for its own negligence?

It took one crash and 50 deaths for the sub-par training for commercial pilots to come out in a NTSB hearing. We’re up to 7 confirmed deaths, several critical injuries in training and God and MSF only knows how many we don’t know about—and who knows how many deaths of sub-par trained riders on the road….how many will it take before the link between training and road crashes is officially investigated?

Flow is the lifeblood of motorcycling

“Without adequate acceleration, a two-wheeled bike simply falls over on its side and remains inert. For reasons of basic physics, speed is the lifeblood of motorcycling. Thus, there can be no motorcycling without speed.” ~Mark C. Taylor and Josè Márquez “Cycles of Paradox”

But while speed is the lifeblood of motorcycling, thrill is the lifeblood of the motorcyclist.

Just as a motorcycle needs speed to balance, it must become temporarily unbalanced and fall partway to be able to change direction. For reasons of basic physics, it needs a controlled, incomplete fall to turn. And both speed and leaning into the turn are thrilling.

The thrill of speed

Thrill, according to Frank Rickabaugh Arnold in his dissertation, “Ordinary Motorcycle Thrills: The Circulation of Motorcycle Meanings in American Film and Popular Culture”, is the core experience in motorcycling. Thrill, as an intransitive verb, refers to the involuntary “shiver of emotion” as well as to the physiological reactions to that emotion. As a noun, it refers both to that sensate experience and to the cause of that emotion.

The most ordinary experience of thrill is falling, which kicks in at falling speed—38 feet/second squared—and consists of two things: sudden, abrupt acceleration and the sense there is no ground beneath us.

We experience thrill in our brains. Physiologically, the systems that control our balance and tell our brains where and how our bodies are located in space are immediately and overwhelmingly flooded with data. Within nanoseconds, the limbic system is triggered: our heart rate speeds up; our muscles tense; and our physical senses are heightened and sensitive. That’s why we delight in the downhill side of a roller coasters rather than the uphill climb. It’s why some of us love whoop-de-dos and others love sky-diving, bungee or base jumping. And it’s one of the main reasons we love motorcycling.

Sudden acceleration arouses us in similar physiological ways as we are by sex. And, just like orgasm, thrill releases endorphins that flood our system with a sense of well-being. Thrilling activities make us keenly aware of our surroundings and that we are very much alive. Far from being a death-wish, then, riding a motorcycle is very much a life wish.

The thrill of horizontal falling

Acceleration, Arnold points out, is a “special case of falling”. The same forces act on our bodies, the same sensations are experienced, the same heightened brain activity that happens in a vertical fall happens horizontally.

As we learned in high school physics, Force = Mass * Acceleration. The faster the acceleration—or deceleration—the more forces acts upon the human body. Once we’ve achieved that acceleration though and are traveling at constant speed, there’s no forces related to that movement that act upon the body, and we do not feel we’re traveling at the speed we are. The flood of data slows down, there’s no longer a sense of heightened sensory input—it feels normal. For example, you don’t even feel in motion in a plane that’s at cruising altitude.

In all activities that involve speed, then, it’s not the constant rate of travel itself that brings us the most pleasure; it’s the acceleration and controlled but rapid deceleration. In activities that involve falling—sky-diving, bungee or base jumping—it’s linear and short in duration: one acceleration and one deceleration. It’s also the acceleration that’s most prized. Other activities like driving, water or snow skiing, and motorcycling offer repeated experiences of acceleration and deceleration—and that’s what’s most prized by their adherents. Riding on an empty freeway for hours at the exact same speed may be pleasurable, may be comforting, may be peaceful—but it’s not thrilling. That’s found on twisty roads that require the two special cases of falling essential to motorcycling—acceleration and lean.

Finding flow

Arousal, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi points out in Finding Flow, is that state where we feel “mentally focused, active and in control” and it’s one of the two components we must feel to experience flow. Flow is a mental state when we’re so immersed and absorbed in what we are doing that the sense of time and space disappear—hours pass like minutes, space shrinks or expands in inexplicable ways. Csikszentmihalyi says it “tends to occur when a person’s skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just about manageable. Optimal experiences usually involve a fine balance between one’s ability to act and the available opportunities for action.”

If we’re adept but the task is too easy—there’s no sense of flow; we become relaxed and then quickly become bored. If we’re adept and the challenge is too hard—no flow; we experience frustration and stress and then anxiety. Flow only occurs when we’re at the edge of our ability to do something and the challenge of what we are doing; flow is found on the edge.

Activities that provide immediate feedback as to how well one is doing are more prone to triggering flow. When “goals are clear, feedback relevant, and challenges and skills are in balance” our attention becomes focused, we become invested in the outcome and flow ensues.

