How safe is it, really?

It depends mostly on you husband.

Flying much more than most any other endeavor is as safe as the pilot
makes it.

If your husband follows the rules, and doesn't get hit by a drunk
driver on the way to the airport, he will become a very old and happy
pilot,


If he doesn't follow the rules, especially the ones about flying to
low, or bad weather, then perhaps you should strongly recommend he
take up fishing in the kiddie pool instead.

I once did some research into the Phrase "The most dangerous thing
about flying is driving to the airport". If you just look at the
numbers for one hour spent in an airplane vs 1 hour spent in a car.
The odds getting hurt in the airplane are much better. However, If you
eliminate all the accidents where the pilot was flying to low or in
bad weather, then the odds are about the same as getting in an
accident in the car as the are in the airplane. So if you husband
avoids flying low and stays out of bad weather, he is just as likely
to get hurt in the car as he is in the airplane.
disclaimer: this was just my interpretation of the NTSB Statistics,
someone else may come to a different conclusion.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Brian Case
Flight instructor
2500 hrs Single Engine
500 hrs Gliders











(June) wrote in message . com...
I need some information from people 'in the field'. My husband has
his private license and is just starting to work on his IFR for
recreational flying. He wants to buy into a plane partnership, saying
he will be saving money rather than renting.

We have 2 little girls. I worry for his safety as it seems there is
another small plane crash every other time you turn on the news. I
think he should focus on this hobby when the kids are older, not when
he has such a young family.

Your opinions would be appreciated.

It's definitely safe as long as the pilot flies regularly. On the other
hand, kinds are the most important thing. From what I've looked into it,
it's cheaper to rent for the average GA pilot. Only because most likely
something will break and need repaired. If nothing broke then it would
definitely be cheaper to own.
"June" wrote in message
om...
I need some information from people 'in the field'. My husband has
his private license and is just starting to work on his IFR for
recreational flying. He wants to buy into a plane partnership, saying
he will be saving money rather than renting.

We have 2 little girls. I worry for his safety as it seems there is
another small plane crash every other time you turn on the news. I
think he should focus on this hobby when the kids are older, not when
he has such a young family.

Your opinions would be appreciated.




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"Slick" wrote in message ...
It's definitely safe as long as the pilot flies regularly. On the other
hand, kinds are the most important thing. From what I've looked into it,
it's cheaper to rent for the average GA pilot. Only because most likely
something will break and need repaired. If nothing broke then it would
definitely be cheaper to own.

Not really, depends on how much you fly!

I have to put 75 more hours in my Cessna 150 and it will have nearly paid
for itself.

Its been there when I want to fly it you know For them 3:00am sleepless
nights not a problem its there for me,

Weather's bad in the morning not a problem I can fly in the afternoon no
conflicts in schedule.

Machines break it is a given and owned airplanes by responsible people I
believe are safer than rentals.

Want to go fly some place for a week? most rentals have min. daily charges.

Don't like the avionics in the rental? if you own you can make it to your
liking. Ill stop there.

"June" wrote in message
om...
I need some information from people 'in the field'. My husband has
his private license and is just starting to work on his IFR for
recreational flying. He wants to buy into a plane partnership, saying
he will be saving money rather than renting.

We have 2 little girls. I worry for his safety as it seems there is
another small plane crash every other time you turn on the news. I
think he should focus on this hobby when the kids are older, not when
he has such a young family.

Your opinions would be appreciated.


Flying low level isn't risky if done right. I know a part time flight
instructor with over 20,000 hours (that's 833.3 days in the air!) with most
of them low level. He is a pipeline patrol pilot! He's cautious and
understands what to look out for, where the obstacles are and how to handle
emergencys. He flies a Cessna 206 and keeps it up on the maintnance. It's
all about risk management. He flies for 4-5 hours sometimes more a day a few
hundred feet off the ground.

