Planning a trip Hannover EDDV to Bornholm EKRN (with family, and risk management)

@MedEWok: Being under pressure to be somewhere on a fixed date, vfr only, in May in Danish weather you must create a plan B for yourself. Your biggest risk is not an engine failure but weather. Check the weather the days leading up to flying and if it does not look good, go to plan B well ahead of the planned flight. Brief people around you that the trip is depending on good weather. This will stop them from putting further pressure on you and they know ahead of time that the flight can be cancelled. Not many non-pilots know what the main risks to GA flying are. I have often meet people who think of windy weather as the biggest risk to ga aircraft. If the weather is very good, you can consider to go high and direct. If anything else I would go the route near land as others have pointed out. Around Copenhagen terminal area they will push you down below 1500 ft most likely. Sweden control and Malmø approach is more likely to allow a higher route especially for the water crossing I have always been allowed to climb, when going to and from EKRN. There is good stretch over water even in that route so climb to get some glide distance.

To define what I mean by risk of weather your main enemies are low visibility or low cloud ceeling. Especially flying over water on an overcast day with no clear horizon, there is a real risk of disorientation and loss of control. Low visibility adds to the risk of disorientation. There’s also an extra risk with low cloud ceeling as it pushes you down. Apart from limited response time in case of engine failure there is the risk to hit high objects. A pilot was killed a few years back in Denmark (he departed from Bornholm actually) as he hit a tall tv tower in low ceeling and bad visibility. He apparently was under pressure to get back , flew lower and lower, and became unsure of his position. Your not safe over Danish water either as many places have tall wind turbines far from shore.

That all said if weather is good I would go ahead and make use of the license. EKRN is a good GA airport. And flying with small children certainly is possible. I recall 8 years ago making a trip to Hamburg with my wife and first child, 3 month at the time strapped in a child seat in a TB9. Remember the hearing protection.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Looking at your reasoning, I understand your definition would be to prohibit passenger flights over water in SEP airplanes because the passengers, children particularly, can not influence the risk

Not exactly. The point is that flight over water, and experiencing engine failure, is hardly any risk at all for reasonably prepared adults, a substantial risk for unprepared adults, but an almost certain death trap for a small child strapped in the back. Here we have a situation where the adults are unprepared (betting on luck instead), going with two children in the back. Define that as you like, my definition is stupidity (no offense! Really, there is no other way for me to define this). Basic preparation by those adults would in this case include: Cirrus, seaplane or twin.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

So do I understand you correctly that you never have taken your family for a flight at all, or more probably you don’t have one?

No. I take whoever wants to come along. Today my wife comes along every now and then, visiting places, eating, meeting others. But she only wants to come if I am “going somewhere”. She is not afraid of flying, she even tried gliding, and I was flying the tow plane Of my children, only my youngest son likes flying. He comes along, and liked it from he was a little boy, but by now he’d rather fly himself. When I just got my PPL, my grandmother liked to come along. She just liked to be in the air, sightseeing, looking at the landscape.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

however this incident should actually show you that even the pretty much worst thing which can happen on an SEP has happened to you and you were capable of managing it to a good result.

I have also had a dead stick landing. What this thought me was that I was lucky to be high enough to reach the airport so I didn’t cause much more problems than paperwork. It also thought me that I could, as an indisputable fact, handle the situation, but then, which flying pilot doesn’t think that anyway? The other thing it thought me was that statistics doesn’t just “happen” to everyone else, it also “happens” to me , as an indisputable fact. This is indeed something that requires an incident/accident to be really aware of IMO, at least that’s how it was for me.

Patrick wrote:

If you want to raise your kids to maybe become the more successful players of their generation (leaders, people who inspire other people, who dare, who will some day in their life do great things, become great entrepreneurs, maybe save the planet, whatever…) you don’t encourage that by over-guarding them. Within limits that seem sensible to you as a parent, in my view, you need to expose your kids to a certain level a risk, and risky activities. And yes, you will have to make that decision for them to some extend, until they’re old enough to decide for themselves. Of course, if you want your kids to become couch potatoes who don’t risk anything, that is also fine and fair. But it’s not the only and not the only “right” way to raise children IMHO.

That I agree with, with some modifications. My youngest son flew solo long before he could legally drive a car. My oldest is travelling around the world trying to make ends meet as an actor. The main point however, is not to expose children to risk, but to give them the opportunity to explore stuff on their own. Boys, 5-18, generally have no concept of risk at all. They think they will survive anything. By exploring on their own, but giving them advice and training, they hopefully and eventually understand that they won’t survive anything, not without preparation and planning. That’s my experience, but children are different. Some requires a push, some are so happy taking risks they are doomed to become the unsurviving part of the survival of the fittest, and there is nothing anyone can do to prevent it. The mother of my children would probably laugh her a$$ of anyway, if she saw me giving parental advice So, not advice, just my experience

One last thing. I fully believe it is up to the PIC to plan and prepare his trip, passengers or not, children or not. The PIC is the captain of the ship. To me that is literally and almost holy. The same goes for this trip.

LeSving wrote:

betting on luck instead

Here we go again. I think that further discussion is pointless if you can’t accept that you and everyone are always “betting on luck”. The question is how much luck.

MedEwok wrote:

Sorry but writing “no offense” while at the same time openly calling somebody stupid doesn’t work.

I “defined” the preparation (or lack thereof) as stupidity. As a medical doctor you obviously aren’t stupid, and you haven’t made the flight yet. At this point no one is stupid (except me maybe )

Airborne_Again wrote:

I think that further discussion is pointless if you can’t accept that you and everyone are always “betting on luck”. The question is how much luck.

I just don’t see it that way. We aren’t bomber pilots in WWII where we had no choice but to bet on luck for surviving the mission, because the danger was lethal and completely outside our control. We are very much in position to plan and prepare every flight, so that the few and rare, but statistically significant dangers also are taken into account. By taken into account, I mean, for instance, to be able to survive a complete engine failure. Unless you have to, or are forced to, it’s a peculiar concept to bet on luck for surviving an eventual situation that is perfectly survivable with a minimum of preparation, training and/or planning. As a free human being, you are of course in your full right to do so however, and some do all the time. IMO you should bet on your skills, training and planning, it just works much better, statistically. But that isn’t the main point here, it’s hardly a point at all. The main point is to put others , children, in a situation where luck isn’t even enough to survive in the event of an engine failure, when a minimum of preparation, from you, would remove the probability entirely. I can’t understand why this somehow should be OK. It has never been OK, and it will never be OK.

I have said before that life is dangerous, you can die from it. But I guess I should add: – unless you can prevent it or something.

LeSving you have made the point you wanted to make several times. There is no need to keep hammering it down. Medewok knows how this game works.

LeSving you have made the point you wanted to make several times. There is no need to keep hammering it down.

Agree, but to my defence, I was only responding to questions and “unfair” comments.

@MedEwok
Maybe plan a shorter trip to a Frisian Island for the first round? You could leave on a good weather Saturday and return Sunday. Keep it short and simple for starters?

Actually, those weekends can become a mainstay of flying for those of us who have to work. Just do it to destinations where there are other means of transportation to get back.

I’m currently in the process of preparing for a checkout on the TB20

Outstanding choice

You will find it very easy to fly. It has no vices in the handling department.