Safety Evenings

We are in the process of putting together a number of safety evenings the first of which was in Newcastle in early March 2008.

The confirmed locations at the moment include, in no particular order.

• Newcastle, 6th March 2008. [MG]
• Wycombe Air Park, 11th March 2008. [PC & DK]
  This evening is not planned to follow the rough format used for the others, and will be based upon whatever the attendees end up chatting over on the night.
  
• Redhill Aerodrome, 14th April 2008. [GS]
• Wycombe Air Park, 23rd June 2008. [PC]
• Coventry, 4th September 2008. [GS, SB]
• Dunkeswell Airfield. [GS]
• Doncaster Airport. [GS]

We are also looking to set up evenings at or near

• Liverpool, probably at the Airport.
• A location in Garforth near Leeds.
• Gloucester
• The Helicopter Museum, Weston Supermare.

Although the evenings are pretty informal, we have put together a subject list for discussion and some presentations. The evenings mould themselves around the audience present on the night. The presentation currently includes

• The most common things that will kill you in a helicopter.
• Common accident occurrences and potential methods of prevention or recovery.
• Landing when caught out by bad weather, things to think about including the legal implications.
• Suggestions for a post PPL advanced training syllabus.

The bigger the groups get the more difficult it is to keep the evenings informal, we had 51 people at Redhill which ended up being pretty much a presentation rather than a discussion. We are trying not to turn anyone away from the evenings and large group sizes have become common now.

Some of the subjects we are looking to include in the future are

• ATC what kind of service can you expect ? What can and will they do for you ?
• The use of 121.5 and what D&D [Distress and Diversion] can really do for you.

The CAA have agreed to supply us with what they think are the things that are causing the most accidents, but to leave the evenings and how we deal with them to us, so there will be no formal involvement on their part.