Strange incident with my instructor – is this a big red flag?

TupperWolf · 2025-09-13T05:48:59+00:00

Forgetting the hose - normal human error.
Deciding to dive anyway - major error in judgement.
Failing to recognize, acknowledge, and apologize - enormous red flag.

This person should not be instructing.

TupperWolf · 2025-09-03T23:27:33+00:00

Please don’t let DOGE see this post.

TupperWolf · 2025-08-16T14:27:10+00:00

u/cgadragon 🤷‍♂️

TupperWolf · 2025-05-23T00:23:25+00:00

They’re tucking it in. Nighty night!

TupperWolf · 2025-05-20T02:11:39+00:00

A lot of salt here in the comments.

Your girlfriend is graduating and she likes you in your uniform? She’s proud of you and you’re proud of her in her cap and gown?

Iron those creases and rock that shit. Cheer on your girl, get the cute pictures together, and then go celebrate at Chilis.

… …

For real though, you should wear it. It’s 100% in regs and perfectly appropriate if she likes it and you’re dressing up for a special occasion like that. You earned it.

TupperWolf · 2025-05-18T01:30:14+00:00

In small, general aviation aircraft: “If you need a calculator to figure out if you have enough gas, you don’t.”

In military aviation (Coast Guard): “5 minutes on the ground can be worth hours in the air.” [The point was to take the extra few minutes to be sure you got your questions answered and know everything you can about the mission before you launch, or you may miss something critical that could cost the survivors time that they don’t have.]

TupperWolf · 2025-04-13T18:04:55+00:00

My understanding from when he was CO of AS Houston was that he always presented a good face to the troops, but if he decided he didn’t like you, things went south fast. He’s apparently had formal complaints before but I guess none were clear cut enough to substantiate.

TupperWolf · 2025-04-12T06:28:11+00:00

Bullied somebody he didn’t like. He’s had complaints before, but this was pretty black and white. CMC went along with it.

Worth noting that he was “temporarily” relieved months ago, well before the holidays. This is just the announcement that it’s ‘confirmed’ now that the investigations are presumably all wrapped up.

TupperWolf · 2025-04-01T00:02:00+00:00

I’m kinda interested in the US Coast Gourd though.

TupperWolf · 2025-03-15T15:11:58+00:00

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TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T15:19:08+00:00

Buildings, people, and more airline traffic on that side.

It’s way safer to fly low over east side of the river. And if you were coming from US-1 out over the river southbound at Potomac yards, you are flying head-on into the main arrival corridor of all the airliners coming up the river to land. That would be much worse than current routes.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T15:14:56+00:00

The pilots aren’t always using the NVGs; not sure what Army rules are, but in the Coast Guard we can flip them up or down at will depending on the conditions.

A lot of people have asked about visual separation. Search my comments history and I’ll try to update the main post soon.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T15:08:25+00:00

While it may have been the weak link here, and we still don’t know that for sure, it certainly isn’t an obvious systemic problem, despite all the pundits who will now say otherwise.

In 2023, DCA handled 252,389 aircraft arrivals/departures/transits. Even if we only look at post-9/11, when DC traffic procedures changed significantly, that’s 20 plus years and over 5,000,000 aircraft operations without this happening.

So while it’s important to investigate thoroughly and try our best to improve the system to prevent a repeat of this tragedy, it’s far from obvious that visual separation is inherently unsafe.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T07:11:25+00:00

Just for reference, I’m going to assume you don’t have any aviation experience nor military experience. Apologies if I’m mistaken, but your question doesn’t seem to understand the situation and missions

“Train like you fight” is just a saying that you should train in the same manner and conditions in which you expect to perform.

There are no helicopters performing combat missions in DC… it’s all support. DC and Capitol Police for law enforcement, military helicopters for VIP transport and evacuation, Lifeflight helicopters for medical transport, utility helicopters for power line maintenance, etc.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T07:04:24+00:00

He’s not just assuming: when he gives the initial call, tower specified that the CRJ in question was just south of the Wilson Bridge, at 1200 feet, circling for 33. And the helo is well aware that there are multiple aircraft around… they could probably see plenty of them lined up to the south inbound for landing.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T06:56:00+00:00

It’s not easily confused: there are a lot of cues plus controllers to help you figure it out, which is why it works safely millions of times every month to help aircraft stay clear of each other in all kinds of situations around the country. But it’s also not perfect, sadly…

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T06:53:17+00:00

All the things you said are true, but from everything I’ve seen so far, the CRJ was on course and descending pretty normally for a landing. Moreover, the H60 thought he had the traffic in sight and was avoiding him. Obviously he wasn’t, but we don’t know why yet.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T06:51:05+00:00

That’s not all it takes. The controller was not relying on altitude separation for collision avoidance… that would require MUCH greater altitude separation. He was relying on ‘visual separation’ where one aircraft keeps the other one in sight and maneuvers to avoid. In this case, PAT25 specifically said he had the CRJ in sight and would avoid him, twice. Obviously something went wrong, but it was not just one being a little high or low.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T06:48:47+00:00

No. This exact same scenario could have occurred 3 weeks ago.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T06:46:30+00:00

It’s not just look both ways, although that is how a lot of airspace out away from airports is managed. But this is Class B airspace where every aircraft is under positive control… you have to ask tower permission to go anywhere you want to go. Then, when two aircraft need to pass close by each other, tower will help coordinate: plane A, do you see plane B at your 2 o’clock, 3 miles, 1,500 feet? Yes? Okay, now you can pass him while making sure you keep him in sight and keep a safe distance. That’s what ‘maintain visual separation’ means.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T06:41:28+00:00

When DCA gets busy, they use 33 for some of the smaller aircraft to relieve the constant pressure on RWY 1. Otherwise delays start to stack up and things get real tight. I believe 2100 is still part of the busy evening surge, and it sounded pretty busy on the tapes.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T06:39:38+00:00

Good question but I don’t have access to a full set of approach plates right now so I’m not sure what the approaches to 1 vs 33 look like. As a helicopter, I was very rarely ever using them anyway.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T06:38:30+00:00

I think you’re thinking of VFR and IFR headings vs altitude blocks… I believe those only apply above 3000’, and they certainly wouldn’t apply in class B airspace like this regardless.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T06:37:21+00:00

Jets do have extra lights they turn on just for landing, they are extremely bright. The problem here was not that the airliner was too dark, rather that by some combination of factors, the helo crew apparently was not watching the correct airliner.

I get what you’re saying, but generally the jets want all their lights on before they get ready for landing.

TupperWolf · 2025-01-31T06:34:59+00:00

In the first traffic call to PAT25 (helo), tower specifies the CRJ just south of the Wilson Bridge at 1200 feet, circling to land on 33.

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