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#11
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A disturbing statistic
"Michael" wrote in message
oups.com... Gary Drescher wrote: What that suggests is that flying simple planes, maintaining proficiency, and having conservative standards regarding weather adds up to a fatality rate that is only slightly greater than that of driving. If that were truly the way to go, then self-flown business travel would be far more dangerous than personal flying - the planes are generally faster and more complex, and the pilots generally are under pressure to be there on time and will push weather more. But the reality is very different. So I would suggest that while maintaining proficiency may well be important (those who fly for business tend to fly much more than those who only fly for personal reasons) simple planes and conservative standards buy you little if anything. If self-flown business travel is also relatively safe, then there seem to be at least two distinct modes of flying that are safer than the GA average--instructional flying (with novice pilots but with simple planes and conservative standards) and business travel (with more advanced aircraft and more-experienced pilots). --Gary |
#12
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A disturbing statistic
Gary Drescher wrote:
If self-flown business travel is also relatively safe, then there seem to be at least two distinct modes of flying that are safer than the GA average--instructional flying (with novice pilots but with simple planes and conservative standards) and business travel (with more advanced aircraft and more-experienced pilots). I think that's sort of a backwards way of looking at it. It's not that there are safer-than-average GA modes - it's that there is a particularly dangerous mode that drags everything else down, and that mode is personal flying. I think what we need to do is look at what differentiates personal flying from all other forms of GA and figure out what makes it more dangerous, rather than looking at every other form (they're all safer) and figure out why. I think (and of course now that we have departed from statistics into causation this is purely opinion) the problem is twofold - most personal flying is done by people who don't fly enough and don't have a real reason to do it (they have no destination other than up and no mission). In other words, poor proficiency coupled with the wrong mindset. Remember, most accidents are pilot error. Not being focused on what you are doing is a great way to make mistakes - as is doing something only rarely. Most insurance companies will give owners a discount for flying over 100 hours a year, even though this dramatically increases the exposure. They believe the additional proficiency more than offsets the increased exposure, and they are in the business of being right. If we really wanted to improve the accident picture, we would simply require one to fly 100 hours a year to keep the license valid, or take another checkride. I don't favor this because it would kill personal GA - there wouldn't be enough of us to support the infrastructure. Michael |
#13
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A disturbing statistic
A light plane is somewhere in the neighborhood of motorcycle riding, as
far as danger goes. You can double your odds of survival if you avoid VFR into IMC and low-altitude maneuvering. Dane Spearing wrote: I've had many non-pilot friends and co-workers ask, "Is flying a small plane more or less dangerous than driving a car?" |
#14
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A disturbing statistic
I think what we need to do is look at what
differentiates personal flying from all other forms of GA and figure out what makes it more dangerous, rather than looking at every other form (they're all safer) and figure out why. I think the answer is fairly evident: Personal flying is not done often enough by those who do it. This impacts proficiency. Personal flying often involves decisions which are made independent of the weather, making the weather a complicating factor rather than a deciding factor. And since flying is expensive, it is harder to remain proficient. Also, people who fly for personal transportation often fly on longer trips, which are not taken all that often. Contrast this to driving, where trips can be as short as a mile or two, and happen all the time. So, anything that rasies the cost of flying, or makes it more difficult to accomplish a mission by flying, or increases the impact of weather on flying, or discourages flying, will have a component that adversely affects safety. Jose -- "Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter). for Email, make the obvious change in the address. |
#15
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A disturbing statistic
Jose wrote:
I think the answer is fairly evident: Personal flying is not done often enough by those who do it. This impacts proficiency. I buy that. Personal flying often involves decisions which are made independent of the weather, making the weather a complicating factor rather than a deciding factor. But that's even more true of self-flown business flying. There are lots of pilots who only fly for personal reasons that will only fly when the weather is nice - making weather a deciding factor. Those who fly on business rarely do this. And since flying is expensive, it is harder to remain proficient. True. Also, people who fly for personal transportation often fly on longer trips, which are not taken all that often. But wouldn't that be just as true for self-flown business travel? So, anything that rasies the cost of flying, or makes it more difficult to accomplish a mission by flying, or increases the impact of weather on flying, or discourages flying, will have a component that adversely affects safety. I agree. Thus all safety rules are bad - they do all the above. Michael |
#16
