On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:22:56 -0700, C J Campbell
wrote in
2007041315225616807-christophercampbell@hotmailcom:

On 2007-04-13 14:36:11 -0700, Larry Dighera said:

A fine, well thought out article, Larry.

That is indeed a complement coming from "The World's Greatest Flight
Instructor." :-) Thanks.

However, I maintain (and always have) that we do not have an image problem.

When the main stream news media, like Time magazine, prints a
full-page promotional advertisement showing small aircraft juxtaposed
against nuclear generating plant condensation towers with the caption,
"Remember when only environmentalists would have been alarmed by this
photograph?", GA has an obvious image problem. GA is being used by
the news media as a scapegoat to capture readers/viewers through
sensational yellow journalism. The lay public is exposed to such
slurs continually, and their attitude toward GA is made unnecessarily
fearful and resentful as a result.

It's time GA realized it is being targeted unfairly in the news media,
and hold them accountable for their libelous marketing ploy. What's
it going to take to rouse the ire of GA stakeholders?

We have a safety
problem. We always have had a safety problem. If we can clean up the
safety problem the image problem will go away.

I disagree with your conclusion.

Aviation is dangerous. There is no question of that. And it's more
dangerous the closer to the ground you fly, and in the more weather
you traverse, and the closer to the boundaries of the aircraft's
flight performance envelope you operate. Those, and many of the other
causes of fatal accidents mentioned in the JAMA article, contribute to
GA's rather consistent fatality rate over the decades.

The reason for the consistency is, because until now, the government
has recognized the citizens' right to aerial navigation, and has not
attempted to encroach on it. That may be changing.

Now that the airline transport manufacturers have realized that there
is finite capacity for air traffic within the NAS, they are
aggressively looking for ways to manage the entire aviation circus
from construction and maintenance of the vehicles, to control and
ultimately, regulation of airspace and aircraft certification. It's
time we started asking, "What is a reasonable limit for air traffic
density over the CONUS?" Otherwise, GA will be crowded out of the
skies by airline traffic as aircraft manufacturers have to put their
products someplace.

So the GA fatality rate is largely a result of the kinds of flying
that GA does. With a few exceptions, the logical way to reduce the
"public safety concern" is to restrict some of the more hazardous (non
airline) aircraft operations. Consider this bit of "information":

Besides being a public safety concern, general aviation intersects
with medicine directly in at least 2 ways. First, transporting
patients from crash sites and between medical facilities is more
hazardous than generally recognized, and EMS flight crew members
have an occupational injury death rate that is 15 times the
average for all occupations.20 Despite 1 EMS helicopter in 3 being
likely to crash during a life span of 15 years, few EMS
helicopters have crash-resistant fuel systems.20 Second, physician
pilots crash at a higher rate per flight hour than other pilots.25
It is possible that physicians are more likely than other pilots
to buy high-performance aircraft that require more time for
mastery than their schedules may allow. In addition, physicians
may take risks (eg, fly when fatigued or in bad weather) in order
to meet the demands of a busy medical practice. From 1986 through
2005, a total of 816 physician and dentist pilots were involved in
general aviation crashes; of them, 270 (33%) were fatally injured.
Physician and dentist pilots accounted for 1.6% of all general
aviation crashes and 3.0% of pilot fatalities (Carol Floyd, BS,
National Transportation Safety Board, written communication,
February 2, 2007).

GA is a public safety concern only to those who exercise their right
to risk their personal wellbeing of their own free volition, much as
today's volunteer soldier does. If the good doctor is able to suggest
_viable_ solutions to the fatal accident causes he cites, I fully
support and applaud his contribution. But I am skeptical. It would
seem, that if no further safety enhancements have been
discovered/implemented to reduce the GA fatality rate in decades, it
is unlikely that they can be found and implemented.