Most experienced CFI runs out of gas

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
. 45...
(Robert M. Gary) wrote in
om:

The local news is reporting that a local CFI (with over 30,000 hours
of instruction giving since the early 1960's) ran out of gas just
short of the airport after picking up a P210 and flying back from
Texas to California. Boy, if it can happen to him, it can happen to
anyone. It will be interesting to see the final facts. Perhaps the
plane was burning way more gas than it should have (the plane had been
bought that day).

-Robert


Take a look at the AOPA Nall report. The accident rates with flight
experience drops until you reach about 2000 hrs, then it starts climbing.
Pilots with greater than 10,000 hours accounted for 10% of all the
accidents.




Maybe they get to relaxed and over confident?

"NW_PILOT" wrote in message
...


Maybe they get to relaxed and over confident?

It is called "complacency," but I think there is more to it than that. If
you play roulette long enough, sooner or later your number is going to come
up.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"NW_PILOT" wrote in message
...


Maybe they get to relaxed and over confident?

It is called "complacency," but I think there is more to it than that. If
you play roulette long enough, sooner or later your number is going to
come
up.


Figure in as well, most 10,000+ hour pilots are flying professionally at
least in some way or another. As such, they're also flying much more per
year than other pilots. This dramatically increases their exposure to said
risk. I guess another way of saying it is, I'm guessing that the small
percentage of 10,000+ hour pilots that are out there account for way more
than 10% if the annual flying hours.

"Mike O'Malley" wrote in
:

"C J Campbell" wrote in
message ...

"NW_PILOT" wrote in message
...


Maybe they get to relaxed and over confident?

It is called "complacency," but I think there is more to it than
that. If you play roulette long enough, sooner or later your number
is going to come
up.


Figure in as well, most 10,000+ hour pilots are flying professionally
at least in some way or another. As such, they're also flying much
more per year than other pilots. This dramatically increases their
exposure to said risk. I guess another way of saying it is, I'm
guessing that the small percentage of 10,000+ hour pilots that are out
there account for way more than 10% if the annual flying hours.





I think there is something else at play here. The 10,000+ hr pilot is
likely an airline pilot. I don't believe airline cockpit skills are
directly transferably to the GA cockpit. The single-pilot factor, lack
of system redundancies, and aircraft performance place a different set
of demands on a GA pilot. This may be an important factor in GA
accidents caused by airline pilots.

If you take the 10,000+ hr pilots, divide the number of accidents by the
number of hours they spend in a GA cockpit, I think we may find their
accident rate to be greater than other GA pilot groups. This is just a
guess. I don't have numbers to prove it.

Another interesting aspect of the Nall report is that student pilots
accounted for fewer accidents even though they accounted for more flying
hours.



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Andrew Sarangan wrote
I think there is something else at play here. The 10,000+ hr pilot is
likely an airline pilot. I don't believe airline cockpit skills are
directly transferably to the GA cockpit.

If there are skills at all. An airline pilot friend of mine frets
about how he is going to operate his Baron. He says that while he
flew the DC-9 and 727, his airline recurrent training and experience
was OK, but now that he is in the Airbus (he refuses to call that
flying) he is really concerned.

I think your points about the crew environment and lack of redundancy
are well taken, but we may be missing the fact that the modern
airliner is just so much easier to fly than the complex single or
light twin typically flown by the airline pilot on his days off that
the skill level may simply have atrophied. If so, expect this to get
worse in the future.

Another interesting aspect of the Nall report is that student pilots
accounted for fewer accidents even though they accounted for more flying
hours.

I don't think that's interesting at all. It's hard to get hurt if you
never do anything. Student pilots fly under restrictions that would
make aviation useless - in fact, they are specifically prohibited from
doing most of the things that would make flying useful at all.
Unfortunately, I am lately seeing a trend among instructors to make
solo endorsements so restrictive that the student is never challenged,
and to avoid challenging flights dual as well. I have no doubt that
makes the training numbers look good, but the important question is
what happens AFTER the training, when the student goes out on his own
and starts using the airplane - especially those first few hundred
hours before real experience is gained, when the student relies most
on his primary training. I bet those numbers don't look so good.

