Vic Syracuse, EAA Lifetime 180848
This piece originally ran in Vic’s Checkpoints column in the February 2025 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
For the August 2024 issue of EAA Sport Aviation, I penned a column titled “Stupid Pilot Decisions.” Of all the columns I have written over the years, that one has sparked the most feedback, doing exactly what I hoped it would — initiating some internal soul-searching by every reader.
I received so many letters and notes from pilots, some of which gave me the shivers. Basically, they were all confessions of pilots who had tempted fate and lived to learn from it.
I’ve encouraged many of them to forward their stories to the editor, so they can share it in their own words. While most of them were failures in judgment, only a couple were caused by mechanical failures, such as control cables installed reversed and failure to retorque wooden prop bolts, leading to in-flight propeller separation.
There was a common theme to all of them: Pressure from either internal or external sources, sometimes celebratory in nature and sometimes just showing off. The external pressures are sometimes the worst and range from family and friends asking to see what the airplane can do, to experienced pilots at air shows trying to show how much better their aircraft is than the competition’s. Many of them end up with horrible consequences that are indelibly etched in the eyes of the family or spectators.
The letters I received ranged from a pilot rolling an Ercoupe over Half Moon Bay, to another pilot who decided the best way to celebrate completing Phase I testing in his RV-7 was with a screenshot of the electronic flight instrument system (EFIS) while inverted over his house. I’ve fumbled with taking screenshots of my EFIS multiple times in level flight. I cannot imagine trying to do it inverted and at a low level! Yes, he fell out of the maneuver and thought his wife and family were going to see him crash into his own house. Somehow his past training kicked in, and he survived by a whisker.
The interesting theme is that many of the maneuvers described by the pilots are not that difficult. If Bob Hoover were still around, he would probably agree. But there are few of us who could hold a candle to Bob Hoover. The difference with what we saw from Bob Hoover is that the maneuvers were only done after lots of careful thought and practice AT SAFE ALTITUDES. It’s called good judgment.
Yes, we joke that new pilots are given two bags when they get their certificate. One bag is full of luck, and the other is an empty bag of experience. The goal is to fill the bag of experience before the bag of luck runs out. Some people say good judgment comes from bad experience. While some of that might be true, I believe good judgment can be gained through thoughtful approaches. It’s all about safety, whether flying or maintenance. We don’t have to have the bad experiences to get there safely. Nor do we have to put our passengers through the bad experiences (this comment is directed at those of you who fly your passengers through bad weather and unplanned aerobatics).
If you look at the contributory causes of experimental aircraft accidents, bad judgment ranks much higher among the younger pilots and decreases by half as pilots age. There was a good article in Kitplanes magazine’s September 2024 issue. I encourage you to read for more data. Either we take fewer risks as we age, or we learn from our mistakes and don’t do stupid things — even though the accident rate is higher in older pilots.
Too many pilots learn the hard way that low-level aerobatics are risky and can have terrible consequences. I personally watched a 72-year-old pilot showing off for the after-lunch crowd at a fly-in in his Moni motorglider. He would swoop down the runway at a “high speed” (remember it’s a motorglider, so high speed is being generous), and he would shut the engine off, restarting it at the end of the runway as he pulled up into a vertical climb. The engine was a two-stroke powerplant, and if you’ve ever used a chainsaw, you’ve experienced how sometimes the engine just quits as you add throttle.
Well, he successfully performed the maneuver twice, but on the third time he pulled up a little too aggressively. A lightweight motorglider does not have much mass for vertical penetration. At the top of the climb, it snapped to the inverted position and the engine either quit or the pilot pulled it to idle. My family and I had a perfect view, as we were directly under it.
Most pilots have never seen the inverted view from an unexpected snap-roll at 300 feet. As the nose fell through to the horizon, he pulled back on the stick, and it again snapped. The power came up and then quit again. It was too late. It entered a flat spin from which there was no recovery and impacted the ground about 50 feet from where I was standing. It was not a good sight to see.
Our youngest son, Nick, a newly minted solo pilot, had just flown his first cross-country to this fly-in. While I had pushed him and Carol away, they were still close to the impact point. I spent the rest of the afternoon convincing Nick that there was nothing wrong with the airplane. It was about bad judgment, and he would be fine flying home.
The sad thing about events like this is that they can have a profound negative impact upon the observers and can be life-changing for some. I know parents who won’t let their kids fly because they witnessed an aircraft accident. No amount of comparing other types of accident rates will help convince them otherwise. The damage has been done. Don’t be a bad example. Read about it in NTSB docket ATL02LA009.
Now, lest you think I am holier than thou, I will share my own stupid decision-making experience. I learned to fly at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base Aero Club. At that time, we had to have so many hours of complex aircraft time to obtain a commercial certificate. The club had procured a Beechcraft T-34A Mentor, which we all couldn’t wait to fly. Since it was a “military” airplane, it had the requisite “dash one” flight manual, which I dutifully read.
I was so excited to see that it was aerobatic, and I inquired as to receiving some aerobatic instruction. I was told no one was qualified. I certainly didn’t like that answer and set out to teach myself. I read every book I could find at the base library and at the aero club and finally decided that the split-S looked to be the easiest maneuver to attempt. I told myself all I had to do was roll inverted and pull back on the stick. I don’t remember seeing anything in the dash one with regard to minimum altitude, so 5,000 feet seemed high enough to me. As a data point, the field elevation was 2,687 feet.
I was already pretty nervous when I rolled to the inverted, and then all of the dirt from the floor came down on top of me. I certainly didn’t need that distraction! I pulled back on the stick, pulling the power to idle at the same time. To this day, I still get the shivers when I think about those next few seconds. Indelibly etched into my mind, seeing the sight of the person on their farmhouse porch as I went screaming by between them and the barn at about 20 feet AGL! I don’t know how many g’s I was pulling, but I honestly did not think I was going to make it, and the airplane was screaming like a banshee.
I sheepishly flew back to the base and cleaned myself and the cabin from all the dirt. No sense getting caught doing aerobatics. It didn’t work. I wasn’t as clean as I thought I was when I walked through the door. I admit I was shaken up. Later that day while at work, the maintenance officer asked me what was going on, and I confessed. I got a good dressing-down, and he told me they required 20,000 feet in the T-38 for a split-S! I learned a hard lesson and survived. Luckily. After that, I flew MUCH higher and had a lot of fun with the T-34.
I learned altitude was my friend, and it has kept the fun factor (and me) alive. Please do the same. Don’t hesitate to get some training first. There’s a lot more aerobatic training available today than there was when I learned to fly. No excuses.
Vic Syracuse, EAA Lifetime 180848, is a commercial pilot, A&P/IA mechanic, designated airworthiness representative, and EAA flight advisor and technical counselor. He has built 11 aircraft and has logged more than 11,000 hours in 75 different types. Vic founded Base Leg Aviation, has authored books on maintenance and prebuy inspections, and posts videos weekly on his YouTube channel. He also volunteers as a Young Eagles pilot.