Our favorite pilot demonstrates another unusual attitude

PaulS said:
The more I watch disasters like this, the more I'm convinced that the urge to disconnect the autopilot at the first sign of trouble is the wrong thing to do unless you absolutely know the autopilot has failed. For this issue, click the autopilot to heading mode, dial it in to follow the approach course magenta line, then figure out the problem. Turning off the autopilot is the same as taking your most valuable tool at the moment, opening the door and throwing it out. It makes no sense to me.
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This assumes, of course, a level of autopilot proficiency that’s higher than the demonstrated level of hand flying proficiency.
 
MauleSkinner said:
If his Twin Cessna is so it of rig that it can’t be trimmed, that’s just another reason he shouldn’t be flying.

My Maule would enter a spiral pretty quickly, but we figured out what the problem was and fixed it (wingtips weren’t straight.)
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Doesn't necessarily need to be out of rig.

I don't know how his A/P is set up, but if hitting the big red button on the yoke also kicks off the yaw damper, that's exactly what a 421 will do if you take your hands off the yoke regardless of how well it is rigged/trimmed.

When I was flying corporate, one of the outfits I flew for had a 421. Most hated airplane I've ever flown. Non-pilot owner bought the airplane with no autopilot OR yaw damper. Airplane was such a maintenance pig that every time he'd have money saved up to put an autopilot back in it, he'd have to pay for some new high $$$ repair.

So, company had a policy of requiring two pilots for any pax carrying run. The 'SIC' was responsible for hand flying in cruise. You could not trim that airplane to fly straight and level. If you took your hands of the yoke for a few seconds it would roll one way or another just like in his video. You never knew which way it would roll, but the one thing you could take to the bank is that it wouldn't stay wings level.

I despised that airplane.
 
PaulS said:
The more I watch disasters like this, the more I'm convinced that the urge to disconnect the autopilot at the first sign of trouble is the wrong thing to do unless you absolutely know the autopilot has failed. For this issue, click the autopilot to heading mode, dial it in to follow the approach course magenta line, then figure out the problem. Turning off the autopilot is the same as taking your most valuable tool at the moment, opening the door and throwing it out. It makes no sense to me.
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Exactly. What you stated is one of the main theme's behind the classic AA CRM video affectionately know as 'Children of the Magenta'

It's referred to as removing one level or layer of automation. In some situations, technology that is meant to be helpful actually increases our workload. You don't necessarily need to kill the technology completely, just reduce the information overload. If you are in GPSS, simply back off to HDG mode - let the part of the automation that is working continue to work for you while you point the nose in the right direction. No need to kill the whole autopilot.

The other disturbing thing about the video though is the dude in the right seat - he is obviously not some random passenger. Likely a pilot himself, but he just sits there looking at Jerry screw with the A/P and himself is blissfully ignorant of the roll. Kind of like watching Eastern 401 unfold.
 
I would find such a cockpit wildly distracting; the constant commentary on every little thing (a cloud, wow! Alcatraz, cool! think we can reduce power now?, etc etc) tells me he is not focused on the important tasks or ahead of the airplane.
Apparently my cockpit is very boring; we are all business with zero chatter and minimum talk otherwise.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I would find such a cockpit wildly distracting; the constant commentary on every little thing (a cloud, wow! Alcatraz, cool! think we can reduce power now?, etc etc) tells me he is not focused on the important tasks or ahead of the airplane.
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Agree 110%. I also don't think the guy in the right seat should be in the right seat. (I don't know who he is or what licenses/certifications he holds.) Throughout the flight, he never makes a decision. He has to be prompted to make radio calls. He fumbles around with the panel. He has no self-confidence. He looked more like a student trying to get used to planes and radios than a competent First Officer reducing his Captain's workload.
 