Michael

(Michael) wrote in
om:

Andrew Sarangan wrote


Another interesting aspect of the Nall report is that student pilots
accounted for fewer accidents even though they accounted for more
flying hours.

I don't think that's interesting at all. It's hard to get hurt if you
never do anything. Student pilots fly under restrictions that would
make aviation useless - in fact, they are specifically prohibited from
doing most of the things that would make flying useful at all.
Unfortunately, I am lately seeing a trend among instructors to make
solo endorsements so restrictive that the student is never challenged,
and to avoid challenging flights dual as well. I have no doubt that
makes the training numbers look good, but the important question is
what happens AFTER the training, when the student goes out on his own
and starts using the airplane - especially those first few hundred
hours before real experience is gained, when the student relies most
on his primary training. I bet those numbers don't look so good.

Michael




In 1947 there were over 9000 aviation accidents. In 2003 there were only
1500 accidents. How is safety improving if the students are being
increasingly prohibited from doing useful things?





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"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
7...
(Michael) wrote in
om:

Andrew Sarangan wrote


Another interesting aspect of the Nall report is that student pilots
accounted for fewer accidents even though they accounted for more
flying hours.

I don't think that's interesting at all. It's hard to get hurt if you
never do anything. Student pilots fly under restrictions that would
make aviation useless - in fact, they are specifically prohibited from
doing most of the things that would make flying useful at all.
Unfortunately, I am lately seeing a trend among instructors to make
solo endorsements so restrictive that the student is never challenged,
and to avoid challenging flights dual as well. I have no doubt that
makes the training numbers look good, but the important question is
what happens AFTER the training, when the student goes out on his own
and starts using the airplane - especially those first few hundred
hours before real experience is gained, when the student relies most
on his primary training. I bet those numbers don't look so good.

Michael




In 1947 there were over 9000 aviation accidents. In 2003 there were only
1500 accidents. How is safety improving if the students are being
increasingly prohibited from doing useful things?

Without supporting data those numbers are totally meaningless.

Andrew Sarangan wrote
In 1947 there were over 9000 aviation accidents. In 2003 there were only
1500 accidents. How is safety improving if the students are being
increasingly prohibited from doing useful things?

I don't have data for 1947.

In 1955 Piper alone built over 1000 TriPacers - plus other aircraft.
In 2003, all US manufacturers combined didn't build that many piston
airplanes.

Michael

In article , Andrew Sarangan
wrote:
In 1947 there were over 9000 aviation accidents. In 2003 there were only
1500 accidents. How is safety improving if the students are being
increasingly prohibited from doing useful things?

In 1947, not only were virtually all light planes taildraggers (meaning
lots of groundlooping), airfields were short, weather forecasting wasn't
as good, instrumentation for weather flying was not fitted to many light
planes (even most trainers now have the full IFR kit), the planes
were lower powered (the typical trainer of '47 was an 85hp C140 on
the more powerful end, 65hp aircraft were more typical - leading
to higher risk mountain and hot weather flying), wake turbulence
wasn't understood and NAVAIDs in many instances simply didn't exist.

Not to mention in 1947, Cessna made more C140s alone than the entire
light plane industry's output in 2003.

The more telling stats is that despite Britain's more regulated aviation
environment, the British accident rate is HIGHER than in the US.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"NW_PILOT" writes:

Take a look at the AOPA Nall report. The accident rates with flight
experience drops until you reach about 2000 hrs, then it starts climbing.
Pilots with greater than 10,000 hours accounted for 10% of all the
accidents.

Maybe they get to relaxed and over confident?

Sigh You can't infer anything from the above numbers. You need
rates, not totals. It's just as likely--moreso, really--that the
high-time pilots fly a disproportionate number of the total GA hours,
so (assuming their accident rate per flight hour is not greatly lower
than the rate for lower-time pilots) they incur a disproportionate
total number of accidents.