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In the past decade, aviation has seen amazing advances in airframes, avionics and propulsion. Fiber of incredible strength and smoothness is used for construction of the fuselage, wing and tail surfaces. Flat glass panels with embedded electronics provide all the necessary flight parameters and communications data for our flying reference. The fuel-stingy diesel engine has been engineered to power aircraft soon to be available on the market. Higher performance general aviation aircraft and more sophisticated avionics require more use of Air Traffic Control facilities, or, in other words, more communications.
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I’ve got bad news … and worse. As I write this, the scoreboard reads: San Diego FSDO 21; Long Beach FSDO 20. (No, I’m not a fan of Long Beach and, no, Long Beach didn’t miss an extra point.)
Unfortunately, the score isn’t related to an intra-mural flag football game between the SAN and LGB Flight Standards District Office’s. It represents the number of airspace violations in the Presidential Temporary Flight Restrictions areas during George W. Bush’s visit to Southern California on August 21 & 22, 2003. That’s forty-one known violations, in just two days, of well-publicized temporary flight restrictions that were put in place because of the President’s visit. There were also reports that a number of general aviation aircraft had to be intercepted by combat aircraft and forced to land during those two days.
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Aviation accidents come in all shapes, sizes and colors. However, studies, research, safety articles, books, trend analyses and mishap reports all point to the fact that 80% to 90% of aviation accidents have human factors as the primary cause. We have met the enemy and it is us!
It would seem that our minds become overloaded in certain circumstances. When I read an accident report and see things such as fuel pumps being set in high boost when the POH clearly says that will flood the engine and kill it, or pressing on into deteriorating weather (including high winds) when we all know that is an extremely dangerous thing for pilots to do...
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Something that creates a high level of frustration among examiners is the number of applicants who seem to be taught only the bare minimum necessary to meet the Practical Test Standards. This is not result of where the applicant did their training, either. It might have been at a 14 CFR 141 major flight school, a “mom-and-pop” FBO, or with an independent CFI.
If you're an instructor and you train your students only what the Practical Test Standards require, think again about what you’re doing.
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Runway incursions are aircraft incidents that most of us don’t think about much because avoiding them seems obvious. The FAA defines a runway incursion as “any occurrence at an airport including an aircraft, vehicle, person or object on the ground that creates a collision hazard or results in a loss of separation with an aircraft taking off, intending to take off, landing or intending to land.” At a towered airport, for example, who in the world would get onto an active runway without clearance? How could he do it? Why would he do it? We all know the regulations, and the ground controller will watch out for us even if we do make a mistake, right?
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Flight Training 
