The kinds of crashes that REALLY scare me are the ones where a control
surface fails, or a wing comes off in flight. There was a Cherokee
235 that crashed last year after the wings departed the fuselage, thus
far for reasons unknown. Did the pilot yank the yoke back in his lap
at redline? Or was it just metal fatigue in our old fleet, like the
Grumman seaplane in Florida?

Yeah, structural failure would be the scariest emergency one could
have - something where the "keep flying the airplane" advice could
suddenly become quite hard to follow even for an experienced pilot.
Its a worse situation than engine failure on takeoff but it must be
quite rare. The Killing Zone book's central point was that most
accidents can be attributed to a lack of currency and experience and
the number of deaths are mostly in the 50-150 hr range. Outside of
this range the number of accidents go down quite a bit if I remember
right. I don't remember the statistic on control surface failure
accidents but I am guessing it is quite low. One way to beat it would
be to take some skydiving lessons and always fly with a parachute
strapped on. ;-)


Conservative seems to be the best approach to longevity. It's the
strategy I'm planning to use so that I'm still around to fly with my
grandkids...

True, the conservative strategy also makes flying less stressful and
more enjoyable, just the way it was meant to be.