2-Bit Speed said:
Agree 110%. I also don't think the guy in the right seat should be in the right seat. (I don't know who he is or what licenses/certifications he holds.) Throughout the flight, he never makes a decision. He has to be prompted to make radio calls. He fumbles around with the panel. He has no self-confidence. He looked more like a student trying to get used to planes and radios than a competent First Officer reducing his Captain's workload.
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I think he is a friend who is working on or may have just gotten his instrument rating. I sensed that he understood the gravity of the situation because I thought I heard him grunt, but maybe he was responding to g load.
 
PaulS said:
I think he is a friend who is working on or may have just gotten his instrument rating. I sensed that he understood the gravity of the situation because I thought I heard him grunt, but maybe he was responding to g load.
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If the clouds were any lower it may have been an s-load he was grunting about.
 
PaulS said:
He turned the ap off and then immediately took his eyes off the instruments. He is lucky, again, he broke out. His analysis before this happened as to why he blasted through the approach course then reacted inappropriately. He better have high personal mins.
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He has high personal mins, but very low secondary mins.
 
I have zero respect for the guy, but I do think he noticed the problem before he broke out so he probably wouldn’t have cratered even with lower clouds. It’s still reckless and programming or cancelling the AP was NOT the mistake to focus on.
 
I'll give the right seater a break. It's clear that power dynamic does not really allow him to assert himself in any way that would come close to what one would expect of an experienced co-pilot in a crew environment. BTW, this is all LARPing anyways, that operation is 91, the airline cosplay doesn't really hold any regulatory weight here. All that said, the body language to me was indicative of a "I'll let you ride as long as you follow my script" dynamic writ large. It's the Jerry show, right seater was just an uncredited extra and probably reminded of it sternly before the go-pros ever started rolling.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I'll give the right seater a break. It's clear that power dynamic does not really allow him to assert himself in any way that would come close to what one would expect of an experienced co-pilot in a crew environment. BTW, this is all LARPing anyways, that operation is 91, the airline cosplay doesn't really hold any regulatory weight here. All that said, the body language to me was indicative of a "I'll let you ride as long as you follow my script" dynamic writ large. It's the Jerry show, right seater was just an uncredited extra and probably reminded of it sternly before the go-pros ever started rolling.
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Which was, generally, my point. The guy in the right seat was nothing but set-dressing for the non-pilots that watch.
 
Lucky that was a thin layer.
Teachable example of how quickly a plane can get away from you if you aren’t prepared/trained/proficient.
Pulling this stunt with the “secondary min” video would have resulted in a smoking hole.

Will give credit for putting out the video and at least showing the mistakes even if not adequately taking responsibility for them.

60 degree bank descending ‘coordinated’ is perfect storm to fool the senses. Ask Kennedy. I think Wagner is using ‘coordinated’ to blur the word ‘stabilized’
 
Dave Theisen said:
At some point it becomes a usual attitude. :)
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2-Bit Speed said:
Agree 110%. I also don't think the guy in the right seat should be in the right seat. (I don't know who he is or what licenses/certifications he holds.) Throughout the flight, he never makes a decision. He has to be prompted to make radio calls. He fumbles around with the panel. He has no self-confidence. He looked more like a student trying to get used to planes and radios than a competent First Officer reducing his Captain's workload.
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Maybe he’s an employee, you don’t criticize the boss.
 
Groundpounder said:
I'm amazed the FAA hasn't come down on him yet, but Trent had his license suspended.
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They have. He emailed me and told me I need to be careful cuz the FAA is watching us and then he said "don't bother responding this is a burner email account"

It's too bad it's a burner account I wanted to respond "The difference between the two of us is one of us is pretending to be a s***** pilot"
 
This is a great training video. Kudos for the pilot having the gonads to post it.
This is like those worksheet pages I had as a youngster, find and circle the ten things that do not belong.
Going through the video and trying to pick out all the problems is a great exercise.
Very much like watching the AOPA Air Safety Institute videos.
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This is a good reminder of the vast variety of pilots that share the skies. Assuming the "other" pilot in your shared airspace is going to do the proper or legal thing is perhaps not the best idea to take to your grave.
 
Oh my.

