I too, am interested in how to address risk management in military
flying. It ssems that the AF has done a fair job of performing risk management
at the macro level - via training rules and limitations on types and currency
requirements in peacetime, and through estimated acceptable losses to complete a
mission, abort criteria etc, in wartime.
As I understand the question, the goal is now to perform the same sorts
of processes at the pilot/crew/formation level. Capt, John Pegg has a pretty
good section on this in the program at Kadena AB. It centers around identifying
the risks in the flight, assessing the cost/benefit ratio and searching for
options to (unavoidable) high-risk situations.
Military flying, by it's very nature involves a greater level of
risk-taking than civil aviation - which may imply a lesser degree a awareness of
those risks. Many of these situations are unavoidable due to the nature of the
buisness - flying airplanes in strange places where others are shooting at you
for instance. I believe the focus of such a program should be identification
of high risk activities (through historical analysis of accidents and incedents)
and training these activities to a higher standard of performance - or replacing
them with lower-risk plans and activities. This would dovetail well with the
informal process in place for combat loss analysis and tactics development.
I look forward to hearing more on this subject,
Bart Stine