...I'm looking for the follow-up after telling someone you're going to fly a homebuilt kit and they look at you with the thought, "THIS GUY HAS A DEATH WISH!"
Thanks in advance for your replies!
Best,
Mike B.
Oakland, CA
Hi Mike. You raise a good questions, and one that 99 percent of people who ask, have no intent to rain on anyone's parade with. There is no easy answer to it generally, if the answer is based on facts. Frankly, the exploration of this question relies not only statistics but mostly on the person and community who will answer it.
What really differentiates the wheat from the chaff in terms of the numbers with safety results (true progress in air safety) is the "system safety" elements in each type of flight operation. "System Safety" is the combination of passive, active and cultural safety elements to create an organizational safety piece required to keep operation underway. It's just as important as any other element that keeps the operation going (like having pilots in seats). With the absence of it, has the capability to put a stop to the operation, until it's back, functionally in place.
Sure, we have design, structural, regulatory and resource safety elements in the larger flight operations specifically known as first world, major airlines. "A big plane won't get taken out by a cloud like a little plane can" says the salesman by the water cooler. (Yes, most of us know about the seriously capable anti and de-icing equipment, highly maintained and well designed multiple redundant autoflight and instrumentation suites, high levels of performance and reliability available from the turbine powerplants, plus 500,000 pounds of inertia and hydraulic flight controls, the structural and aerodynamic design buffers designed into the system, the massive network of system connectivity in personnel selection, training, flight information provided and all other sorts of goodies first world airline ops have aimed to the benefit of any one flight). Sure that's true. AND, the homebuilt pilot that never enters the "dangerous cloud" doesn't need all that army of goodies above. Statistically speaking, the existence of the "dangerous cloud" did not increase risk to the homebuilt to an unacceptable level, since the pilot avoided that type of operation. Yes, the homebuilt still carries a much higher residual risk because of the aircraft itself in terms of design, the pilot himself in terms of training/validation (and other things), but the total system safety was kept to an acceptable level in this case even with that "dangerous cloud" lurking in the distance. It still comes down to the Captain of the ship on the day of the flight. What risks are taken, what sort of safety buffer will be the "bottom line" on that day, for that PIC?
It is certainly true today, unlike even 20 years ago, that flying in a first world major commercial airliner is "confusingly" safe. In fact, in these cases, the safety analogy is: A passenger on one of these airliners faces less chance of fatal injury sitting in that airliner seat for the same period of time than even stepping foot inside their own house for the same period of time. Yes, I said their house. If you chose to live in a house you'll die sooner than living in an airliner, statistically speaking, while taking off, flying and landing constantly. This isn't a race against the airlines vs cars anymore. It's a whole different game today.
How does anyone compete with that? We can't. It's also why the FAA isn't satisfied with the numbers in the homebuilt community. They know we can do better. However, in terms of individual responsibility, we can copy the low hanging fruit, and do MUCH better. The only thing required is the will to do it. The educated and responsible "homebuilt" pilot can certainly pull smartly away from the pack in one's own category of "safety". Sure we can argue the benefit of really living one's life vs passing away never having lived a life... and do that all day... but that's a false logic and avoids the question. It comes down to us. Just reading this thread shows some of us are taking on the question and pulling at the thread to do better.
I'd love to see a "Vans Flight Operations Safety Best Practices" guide out there. Parts of what I have in mind already exist. For example, VAC published
a series of documents here on VAF that cover a really useful training syllabus. Training is a part of safety and would form up part of the responsibility of it but safety also captures a lot of other elements (maintenance, procedural, operational, human factors, etc). I've thought about putting together one of these programs myself for our type of flying. I've done this for GA training facilities, corporate flight departments and larger commercial operations. I've been a pilot for major US/global airlines for 21 years so my exposure is there but it takes a lot of will for individuals to want to be a part of these types of programs. The benefits are obvious but I see a lot of behavior out there in the community that is contrary to a safety mind set. And then you read the accident reports time and time again of behavior that fits the "most wanted" list of how to get one's self into a coffin. So while I think we have it in us as a group to do something with this, I predict it won't be the majority of us who would stay with it, sadly.
How safe is a home built? It starts with the question, "How dedicated to personal accountability am I going to be, what resources for safety do I have, and what professionals are available to help keep me honest along the way?" We all have a part in answering these for the benefit of our homebuilt community. But for us individually? I think at the end of the day the answer could be anything from "fast motorcycle ride in LA" to "travel by automobile" depending on who is answering and on what day they are answering.