THE CONVENTION
New club to host safety seminars By Adam Rodewald of The Northwestern
Radek Wyrzykowski had a bit of a wakeup call the first time he flew a plane in cloudy conditions. Pilots must rely on their instrument panels to fly when clouds, inclement weather or other conditions obscure the view of their surroundings. But Wyrzykowski, of Norwood, Mass., said his training in instrument flight had not prepared him for navigating the actual conditions. He came through fine in the end, but “realized that somebody who just got their instrument rating is not really ready for flight on their own,” he said. The moment birthed the idea for an organization focused on instrument flying and the sharing of practical knowledge – as opposed to book knowledge – about aviation safety. Wyrzykowski founded the
IMC Club, which stands for the Instrument Meteorological Conditions Club, a little more than two years ago. Since then, his organization has ballooned to 30 chapters across the country with 1,500 members. The club will host three safety seminars based on its unique approach during AirVenture 2012 in Oshkosh. The seminars are being organized by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, which took an interest in the IMC Club because of its rapid growth, said manager of operations Kate Fraser. “We just saw they had a very unique approach, and it’s been very successful. They are fairly new, they’ve really expanded a lot and if you talk to their members, they’re really enthusiastic about what they’re doing,” Fraser said. Wyrzykowsi said his goal was to
create a place for pilots to come together to learn, discuss and practice their instrument flying with the help of experienced peers.
mistakes and knowledge. The idea is how can I get involved and help other people by sharing my experiences,” Wyrzykowski said.
“A lot of times people learn in a simulated instruction by people who have never been in actual conditions,” he said. “The whole thing perpetuates itself so when all of a sudden you find yourself in cloudy conditions, those people get in trouble, and that causes a lot of accidents because pilots are not ready for it.”
The seminars at AirVenture will be a sample of one of the group’s chapter meetings, which typically include showing an audio-visual presentation followed by an open discussion among the pilots about how they’d react to the scenario.
What makes the IMC Club unique from other safety organizations is that it’s run from the ground up. Instead of safety experts telling pilots the right and wrong ways of responding to situations, the pilots in the IMC Club acknowledge the answers aren’t black and white and believe a pilot can learn more from other pilots. “It’s about gaining practical knowledge from other people’s
Wyrzykowski refers to the approach as “organized hangar flying.” During AirVenture, they will be discussing accident scenarios that actually happened, Wyrzykowski said. Representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board will also be present to add to the discussion and answer questions, Fraser said. Adam Rodewald: (920) 426-6632 or arodewald@thenorthwestern.com.
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