Flight Instruction: Just Say No - AVweb

News Discussion
21

Paul:

I don’t disagree, but maybe some of the commenters won’t have a school to go back to after months.

What irks me, however, is that we simply ignore the flu. According to the CDC: “We estimate, overall, there were 490,600 hospitalizations and 34,200 deaths during the 2018–2019 season.” It is more for 2019-2020, but they are still tallying data.

So, we basically ignore the flu that kills 30K+ people a year. No reqjuirment to take the shots, even for school kids. I’ll agree with being cautious–but we are not that way in general, and this Mexican-Beer virus is still peanuts to the flu. (Again, I understand that COVID is serious. What I am saying is that so is the flu.)

Best

Vince Massimini
Kentmorr Airpark (3W3) MD

22

Paul, your prediction was pretty close. The official case total as of noon today was 151,000.

It is difficult to generalize about whether continued flight training is wise because of the wide variation of cases across the country. In states like New York or Florida with mayor outbreaks, halting flight training is certainly prudent. But, many states have few recorded cases, so the decision is much harder. With reasonable precautions, training could be a safe activity. As usual, common sense should apply. Unfortunately, that is a commodity that too often seems in short supply.

23

I don’t get people who keep comparing this to the flu. This IS NOT the flu. It’s far more contagious, it’s far more deadly, and BTW we have tools and procedures in place to help manage the flu, including vaccines.

It’s like saying don’t worry about COVID-19 because lots of people also die in car crashes. There’s no connection other than they’re both viruses. COVID deaths will be IN ADDITION to yearly flu deaths.

24

Vince, I think you know better than to suggest we ignore the flu. For the H1N1 pandemic of 2009, we spent $7 billion in suppression efforts, most of it for vaccines and testing kits, which (tests) were available 17 days after genome sequencing.

What’s different about this is that it’s more virulent and more lethal. No vaccines, no herd immunity. It has proven capable of completely overwhelming the hospital system, or so it has been reported. People who advance the “just the flu” argument either don’t accept those reports, believing them to be media hype, don’t care or don’t think the potential economic damage is worth avoiding 100,000 deaths over a normal flu season, if not more.

While I can accept that harsh calculation, I personally can’t look my nurse friends in the eye and say, sucks to be you. I’m going to the movies. No evidence yet that there’s some acceptable median between the two camps.

25

Paul-
As of today, 3/30/20, no US health care system is overwhelmed, some are very busy though. Ventilators a plenty for anyone that needs one. That could change be we are okay for now and will be at current levels for some time. See Dr Birx (White House Corona Virus Coordinator) statements from yesterday trying to calm the inflammatory rhetoric that is needless scaring the population. https://www.facebook.com/JCLinMD/videos/10157224760398443/

People use the flu as a yardstick. As a society, we have accepted that 40,000 of our citizens will die each year from the flu. We don’t blow up the economy because of it. We encourage people to get flu shots and be smart about exposures. We mitigate the risks.

In 2018, there were over 38,000 US traffic deaths. We don’t shut down the traffic system; we try and mitigate buy balancing the needs of the economy with the danger of large chucks of metal hauling down the highway just feet apart at 80 mph.

Scaring people with 100,000 deaths is just wrong and irresponsible. No other country is on such a trajectory or even close. The virulence and lethality of this virus remains to be seen. No one knows what it is. Just because you saw it on TV or read it on the internet does not make it so.

Since most of the testing has been only on the sickest patients the mortality rate will appear to be excessively high. To determine these rates you have to know prevalence. To know the current and historical prevalence you have to test both active patients and look back at previous patient antibody levels - this includes those that were ill with very mild symptoms. Empiric data is emerging that this may have been with us since the fall. We shall see.

Pilots are great at reading graphs and extrapolating trajectories and data points. Please look at the data. A great resource is: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

Stay safe. Look at the data. This to shall pass…
Michael Dunn, MD

26

I agree that safety is Priority 1 with COVID-19, but they better include flight schools in the small business financial relief or this will kill GA. I like many depend on flight schools and rental aircraft to participate in flying and if they go away this will kill the business and leave us nowhere to go. I am continuing to fly with friends that I know have been working from home, are not sick, and we sanitize all the knobs and controls in the airplane before and after every flight. Maybe that’s too much risk for some but I am willing to accept it. We all do that every time we go up…Life has risk…

27

John D. - I agree! See my post. This will kill GA. We all go out and about to buy groceries, gas, and take safeguards. I think risk can be mitigated with everything you mentioned.

