Learn from the mistakes of others, you'll never live long enough to make them all yourself was the topic at the October meeting of PVPA. Harry Leicher skydiver with over 5,600 jumps, CFII, MEI, ATP, and a whole alphabet soup list of ratings lead the discussion. It was an evening of shared experiences, such as running out of fuel when members of an outlaw motorcycle club stole fuel from parked airplanes. Moral of that story, use a dipstick to check fuel levels.

Leicher discussed the chain of events, which if broken will usually prevent an accident. The relationship between controllers is really one-sided. "If the pilot makes a mistake, the PILOT dies and if the controller makes a mistake the PILOT dies," he said. If the controller tells you to do something, which you see may put you or others in danger, you can say NO, and break that chain. This may mean going around, for example, instead of switching runways when a landing airplane takes too much time getting off the runway. If you feel you're too close to touchdown to make the change safely, you can say so and go around.

System failures were discussed. Do you really want your buddy chasing your airplane down the runway in the back of a truck trying to snag the wheel that won't drop? Or do you want to be that buddy in the back of the truck. In the movies maybe, in real life probably not. One of the best ways to avoid an incident of systems failure is to keep your situational awareness at a high level, another topic discussed, high so that chain can be broken.