Sending a novice solo.

[Max50]

Old n' Bold is it a club rule that you follow the BMFA's advise to stand stand approx 6 -10ft away? If there is some confusion then the club committee should rectify this. If it is not Then it's down to the novice. as if,i read it correctly in article 166 (2) of the ANO " The person in charge of a small unmanned aircraft may only fly the aircraft if reasonably satisfied that the flight can safely be made." . If he doesn't feel safe to fly with you standing 25ft away then he should tell you, or he should not fly.

Again , i don't know if i'm interperating it right . I'm a novice, so someone can jump in and correct this, if i'm wrong.

[Old n' bold]

In reply to Malcolm, all our club rules state is that a solo pilot who has not attained his 'A' must be 'supervised ' by a pilot who has. Nothing else.

In all the 6 years or so I have been instructing here, no-one has ever stipulated anything specific . Our Training Co-ordinator, and Safety Officer have never ever discussed anything as regards instructing previously. My fellow instructor and I were taken by surprise when were were told off by the SO for not being on the elbow of a solo novice who had some 20 solo flights already in the recent past. The SO had no idea of his experience thus far, and just upset what had been a pleasant afternoon.

I did read the passage from the BMFA ' Guidance to Instructors ' on first solo supervision at the next committee meeting, but this was met by outrage from the SO, and the committee all backed him !

We two instructors are not going to teach under this regime, and we have done about 80% of the training in the past couple of years. It's a shame.

[Mark Powell 2]

Old n' bold,

Yes, it is a shame. Committees, totally forgetting that is is supposed to mean 'committed to serve'. so often become dictatorial. And people, mainly through inertia, let them get away with it. Also, the Old Boy network comes in, 'I have been here much longer than you'. No doubt they pay a higher subscription than the common, newbie, muck? It's so silly, it's toy planes, for heavens sake!

Your so, he is 'outraged'. He is much more important than you, he is 'Appointed by the Committee' , no less. And you fell for it, you gave him Big Letters is his title.

It's human nature. Only those with an authoritarian outlook ever join committees. And they genuinely don't even think of themselves as authoritarian, but they are. It's our fault, we let them. Mainly because we can't be bothered to get on the committee ourselves because we are not of an authoritarian frame of mind. It is much worse in fishing clubs. They decide all the work to be done, and in a fishing clubs it is a lot. But we oiks have to do the actual work. Such as instructing, in your case.

Cheers

[Alan Cantwell]

somebody smash your toys when you where a kid?

[Mark Powell 2]

So you didn't agree with me before, and probably liked it less when others agreed with me. Get over it. I have agreed with, and respected, your views many times on other threads and no doubt will continue to do so.

Edited By Mark Powell 2 on 25/08/2012 14:59:28

Edited By Mark Powell 2 on 25/08/2012 15:08:07

[Alan Cantwell]

you agreed with my views cos i talk sense, i dont mind you sharing your views about anything, but to be honest, you come over as wanting a fight the way you post, try a bit harder, and i may start agreeing with you,

[avtur]

Doesn't this thread start to say something about the downside of clubs ..?

Any newbie thinking about joining a club is going to take one look at this thread and decide "I can do without that!"

A bad/poor safety officer is probably worse than none at all, seems often be the case that interpersonal skills are lacking .... not good for someone who has to communicate the safety message.

I'm concerned that in the original post there is reference to the SO not being involved in training, sounds like a recipe for distater, in my opninion.

In my day to day life I work around full size aircraft, in an environment where quick turnarounds are the order of the day, I find it difficult to seperate safety and training. In real life they work together very well... again just my experience and my opinion.