28

I agree it is not so simple as ‘just stop all instruction’ as there are too many cases out there that I have seen where one has to weight risk/benefit. (Hey, aren’t pilots supposed to do this…Weigh risks/benefits with lives in the balance?). Perhaps this was mentioned earlier but I will restate that ‘Aviation’ in general and Flight Schools in particular are identified as Critical Infrastructure. cisa.gov. They are exempted from the Governor’s Stay at Home order. I just got a pilot legal to fly again after a flight review. I wore a N95 mask in the cockpit and gloves. Both of us are asymptomatic and in a rural area with 70 cases total. That risk was clearly less than a trip to the grocery store in terms of N-n transmission numbers. It also provided me with income, the airport, and will vastly improve his ability to deal with the crisis since he can now fly. In my view, and by mutual agreement, we both accepted the highly mitigated risk. We each then went back to our ‘Stay-At-Home’ lives. Now if I can’t fly to earn income I suppose I can serve food on my friends food truck but that is gonna take 3x the hourly exposure for the same money and expose myself to a whole lot more folks. It’s more complicated than ‘just shut everything down and stay home everyone’ unless you also plan to feed them and keep their lights on.

29

Michael,
I appreciate your thoughts and must confess I have similar thoughts. But as others have pointed out, GA instruction does involve more than a pilot and an instructor and a mutual shared risk. I am in a personal quandary as an AME. Do I continue doing FAA flight physicals? Or not?

Pertinent to this discussion is the FAA decision to extend the expiry date of current airmen until June. That helps me personally as mine expires during the grace period and my own AME is not performing them at the moment and he is the public health director for the region who sets policy.

For those who can and I know well personally, I can and have been doing BMed within certain limits and following state mandated procedures. At this point, I simply cannot justify the risk of bringing an unknown trainee/applicant into the office for a medical, at least until we are certain of adequacy of medical supplies, personal protection/infection control supplies, etc. We are very early in the clutches of a world wide infection with a demonstrated high communicability factor, and a far from certain outcome.

There exists a whole other crowd, though: Those ineligible for BMed. These are student pilots of all ages and persuasions who have never held a medical.

I have delayed scheduling students who are not ready for solo until they are closer to solo. For those that are, I am in a quandary: Do I bring a student pilot into an office full of potentially sick people and risk the student and the patient population? Or is it better to tell a young and enthusiastic pup that it might be better to sit this one out until we have more clarity. Or do I suggest they go LSA and come back when sanity returns?

Right now there are deferrals of procedures considered “elective” by those that consider such things. Among these, cancer screening and diagnostic procedures. I don’t know a single soul who would consider a cancer biopsy “elective,” yet here we are.

30

I also agree with John D. This from a charter and managed Hawker pilot. Just flew a trip today. My company has been doing extra disinfection procedures for cabin and cockpit cleaning between trips since the lockdown started. We also have a questionnaire which our clients fill out before flying. There are ways to work around the virus situation. Shutting down the entire system would be even dumber than what is happening now.

Whether anyone likes it or not Americans have a history of distrusting government. What little trust there once was went away with the Vietnam war. That along with a lot of unconstitutional acts now by the various state governments just makes that worse. Lawsuits are now being filed for some of those actions. Some proposed actions were stopped by legal threats. The longer this “lockdown” lasts, the more difficult it will be to enforce, and less willing people will be in going along. What scares me more than the “pandemic “ is what restrictions the government will want to make permanent. If you don’t believe that look at all of the restrictions to GA that were enacted after 9/11 that are still on the books.

In some areas, stopping flight training might make sense. But a blanket ban throughout the entire country definitely does not.

31

Thank you Paul for once again taking the long view. Willingness to take the personal risk of exposure does not take into account that the willing then run a high chance in this particular environment of exposing those (older family members?) to the virus who may be unwilling to accept that risk. At this point, operating on the premise that the cure is worse than the illness amounts to arson. And to paraphrase Charlie Sikes, there are arsonists today who will take credit for being firemen.

