JFK Jr.'s mean ol wife

Agreed.

Many pilots, in an attempt to perpetuate the "most dangerous part of flying
is the drive to the airport" myth, feel compelled to condemn unsuccessful
aviators as dolts or statistical outliers for the purpose of assuaging their
potential passengers' fear of flying. While we can remove or control many
of the factors of risk in general aviation, GA statistics are a reflection
of the fact that for miles traveled, or trips taken, GA flying is
considerably deadlier than driving.

Rather than dispelling pilots who crash as fools (which admittedly many are,
read the NTSB reports), let's learn from their mistakes, place ourselves in
their scenarios, and ask ourselves what we'd do in similar circumstances.



"Dan Luke" c172rgATbellsouthDOTnet wrote in message
...
"Orval Fairbairn" wrote:
Just read the ASRS reports to see how these conditions can creep up on
an otherwise proficient pilot and take heed!

Amen.
From a pilot's perspective, one of the most distressing things about that
accident was all the condemnation of JFK from the pilot community, as if
all
these god-like aviators are immune from such an event. That adolescent
illusion of invulnerability gets people killed.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

: Many pilots, in an attempt to perpetuate the "most dangerous part of flying
: is the drive to the airport" myth, feel compelled to condemn unsuccessful
: aviators as dolts or statistical outliers for the purpose of assuaging their
: potential passengers' fear of flying.

Quite true.

:While we can remove or control many
: of the factors of risk in general aviation, GA statistics are a reflection
: of the fact that for miles traveled, or trips taken, GA flying is
: considerably deadlier than driving.

The difference is that in driving, the drunk on the other side of
the road is most likely to kill you. When flying, you get to kill
yourself.

: Rather than dispelling pilots who crash as fools (which admittedly many are,
: read the NTSB reports), let's learn from their mistakes, place ourselves in
: their scenarios, and ask ourselves what we'd do in similar circumstances.

Most of the deadly accidents can be attributed to some form of
poor pilot decision, judgement, competence. It's pretty rare that a wing
falls off, or even that an engine quits outright. Much more often it's
VFR in IMC, fuel starvation, or overloading that gets people killed. It's
unfortunate that arrogance and hubris are typical pilot personality
traits, as these really have no business in aviation.


FWIW
-Cory

--
************************************************** ***********************
* The prime directive of Linux: *
* - learn what you don't know, *
* - teach what you do. *
* (Just my 20 USm$) *
************************************************** ***********************

: Rather than dispelling pilots who crash as fools (which admittedly many
are,
: read the NTSB reports), let's learn from their mistakes, place ourselves
in
: their scenarios, and ask ourselves what we'd do in similar
circumstances.

Most of the deadly accidents can be attributed to some form of
poor pilot decision, judgement, competence. It's pretty rare that a wing
falls off, or even that an engine quits outright. Much more often it's
VFR in IMC, fuel starvation, or overloading that gets people killed. It's
unfortunate that arrogance and hubris are typical pilot personality
traits, as these really have no business in aviation.

True, unfortunately those people are rarely the folks introspectively asking
themselves what they would do in a difficult situation beforehand. The
unfortunate thing about safety seminars are that the people who need them
most will never attend.

Speaking of pilot personality traits, someone on some thread mentioned that
certain personality traits that make people succeed in business are the same
traits that in some cases, kill them in the air. CEOs didn't get to where
they are now by avoiding risks. While good CEO's take calculated risks,
many successful people, with the money to buy more plane than they can
handle, are likely to overestimate their ability, underestimate the risks at
hand, and overestimate the reward of satisfying their passengers and getting
to their destination at a particular time. I'm not insinuating that JFK Jr
fell into this category, but there are plenty of high profile fatalities
were this was a contributing factor.

wrote:
The difference is that in driving, the drunk on the other side of
the road is most likely to kill you. When flying, you get to kill
yourself.

So what? You're still much more liable to get killed flying.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM