Re: no examiners at cumbernauld

cannonfauder · Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2004 8:31 am Post subject: Re: no examiners at cumbernauld

after being informed that there was no examiners available for the Silver it seemed pointless to request for a hover or bronze Because the state of the weather is soo bad that only a few die hards keep turning up Personnally I would hate to ask the examiners to turn up only to find the weather is unsuitable what is a guy suppose to do Crying or Very sad

Sav · Junior Member Joined: Aug 30, 2004 Posts: 14

Cannon,

Yes I am an examiner. I have been to pretty much every event this year that i could possibly get to.

Cumbernauld was the exception as I had other commitments that had to be addressed.

On the upside Ronnie and myself will be at Falkirk this weekend.
We'll be more than happy to do any tests that need done Wink

hope the weather wil be good to us as last year it was a really good event!

Stu

strachg · Good Guy Joined: Sep 11, 2002 Posts: 107 Location: Erskine

Hi,

I agree with Stu, we have hardly seen him or Ronnie at their own field this year as they have been attending so many other events.

Graham

raptorheli2 · Junior Member Joined: Aug 09, 2004 Posts: 11

i have been to most of the events with stu and ronnie and i can assure you it's a LOT of events and LOTS of traveling. the rally being mentioned was a prior invite and it was important to advertise our sport it was thought. it was unfortunate that no examiners turned up at Cumbernauld

Mahmood should go to the mountain sometimes Question

anyway, falkirk on sunday. hope weather holds. alex, make sure it does.
Laughing

cheers

Alex · Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2004 7:09 am Post subject: Re: no examiners at cumbernauld

My Request for good weather was submitted in triplicate months in advance but no confirmation has been received as of this date.

Wink

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Alex

sportsjet · Junior Member Joined: Mar 29, 2004 Posts: 11

Hey Guys,

The CMFC SAA Training weekend was a flop due to lack of communication! If the SAA book up a club’s private field for a “training and testing weekend”, they should ensure there are enough examiners available to attend. Cumbernauld MFC handed over their field to the SAA for this purpose but only one fixed wing examiner appeared on Saturday!

Quentin told a Helicopter flyer that no SAA Heli examiners were going to attend this weekend, but this information never got out. Emails were still flying around advertised the event as a heli and fixed wing training weekend, on the Wednesday before the event.

The weather on Saturday was fine for hover, bronze, Silver, Gold and instructor training.

CMFC is a very good training venue. It has a runway for the fixed wing and a heli pad for the hover/ bronze and some of the silver testing. So this was a big opportunity missed to improve safe flying.

A fly-in is not the ideal place to do safety award “training or testing”. It is supposed to be a fun event for pilots to enjoy. Not to sit around, having to wait an hour or so while a few helicopter pilots sit their safety awards. Thats what the training weekend are for!

TC

sportsjet · Junior Member Joined: Mar 29, 2004 Posts: 11

Helicopter Training and Testing

It would be good if we had a more structured approach to the safety award training. For example - assign an examiner to a pilot, carry out training exercises, discuss the manoeuvres then take the flying test. Not an ad hoc approach - "I can do some tests at a fly in". What ever happened to the training part?

What has really pi**** me off in the past about these Flight tests is the examiners approach to absolutely precision flying. "In the hover, the model dropped 6 inches so you have failed!" Why do you think most people don't bother taking the Safety Awards for helicopters?

I thought the idea of these safety awards was for the pilots to demonstrate his level of flying experience to the Examiner and show he was in safe control of the model. I can hover a helicopter 6 inches off the deck, nose in, inverted just like the examiners do in front of petrol heads. But the examiners can fail my Silver test because the model descending at 42 degrees rather than 45 degrees! What is this all about?

If these examiners are over stretched running around the country to every event, then why are they not actively training up more examiners to reduce their workload? Is it a closed group of people with special handshakes? CMFC has some 20 or so model helicopter flyers, but no examiners at club level or anyone that can offer any helicopter training. As one of the largest clubs in Central Scotland this is not helping the safety aspect of the helicopter flying. Many are flying their helicopters around without even a Hover test! Maybe the public shows do promote our hobby but surely we should be promoting safe flying at club level first.

Finally, At these fly ins do we not have to have a minimum of Bronze to fly at these events? I don't think the SAA insurance is valid for someone without a bronze to fly helicopters on their own.

Sav · Junior Member Joined: Aug 30, 2004 Posts: 14

Sportsjet.

Your comments on the test are not necessarily true.

The tests are NEVER about precision, They are about SAFETY. Every examiner wil agree with that. Where your impression that perfection is the goal came from I have no idea.

The test themselves put you in situations where problems concerning control become evident. Flying a perfect routine is not the goal, although it is nice to see!

Maybe its time to actually talk to one of us, as i cannot recall any time that you got it from the horses mouth! As far as i know our contact details are freely available. I don't ever recall you contacting us requesting us to come to oyu, which we would have been happy to do if we had known you needed them.

I for one am always open to new suggestions, and your implication that there is some sort of elitist attitude is absolute nonsense.

Oh and the book full of tests that we have form the past year proves there are plenty of tests being taken. Again where oyu get your facts from i have no idea.

Can we get back to flying helicopters please?

Stu

raptorheli2 · Junior Member Joined: Aug 09, 2004 Posts: 11

sportsjet

some of your points are understandable. but some are not correct.

for instance, you say about 42 degree instead of 45 would constitute a failure. this is not true. when i took my silver it was emphasised that the tests are about SAFE FLYING. not nice flying. although both would be nice.

also when i done my tests i done ALL the donkey work. imho these examiners are busy enough. So i took the time and effort to go to their field and also the training days.