32

Walter-
Tough choices. Why not have special non-sick hours those students that need the physicals? I think a lot depends on where you are and what is going on in your community. If you are in a heavy hit area it probably makes sense to put it on hold for a few weeks.

It’s amazing to essential services clearly mean different things to different people. In my state, you can get a hair cut, get your nails done and go to the bank - all essential according to the powers that be.

I also have been seeing patients for basic med. With the FAA extensions there is no rush to get them done at this point. I live in an air park where flying is still very much active and a needed diversions from the craziness. We have self serve gas pumps so that is not much of an argument to stop flying. The local mechanic is a one-man show and is busy as ever.

I really wish you the best! I would love to hear what you decided to do.
Mike

33

Thanks Paul for thinking further ahead than where we should have been two weeks ago. It’s refreshing. I’d question even further: should we be committing GA at all in this time except for needed flights (I.E. Medical supplies)? Inherently by getting into an airplane we are putting ourselves at greater risk than that of sitting at home binging on your videos and trolling aviation forums. Additionally, were we to get hurt then we’d run a good chance of taking up an ER bed if we haven’t been reduced to a smoking crater and use up ER/EMS/SAR services. I haven’t been the best at following this advice, using my magic carpet to escape our current work from home situation but I don’t know if its the best thing and I have my doubts about continuing. If grocery clerks, let alone ER docs, are putting their lives on the line by doing their job it seems we should take the luxury of living as absolutely risk free as possible.

34

I don’t care about your wife’s opinion when it’s contrary to the U.S. Constitution. Unless there is martial law, we are free to assemble if we wish. End of story.

35

Thank you so much Paul for your informed stance, wisdom, and courage to say " We can all become heroes by not becoming patients. Let’s start today."

What has been not included in the conversation by many commentators to this blog is testing. The three countries that got a handle on Covid-19 at this point ( I did not say eradicated) are Germany, S Korea, and China. One trap that has revealed statistically the exponential growth of the transmission of Covid-19 is the the notion that being asymptomatic means you are not infected and contagious. Therefore, with enough hand-washing, masks, and wiping down the cockpit of a the average trainer you are mitigating Covid-19 risks is absurd. A virus is microscopic in size compared to bacteria. Unless you plan on not breathing, every breath exhaled is filled with the Covid-19 virus from an infected yet asymptomatic person. Masks and disinfectants help but in the confines of the average 2/4 place airplane, you will give the gift that keeps on giving.

Germany has been testing 600,000 people a week. Germany did not wait on government testing results only. They used test kits provided by commercial manufacturers combined with government kits reducing test results times to a matter of hours rather than days or weeks. Merkel said publicly early on the German government expected a 70% infection rate rather than attempting to downplay the seriousness with rhetoric saying it may not be that bad. The US, with a far larger population has barely tested 600,000 people total since this pandemic hit the US. When you know who is infected, where they have been, and where they live, you can be very effective in how you structure social distancing, quarantine, isolation, the man-power of health providers, and hospital bed availability.

Secondly, the only people getting tested so far in the US has been those who have symptoms, have had them for some time, which generally has been the at risk (the most sinister problem) and older US population. Germany figured out very early that the most mobile, the most inclined to be in tight social quarters, the most likely to be attending large events with high concentrations of people was the 20-50 year old range and targeted the initial testing towards those demographics…asymptomatic or not. That evolved as fast as possible to testing the entire population. Germany, China, and S Korea knew early on who was infected, age ranges, where they had come from, and where they lived taking immediate actions of social distancing, quarantine, isolation, shutting down all non-essential businesses, stopping travel into and out of the country.

Lastly, the so-called at risk people who we have been led to believe is primarily old people. The at risk portion of the population is anyone with diabetes or is pre-diabetic, has evidence of heart disease, overweight, folks with auto-immune diseases or deficiencies, flu, pneumonia, etc. Just in diabetes, heart disease, and overweight covers 2/3rds of the US population. If you have any one or more of these issues you are at risk, very high risk of infection by Covid-19 and increase risk of death. 330 million people in the US with over 200 million at high risk of infection by Covid-19 with a large percentage requiring long-term intensive care provided by an overwhelmed, understaffed, under equipped, healthcare system. This is why the highest death rates are those with compromised immune systems which happens to be those with heart disease, diabetes, and being over-weight. Age is not your biggest handicap. Your overall health is or the lack of it.

Trump announced this weekend, an optimistic hope is no more than 100,000 deaths in the US due to Covid-19. Those numbers are considered a victory in this battle. Dr. Fauci thinks 200,000+ will not be unusual, instead, more realistic. The computer models have been hashed and rehashed with them showing an average of 1.6 to 2 million deaths in the US unless we know, who has it, where they have been, where they live, and the ability to effectively quarantine and isolate the infected ones.

That means we have to be heroes by not becoming patients. I am not convinced the current US population has that kind of selfless courage to stay at home doing what is highly inconvenient, financially straining, but necessary to get a handle on this virus we have no immunity to today.

Flying by yourself, after fueling by yourself, pulling your airplane out by yourself, parking by yourself, pushing it back into the hangar by yourself, after self-isolating at home, driving to the airport solo, after you have been tested knowing you don’t presently have it or you have had it but not contagious anymore is as close to minimizing your risk to others as possible today. Anything less than that means you are dangerous to anyone with present at risk health conditions which will be minimally two out every three people in the US.

36

All the arguments so far for continuing flight instruction have been made in terms of “me and the instructor”. What would make people think that they are the instructor’s only student? It’s well established that people without symptoms can be infected and contagious. So all it takes is one student, and soon all the instructor’s students have it. And I’ll bet your flight instructor isn’t the only person you associate with. The virus spreads along chains of association, and experience so far shows that the number of cases doubles in 2 or 3 days.

Let’s run the numbers. Assume conservatively that the virus will affect 50% of the US population. That’s 165 million people. We’re at 150,000 diagnosed cases now (probably more in reality), so there’s only a factor of 1000 left. At a 3 day doubling rate, that’s 30 days from now. Where are you going to put 150 million sick people? (OK, maybe only 30 million seriously sick people. Still, where are you going to put them?) And if the fatality rate is really 2%, that works out to 3.3 million dead.

That’s where we’re going if we don’t break the chains aggressively. Good luck.

37

Given the events that have unfolded over the last couple of months, the more I see, the more I hear, the more I distrust every politician out there including our government. They both have proven time and time again how self centered they both are. They are all liars. Plain and simple.

If anything, this virus has exposed all of our public officials and entities who they really are. It is beyond disturbing. We are not the country we used to be. Not even close. Freedom is dead. It has been for a long time. This COVID event has just uncovered it and laid it bare for all to see. COVID 19 is exposing the truth. Never, ever, trust anything that comes out of the government. They are all liars.

38

And when we learn that we are, at the present time, at the tail end of the curve (instead of the beginning), will serious people apologize for not analyzing the data themselves? The data suggest that we’re at least 6 months into it now in the USA.

Remember the panic that we now have more hurricanes and storms that ever due to man made co2 global warming? Reality was that the increase was due to man made satellites in the late 80’s being able to LOG more storms in places that no one previously reported? Gee, maybe the same thing is here where finally after 6 months they are testing and “WHOA there is an explosion of cases!”. The data says one thing buy wisdom knows how to interpret the raw data.

Just sayin’

39

Agreed! That is one of many reasons the Constitution makes no allowance for any government declared emergencies except for declaration of war. And that power is only given to Congress, something they have not done in 80 years. After fighting a war to gain independence, our founding fathers were not about to give the new government any opportunity to abuse legally their new authority. Unfortunately those governors who are issuing decrees are just now being challenged in court as unconstitutional. So trust in government has to be earned, something our politicians can’t understand, therefore the obvious mistrust most Americans have for government. The longer this “lockdown” drags on the harder it will be to enforce.

40

There are No riots in Italy. Only deaths due to this epidemic.
To bring things down tot the local level… You might not get sick, but you might be the one that further spreads this virus, and the one you infect will do the same to others. In Europe there are whole towns infected due to only one careless individual that joined a family event - maybe even unknowingly. Still, like the chain of domino’s falling in aircraft accident sequences of events, a phenomenon you might be familiar with, the shelter in place advice will help stop one piece falling over and might just be the essential stop in the sequence of events. It is not a matter of what the Constitution says… it is a matter of social responsibility. If this virus gets further out of control even your most basic health care services, for you or your family or friends, will not be able to cope.