Risk Management

13º 45.724n 119º 13.426w

Tue Apr 23 2019

With over 28 years in the helicopter flight test business, I’ve spent a lot of time with my team members thinking about how to keep everyone safe. We brainstormed mechanical and electrical failures, human error caused by poor communication or faulty cockpit data, weather surprises, crew resource management, low fidelity computer simulations - everything we could imagine. Risks were identified, then mitigated in various manners including better engineering designs, more frequent component inspections, real-time data monitoring, additional crew training and safety equipment, anything that might provide actionable intelligence and improve situational awareness. In short, everything we could think of to improve our odds of avoiding a mishap. In the end, we mitigated risk to what the flight test team and our engineering experts felt was an acceptable level, given the potential reward for developing a new product. We still encountered surprises; things no one had imagined, but we were fortunate and never wrecked a helicopter or harmed anyone. Luck always plays its part.

I just learned that a former work associate was killed along with his flight test engineer in a developmental helicopter mishap. Rucie was a highly experienced pilot of various helicopter models, and a graduate of the Naval Test Pilot School. He had flown for many years as a test pilot with the US Army, then afterwards with the large aerospace company I was with, then as a consultant. He was smart, skilled, educated, respected, and just an all around great guy. He was my friend.

Now two people are dead, leaving grieving family and friends. The flight test team will spend weeks or months piecing together events that led to this tragedy. They will question their assumptions and procedures, sift through data looking for clues, and eventually develop an understanding of what went wrong. With luck they will implement fixes and get back to work. Product development will continue, and ultimately the helicopter world will receive new capabiities thanks to their hard work and dedication to their craft,

We’re almost 1000 miles from land now, on a little 38’ catamaran sailboat, and we’ve got nearly 2000 miles to go. Plenty of folks think we’re crazy.

Our crew includes Thad, a close friend who was until recently a catamaran owner and live aboard sailor. He’s got great experience and energy, and in a former life was a trauma care nurse. He’s bright, fun, easy going, and strong as an ox. My lovely bride Isabel grew up sailing in the waters of England, Ireland, and France before adventuring in the South Pacific with an extremely experienced sailor on a 37’ monohull. Isabel feels the boat like someone who knows their horse; she senses things and makes small adjustments to sail trim without the need for fancy chart plotters and wind instruments. Me? I consider myself the weakest link of the three in terms of true sailing abilities, but bring my own set of skills to the game.

Isabel and I have lived aboard JollyDogs since 2014, so far about 8 months of each year. We’ve sailed Southern California and the Mexican waters of Pacific Baja and the mainland, and lots of time in the Sea of Cortez. We’ve heard sailors who have circumnavigated say that the Sea of Cortez is one of the nastiest in their experience with regards to rapidly changing conditions and the short, steep seas one can encounter. It also offers spectacular scenery and fishing, and was a great playground while we had our training wheels on.

We expended a lot of resources to prepare for this passage. There are several very expensive pieces of equipment on board that we hope to never use, along with a pretty comprehensive first aid kit. We’ve done meticulous maintenance, asking several experts to look over our shoulders and note what we’ve missed. We’ve collected passage experiece in the Atlantic and the Med by working as crew on several superyachts captained by our brilliant friend Ian, who taught me a lot about passage planning, seamanship, crew selection, management and safety, and a high standard of boat maintenance. We’ve stacked the deck in our favor, identifying, examining and mitigating risk to the level that we could happily accept those that remained. Some people might think we’re hanging our asses out a bit, but this is our chosen lifestyle and we’re good with it. Vegetating on a sofa watching sports or Netflix just doesn’t do it for us.

None of us want to be Walter Mitty.