 

 

 

Edited By avtur on 25/08/2012 15:17:53

[Alan Cantwell]

there is no need for a safefy officer in a cub, it does indeed generally go to the jobsworths, everyone should be a safefy officer, i would expect if i was doing something wrong, that i would be pulled up about it, then, i would anylise it, and act accordingly,

just a funny story on this sort of thing, i can remember when my son was 11, he asked a new member not to run his engine pointing into the pits, he was told to --erm--go away, unfortunatly, i was within earshot, so i walked over, and asked the same question, he said sorry, and turned the model round, i asked why did he not listen to the lad who asked the same question, what does he know, he stated, well, says i, he is B certed, and will be teaching you to fly the model, his face was a picture

[Peter Beeney]

Old n’ Bold, - I would agree wholeheartedly with your stance and you have my every commiseration. Been there and done that, as they say. However, it also sounds as though any other instructors will soon be getting the chop too, your man will undoubtably now view his actions as a success, so he will now most likely want to stop any further teaching. Difficult to see what will change short term, but from my experience his aggressive attitude will eventually prevail across the whole of the club’s activities. It sounds as though he has only recently been established in post? Maybe a committee member might suddenly receive an unexplained tirade, that could start to put a different complexion on it.

I tend to think that part of the problem is down to the sheer volume of (odd) rules that are so beloved of some clubs today. Everyone wants to be in charge, and to do this you have to have rules you can keep quoting. So to keep quoting more and more you have to have more and more rules; and sometimes reading the various threads I often wonder how some clubs can run at all, let alone smoothly! An example of this is a club, some years ago, that decided that all non A pilots must be accompanied by a A. Ok for fixed wing, but they didn’t have any heli A’s. So helicopter flying was banned, and thus nobody could practise to get an a A. Therefore stalemate, and I know that for at least three years no effort was made to resolve it. It’s probably still the same situation today.

The A and non A pilot rule farce doesn’t stand too much close scrutiny either. You definitely can have the reversed situation, a very experienced pilot that doesn’t have an A, because we don’t have such rules, although we have the examiners if required, accompanies a new A visiting pilot, who insists on showing his certificate, the visitor then takes off over the the pits for starters, and eventually the non A pilot has to take the transmitter and land the plane. I guess after that some safety officers would be throwing an apoplectic fit, but I’m sure at the non A pilot for breaking the rules. In future, if we get a newly passed A visiting pilot that can’t really show some evidence of flying he will have to fly on the buddy first time, most likely with a non A on the master tx, and if this is not to his satisfaction he will know where the out gate is situated.

Safety is about Safety, and not about petty rules, as I’m very much sure you will agree.

Another part of the problem is that most members are made happier by not being members of the committee. So they just tolerate the existing lot, unless things get too hot. Most folks just want a quiet life, so they tend to keep the status quo.

Let’s hope your conundrum is resolved to your satisfaction, and all the Very Best Of Luck.

PB

Edited By Peter Beeney on 25/08/2012 15:37:22

[Mark Powell 2]

I was once the secretary of the 'Test Valley Orchid Society' (we grow flowers, amateurs, not professional nor for profit. Just because we like them.). A club secretary is not really a member of the committee, he 'serves' them. In addition to the work you might expect from a secretary he has to arrange all the coach trips, and try to get professional orchid nursery owners to travel long distances to give us talks for nothing every month. When he has persuaded everyone he knows in the trade to do this, and runs out, everyone whinges. But they don't think of buying the stock he has brought with him to sell to cover his costs. I stuck it for five years, because no one else was willing to do it. But you are constantly attacked by the committee for not always being able to do such things. They get even more upset when a newbie comes along and wins all the prizes. Because he thinks he is not very good, and tries harder.

So many clubs are like this. I got fed up with it in a big, open membership, fishing club and joined a small one, a 'syndicate' rather than a 'club'. Twelve members, no committee. Annual subscription is 38 times higher than the annual subscription of the other one. No hassle, so worth it.

[Mark Powell 2]

Alan,

Fair enough

 

I have been held as 'A man of strong views, lightly held'. That's pretty accurate.

