"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
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"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
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[...]
Now, it would surprise me if the "10 deaths per year", or even the "6
deaths per year" claim is supported by historical data. But even so,
with fatalities running around 2000/year (a little less recently), given
the huge amount of GA traffic at Oshkosh, I'm not even convinced that 6
or 10 deaths per year is all that out of line with the overall GA
population.

Sorry...I misread the AOPA article I was looking at. 2000/year is the
accident rate, not the fatality rate. The fatalities are about a third in
number of the total accident rate.

Still...6 or 10 doesn't sound that out of line, especially when you
consider the high-risk environment (naturally, you will see a higher
accident and fatality rate in higher-risk environments, by definition).

In any case, I still hold to my assertion that no one should be surprised
that there are stupid pilots.

A couple of thoughts:

1) For the Saturday flyer, Oshkosh is one of few times each year when
s/he'll load up the airplane to the max, then have to fly the airplane well
in a tight pattern. This greatly increases the risk factor.

2) Beyond that, lots of aircraft arrive at the fly-in with legal CG's, but
loaded well aft of where the pilot is accustomed to flying the aircraft.

Both of these issues are proficiency related, and I'm not sure anyone but
Darwin can address that one.

Next, there is the idiot factor. I believe the FAA can address some of
this. For example, the person who flys the approach completely wrong,
doesn't follow the NOTAM, etc. Those folks should get pulled aside after
their hopefully safe arrival, and the FAA should politely make sure they
have their stuff together...
- Show me your copy of the NOTAM.
- Why didn't you follow the procedures?
- etc.

I'm not calling for this for the guy who bounces a landing, but for the
people who obviously don't have a clue, there should be some remedial action
taken.

KB