The Rogue and the Professional

[Alamanach]

Heck if I know. All the more reason to hear from them. Maybe they can let us in on some wrinkle in his personal life that caused him to lose his mojo. Or maybe some of what we've heard from his detractors is overblown or, somehow, out of context. We need to hear both sides, especially if we want to prevent the next Bud Holland from ever going rogue.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

I don't know.... maybe he was locked in a closet and beaten by his lazy eyed uncle?

Maybe a chick at the O'club told all the other girls he has a really small pitot tube.

Nonetheless, he was a USAF Col. and he choose to behave that way. Maybe there is a pshyco analysis that can explain, but it doesn't justify....

And back to Kern.... why is he, receiving criticism for pointing out bad behavior? (avbug.... nothing to do with the tankers...)

 

[avbug]

Some years ago we experienced a death on a fire. At the end of the year at the industry meeting in Reno, a debrief was offered on that fatality. I believe that the conditions were such that a USFS Baron was damaged, rolled inverted and had spar damage, over the fire. As the situation played out, pilot after pilot stood and admitted that he thought conditions were bad. He knew they were bad. He thought that if someone didn't pull the plug, someone might get killed. Someone. Someone. Someone. Someone did. Each pilot admitted he was waiting for someone else to say when, to say enough, to shut down the show. Nobody wanted to be the bad guy. Everyone wanted to be the man who could be counted on to do his job.

Was the pilot who died the agressive, rogue? Were the pilots who failed to shut down the show the rogues? Were the government pilots or the ultimate oversight, the incident command system and commander(s) responsible? Or was everyone a professional doing a demanding job?

Clearly hesitation hurts. Sometimes badly. I've shut down the show before, and I've taken the brunt as the bad guy. I don't care. Conversely, I've also been lead down the prim path to a place where I found myself saying those immportal pilot words, "Oh Sh....." I'm conservative. Yet I've been there too. Several years ago I arrived over a fire on the lee side of some very cut up terrain, which was being driven hard by the wind, and which was moving rapidly with the terrain I was first on scene, what we call the "initial attack." It falls to this person to investigate the atmospehre, the hazards, and the fire, and make decisions as to how to start working the fire. I was in contact with other aircraft on the way in. I made my drop, and determined right away that this wasn't something I wanted to repeat. It was very violent, and more than a little unpleasant.

I gave report to the next aircraft in, a government lead aircraft, and my advice was pull back. The Lead said he'd be the judge. He rolled into the same place I had gone, and a few moments later ordered all the aircraft off the fire. He told me he'd broken his headset...a david clark. That's hard to do. It was rough.

Was he a rogue? I don't think so. We were both paid to use professional training and judgement to make some very critical decisions. My role was to assess the fire and treat it one step at a time in cooperation with other resources. His, however, was to assess the fire, and continue asessing it for several hours. He stayed in that environment and worked it at low level...it's all he did. He noted my input, and then applied his own professional observation. Had he listened to me, what happened to him wouldn't have happened...but then he wouldn't necessarily have been fulfilling his role, either. So...rogue? I'm not sure about that.

We can have an operator in the cockpit who is the consumate professional, who makes one single lapse. I flew with one such pilot, and I'm not going to say he made a lapse. I will say he was occasiionally agressive, and I will say he was very talented, very professional, and one to whom I would look up this day, were he still among us. I crewed with Steve, he was a good man. Well respected, and he earned it. He didn't demand it, but he got respect because he earned every ounce of it...he certainly earned mine, and I'm not easily impressed. If he were here, I'd fly with him today without thinking twice.

Steve died several years ago when both wings separated from his aircraft. With him was Mike, who was also a consumate professional. Mike was deeply religious, concerned about everyone, and also by all accounts, a good man. A good pilot, an excellent flight engineer. With him was Craig, a new pilot, but an eager one. I flew with Mike, and trusted him implicitly. I checked Craig out in several company aircraft, flew with him on several occasions. He was a known quantity.