I was going to comment and say "props to him for actually admitting it was pilot error after a self-review" but then I saw the AI.
 

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Ok, so Jerry turned off comments on his video, smart move IMO. I suspect the video may go private, but maybe not.

This guy popped up in my feed. I made it about 3 minutes in before I had enough. He said that turning the AP off was the only right answer here. I don't agree with that statement and lost interest.

 
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Salty said:
I have zero respect for the guy, but I do think he noticed the problem before he broke out so he probably wouldn’t have cratered even with lower clouds.
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Yeah, no question. He made input changes in IMC and was almost recovered before VMC.
 
Mongoose Aviator said:
My goal was to beat you and get to 4 minutes.
Couldn't do it. I made it to 1 min 37 secs. That was it for me.
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I only made it 8 seconds. I had to stop when he said that when he owned a Twin Cessna, he was the biggest fan of Jerry Wagner.

This isn’t a new thing. Jerry has been jacked up for a very long time.
 
eman1200 said:
I don’t think ANYONE should be in his right seat.
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Too much ”instruction” masquerading as mentoring to both his right-seater and the YouTube audience, and it’s usually awful advice. The bad flying and near-accidents are bad enough, but I really dislike the way he offers “instruction” and fails to cop to his hazardous attitudes.

Every single video there’s something, several of them egregious enough that I can’t believe he hasn’t been called down to the FSDO (over, I guess - it’s in Oakland, right?). I sincerely hope someone has gotten to the right-seater and given him a come to Jesus talk before he ends up a statistic.

Also, I’m surprised nobody has posted the ground track from FlightAware. Way of course, 4500 fpm dive (as confirmed by the buried needle on the VSI). Blew through the minimum altitude for that segment by more than 150’.

Looking at a subsequent flight a few days later he appeared to do some more weird stuff. Scary.

Wonder if he’ll file an ASRS… ok, I laughed out loud when I wrote that.
 
Flying Keys said:
Too much ”instruction” masquerading as mentoring to both his right-seater and the YouTube audience, and it’s usually awful advice. The bad flying and near-accidents are bad enough, but I really dislike the way he offers “instruction” and fails to cop to his hazardous attitudes.

Every single video there’s something, several of them egregious enough that I can’t believe he hasn’t been called down to the FSDO (over, I guess - it’s in Oakland, right?). I sincerely hope someone has gotten to the right-seater and given him a come to Jesus talk before he ends up a statistic.

Also, I’m surprised nobody has posted the ground track from FlightAware. Way of course, 4500 fpm dive (as confirmed by the buried needle on the VSI). Blew through the minimum altitude for that segment by more than 150’.

Looking at a subsequent flight a few days later he appeared to do some more weird stuff. Scary.

Wonder if he’ll file an ASRS… ok, I laughed out loud when I wrote that.
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His copilot side VSI was pegged and it looks like a model with a 2500fpm limit (as opposed to the 2000fpm limit commonly seen in single engine airplanes).
 
PaulS said:
He turned the ap off and then immediately took his eyes off the instruments. He is lucky, again, he broke out. His analysis before this happened as to why he blasted through the approach course then reacted inappropriately. He better have high personal mins.
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Jerry has personal mins of 0/0 I think... Or at least, his personal mins are below the secondary mins that are below the ones on the plate... :rolleyes:

PaulS said:
The more I watch disasters like this, the more I'm convinced that the urge to disconnect the autopilot at the first sign of trouble is the wrong thing to do unless you absolutely know the autopilot has failed. For this issue, click the autopilot to heading mode, dial it in to follow the approach course magenta line, then figure out the problem. Turning off the autopilot is the same as taking your most valuable tool at the moment, opening the door and throwing it out. It makes no sense to me.
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If you have any hand flying skills, disconnecting the autopilot and fixing the situation by hand, and then turning it back on in the correct mode is usually the best way to stay on the originally intended course. CWS can also be used if you have it.

Jerry, however, should probably leave the autopilot on.
 
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