Safety officers.

[Arthur Harris]

On 15/12/2023 at 07:02, GrumpyGnome said:

 

So no complete beginners? What do you do with those?

 

(Many of my club, including some who gave flown for many years would be excluded....)

I forgot to say, tuition is offered to take newbies to Part A if they have the commitment. I suppose we want people who want to progress in flying skills, not people who just want to fly a circuit or two, do a loop and a roll and then land.

[PDB]

12 minutes ago, Arthur Harris said:

I suppose we want people who want to progress in flying skills, not people who just want to fly a circuit or two, do a loop and a roll and then land.

Pleased I’m not a member of your club.

[GrumpyGnome]

7 hours ago, Arthur Harris said:

I suppose we want people who want to progress in flying skills, not people who just want to fly a circuit or two, do a loop and a roll and then land.

Circuit or two, loop, roll and land?  That's pretty much what some experienced members of my club do..... they have just as much fun and enjoyment as anyone else.

 

Seems your club has a very strange ethos. Who is the arbiter of making "progress in flying skills". And to what end?

 

It's a hobby with diminishing participation, and surely we should encourage everyone to have fun, doing what they want, safely?

 

In my mind, if someone wants to join a club, and only ever flies on a buddy box, never progressing beyond even circuits, they're just as welcome as someone whose aspiration is to get all the BMFA certifications in as little time as possible, or to compete in World Championships.

 

Hopefully I'm misinterpreting you Arthur..... 

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

Common sense on the ground, start up, taxi take off, then flying in a safe area of air space, a safe landing and stopping the engine/ taking out the battery on the taxiway is enough for me.

 

What they do in the air is up to them.

[Peter Miller]

Many years ago the then club secretary (Who was one of those who was into everything and on all sorts of committees and organisations) at our "AGM" brought in the rule that we should have a club safety officer. and a yellow jacket would be worn but him.  However it was then decided that whoever was not flying at the time would put the jacket on and be "safety officer" until he wanted to fly.

 

On one occasion when someone was flying and did something unsafe the secretary who  was wearing the yellow jacket was approached about this he made some feeble excuse and did nothing. In fact the whole thing was a fiasco.

 

Some time later he resigned and I took over as secretary.

 

I spoke to someone at BMFA (Forgive me I forget the name...it was some 15 years ago) and the advice I got was that One club safety officer was not a good idea, Every body should be safety minded but if one person was then everyone tended

to leave it up to them.

[Graham Bowers]

31 minutes ago, Peter Miller said:

SNIP

 

............. the advice I got was that One club safety officer was not a good idea, Every body should be safety minded but if one person was then everyone tended

to leave it up to them.

Well, yes, and no. Or put another way, it depends!

 

The flying clubs I'm in have 30 or 40 members and we don't have a safety officer, probably because one isn't felt to be needed. However for clubs that do feel the need, for whatever reason, if the job is taken to mean watching for safety issues and pouncing, then I can see the problems mentioned throughout this thread and that @Peter Miller was advised on. However if the job is taken to mean being more of a  "safety leader",  that promotes a safety culture in a positive manner, it can work well. But there has to be a need for the role, otherwise nobody will be convinced.

 

I know that, as I perform that role in a volunteer group I help to run. We have round 150 members and do woodland work with about 25 to 30 volunteers on a session. We're do thinning work for a number of landowners including a national charity and the local authority, so are required to have a safety plan. Machinery such as chainsaws and ATV's are in use. I created the safety plan and ensure that our processes that enact the plan are well understood and up to date, and lead the safety effort. Every session begins with a short session specific operations and safety brief, and end with a debrief. The committee decided at the inception of the group that we'd adopt industrial safety standards and work to known best practice. We have a good safety culture and new members often remark that.

 

However, when I go flying, that hat is left at home. Because it isn't needed at the flying field.

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

Our club has been going over 20 years but the safety 'person' was elected only 3 years ago, for 2 reasons, one the older generation doing silly things, and the second as we were inviting other clubs to our field for BBQ's and it was to give them time to fly over our club members hogging the flying space  and the third reason ( the Spanish Inquisition)  was getting drone pilots buzzing around on the drone racing circuit putting fixed wing and heli pilots off with that dreadful buzzing and not knowing where it was coming from.