In the state of flow, Csikszentmihalyi says, we’re so focused that we’re hard to distract. We feel energized, we lose self-consciousness and forget irrelevant feelings, we feel competent and self-assured. In the state of flow, our sense of who we are merges with what we’re doing: we feel most alive and most who we really are as we’re doing the activity. And we feel powerful because we feel that what we’re doing is important and we feel in control and we feel in charge of our own destiny.

When the challenge is high and the skills are high we become both mentally aroused and feel we’re in control and then we experience flow. Both arousal and control, he says, are very important states for learning and “flow experience acts as a magnet for learning—that is, for developing new levels of challenges and skills” (at some point I hope to come back to this in terms of rider training).

But activity is the key to the activity that will produce flow, Csikszentmihalyi says. Ones that require action and socializing are demanding and almost always produce moments of stress and anxiety. Passive activities are more relaxing but, oddly enough, research shows that they are experienced as less enjoyable. The higher and more demanding the level of skill and challenge, the greater likelihood of flow—and thus long-term satisfaction with one’s life in other areas as well.

People find that nexus of skill and challenge in a variety of activities and some of them very sedentary—chess and video games, for example and some rather slow like gardening, carpentry and working on cars/motorcycles. Any activity that involves in frequent change in the balance of skill to challenge in the form of obstacles, conditions and so forth usually require greater control and usually involve both mental and physical skills. Activities like these then intrinsically supply abundant opportunities to experience flow.

However, extreme sports and particularly those involving speed and/or lean is where many seek that edge where flow can be found. Because, of course, activities that involve speed are ones that particularly require both high skill and high challenge—and that challenge is in part so high because of the potentially high consequences. Activities that involve speed and rapid reactions also require absorbed and attentive focus, the feedback is immediate and intense, the goal is clear and have multiple levels that require increasing skill matched with increasing challenge. Video games supply all that to those too young to participate in other activities that would accomplish the same thing.

Absorption and attentive focus quiet the mind even as its energized and operating at peak performance, which is why motorcycling, for example, is experienced as simultaneously both exhilarating and yet relaxing. Motorcycling, then, with its constantly changing literal balance and orientation in space in the act of leaning triggers physical arousal. It also triggers mental arousal—and its constantly changing degree of challenge and the increased level of control it requires is especially positioned to provide opportunities to experience flow.

Not risk-seekers but flow-seekers?

Popular culture sees motorcyclists as risk-seekers on the hunt for that thrill. However, research has found that young motorcyclists aren’t any more risk-takers than young drivers are. It could be, then, that those who are drawn to motorcycling are those who have a higher need to experience flow.

While happiness is not the same thing as flow, Csikszentmihalyi’s research found that happiness and motivation was highest involved in active leisure, talking with people and when eating. Talking, he says, results in flow and personal growth when it’s with those who you find have “interesting opinions and whose conversations are stimulating”. While “superficial conversations…can stave off depression” but don’t result in flow. Concentration is highest when working/studying, when driving and in active leisure—the parts of our lives that require the most mental effort. These are also the things that provide the most opportunity for flow.

It could be, then, that rather than having thrill-seeking or risk-taking personalities, riders have a higher need for flow.

This machine has no brain

Anti-MSF?

I’ve heard that I’m “anti-MSF” a lot lately. First it makes me laugh and then it made me think about the lies we’re willing to tell to keep on believing the lies we love to believe. But it’s the “anti-MSF” thing that’s the subject of today’s entry. Those who write say it’s like it’s a bad thing.

My research has found that the majority of riders agree on two things and two things only when it comes to riders being safe on the road: training is good and the role of experience. And they believe that training is necessary for novices even when they themselves haven’t taken training. They disagree—and sometimes vehemently on everything else.

I believe strongly—even passionately—in rider training: that it can be effective, that it can equip a rider to prevent crashes. I believe, furthermore, that good, effective training—and seeing the results on our roads—is essential to preserving our rights as riders. I am passionate about riding. I have the heart and soul of a rider and it is the metaphor of my life. And I entered motorcycling through a beginner rider training course. And I have not swerved from that devotion to safe, effective motorcycle training.

For more than four years, I’ve researched and investigated rider education and MSF.