Steve, Mike, and Craig died within three feet of each other one day, acting as a team, doing their job as professionals. I'm deeply saddend to hear of their loss today as I was then. It hurts. I can close my eyes and smell the interior of that airplane. I lived in it. Literally. As did many others. I won't say they made a mistake, that's not my point. I won't say they acted foolishly, because I have no such information. They were very, very good, and did a very important job.

 

[avbug]

Rogues, or professionals. Ask me, I'll tell you they were professionals. Ask me and I'll tell you their aircraft saw more frequent maintenance than any airliner. And it was flown not only by highly qualified pilots, but pilots who were also all mechanics, all qualified to inspect and work on the aircraft. It underwent regulary wing inspections each week, to say nothing of daily inspections. Mike was fanatical about overseeing the condition of that aircraft. Another C-130 was lost ten years prior under similiar circumstances, though nobody knew it....someone knew it...certain information from a certain source, not the one named, knew it, and with held it. I can't say who or why...who was the rogue?

Steve knew he was taking a heavy airplane into rough conditions on a daily basis close to the ground to deliver a heavy payload. He knew what that did to the wings, to say nothing of the frequently strong even severe turbulence. Was he a rogue for going there?

The fractures that shed the wing were put there by another organization nearly 40 years before. In an area deemed undamagable. I personally physically replaced both wings on that aircraft a few years before, after two wings failed on me in that airplane in Mexico. We found the problem, knew it, fixed it. Was I the rogue? Working through industry professionals, manufacturers, designated engineering and airworthiness representatives, the FAA, the DoD, USFS, OAS, and many others...we made the necessary repairs, adjusted the inspection program to account for what we'd found, and had wall full of awards recognizing the quality and success of the inspection program.

Except for that one, little crack.

Who is the rogue?

Or do we have a lot of professionals and a single, solitary, quarter inch mistake that was hidden in five layers of 7075 T-6 40 year old aluminum in a place no one had suspected...put there by someone making approved improvements on the structure?

Steve wanted us to question him. He certainly questioned us. He thought it was healthy. He was very laid back. He was a musician. He was an instructor. He was a corporate pilot, and a glider instructor. And a great guy. He was a professional. I was with him outside Kalmath falls on a fire descending into Crater Lake, when he made a mistake. I was in that same airplane, and the wing missed the ground by a few feet on a steep descent to a drop. We trailed out the load down the hill, over a road, and a little retardant went in the water. By the time we were back at K-Falls to reload, we were shut down and had word that the Indians were up in arms...we'd just poisoned their fish, rained down death and destruction...that cowboy pilot...nearly killed us, nearly killed the lake...what was he thinking?

He made a mistake. He knew it, didn't try to back away from it, admitted it, took ownership of it. I made it two; I ratified his decision to make that drop, it was my mistake too. We made several attempts to do it, and elected after discussing it and trying it from several angles, to approach from the top of the hill, and retract the flaps as we went over the edge. We reasoned the descent with the flap retraction would match the hill angle and it did...but rolled and nearly put a wingtip in the hill, punched off the load in one long salvo as we went down instead of a small targeted drop. We had no choice at that point.

Was Steve a rogue? No. He made a mistake. As did I. As a professional, he took ownership of it, and offered to pay out of pocket for the fish. Of course, the government wasn't going to have him do that, and he knew it, but his offer was sincere. He'd give you the shirt off his back, if you asked, and we all knew it.

Where does rogue end and professional begin? I know what went on in those cockpits. I can tell you (but I won't) what those men were seeing and what they were thinking and feeling up until impact. I know. I cherish their memories. By remembering them highly, am I hiding rogueish errors that could change mankind, and thereby becoming a rogue myself? Or am I just a professional who did my job as they did theirs, who hasn't yet paid as high a price for my service as did they?

