Safety, yet again...

"Matt Barrow" wrote:

"Margy Natalie" wrote:


Make sure you add don't fly ...(within 20 miles) of convective weather.

A nice rule, but down here in Thunderstorm Alley it would keep you on the
ground a lot.

http://www.weatherpages.com/variety/thunderstorms.html

Where CBs are an almost daily event 5 months of the year, one has to be a
bit more discriminating about what constitutes a really dangerous storm,
or one's flying will be severely restricted.

Average of 79 days a year? All day? Static?

Most of those 79 are concentrated in summer. There is a morning shift of
CBs and an afternoon shift, and some days they overlap. This sometimes
happens every day for a month. Thunderstorms are my cross to bear; that's
why I think the 396 is the greatest aviation gadget ever.

Not even a 20 mile gap?

I mean there are plenty of days in the summer when you'd have trouble getting
out of Mobile on time if you *insisted* on a 20-mile gap. Even if you did
dart out when you saw an opening, you might then have to land short of your
destination and wait until there was a 20-mile clear path and radius to that
airport. If I had all day to sit around FBOs waiting for just the right
moment, I suppose I wouldn't care.

Most of the summer sea breeze boomers on the Gulf Coast do not need a 20-mile
separation for safety. 10 miles is plenty.

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
Does anyone know how to extract the "stupid pilot trick" fatalities
(I.E.: Running out of gas; Flying into terrain; Buzzing your
girlfriend's house; etc.) from this statistic?

Why would you want to?

Because I'm interesting in *my* probability of dying in a plane crash,
not anyone elses.

Since I:

a) Usually fly with two pilots on board
b) Have a well-oiled cockpit resource management scheme in place
c) Always top off the tanks after each flight
d) Never fly IFR
e) Never fly at night
f) Never "buzz" anyone's house
g) Never skip a pre-flight inspection
h) Personally supervise the maintenance of my plane
i) Don't let anyone else fly my plane
j) Rarely fly in mountains
k) Fly twice per week, on average
l) Maintain excellent health
m) Don't "skate" on maintenance
n) Keep the plane in a locked hangar

...I conclude that I may eliminate many of the "stupid pilot tricks"
from my personal risk assessment.

Trouble is, I don't know how to do that...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I think that your question proves that you are at least thinking about your
safety and risk management which is good (and more than many do). However I
suggest that it might be more useful to concentrate on our personal risk
management rather than attempting a quantified personal risk assessment.

I think that we will agree with the NTSB that most aircraft accidents are
due to pilot error and I would submit that a large portion of those errors
are due to human factors that (being human) we all have to some degree. In
this case suggesting that you are not likely to commit SPT seems to be
indicative of what in human factors training is an example of the hazardous
thought pattern of 'invulnerability'. It is akin to 'it can't happen to
me', and while it may provide us with some comfort I would suggest that it
is the false 'fat, dumb and happy' feeling that comes just before 'oh oh'
and 'oh ****'.

While I am sure that you learned a great deal from your SNF trip I think you
must agree that sections of your trip story were starting to read like an
accident report. We always say that an accident is usually the result of a
cascading chain of events and our task as pilots is to break the chain as
early as possible. I would submit that in this discussion the way to break
the first link in this chain is to admit to ourselves that we are all
capable of SPT.

Here in Canada human factors training is required as part of the PPL, CPL
and the ATPL ground training and I suspect is also required in the US. In
an earlier post John Ousterhout provided a link to a website that seems to
have some very good material http://www.cyberair.tv/tower/faa/jtm/index.html
Transport Canada publishes two excellent books 'Human Factors for Aviation'
'Basic Handbook TP12863E' and 'Advanced Handbook TP12864E' which are the
texts usually used for ground instruction, there is also an instructors
guide but I do not have the cat#. Unfortunately TC is not as enlightened as
the FAA and AFAIK these manuals are not available on the net as our cheap
government expects us to buy them in paper form. While looking for a link
on the TC site I did stumble on this which may be of some interest
http://www.transportcanada.ca/CivilA...tIII/human.htm
http://www.transportcanada.ca/CivilA...rtIII/menu.htm

I would respectfully suggest that you add human factors to your personal
recurrent training program. Like Pogo said "We have seen the enemy and it
is us."

