SAFA Skysailor Magazine

40 SKY SAILOR May | June 2022 Incorporating: Gut Instinct – Don’t ignore it! Greetings fellow pilots. Before we launch into looking at some of the completed reviews, I want to discuss with you one of the most powerful instincts imbued in humanity – gut instinct. As a predictive tool for unsafe behaviours or practices, and the prevention of undesirable outcomes, I believe gut instinct surpasses all others. Gut instinct is usually informed from past experiences encountered personally or observed in others. I’ll illustrate this point with a few examples. • • Do I really want to play with that pretty little octopus with bright blue markings? • • Do I really want to overtake that vehicle in front of me on this bend that’s a bit blind even if my big, red motorbike has a shedload of power and torque to enable me to accomplish this in a very short period of time? • • Do I really want to take thee to be my lawfully wedded significant other until either the end of time or the nastiness in the courts is finished? If your gut is actively screaming at you ‘NOOO!’, then maybe you should listen to it. It could save you a whole heap of pain, agony, anguish and torment. Not to mention unnec- essary financial expense in these difficult, high cost of living times. Another approach to assessing the risks of going ahead and doing something stupid, is to conduct a risk assessment. I present Exhibit A – SAFA’s Risk Matrix (Figure 1). You don’t really need a slide rule and ready reckoner to navigate the matrix (although it might help). All you need to do is work out how likely a nasty thing is to occur, then have a think about the worst possible consequence of said nasty thing occurring, and see what the number and colour of the box in the Risk Matrix is indicat- ed. Red is ‘BAD’; green ‘Not So Bad’. You can then make an informed decision as to whether to go ahead and do the stupid thing and what sort of mitigation measures you might want to put in place to reduce the likelihood or conse- quence of an unfavourable outcome occurring. Gut instinct makes the process a lot simpler: • • LIKELIHOOD – It’s going to happen; you just know it is. • • CONSEQUENCE – It’s going to be bum- bitingly BAD! • • RISK – Freckle Factor 5+! • • MITIGATION – Don’t do it, Stupid!! The drawback with Gut Instinct is that the mitigation measure is frequently overruled by stupid things like emotions, rushes of blood to the head and FOMO (Fear of missing out) – this is when our ‘Brainless Moments’ occur. Which brings us to AIRS #1670, in which we see our hero (yours truly) turn up at Winton. Conditions in southern Tasmania have been a bit blustery lately, and the hill was seeing strong and gusty conditions – 13, gusting 18kt. After a period of observation, a couple in our party decided to get their minis out and play. Sometime after that, the view of a few of our AIRS Safety Wrap-up – April 2021 by Iain Clarke – SAFA Safety Management Officer