Can i remind you that you could email one of your local examiners and i'm sure they would be more than happy to fix a day for you to take your silver. you can't ASSUME that these examiners are not busy and can make the particular event you attend.

also i am interested to note that you think there is some sort of seceret handshake to get into the "examiners club". has it ever occured to you that maybe, just maybe more silver pilots need to step up to the plate. the SAA can't go round forcing people to be an examiner.

cheers

QM · Member Joined: Feb 09, 2004 Posts: 50

Hi Sportsjet,

I think this has been answered, but I would like to build on your suggestions.

Yes it sounds as if clubs need more helicopter examiners, I quite agree, we are very short staffed at the moment. Last count had only 5 active examiners for Scotland, we need more. Choosing an examiner is difficult, they have to be willing to do the tireless job, travel to other clubs and take a whole lot of abuse and still smile.

The process is simple, when a candidate has attained silver and is wishing to be made an examiner, they have to be proposed by the club committee. We prefer at least two candidates, as one may not be of suitable character. This is the same for any candidate wanting to be an examiner and represent the SAA. we don't press gang people, we want willing volunteers, something not many people wish to do.

Your perceptions of how a test is judge are definitely inaccurate unless you are taking a GOLD. Silver is the highest safety award, Gold is for precision and no mistakes. You mentioned height loss as a failure point...well, if you constantly lose 2 feet trying to hover around the square, then you are not ready for the test. If the wind causes you to lose height, but you make the effort and regain the same height reasonably quickly, then you wouldn't fail. You have to demonstrate the safe operation of a helicopter at all angles of view to the pilot. Providing you can do that and answer 5 questions from the safety code, then you pass.

It is true that examiners have differing opinions, but I have only found this to be the case in the fixed wing section which the safety committee are trying to address. I haven't heard of this from the helicopter section before.

Hope this helps.

Stephen · Good Guy Joined: Jul 26, 2003 Posts: 150 Location: Falkirk

This event was advertised as a fixed wing training and testing day,

No mention of helicopters at all.

Plus on the day in question the weather was windy and raining on and off..
Basically no use for flying never mind testing,

Where there any fixed wing tests done?

I would quite like to join the Cumbernauld club ,
Its an excellent site ,

You have a seperate area for flying , how often can you get up to the main runway for a bit more space.
Any problems with fixed wing boys or have you come to some sort of understanding.
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Stephen

sportsjet · Junior Member Joined: Mar 29, 2004 Posts: 11

Stephen,

Quote - This event was advertised as a fixed wing training and testing day, No mention of helicopters at all”. This is not quite correct - Yes it was being advertised as a Fixed wing event on one web site but it was also being advertised as a Helicopter and Fixed wing SAA training day through emails to club and to their club members (which I got). So there was mention of helicopters, and that was from one of the organisers of the weekend!

Quote - “Plus on the day in question the weather was windy and raining on and off.. Basically no use for flying never mind testing,” No this is not correct either! It was flyable weather, I was there on Saturday. There were the occasional rain showers coming through but CMFC has shelter from this weather unlike many other MFC. So the weather was fine on the Saturday for all the training and testing. If only we had examiners.

Quote – “Where there any fixed wing tests done,I would dout it.” There were several fixed wing flyers were practising for Bronze, Silver and one pilot was going for his Gold. Tests were another thing. The SAA only managed to get one Fixed wing examiner to the event so the Silver and Gold pilots could not be tested.

Don’t get me wrong, I have the greatest respect for the SAA examiners and their endless work they have to do for free. I was disappointed that this excellent field was booked for "Training and Testing of the safety awards" but was poorly supported, so very little was achieved.

Quote – “You have a seperate area for flying , how often can you get up to the main runway for a bit more space. Any problems with fixed wing boys or have you come to some sort of understanding.”
CMFC has a separate helicopter hover area, which is big enough for several helicopters to hover in it at the same time. It is also big enough to do slow circuits, nose in hovers and practice the bronze and some of the Silver schedule. If you want to do faster circuits, Stall turns, Inverted hovering etc, then you have to fly off the main runway. There is no hovering from the main runway when fixed wing models are flying. You must fly in circuits off this runway. You also have to stand in the Fixed Wing Pilot stand. You may be in circuit with 200mph jets, 3d aerobatic models or large petrol models. Most of the helicopter flyers fly from this main runway when there are no fixed wing models up in the air. Then they can do their 3D stuff without bothering anyone. But if a Fixed wing starts up, then the helicopter pilot must go back into circuits.

Helicopter pilots are out numbered at CMFC by Fixed wing pilots so we follow their rules. Also several of the fixed wing pilots have helicopters so they are happy for the helicopter flying to stay.

TC

QM · Member Joined: Feb 09, 2004 Posts: 50

I have to agree with Stephen here, I was not expecting it to be a helicopter event either! I am in the process of issuing instructions to all the clubs about how to arrange such events and competitions. It is vital that the SAA safety officer or relevent CD is kept in the loop during organisation, so appropriate examiners can be allocated. Sadly due to a communication error, I was not kept in the loop on this occasion.

I am still trying however to find out why the four resident examiners did not turn up, possibly they were at the British Nationals as well maybe? If one had turned up, then the silver and Golds could have been tested.

I have had contact with the examiner that did turn up, who advised me that no one that he coached in flying was suitable to pass a test, other than the one bronze that did.

There is no doubt this was a very peculiar incident and one that I don't want to see repeated. Most Heli pilots then went to Falkirk the following weekend and passed their tests, 9 in all and I have been informed the fixed wing pilots will be attending Kinross.
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Quentin Mayberry

Stephen · Good Guy Joined: Jul 26, 2003 Posts: 150 Location: Falkirk

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Stephen

raptorheli2 · Junior Member Joined: Aug 09, 2004 Posts: 11