Is flying anything like diving??

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I have a pilots licenses, and a scuba cert. and I can say this neither can have enough gas. But pilots say you can never have too much gas, unless you are on fire.
 
I have a pilots licenses, and a scuba cert. and I can say this neither can have enough gas. But pilots say you can never have too much gas, unless you are on fire.

And then you are grateful if you have an ejection seat.
 
Not happening in a Cessna but I get your point. Diving and flying do have many things in common especially if you are serious about safety. I know PADI teaches the checks and five point ascents and descents. But I think pilot like checklist would serve divers far better. If there is a physical checklist that you go through to check each item it is easier to make sure your bases are covered. Memory is fallible, training fades, it is too easy to miss things without checklists. That’s why aviation adopted them. The downside is it took intervention to regulate and force ridgid adherence to safety checklist. It is a double edged sword but personally I would hate to see regulation in the scuba world even though I see unsafe divers and generally unsafe practices. The difference is if you f up diving you kill yourself and maybe a buddy or rescuer and impact your family and friends. If you f up as a pilot carrying passengers the consequences are so much more far reaching
 
Is flying like diving. Yes and no.

Yes because you are doing something about 99% of everyone else isn't doing and never will.
No because they really are two different experiences of existing in 3-dimensional space.

From about 1991 - 2000 I was a competition aerobatic pilot and even owned an Extra 300. The plane could do absolutely anything and my favorite maneuver was the Lomcevak. This may piss people off, but unless you've flown like this you are just an airplane driver. Aerobatics is flying.

So, as divers we don't have the cool Lomcevak sort of experiences, but as pilots we don't have the cool awesomeness of the undersea world.

Is diving like flying? Yes and No? However, both activities makes us so much cooler than basically everyone because everyone else isn't doing it!~
 
This may piss people off, but unless you've flown like this you are just an airplane driver. Aerobatics is flying.

Yes, and unless you are doing 300' tri mix wreck dives, or 5000 plus foot penetration cave dives, you are just blowing bubbles.
 
This may piss people off, but unless you've flown like this you are just an airplane driver. Aerobatics is flying.~

One difference between divers and pilots is that pilots are more prone to bragging and trying to be perceived as better than other pilots:)
 
One difference between divers and pilots is that pilots are more prone to bragging and trying to be perceived as better than other pilots:)

You must have been on a lot different dive boats than I have experienced. But just like on a dive boat, pilots in the bar that are talking the least about their skills are the ones that will kick your ass in the air.
 
I think there's a lot of similarity in mindset, especially in cave/technical diving. I fly helicopters for a living and, while they're two very distinct, different experiences, I find that the same "part" of my brain is really active when doing both. Pilots are good at thinking about resources in flexible terms. Fuel isn't just a number on a gauge, it's also time, which is range. These variables change with winds, altitude, gross weight, and power application. So you get really good at using all of those variables interchangeably when monitoring the progress of the flight or making changes to the plan. Same with an SPG reading. Gas=time after adjusting for depth=range after applying swim speed/flow to time, etc.

Dealing with failures or other issues is another similarity. After so many years of training, reaction to most emergencies and malfunctions is basically hardwired. You just do the critical actions, read the checklist for the cleanup items, get yourself on the ground safely, and then you actually think about it. You essentially get trained into managing most emergencies without a lot of conscious thought. Failure training with the bubble gun in my cave/tech classes had the same effect. The one time it actually happened for real, it was like any emergency I've ever had in the aircraft. Muscle memory kinda takes over and you just deal with it. Your brain sort of goes on autopilot for the initial actions. I think being a pilot for years before getting into diving really helped me with the mental aspect of it.
 
Is that actually true? I don't seem to recall a lot of those.

Fact Sheet – General Aviation Safety

The Top 10 Leading Causes of Fatal General Aviation Accidents 2001-2016:

1. Loss of Control Inflight
2. Controlled Flight Into Terrain
3. System Component Failure – Powerplant
4. Fuel Related <===========
5. Unknown or Undetermined
6. System Component Failure – Non-Powerplant
7. Unintended Flight In IMC
8. Midair Collisions
9. Low-Altitude Operations
10. Other

"Fuel related" is sort of ambiguous, including as it does things like fuel contamination, but a distressing number of idio..er, pilots simply run out of gas in the air and don't find a good place to land. A recent example, not too far from here, was luckily nonfatal (though the jury might still be out on that). Note that it's number four on the list. To my way of thinking, it should not even *be* on the list, either for flying or for diving, but for the former it's actually illegal in most cases, and for the latter it's "merely" stupid.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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