Newsletter

PAVE the Way to Practical Risk Management

Captain Susan Parson

VAWG Assistant Safety Officer

MER-VA-001

If you have been around the Civil Air Patrol for very long, you have probably heard the terms “risk management,” “operational risk management,” or “ORM” for short. With several tragic accidents in recent CAP history, you are likely to hear them even more often. More importantly, though, you will increasingly be asked not just to know about risk management, but to practice it actively in every CAP event. In sort – risk management needs to be a way of doing business. That’s why the VAWG Safety Directorate has been working to create risk management information and tools for the VAWG website, as well as for all VAWG CAP aircraft.

Since establishing the “beta version” of these tools during the spring, the Safety Director and Deputy Director have been looking at other ways to promote practical risk management in CAP. Below is a brief description of three risk management tools that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is promoting for general aviation use – which means that you may also see them in VAWG aircraft in the not-too-distant future.

Use the Three Ps

You have probably seen a description of the six-step risk management process (available also on the safety section of the VAWG website). For time-critical (on-the-fly) risk management – the sort most CAP participants and pilots need to practice most often – the 3P method is probably easier to remember and use. In this model, you need to:

PERCEIVE hazards and identify risks
PROCESS these perceptions to assess the likelihood/severity of the risk and make risk control decisions; and
PERFORM by implementing risk controls and monitoring their effectiveness.

Using the 3P method of practical risk management can be as simple as asking yourself a few basic questions. As you perceive, what can hurt you or others? To process, ask yourself how bad it is and what you can do about it? In order to perform, ask yourself how you are going to make the control measure work, how you will know whether it is working, what you might have missed during the first 3P cycle? With a little bit of practice, 3P risk management should become second nature.

PAVE the Way

The “PAVE” checklist encourages a quick but thorough review of four major aspects of preflight risk management. These include:

Pilot: experience, recency, physical condition
Aircraft: fuel reserves, experience in type, aircraft performance, aircraft equipment
enVironment: airport/runway conditions, weather (VFR & IFR)
External factors: trip planning, diversion/cancellation plans, alternative plans, and personal equipment

Clearly, all four aspects of the PAVE checklist are important. Accident statistics suggest, though, that the “external factors” area – sometimes characterized broadly as “get-home-it is” – are often a big element in poor aeronautical decision-making processes. Since mission-related external pressures and factors can be especially significant in CAP flying, CAP pilots should pay particular attention to this part of the PAVE checklist, and be sure to identify and control for those pressures before launching.

Evaluate with CARE

Step two is to process the hazards identified in the "perceive" phase. Here’s where the CARE checklist can be useful:

Consequences: review each of the PAVE elements (pilot, aircraft, environment, and external factors) and consider the likelihood and severity of harm from each hazard.
Alternatives: develop a list of options and alternative courses of action.
Reality: recognize and deal with weather and other circumstances as they are, not as you planned or hoped they would be. If you accept changes quickly, assess the consequences accurately, and take calm but deliberate action, your changes of becoming a statistic grow smaller.
External factors: this item – familiar from the PAVE checklist – is so important and so critical that it should also be a significant part of the ongoing, inflight CARE risk management checklist. Remember that external pressures rarely become less pressing with time; more often, they seem to become more urgent.

Call on the TEAM

Step three is to decide what to do about each hazard and risk, and to implement those decisions. For each hazard that presents a risk to your flight, consider whether you should:

Transfer the risk decision to your commander. The final go/no-go decision rests with the PIC, but are there circumstances that require consultation or a decision beyond the scope or your own authority?
Eliminate the hazard or risk. For example, a no-go decision eliminates the risk posed by the hazard of bad weather.
Accept the risk. There is always some level of risk. The question to answer is whether the level of risk is one you can accept, in accordance with the four basic principles of risk management.
Mitigate the risk. What can you do to reduce the risk by lowering the likelihood or severity of harm from one of the hazards you have already identified?

Try these tools next time you fly or participate in some other CAP activity. Start your risk management process with the 3P model, the PAVE the way to safety, evaluate with CARE, and perform with TEAM. [Back to Top]

Full-Time Safety for Part-Time Pilots

Captain Susan Parson

VAWG Assistant Safety Officer

MER-VA-001

You don’t have to be around aviation very long to hear scathing remarks about the skill – or lack of skill – displayed by the so-called “weekend warrior” pilots. Unfortunately, it is also true that you don’t have to be involved in aviation very long to meet a few of them yourself. I still remember the “weekend warrior” who burst into the base leg of a busy pattern, and then announced a 360º turn for spacing that took him right into my student pilot’s downwind leg. Another (this time on an IFR flight plan) chose to make a straight in landing at JYO – in the opposite direction to established flight training traffic! – after ATC advised him to switch to the advisory frequency.

As these examples illustrate, “weekend warrior” pilots are the ones whose lack of skills, courtesy, and good judgment give general aviation a bad name. Although professional obligations limit many CAP pilots (myself included) to weekend flying, “weekend warrior” attitudes, skills, and behaviors have no place in CAP flying. We owe it to ourselves, to CAP, to the mission, and indeed to the entire general aviation community to adhere to higher standards of conduct and performance at all times. Whether you are a full-time or part-time pilot, safety and professionalism are full-time concerns. Let’s look a some of the ways to be a weekend flyer rather than one of the much-maligned “weekend warriors:”

Attitudes: You’ve probably heard the familiar formula for aviation: attitude plus power equals performance. In the war against “weekend warriors,” remember that attitude has the power to affect your performance. Remember the IMSAFE mnemonic (free of Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, Emotion)? This memory aid should help you remember that an attitude affected by any of these factors, especially strong emotions, can have an adverse impact on your flying performance.

Skills: “Practice makes perfect” is another familiar formula that lends itself to an aviation twist: Practice Makes Proficiency. Make it a point to fly as often as you can, and make it a point to have a proficiency improvement goal for each and every flight you make. If you need a “flight plan” for proficiency, you need look no farther than CAPR 60-1, Attachment 7, which offers a detailed flight profile for self-conducted proficiency flying. You can also call on a CAP instructor or check pilot to help you sharpen your skills.

Behaviors: Most of us have heard the Golden Rule, which advises us to treat others as we want them to treat us. The boorish behaviors seen in the “weekend warrior” breed are not consistent with the Golden Rule, and they are equally inconsistent with the high standards of behavior expected of CAP pilots. [Back to Top]