re: Report: Pilots disobeyed orders in Black Hawk crash in Florida

It seems like most people like to look at and argue these things like this in a vacuum.

I know nothing else about this tragedy, except for this thread. But seems like an overconfident pilot took his crew into a situation that he shouldn't have, and an overconfident crew didn't object enough.

Know what else takes overconfidence? Flying a plane risking your life and the rest of your crew's life into a war zone on a daily basis. Added to the fact that as part of the crew you have to have an overconfidence in your teammate to get you there. The military basically thrives due to overconfidence. Sometimes it goes bad, this report and these regulations, reeks of superior officers covering their arse.

Obviously for the families of the soldiers who died in the crash, "shite happens" doesn't do anything. But if you're going to require people to have certain traits, it can't be surprising when those traits show their negative sides either.

Was he down to earth or act like a knucklehead?

There was a helicopter pilot at McDonald's this one time

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There was a helicopter pilot in rehab with me

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What did his knuckles look like

I have a lot of info on this subject from the CRC debrief but this obviously isn't the place to share that information. However two things Army Aviators have always known occurred. Never fly VFR in IFR conditions and #2 never push weather especially for a training mission. I've launched in 500 ft ceilings and 1SM of vis before in Afghanistan on a TIC. 5 minutes into the flight we went IIMC and transitioned to instruments executing the procedures as published, making it home alive.

For the person asking about the weather approval usually 1000 and 3 is a company commander level approval, 700 and 2 is an O-5,and 500 and 1 is an O-6. This varies from unit to unit. As far as the AMC having overall launch authority that's somewhat true. If given a legal order to launch in weather under what you are comfortable with it is the AMCs duty to launch his flight. However, once airborne he can immediately turn around for safety of flight and meet the intent of launching his aircraft.

Thanks for your comments.

CRC= Combat Readiness Center

VFR=Visual Flight Rules

IFR=Instrument Flight Rules

IIMC=Inadvertent Instrument Meteorological Conditions

AMC=Air Mission Commander

TIC=Troops in Contact

When referring to 500 and 1 or 700 and 2 and whatnot that is the weather minimum. First number is for the ceiling which is broken or overcast clouds second for visibility listed in statute miles.

Weather over coast changes rapidly during the early spring. I've watched airfields go from VFR to totally obscured in 15 minutes. It's easy to analyze mishaps in a vacuum, but they rarely occur there.

I've also never heard of weather decisions to be rank dependent, but the Army does some goofy shite, so it wouldn't surprise me.

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I've also never heard of weather decisions to be rank dependent, but the Army does some goofy shite, so it wouldn't surprise me.

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The approval authority for the various weather minimums are what I listed above. Obviously the lower the weather the higher the risk associated. For example, a company commander (O-3) who approves low risk missions would approve a 1000 and 3 but cannot approve a 700 and 2. 700 and 2 elevates the risk level to moderate which must be signed by an O-5. So on and so forth.

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Amazing the Army allows chief warrant officers to fly an aircraft. Ridiculous.

CWOs are alpha dogs. They do wtf they want.
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I don't know that they "do wtf they want", but CWOs often have more flight hours than most other pilots in their unit. Some come from the enlisted ranks, but others are (for example) O-3s who went non-select for O-4.

The 160th SOAR is FULL of CWOs. Rhino is either a troll or a dumbfrick. Possibly both.