Gary Drescher wrote:
If self-flown business travel is also relatively safe, then there seem to be
at least two distinct modes of flying that are safer than the GA
average--instructional flying (with novice pilots but with simple planes and
conservative standards) and business travel (with more advanced aircraft and
more-experienced pilots).

I think that's sort of a backwards way of looking at it. It's not that
there are safer-than-average GA modes - it's that there is a
particularly dangerous mode that drags everything else down, and that
mode is personal flying. I think what we need to do is look at what
differentiates personal flying from all other forms of GA and figure
out what makes it more dangerous, rather than looking at every other
form (they're all safer) and figure out why.

I think (and of course now that we have departed from statistics into
causation this is purely opinion) the problem is twofold - most
personal flying is done by people who don't fly enough and don't have a
real reason to do it (they have no destination other than up and no
mission). In other words, poor proficiency coupled with the wrong
mindset.

Remember, most accidents are pilot error. Not being focused on what
you are doing is a great way to make mistakes - as is doing something
only rarely. Most insurance companies will give owners a discount for
flying over 100 hours a year, even though this dramatically increases
the exposure. They believe the additional proficiency more than
offsets the increased exposure, and they are in the business of being
right.

If we really wanted to improve the accident picture, we would simply
require one to fly 100 hours a year to keep the license valid, or take
another checkride. I don't favor this because it would kill personal
GA - there wouldn't be enough of us to support the infrastructure.

Michael