Man is far to quick to point a finger. I'll certainly condemn stupidity myself; it has no place, but neither does arbitrary classification between rough-hewn titles such as rogue and professional, perhaps polar opposites, help quantify the intangible. All it takes is one little mistake to fall from hero to hated, professional to rogue. In so many "accident" chains, that's all it takes. Just one little thing. One little rivet hole lead to that entire tragic loss. One little rivet, and a crack between two rivet holes, buried under five thick layers of metal. I dont' think the person who drilled that rivet was a rogue, either. Perhaps he or she failed to debur. Perhaps he or she used a dull bit. Perhaps the facility heat treating the metal that day failed in some small way, leading to an element of intergranular corrosion which supported the stress fracture that propogated over decades to become a compression failure atop the right wing...or perhaps it was just a bad day.

Are we collectively the rogue? Are we collectively responsible for each other, as well as ourselves? I say yes, and at the same time, a resounding NO.

As pilots in command, we take the ultimate responsibility ourself, and when all outside factors are filtered away, all we can do is blame ourselves, which is where true responsibility in life always lies. With ourselves. Like Craig and Mike, I was an inspector on that aircraft too. Perhaps I'm the rogue, because perhaps it was me that failed to find what eluded everyone else, and perhaps I'l spend the rest of my life wondering.

I will.

Perhaps. Am I the rogue?

Aren't we all?

 

[avbug]

.....

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

av bug.. you are missing the point.....

 

[The_Russian]

This is good reading. Thanks guys!

 

[avbug]

Is not the point exploring where rogue ends and the professional begins or visa versa...or do you have another particular agenda?

What is the point?

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

avbug-

It is obvious that you can't objectively critique Kern's book. maybe he came to the tanker industry and said "you guys are rogues". It is clear that Kern's behavior in dealing with the tanker industry was not well recieved amongst all party's. Maybe he thought the risk/reward wasn't worth it. Maybe other did. Maybe he was right and there better ways to fight fires, or the industry needs to use modern aircraft... However, this is not the point....

His book stands as a definitive analysis of poor pilot behavior. Rogue pilots are a problem. Holland wasn't the last. The airline industry recently, in 2004, had two rogues destroy an aircraft. Kern didn't make this stuff up... he just quantified it....

 

[Alamanach]

I don't know.... maybe he was locked in a closet and beaten by his lazy eyed uncle?

Maybe a chick at the O'club told all the other girls he has a really small pitot tube.

Nonetheless, he was a USAF Col. and he chose to behave that way. Maybe there is a pshyco analysis that can explain, but it doesn't justify....

And back to Kern.... why is he, receiving criticism for pointing out bad behavior? (avbug.... nothing to do with the tankers...)

I'm not trying to justify Holland's flying. If you're going to suggest that Holland is due some punishment, I would point out that you're too late; Bud Holland is dead. His story is over. We can't help him anymore. We can label him a "rogue", but that doesn't accomplish anything beyond irritating avbug.

That Holland was a bad pilot is self-evident. For Kern to point it out is to point out the obvious. (Although for twenty years, Holland was a very good pilot. Somehow he changed. Very mysterious.) I think the criticism of Kern comes in when he points out Holland's shortcomings, but has no follow-up. After reading what he wrote about Holland, I'm not better able to identify warning signs in other pilots, or in myself, or recognize life situations that promote rogue behavior, or anything else. I'm no wiser for having studied Kern's work. (His criticism of the wing's leadership was equally unhelpful.) He's brought nothing to the table except, as I've already described them, lurid stories. I have to conclude that Kern's real objective is merely to entertain.

Now, avbug may be obnoxious and disagreeable, but I think this time he does have a point. This is an inherently dangerous profession requiring a considerable amount of human judgment. By its nature, that judgment cannot be right all the time. So when we introduce polarizing terms like rogue and professional, we create a situation where some people are going to be unjustly villified. It is all the worse when "rogue" is being defined by somebody like Kern, who's not interested in an objective, detached analysis.

I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned by studying pilots like Holland. But I also think Kern isn't teaching those lessons. He's just going for cheap polarization.