SF Bay Area ---> Death Valley

"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...
Spoken by what I believe to be a flatland pilot who doesn't get the chance
to fly mountains much and is fascinated with the scenery.

I've scraped a few of you off of our hills with a bucket and a spoon in
the
last forty years of flying search and rescue, and it ain't fun, no matter
how much you think it might be.

I was taught to fly in the Laguna and Cuyamaca mountains of Southern
California and teach mountain flying as a necessity out of my home base in
the Sierra. I fly the Sierra on a daily basis; the Wasatch and the
Rockies
twice a year. I think I've got my fair share of mountain flying in the
4500
hours in my logbook. I've also had two complete engine failures due to
mechanical failure, one in the Sierra and one in the Rockies. So far the
fatalities have been a video camera and my wris****ch. Plus a very pretty
C-172.

I absolutely DETEST know-it-alls who come on here and say, "well, I don't
have any data, but I suspect..." Suspect isn't worth a bucket of warm
****.

Finally, I teach math, and sometimes I get into probability and
statistics.
For a damfool to come on here and say that since somebody flies
infrequently
over water and mountains that isn't anything to worry about is the height
of
stupidity. The engine has exactly the same chance of failing per minute
over hostile terrain as per minute directly over a 10,000 foot runway.

Do I fly over water or mountains? On a regular basis. Do I keep
something
that I can land on directly beneath me at all times? You bet. To say
that
Tioga pass is safer than downtown LA is just plain stupid. In the first
place, there are concrete flood drains all over the city. In the second
place, there are very few freeways that are filled in BOTH directions at
the
same time, and if they are, then there are alternative freeways that you
can
use. THere are racetracks. There are football fields, there are golf
courses, there are a dozen places where you will walk away from an engine
failure.

Not so Tioga or any of the other mountain passes. Sure, the pass ITSELF
has
the meadows at the top, but the route getting TO the pass is inhospitable
in
the extreme. So also the downhill trip on the leeward side of the hill.

The man has a choice. Go over Tioga Pass and hope for the best or go down
south to Tehachapi pass with an interstate freeway underneath you from
Bakersfield to Mojave. Tioga is pretty. Tehachapi is survivable. Your
call.

Oh, and Earl, tell us how many mountain flying hours you have and where
you
teach out of please?

Jim


I have zero hours flying over mountians and do not teach. I was asking a
question and instead of answering you go off on some rant. The question is
"Just what is the failure rate, excluding fuel exhaustion, of single engine
planes while in flight?" By this question I meant engine failure rate, not
any type of mechanical failure.

I am sure you probably have "scraped a few of you off of our hills", but how
many were from engine failures versus some other cause (weather, pilot
error, etc.)? If you teach math then maybe you could just answer the
question. The reason why I suspect the failure rate over mountains and
water is low is because the failure rate over anywhere else appears to be
low. Sure engines can fail and it can happen to anyone, but what is the
failure rate?





"Earl Grieda" wrote in message
ink.net...

I always wonder about these statements about how someone never flies
over
water or mountains because they have a single engine plane. Just what
is
the failure rate, excluding fuel exhaustion, of single engine planes
while
in flight? Although I do not have any data I suspect it is so low as to
be
negligible. So, if you infrequently fly over water and mountains, why
worry. Not to say that it can't happen, but you could also be hit by a
meteor while flying yet we don't worry about that.