On 2/20/04 2:49 PM, in article
, "Mike"
wrote:

from Navy Times of February 23, 2004 p.32
"Cockpit errors, op tempo cited as air-mishaps cause"

Aviation mishaps, 1980-2003.
the number of Class A aircraft mishaps - those involving loss of life
or more than $1 million in damage - dropped from 1980 to 2001 but
spiked over the past two years of the war on terrorism. The services
mishap rates since 1980:

Service Total Rate*
Navy 821 2.33
Air Force 1,010 1.46
Army 603 1.80
Marine Corps 369 4.07
DOD 2,803 2.41

*Class A mishaps per 100,000 flight hours

Mike

I'm not sure if I agree about the case for OPTEMPO.

A few years ago, the Navy's Safety Center put out a brief on the subject
that broke out mishaps by their major causal factors.

They concluded that through NATOPS, superior training, and SOP's the Navy
had driven its mishap rate down significantly and that the least experienced
pilots were in the groups with the highest mishap rates.

They cited lack of flight time as one reason why these pilots were morting
themselves and banging up more airplanes. To me, higher OPTEMPO means
higher flight time. You can blame high OPTEMPO for low retention, but not
necessarily for more mishaps.

Culturally, the brief also cited a greater propensity for Navy and Marine
Corps pilots to willfully violate SOP or FAR's than their Army or Air Force
counterparts. (Although anecdotally, I can come up with an example or two
of why I doubt that's true.)

--Woody