Happy landings,

"John Gaquin" wrote in message
. ..

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message

Does anyone know how to extract the "stupid pilot trick" fatalities
(I.E.: Running out of gas; Flying into terrain; Buzzing your
girlfriend's house; etc.) from this statistic?

Why would you want to? You would then present a false picture of GA,
deliberately skewed to make it appear safer and more responsible than it
truly is.

On that basis, you might want to eliminate the stupid driver trick too, like
DUI, not wearing seat belts etc.

"John Gaquin" wrote in message
. ..

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message

Does anyone know how to extract the "stupid pilot trick" fatalities
(I.E.: Running out of gas; Flying into terrain; Buzzing your
girlfriend's house; etc.) from this statistic?

Why would you want to? You would then present a false picture of GA,
deliberately skewed to make it appear safer and more responsible than it
truly is.

How about sifting out the idiot teenager driver, the old geezer that fell
asleep at the wheel and ran over another car...

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
Gosh, I hate it when formating gets all screwed up like that. Let's
try THIS:

Which is safer flying or driving?

Fatalities per million trips
Airliner (Part 121) 0.019
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
52.6 million to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Automobile 0.130
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
7.6 million to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Commuter Airline (Part 135 scheduled) 1.72
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
581,395 to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Commuter Plane (Part 135 - Air taxi on demand) 6.10
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
163,934 to 1

Fatalities per million trips
General Aviation (Part 91) 13.3
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
73,187 to 1

(Sources: NTSB Accidents and Accident Rates by NTSB Classification
1995-2004 DOT Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) 1995- 2004
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.)

It's pretty obvious that GA is the poor step-child of aviation.

Does anyone know how to extract the "stupid pilot trick" fatalities
(I.E.: Running out of gas; Flying into terrain; Buzzing your
girlfriend's house; etc.) from this statistic?

Since most automobile trips probably are the 10 mile, 35 MPH variety, the
comparison is hard to draw. Hell, what's the rate for auto trips versus
walking to the store? :~)

("Matt Barrow" wrote)
Hell, what's the rate for auto trips versus walking to the store? :~)


A fatality to that one person in America, who still walks to the store,
would skew the numbers as dramatically as the one fatal accident in the
super-safe Concorde program.

http://www.concordesst.com/accident/accidentindex.html
The web page is titled "Accident" .....(singular).


Montblack

Since I haven't been up in the air for over a year now and driving much
much more, does this mean that I've ACTUALLY been taking more risk than
before? :-)

The Monk

Jay Honeck wrote:
Gosh, I hate it when formating gets all screwed up like that. Let's
try THIS:

Which is safer flying or driving?

Fatalities per million trips
Airliner (Part 121) 0.019
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
52.6 million to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Automobile 0.130
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
7.6 million to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Commuter Airline (Part 135 scheduled) 1.72
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
581,395 to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Commuter Plane (Part 135 - Air taxi on demand) 6.10
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
163,934 to 1

Fatalities per million trips
General Aviation (Part 91) 13.3
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
73,187 to 1

(Sources: NTSB Accidents and Accident Rates by NTSB Classification
1995-2004 DOT Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) 1995- 2004
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.)

It's pretty obvious that GA is the poor step-child of aviation.

Does anyone know how to extract the "stupid pilot trick" fatalities
(I.E.: Running out of gas; Flying into terrain; Buzzing your
girlfriend's house; etc.) from this statistic?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

What are you saying? Are you going to start tracking how many times you
have flown, and when you reach the "magic number" you'll stop?

I don't think so.

I think the statistics you have posted provide much more information than
what is typically deduced on face value.

GA IS STATISTICALLY LESS SAFE THAN OTHER COMMON FORMS OF TRANSPORTATION.

Yes, but why is that?