• I’ve uncovered that at least seven have died from crashes in training and at least three others have suffered near-fatal injuries including a case of total paralysis and that efforts had been undertaken to, at the very least, minimize what occurred.
• I demonstrated how MSF is not only aware of how deadly the course has become but changed forms and procedures to not just reflect that but to implicate the instructor.
• I’ve uncovered MSF’s true nature and purpose as a trade group solely focused on using rider training to sell as many motorcycles as possible.
• I documented how MSF stole its curriculum from existing ones and then eradicated all other competitive curricular products.
• I outlined how they used SMROs and riders to achieve a virtual monopoly in this field.
• I documented how it took control over training, set standards—and then changed them at will—to suit the manufacturer members’ interests even when it made training less safe.
• I discovered numerous instances of Harley and MSF undermining state programs, bankrupting one, trying to turn motorcycle rights activists against the state program, fiddling with legislation.
• I exposed that MSF sued Oregon not over the supposed copyright issue so much as a threat to force Oregon to allow Rider’s Edge programs to have the driver’s license-waiver.
• I showed how the curriculum has been dumbed down over the years—particularly in terms of hazard awareness, risk perception skills and street strategies.
• I discovered that the number of crashes in courses has zoomed up far over the previous curriculum and so have injuries (not to mention the deaths).
• I revealed how MSF uses the training course to prevent consumers from winning product liability suits.
• I showed how MSF has a plan in place to take over state programs for its own aggrandizement and control and is implementing it.
• I showed how MSF minimizes the importance of the classroom, how it’s pursing the online class with no regard to how that will affect riders or safety or training.
• I’ve used MSF documents to show that MSF has misrepresented, misled or out and out lied time and time again.
• I showed how they dumbed down the licensing tests and how the driver’s license-waiver does not equal the same level of skill riders would have to demonstrate at the DMV and showed why and when MSF began to pursue that policy.
• I demonstrated how MSF swift-boated detractors and sold the BRC through manipulation and deceit.
• I revealed that MSF knew the results of the studies that found it was ineffective and changed the language to reflect that in every instance where they could be legally held accountable.
• I demonstrated how MSF has deceived through “research” to promote the manufacturers’ interests.
• I revealed how MSF/MIC has used the media to blame riders for crashes and has used Motorcycle Awareness Month to castigate riders.
• I revealed that MSF’s Tim Buche said years ago that the accident causation study would take place “over his dead body” and—lo and behold, the manufacturers now have a major financial stake in it and control over it (as they did MAIDS through ACEM) and it has also been “dumbed down” from the original plan—and has barely begun after all these years.

And that’s just what came to me off the top of my head as I’m writing this. There’s more—a whole lot more. I came to find all that out—and then presented it to readers by evidence directly from MSF’s documents, reputable studies, state ethics commissions, legal documents, eyewitnesses, motorcycle safety experts, countless interviews. I brought in evidence from marketing, business, economics and psychology and kinesiology and crash tests—and that too is just from the top of my head. I’ve compared it to what training is in countries like Canada and the UK and licensing in the UK and the EU directive. In short, I based what I wrote on facts. On evidence. On comparison to other industries, activities and organizations, countries. Iow, the kind of evidence that convinces sane, rational people who don’t have vested interests in maintaining the status quo.

Over the years I came to the same conclusion any other sane, rational person who didn’t have a vested interest in rider training, MSF or Harley-Davidson would hold: it’s not what it presents itself to be—an organization pursuing the common good.

Given my passionate belief in what rider training could be and should be and knowledge of what can happen on the roads when it is, well, duh, of course I’m “anti-MSF”. Given what I know about MSF, I’d be insane and irrational if I wasn’t “anti-MSF”? You’d be crazy if you’d expect me to be “pro-MSF”.

To say I’m “anti-MSF” is like saying I’m “anti-Madoff”. I’ll take the label and happily put it on a t-shirt, thank you very much.

The question isn’t why am I so “anti-MSF”. The question is: Why aren’t you?

Something old both out-dated and up-to-date

Something I’ve been working on reminded me of a video I posted on youtube.com back in August of 2007. Dangerous Profits: Rider Education Goes To The Movies. I hadn’t watched it for—well, probably since shortly after I posted it and some folks on a motorcycle site took umbrage at it.

So I watched it. It’s a little out-of-date:

The lawsuit is settled to TEAM Oregon’s advantage.

Back then, MSF had taken over 4 states. Now it’s taken over another one—with two or more on their way down.

Back then there had only been 5 deaths in rider ed—now there’s seven that MSF will confirm—plus, of course, that neck down paralysis crash.

But it was surprising how relevant it still is…watch it and see for yourself.

Appropos of nothing but too funny not to share

This is a legitimate posting that came in a few minutes ago.  I have no reason to believe the poster is nothing but  sincere. I can’t be sure because his username on this particular site is IMtiredofthebs@xxx.xxx which could go either way. At any rate–his deliberate or accidental mistakes makes this want ad have a delightfully bizzare meaning:

“Im running for political office in a small town and im in need of some sigh
stakes to hold my sins if any one has some around and not being used i would
be very much appreciated i will have a prop pick up thank you XXXX

If only sigh stakes could hold our sins!

Beautiful women dream of beautiful things

Beautiful women dream of beautiful things