GA is priceless

Doug Spencer writes:

Affirmative. You can fly anywhere in the US with a sport pilot
certificate. You're restricted to day and VFR conditions, but otherwise
it's pretty much the same as the private.

Daytime and VFR would be quite a chafing restriction for me. Part of
the fascination of aviation for me is flying at night and in IMC.
Carefully watching and adjusting instruments for an hour or two in
zero visibility and then seeing the runway magically materialize
seconds before you land is always a fun experience.

The drivers license for sport pilot is the medical certificate. If you
lose your drivers license, you also lose your medical ability to fly
sport pilot. Why should private and recreational be different?

I don't know ... why? The driver's license notion sounds fine to me.

The pilot is the primary safety device installed in a plane, and
there's no 100% effective safety device, but the safety cage design,
energy absorbing construction, engine designed to break away in a
crash, 39kt stall speed, and ballistic parachute sure improve the odds.

As long as the pilot understands that they just improve the odds _if_
there is an accident, fine. But a lot of people take the next step
and unjustifiably assume that they can be less careful because they
have all the gadgets to keep them alive in case they do something
stupid.

Being the aeronautical expert you think you are, you have undoubtedly
seen Rod Machado's statement on energy dissipation in an airplane crash ...

No, but I've done the calculations, which are straightforward.

... he states "The minimum distance you can travel and
stay under 9 Gs when you land at 50 knots is 12.8 feet. If you travel
at least that far before coming to a stop, the cockpit should not break
apart."

A well-braced person in normal health can withstand 46 Gs without
permanent sequelae.

The real key is the integration of acceleration and time. Extremely
high accelerations are fine if they are of short duration. Lower
accelerations can be deadly if sustained (like redout). Surviving in
an accident involves limiting the peak accelerations and their
durations. Most of these peak accelerations occur when a human body
continues to move unrestrained after the compartment it is in stops;
when it hits the stopped compartment, the short-term accelerations are
much higher than they would have been if the body had moved with the
compartment as a single unit.

This is the theory behind seatbelts and harnesses. It works for any
type of vehicle.

Considering the FlightDesign CT is presently one of the most expensive
light sport planes, as well as one of the best selling, the market
apparently disagrees with you.

Perhaps it has snob appeal.

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