I don't believe that risk taking and pushing the envelope have any place in aviation, this old nugget permeated the AC for many years where there was a belief that Military Pilots didn't need limits!!. I think that this is clearly not true, all aviation professionals should operate within the limits of the aircraft and their abilities. Pushing the limits leads to incidents and accidents.
The AC have a fine record of life saving in the SAR arena for sure, however we now know that SAR can be performed equally as effectively by a regulated(AOC) organization. (I don't wish to drag the efficiency merits into this discussion.) In my opinion the Training in the AC is excellent an many areas, I think the organization falls down in the application of this training and in its management structure and flight ops regulation and supervision, remember that the IAC is the regulator and operator...
A frontline fighter squadron operating in a hostile environment may have to push the limits to get ordnance on target or to escape from AA fire, but even my knowledge and contact with pilots flying Supersonic fighter aircraft leads me to believe they operate to a very strict set of SOP's and are actually highly regulated.
None of which really maters in the context of the AC, where all of the operations could be covered by an AOC.
I don't believe that AC mission effectiveness would have been reduced by the application of Professional Limits and Robust SOP's backed up by effective flight ops management and performance monitoring.
The AC have a fine record of life saving in the SAR arena for sure, however we now know that SAR can be performed equally as effectively by a regulated(AOC) organization. (I don't wish to drag the efficiency merits into this discussion.) In my opinion the Training in the AC is excellent an many areas, I think the organization falls down in the application of this training and in its management structure and flight ops regulation and supervision, remember that the IAC is the regulator and operator...
A frontline fighter squadron operating in a hostile environment may have to push the limits to get ordnance on target or to escape from AA fire, but even my knowledge and contact with pilots flying Supersonic fighter aircraft leads me to believe they operate to a very strict set of SOP's and are actually highly regulated.
None of which really maters in the context of the AC, where all of the operations could be covered by an AOC.
I don't believe that AC mission effectiveness would have been reduced by the application of Professional Limits and Robust SOP's backed up by effective flight ops management and performance monitoring.
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