If you choose to belive Richard Collins, in the latest issue of Flying
Magazine, personal flying is about 30 times more dangerous than the
airlines.

wrote

If you choose to belive Richard Collins, in the latest issue of Flying
Magazine, personal flying is about 30 times more dangerous than the
airlines.

I think that I got my figures off by a factor of ten, but I
thought that it was 30 times more dangerous than driving
and infinately more dangerous than the airlines.

I don't have the magazine here with me, but it does address
this topic.

Bob Moore

This thread reminded me of a statistic I heard on the NASA channel on cable
while falling asleep one evening a few weeks ago. Miles O'Brien of CNN was
addressing a NASA risk symposium and he made the comment that if statistical
risks were the media's guide, they would air twenty seven and a half minutes
of stories on the hazards of smoking for every one second devoted to plane
crashes.


I was actually able to find a transcript of the conference using Google.
It's he

http://www.risksymposium.arc.nasa.go...ranscript1.pdf


and here's a little snippet of O'Brien's interesting presentation:


snip
But where else I ask do you find whiners? The media. We are a
bunch of whiners. The media is risk averse but then again we're
everything else averse as well. Kind of the nature of the beast for a
whole host of reasons. Newsrooms attract observers, chroniclers,
malcontents, and chronic complainers. We are as a group professional
skeptics. We are often outright cynics. We look at people, ideas,
philosophies, problems, catastrophes, and calamities, and by nature
and training and years of practice, we reflexively look for the chink in
the armor, the flaws in the logic, the mistakes, the malfeasance, the
masquerades and the manipulators. It's a living, okay?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to rain on my own parade
here. It is an important job, I do believe that, in a Darwinian-
Huxleyesque way. We play a role in our democracy. It's sort of a
natural selection of all that is good and true—or so we like to think.
Now does that mean we're always right? Well, the media is always
accurate, except when it isn't. We've refined this rule, it's now called
the Dan Rather Rule.

In any case, there is a long list of stories we could talk about where the
media has whipped up a frenzy of concern about something that
statistically really wasn't that big a deal after all. Think of the socalled
killers that have been local news, ratings sweep fare. Alar on
the apples, radon in the ground, mold in your basement, shark attacks
on the beach, the nuclear power plant down the street. And as we say
in the newsroom, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Seriously, though, this goes right to the heart of what we do for a
living. People always say to me, why do you focus on shark attacks or
murders or Kobe Bryant when there are so many other pressing issues
that affect so many people? And I say to them, the news business is
about what is news, by definition, then, deaths due to smoking or
accidents on the highway, while a terrible scourge in this country, are
less newsworthy, because sadly they are commonplace, they are
routine.

Seriously, if statistical risks were our guide, we would air twenty
seven and a half minutes of stories on the hazards of smoking for
every one second devoted to plane crashes. Twenty seven and a half
minutes on the hazards of smoking, given the number of deaths to
smoking, versus one second devoted to plane crashes. If you hear
that sound in the distance, that's the noise of a million remotes
clicking over to Fox when we do that twenty seven and a half minutes.
Which brings me to Rule #4: There are statistics, damn statistics, and
then there are stories. With rare exceptions, news stories that deal with
some sort of risky endeavor don't put that risk in any sort of context.
Time is short, although for the life of me in a 24-hour network I never
have understood that, why time is short. But most stories you get this
emotional yin and yang. You have a lead that goes something like
this: Some experts say that the Space Shuttle is a bucket of bolts that
needs to be retired. Others disagree. Back and forth it goes for a few
minutes, and then it's, what's Scott Petersen up to anyway, you know?
It is after all a business, and we are reporting against a tide of short
attention spans attached to twitchy thumbs on those cursed remote
controls. Now this really isn't news. While most of us didn't have
remotes in April of 1970 when Apollo XIII was headed toward the
moon, the man in the audience here in command, the country had
already become blasé about such epic voyages.
Imagine that—a trip to the lunar surface and we are blasé. When CBS
broke into regularly scheduled programming with a bulletin indicating
there was trouble on the spacecraft, and the crew was in great peril,
stations were flooded with calls from angry viewers. Put the show
back on, they demanded. The show incidentally was, Lost in Space.