The evidence would seem to be that the aviation industry, as compared with
the automotive industry, has drastically failed at its job of improving and
innovating with respect to flight safety in General Aviation. I think the
reason is because the FAA - the very body of Government that was
instantiated to promote safety in aviation - has left the GA industry in
the dust. Instead of working cooperatively with small airplane
manufacturers to promote safety through improved technology and innovation,
they have made it increasingly difficult to certify innovation and
technology. In fact, I suspect that most GA aircraft that are built today
are no safer than their counterparts from 50 years ago, about the same time
that the FAA came into existence. Most improvements have been in Avionics,
not in safety. The only discernable difference between a 1960s Beech
Bonanza and a 2006 model is the G1000 "Glass Cockpit". Woo hoo...

Think about, on the other hand, what the government, in cooperation with
automakers, has done to improve the Auto Accident statistics over the last
50 years. Fatalities in auto accidents have plummetted so far that auto
insurance companies are complaining that it costs them too much because
most people DON'T die in a car accidents - they were saved by a seatbelt,
airbag, or crumple zone. Improvements and enhancements are added to cars
every year, and while I suspect that overall accident rates haven't been
substantially reduced, most accidents that used to be fatal 50 years ago
are now survived.

The biggest safety innovation in GA aircraft over the last 50 years is the
Cirrus Parachute, which has had questions surrounding it since its
inception. And if I wanted to retrofit my non-cirrus aircraft to include
one, I would have to go through so much red tape with the FAA to do it
legally, I would be substantially safer, but only because I wouldn't be
able to afford to fly anymore afterward.

So every time I look at those statistics, I don't get scared, I get
annoyed.



"Jay Honeck" wrote in news:1145761631.226080.133800
@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Gosh, I hate it when formating gets all screwed up like that. Let's
try THIS:

Which is safer flying or driving?

Fatalities per million trips
Airliner (Part 121) 0.019
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
52.6 million to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Automobile 0.130
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
7.6 million to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Commuter Airline (Part 135 scheduled) 1.72
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
581,395 to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Commuter Plane (Part 135 - Air taxi on demand) 6.10
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
163,934 to 1

Fatalities per million trips
General Aviation (Part 91) 13.3
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
73,187 to 1

(Sources: NTSB Accidents and Accident Rates by NTSB Classification
1995-2004 DOT Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) 1995- 2004
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.)

It's pretty obvious that GA is the poor step-child of aviation.

Does anyone know how to extract the "stupid pilot trick" fatalities
(I.E.: Running out of gas; Flying into terrain; Buzzing your
girlfriend's house; etc.) from this statistic?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article ,
Judah wrote:

The biggest safety innovation in GA aircraft over the last 50 years is the
Cirrus Parachute,

It is not a CIRRUS parachute, it is a Ballistic Recovery Systems (BRS)
parachute. BRS has parachutes already designed and certified for
different makes/models of certified aircraft.

john smith wrote in
news:jsmith-D8F282.18555023042006@network-065-024-007-
027.columbus.rr.com:

In article ,
Judah wrote:

The biggest safety innovation in GA aircraft over the last 50 years
is the Cirrus Parachute,

It is not a CIRRUS parachute, it is a Ballistic Recovery Systems(BRS)
parachute. BRS has parachutes already designed and certified for
different makes/models of certified aircraft.

True, but let's look deeper...

If you want to buy a BRS Parachute System for an Ultralight Aircraft,
thereby not requiring certification or FAA approval, you can buy one
for
as little as $2,200. As you watch the price increase, the price
difference from a 600lb model to an 1800lb model is about equal to
(just
slightly higher than) the increase in weight - about 300%.

Now go from that to the Cessna models, which run $16k and $17k...

2250lbs / 600lbs = 375%, but $15,995 / $2,495 = 640%!
3100lbs / 1050lbs = 295%, but $16,995 / $3,495 = 486%!
3100lbs / 1600lbs = 194%, but $16,995 / $4,095 = 415%!

Basically, the ratios are nearly double for certified systems.

Now why do you think that is? Do you think it's because the systems are
safer when they are put on a Cessna, or do you think it's because of
the
cost of all the red tape required to get the thing certified by the
FAA?


Frankly, I think the BRS is about the only innovative safety system out
there, and it's obvious why...