On Tue, 5 Jul 2005 14:40:13 -0400, "Richard Kaplan"
wrote:


You say a number of things in your reply.

Are there people who can afford more plane than they can safely fly? Of
course.

Are there full-time professional pilots who are not appropriately proficient
or skilled to fly their planes? Of course.

The question I am asking here is about your comment about full-time vs.
non-full-time pilots. Are you suggesting that no one can be a safe and
proficient pilot without flying 400-500 hours per year? And are you
suggesting that the NTSB agrees with you in this regard? If so, I strongly
disagree with you on both counts; I believe you are over-generalizing to an
unreasonable extent.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan

www.flyimc.com


I guess you don't understand what I'm saying or maybe I'm not clear
enough or maybe I am over-generalizing. I'm talking about high
performance aircraft and pilots that don't spend 100% of their working
life with them. I don't know about you, but given the chance, I'd
feel safer with the 100% pilot that fly's 400 per year than some
lawyer or business man that fly's for pleasure when he has the
opportunity, no matter how well trained and conscientious. I think
your insurance man as well as accident statistics would agree with me.
Hell - you may be God's gift to aviation and it doesn't apply to you.
I don't have a clue.

As to the NTSB, I was referring to their conclusions to the
certification review of the Piper Malibu after many came apart in the
clouds. They determined that the decisions made by the pilots to fly
through convective air currents caused the wings to come off through
no fault of the airframe.

Now I really don't know how many of those were flown by professional
pilots, but my best guess would be zero. Guys that do this stuff for
a living give CB's a wide berth or they cease to make a living at all.

My observations come from being in the industry and spending the best
part of 35 years in corporate jets. I think I have a different
perspective (maybe not a correct one) than a light aircraft flight
instructor.

I'm sure the whole field is full of wanna-be's that would just love to
fly a jet and because of the low price will be able to afford them.
Having been-there-done-that for most of my life, those are the ones
that concern me. GA has take some big hits lately in the press, but
you haven't seen anything yet until a VLJ with another big ego
Kennedy-type guy goes smoking through a rather large house in
Westchester County, NY. Enough political pressure from the class-envy
masses and we'll all have to park our toys.

Nuff said!!!