[Laughter]

Can't make this up, folks. Truth was stranger than fiction that night.
And people chose fiction. Now if NASA had been listening closely at
that moment, they would have heard the unmistakable catch phrase of
the robot, "Danger, Will Robinson, danger." Big trouble above and
beyond the urgent crisis facing Lovell and crew was brewing.

snip

(June) wrote in message . com...
I need some information from people 'in the field'. My husband has
his private license and is just starting to work on his IFR for
recreational flying. He wants to buy into a plane partnership, saying
he will be saving money rather than renting.

We have 2 little girls. I worry for his safety as it seems there is
another small plane crash every other time you turn on the news. I
think he should focus on this hobby when the kids are older, not when
he has such a young family.

Your opinions would be appreciated.

I have been flying for 28 years. My daughter grew up in the back seat
of an airplane. First flew before she was born. She had the
opportunity to see so much more of this country and Mexico than most
kids do growing up. She learned to enjoy life and not be afraid of
every possible thing that "might" happen.
--
Gene Seibel
Hangar 131 - http://pad39a.com/gene/plane.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.

"June" wrote in message
om...
I need some information from people 'in the field'. My husband has
his private license and is just starting to work on his IFR for
recreational flying. He wants to buy into a plane partnership, saying
he will be saving money rather than renting.

We have 2 little girls. I worry for his safety as it seems there is
another small plane crash every other time you turn on the news. I
think he should focus on this hobby when the kids are older, not when
he has such a young family.

Your opinions would be appreciated.

I've got you beat.
I've got 3 little girls, ages 6, 4, and 1 1/2.
I would never do anything I felt would leave them without a father.
Furthermore, I would NEVER put them in harm's way.
I am a private pilot (thinking about instrument), and I just bought my first
plane, and I fly for fun, too.
That being said, I take my girls flying all the time, and they love it.
I only fly in conditions I am comfortable with, especially if I have them
with me.
I have gone up in some yucky conditions, but never dangerous, just bumpy,
and never with the kids.
I steer clear of clouds, and maintain enough altitude to safe land in an
emergency.
I THOROUGHLY inspect my plane before AND AFTER each flight.
If something's not right, I don't fly.
If your husband does these simple things, he will be an extremely safe
pilot, and you and your girls will probably learn to love flying with him.

Best Wishes,

Adam
N7966L
Beech Super III

"mindenpilot" wrote in message
...

"June" wrote in message
om...
I need some information from people 'in the field'. My husband has
his private license and is just starting to work on his IFR for
recreational flying. He wants to buy into a plane partnership, saying
he will be saving money rather than renting.

We have 2 little girls. I worry for his safety as it seems there is
another small plane crash every other time you turn on the news. I
think he should focus on this hobby when the kids are older, not when
he has such a young family.

Your opinions would be appreciated.

I've got you beat.
I've got 3 little girls, ages 6, 4, and 1 1/2.
I would never do anything I felt would leave them without a father.
Furthermore, I would NEVER put them in harm's way.
I am a private pilot (thinking about instrument), and I just bought my
first plane, and I fly for fun, too.
That being said, I take my girls flying all the time, and they love it.
I only fly in conditions I am comfortable with, especially if I have them
with me.
I have gone up in some yucky conditions, but never dangerous, just bumpy,
and never with the kids.
I steer clear of clouds, and maintain enough altitude to safe land in an
emergency.
I THOROUGHLY inspect my plane before AND AFTER each flight.
If something's not right, I don't fly.
If your husband does these simple things, he will be an extremely safe
pilot, and you and your girls will probably learn to love flying with him.

Best Wishes,

Adam
N7966L
Beech Super III


How can you say that you "never put then in harms way" or that you "never
fly in dangerous conditions". You have no idea of whether you are doing
these things or not. I am not trying to say that you are crazy or ignorant,
I just would like to know how you can rationalize those statements with
reality.

Mike
MU-2