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A disturbing statistic
There are so many different ways to be got that I don't think one
can make this assertion. Avoiding scud running is a start. So is running out of fuel. Nobody plans to do these things. Incidentally, among more experienced pilots, most accidents are the result of judgement problems and not basic stick skills. Bill Hale Ron Lee wrote: .... worried. Plus I do not plan on making a mistake that is at the root of most flying fatalities...major pilot error. Ron Lee |
#17
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A disturbing statistic
Personal flying
often involves decisions which are made independent of the weather, making the weather a complicating factor rather than a deciding factor. But that's even more true of self-flown business flying. There are lots of pilots who only fly for personal reasons that will only fly when the weather is nice - making weather a deciding factor. Those who fly on business rarely do this. I was including this kind of business flying as "personal flying". Do the statistics separate it out? Also, people who fly for personal transportation often fly on longer trips, which are not taken all that often. But wouldn't that be just as true for self-flown business travel? Ditto above. So, anything that rasies the cost of flying, or makes it more difficult to accomplish a mission by flying, or increases the impact of weather on flying, or discourages flying, will have a component that adversely affects safety. I agree. Thus all safety rules are bad - they do all the above. Not quite. All (such)safety rules =contain= a bad component. Some of them contain sufficient good component as to outweigh that. However (my point), some safety rules, though they do contain =some= good component, contain more bad component and are a net bad. Jose -- "Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter). for Email, make the obvious change in the address. |
#18
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A disturbing statistic
Jose wrote:
Personal flying often involves decisions which are made independent of the weather, making the weather a complicating factor rather than a deciding factor. But that's even more true of self-flown business flying. There are lots of pilots who only fly for personal reasons that will only fly when the weather is nice - making weather a deciding factor. Those who fly on business rarely do this. I was including this kind of business flying as "personal flying". Do the statistics separate it out? Yes - and it is MUCH safer. So, anything that rasies the cost of flying, or makes it more difficult to accomplish a mission by flying, or increases the impact of weather on flying, or discourages flying, will have a component that adversely affects safety. I agree. Thus all safety rules are bad - they do all the above. Not quite. All (such)safety rules =contain= a bad component. Some of them contain sufficient good component as to outweigh that. I'm not convinced that this is ever true. There are two things that you have to assume about a safety rule to believe the good component outweighs the bad: (1) A significant number of people will comply with the rule only because it is a rule, and not because it is a good idea. Make it merely advisory, and significant numbers of people will not comply. (2) The benefit from the above is sufficiently great that the negative impact on cost, utility, etc. of flying, and the consequent reduction in proficiency, is offset. This can really only happen if the people writing the rules are a lot smarter and/or more knowledgeable about aviation than the people being forced to comply. I've met a lot of airplane owners, and I've met a lot of FAA employees. I'm pretty confident that the opposite is true. However (my point), some safety rules, though they do contain =some= good component, contain more bad component and are a net bad. I can think of plenty of those. I would be interested in a rule you would consider a net good. Please limit to private aviation only (no commercial ops) since that's clearly where the worst safety problems exist. Michael |
#19
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A disturbing statistic
According to the DOT, the motorcycle accident fatality rate for 2002 was 34.0 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled. That's over 20 times the rate for automobiles (1.47 fatalities per 100 million miles)! (see http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd...FatsUpdate.pdf) If we compare it with the aviation accident rate of 1.2 fatalities per 100,000 hours flown, and assume an average GA velocity of 150 mph, this comes to a fatality rate for GA of about 8 fatalities per 100 million miles flown. Thus, motorcycle riding is roughly 4 times more dangerous than flying GA. I feel better now. -- Dane In article .com, wrote: A light plane is somewhere in the neighborhood of motorcycle riding, as far as danger goes. You can double your odds of survival if you avoid VFR into IMC and low-altitude maneuvering. Dane Spearing wrote: I've had many non-pilot friends and co-workers ask, "Is flying a small plane more or less dangerous than driving a car?" |
#20
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A disturbing statistic
In article ,
Jose wrote: I think what we need to do is look at what differentiates personal flying from all other forms of GA and figure out what makes it more dangerous, rather than looking at every other form (they're all safer) and figure out why. I think the answer is fairly evident: Personal flying is not done often enough by those who do it. another viewpoint is: Pilots are not managing the risks. It doesn't matter how often you fly. The pilot that flies within his abilities is going to have less risk than the pilot that flies beyond his abilities. bottomline: it's not about total hours, it's about risk management. -- Bob Noel Looking for a sig the lawyers will hate |
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