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It is interesting about the killing zone for pilots who have between 50 and 350 hours of flight time. There is another killing zone caused by the FAA’s Fatal Flaw that makes random altitude cruising flight safer, in general, than cruising at non-random altitudes, and in particular, than cruising at hemispherical cruising altitudes required by the proven dangerous FARs 91.159 and 91.179. I can say, “proven dangerous,” because I am the peer-reviewed scientist who proved the FAA’s Fatal Flaw as such in 1997, followed in 2000 by NASA Ames Research Center corroboration on their peer-reviewed Air Traffic Control Quarterly Page 2, “Patlovany’s collision results are corroborated in this paper …” In my Jan 31, 2018, EAA webinar, “Midair Collision Physics, Myths, and Gambles,” over 600 pilots voted 89 percent in favor of rejecting FAA’s Fatal Flaw by using far safer random cruising altitudes after hearing my explanation of FAA’s Fatal Flaw. Search YouTube “FAA’s Fatal Flaw # 1 2 Pilots Dying to” for 5-minute and 21-minute summaries of the 84-minute EAA webinar. Both have “… more” links to 5000 characters of additional info and links, including to a Colorado Pilots Association 60-minute free YouTube version of the EAA webinar, also found searching “Midair Collision Physics, Myths, and Gambles.”
Maybe someone can explain how random cruising altitudes would make us all safer if everyone did it.
Fair question. The 128 killed over the Grand Canyon in 1956 died because their pilots were obeying FAR 91.179, both flying precisely at 21,000 feet MSL on easterly headings. As my 1997 paper proved, “US Aviation Regulations Increase Probability of Midair Collisions,” FAR 91.179 causes 6 times more collisions than random altitude non-compliant pilots. If the FAR-doomed pilots had been using the 1928 Australian invention I reinvented in 1995, the Altimeter-Compass Cruising Altitude Rule (ACCAR), the pilots converging on a 25-degree angle would have been automatically offset in altitude by about 60 feet. Subtracting half the heights of both aircraft, gear up, the doomed 1956 pilots would have been separated by about 40 feet. TWICE, the FAA Chief Scientist, Robert Machol, published in 1975 and 1995 about the “navigation paradox” (see Wikipedia story) where precision altitude station keeping causes collisions that “sloppy” altitude control would allow one converging aircraft to pass safely over the other. Why did Dr. Machol do nothing to fix this paradox? The 1928 Australian ACCAR idea that 66 percent of 600+ pilots voted in favor of during my 2018 EAA webinar works like this to automatically randomize cruising altitudes as a linear function of random headings. Imagine a small compass rose sticker on the center of a mechanical altimeter glass. The 100-foot hand circles once around for every 1000-foot altitude change. Fly ACCAR by climbing to near your desired cruising altitude until the compass rose “angle” of the 100-foot hand matches the “heading angle” of the aircraft compass heading. Then all pilots doing ACCAR head-on are offset by 500 feet. All perpendicular pilots are offset 250 feet. That’s 2.8 feet of cruising altitude offset for every degree of heading change–from 1000 feet divided by 360 degrees. The ACCAR idea takes about five minutes of practice to master in flight. My 1997 paper includes a sensitivity study with results in Figures 1 and 2 that prove that at any amount of piloting accuracy complying to either the FARs or ACCAR, ACCAR random pilots are ALWAYS safer than FAR obedient pilots. Have you watched the 5-minute, or 21-minute, or 60-minute YouTube videos I referenced in my earlier comment above? Those pretty much explain the problem and its solution.
Post the YouTube links. I’ll take a look.
FAA’s Fatal Flaw #1: Pilots Dying to Obey Midair Collision Safety Regulations Proven Dangerous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3wz-2H1m38&t=1s
FAA’s Fatal Flaw #2: Pilots Dying to Fly Like Boats on a Lake–PLUS–Mean Free Path Physics Law
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Q0oxWH9Cg
CPA Presents – Midair Collision Physics, Gambles and Myths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0igMrRSUPIk&t=2277s
EAA Members Webinar Midair Collision Physics, Gambles and Myths
https://www.eaa.org/videos/5724032078001
I actually think one of the two GC aircraft had deviated from its flight level to give folks a better look. But been a long time.
Page 9 of the CAB accident report confirms that the Quadrantal Rule for cruising altitudes was applicable to the 1956 Grand Canyon accident aircraft, and the rest of the report confirms that the accident aircraft were, in fact, accurately obeying the Quadrantal Rule at the moment of impact. A 1945 pilot written exam study training manual addresses the then new Quadrantal Rule for cruising altitudes–a rule that took only 11 years to kill 128 because of the pilots actually accurately obeying it at the moment of impact. While the pilots, who both took off from the same airport did in fact wander a bit in heading such that the came back together at a 25-degree angle, they were not deviating from the 1945 cruising altitude rule in 1956. The “FAA’s Fatal Flaw” craziness is that in 1963, when the FAA replaced QR with hemispherical cruising altitudes of the then new FARs 91.159 and 91.179, how is it that nobody at the then new FAA noticed that the hemispherical altitude rules RECREATED the fatal Grand Canyon midair collision geometry EXACTLY! This fatal flaw guaranteed that for all future times, the same flaw being obeyed at the moment of impact in 1956–is still to this day engineering midair collisions that would not happen nearly as often if pilots flew at random altitudes. Pilot authors in the 1960s were already addressing the danger designed into the FAAs regulations long before I ever analyzed the danger in 1997 for NASA peer-reviewed corroboration in 2000. Why did the FAA ignore four articles by Leighton Collins in 1960s Air Facts articles? Why did FAA cancel my 1997 request for a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM 28996) to fix the problem? Conflict of interest maybe?
Mr. Reider,
Your interview with Dr. Craig was smooth and interesting. You have real skills demonstrated by how the interview is a gliding conversation that allows the listener to really tune in on the feelings and emotions of the speaker. The white-knuckle emotions were real and easy to relive for those of us who have been there.
At the same time, the data given was rather limited. The chronological framework of his three editions was covered in detail, but just mentioning information about total number of accidents and giving a few per centages that break down that total into fatalities and other categories is not sufficient information. How do the statistics that establish the “Killing Zone” compare to other experience categories? Why does the “Killing Zone” begin at 50 FH and not at 1 FH? More data please!
John Caulkins
Hi, John,
Thanks for your comments. It was an interesting tightrope to walk on this and other episodes I’ve had with authors. The format of the program is to hear of a pilot’s “incident” and what he or she learned from it. In this case, you’re totally correct – we didn’t present the stats much because of the way we present the pilot’s story.
That said, perhaps I can do a “special episode” with Dr. Craig to delve deeper into what he learned from his research.
Interestingly, you might get a bit more of that on an episode he did with John Zimmerman, President of Sporty’s, on his podcast, Pilot’s Discretion. Check it out. Here’s a link to that episode. Perhaps it’ll reveal what you’d like.
https://www.sportys.com/blog/the-killing-zone-for-pilots-with-paul-craig/
Seriously, thanks for your comment. Since I do the post-production for “Pilot’s Discretion” I didn’t want to duplicate the content of that episode.
Best regards,
Rob
We need to get the Audible version of the 1st and 3rd editions, please!
As an Audiobook Narrator, perhaps Dr. Craig and I can come to some sort of agreement. Thanks for your thoughts on this.
I will say the podcast has very little to do with the title. They just briefly mentioned the fact that pilots with lower hours have higher accidents, but then don’t talk about it for the rest of the whole show.