Edited By Mark Powell 2 on 25/08/2012 15:39:31

[Alan Cantwell]

i would send you some flowers, but it looks like you have enough

[Myron Beaumont]

All I can say is you're welcome to all your safety officers/club rules /examiners/certificates/people you don't get on with/noise problems/Mr jobsworths/etc etc . I fly where I want ,mostly on my own .Cor Blimey .What are you all about with what is essentially a hobby to enjoy .Is it something to do with abiding by rules all your lives or what .Even the BMFA makes money out of their boring magazine I've stopped reading .Yes ,I'm insured by the way 'cos I have 3rd party liability insurance with the property before some prat tells me I should have seperate cover.

Myron -FULL ON Grumpy dept.

[Alan Cantwell]

thats great Myron, if you enjoy your own company, but if you want to go fly at other sites, as a lot of us do, then some of what you list will be needed, i dont like flying on my own, many a time, i have arrived at the field, no one has turned up, and i have gone home, part of the hobby for me is chatting with the lads,

[Mark Powell 2]

'Sheer volume of (odd) rules'

Rules are a 'social' thing. The average working person has them all their working lives (I did) so feel lost without them. So they have committees in their clubs to continue the framework they are familiar with..

When they retire (me) or win the lottery (not me) they will feel very different.

Sorry, that may get a few goats. But I happen to believe it, or at least think it could be true.. That does not mean I am correct.

[Greybeard]

It’s a club committee’s function to provide the members with a safe and enjoyable environment, nothing more or less; and most do. Within any group acceptable rules are essential otherwise that group becomes a rabble and anarchy rules. If you feel that you cannot accept rules then you really should avoid company because otherwise your own bad manners will quickly surface and cause friction.

This has little to do with the OP so I shall shut up and get ready to enjoy a day’s flying on my clubs site with congenial company whom I trust to fly safely and with good manners.

[Mark Powell 2]

We know what is likely to happen to this thread. Maybe that should happen. When you get polarised views people get heated.

[Mark Powell 2]

'Third party liability with the property'.

Yes, most of us, if homeowners do. But a few years ago our unelected 'marshall' at our non-club said we had to have BMFA insurance as it runs over the same annual dates as the Forestry Commission 'permits' do. As I could not be bothered' to argue with both him and the FC, I just paid up. Since then I have found the BMFA a worthwhile organisation to be in, though they have never needed to do anything for me or 'us'.

But now I have two insurance policies. You sometimes find in the (very) small print that having two policicies for the same thing invalidates both of them.

[Peter Beeney]

Myron, - If model flying makes you so grumpy that you have to fly on your own I can only say that I’m very pleased that I fly with a few very much like minded people in very pleasant surroundings indeed. We are the very opposite of grumpy, so that might be construed as extremely good humoured. Maybe it is of course constantly fretting about all these churlish little impediments that you list and we find so necessary that puts us all in such an appreciable frame of mind. I shall now go and enjoy the angst that creates all the evening!

Incidentally, do you think ‘grumpy’ might be getting slightly overcooked here? If so I’ve maybe found a few alternative evocative synonyms you might care to ‘post-test’ for a while, see what you think.

So you might like to try tetchy for the kind of grumpy that's quick to take offense; churlish for the grumpiness born of entitlement (think of the overpaid cell-phone yapper cutting you off), peevish for the complaining, fault-finding grumpiness of the vague and wavering old man; fractious for the grumpiness of the unpleasable overtired child; pettish for the grumpiness of the spoiled beauty; waspish for the snappish, tightlipped grumpiness of the thin and elderly spinster; and shirty for the insolent grumpiness of the person who knows he's being thwarted and doesn't much like it.

Anything in there that takes your grumpy fancy?

PB

[Mark Powell 2]

Personally I look forwards to Myron's posts. He doesn't take it all so seriously as some, marshals, safety officers, guards next?.

Its a hobby. Most adults think we are stuck in our childhood. One may, as an angler, talk to golfers in the pub. We may bore each other, but we listen, for a while at least. But would you talk about model planes?

Peter, I didn't realise you know my wife!

Edited By Mark Powell 2 on 25/08/2012 17:33:07