[Arthur Harris]

5 hours ago, GrumpyGnome said:

...

In my mind, if someone wants to join a club, and only ever flies on a buddy box, never progressing beyond even circuits, they're just as welcome as someone whose aspiration is to get all the BMFA certifications in as little time as possible, or to compete in World Championships.

Hopefully I'm misinterpreting you Arthur..... 

Yeah, I just made that up, I don't know why, sorry. What I would be interested to know is, do the clubs that insist on Part A for membership (I think I read somewhere that Teesside do, for eg) have less potential safety incidents than the clubs who let learners practise? I know that common sense on all sides mean that complete beginners have someone standing beside them, (either with a buddy lead or just the opportunity for them to take over the Tx), but I believe some clubs let people fly solo just on grounds of competence without them having done the part A. 

I suppose what I mean is, does Part A accreditation lead to fewer potential incidents later, or are most incidents just due to people being clumsy or having a memory lapse (forgetting to change model memory, for eg)?

[GrumpyGnome]

@Arthur Harrislooks like Teesside have a rule prohibiting solo flying unless you have at least an A cert - can't see any restrictions on membership based on BMFA scheme.  This is quite common.

 

We don't require an A cert, but new members are asked to demonstrate competency before being allowed to fly solo. 

 

From my experience, certifications seem to have no bearing on incidents, be they safety, or any other kind of incidents...... 

[leccyflyer]

56 minutes ago, Arthur Harris said:

Yeah, I just made that up, I don't know why, sorry. What I would be interested to know is, do the clubs that insist on Part A for membership (I think I read somewhere that Teesside do, for eg) have less potential safety incidents than the clubs who let learners practise? I know that common sense on all sides mean that complete beginners have someone standing beside them, (either with a buddy lead or just the opportunity for them to take over the Tx), but I believe some clubs let people fly solo just on grounds of competence without them having done the part A. 

I suppose what I mean is, does Part A accreditation lead to fewer potential incidents later, or are most incidents just due to people being clumsy or having a memory lapse (forgetting to change model memory, for eg)?

Notwithstanding the strange nomenclature being used, it's not that uncommon for BMFA affiliated clubs in England to require an A certificate before a flyer is permitted to fly solo (as in unaccompanied at the flightline). Many fly-ins use the A certificate in a similar manner. That hasn't been my experience in Scotland, where the four clubs that I've been in do not have any requirement for holding an "A" certificate or SAA Bronze Certificate for solo flight.

 

Back at the turn of the century when my old club affiliated to BMFA we made the decision that all members would have to have an "A" Certificate before being allowed to fly solo. This was part of our risk assessment in being permitted to operate a new site, within the same industrial complex that we had been flying at for a number of years, but which our landlords were wanting to put more stringent procedures in place. The club had around 120 members at the time and the vast majority of those had previously passed the club's own General Flying Test, so were allowed to fly solo. We set a timescale of one year for all members to take their "A" test and the vast majority of members did so - the hard work of the single Club examiner and Area Chief Examiner got around a hundred members through their "A" test in 12 months.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Administered correctly, the A test is a simple test of basic skills that anyone claiming to be a competent flyer should be able to complete successfully.  The questions are there to illustrate a working knowledge of the BMFA handbook (air law is now largely covered by the RCC or CAA tests) and a good examiner will not be looking for ways to catch people out. 
 

I feel that those who take the position that they are above such a “demeaning” test of their abilities are often the sort of flyer who is likely to cause problems by their unwillingness to take any criticism or advice. 
 

Clubs requiring such a test are being fair to their existing members who have made the small effort (usually a rewarding step in their learning experience) to achieve the standards. 
 

Club safety records are far more affected by ongoing informal monitoring and standards of the more senior members than  statistics relating to whether a club insists on certification. 
 

Perhaps this is where we can get back on topic and discuss the role of the Safety Officer in this process?