Van's article on Safety

[panhandler1956]

Anti-Authority: "Don't tell me!" - When people have this attitude they may resent having someone tell them what to do or they think of rules and regs as silly or unneeded.

Impulsivity: "Do something quickly!" - This is what people do when they feel the need to do something, anything and now. Usually they do the first thing that pops into their mind.

Invulnerability: "It won't happen to me!" - Accidents happen only to other people. Thinking this may lead to taking more unnecessary risks.

Macho: "I can do it!" - These guys we all know. Trying to prove that they are better than anyone else and taking more risks. Both sexes are susceptible to this attitude.

Resignation: "What's the use?" - These people think that they do not make a great deal of difference in what happens to them. When things are going well they think: "Good luck". And when things are not so well, they seem to think that someone is out to get them.


John Clark ATP, CFI
FAA FAAST Team Member
EAA Flight Advisor
RV8 N18U "Sunshine"
KSBA

Uh oh, I resemble some of those remarks...Maybe some introspection is in order.
Excellent John!

 

[WhiskeyMike]

Anti-Authority: "Don't tell me!" - When people have this attitude they may resent having someone tell them what to do or they think of rules and regs as silly or unneeded

Most of the rules and regs ARE silly and unneeded. By in large a big PITA…

Impulsivity: "Do something quickly!" - This is what people do when they feel the need to do something, anything and now. Usually they do the first thing that pops into their mind.

Why waste time dithering…we are men (sorry ladies!) so let’s be decisive…

Invulnerability: "It won't happen to me!" - Accidents happen only to other people. Thinking this may lead to taking more unnecessary risks.

Well, it hasn’t happened to me yet! I think that speaks for itself…

Macho: "I can do it!" - These guys we all know. Trying to prove that they are better than anyone else and taking more risks. Both sexes are susceptible to this attitude.

I regularly amaze myself with what I can do…

Resignation: "What's the use?" - These people think that they do not make a great deal of difference in what happens to them. When things are going well they think: "Good luck". And when things are not so well, they seem to think that someone is out to get them.

But what’s the use flogging this safety issue…what will be will be…

So let’s talk about something different….how about the calendar… what’s the date today?

 

[Ron Lee]

"Macho: "I can do it!" - These guys we all know. Trying to prove that they are better than anyone else and taking more risks. Both sexes are susceptible to this attitude.

I regularly amaze myself with what I can do…"

Being amazed at what you can do is nice. I am just good so what might amaze others is just the norm to me.

Back to the safety issue. You can get the AOPA Nall reports here:

http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/nall.html

Subsequent post(s) verify that I misread the table/statistics discussed below. Original text retained as a reminder of my one verified mistake in 2011

In the 2009 report, Figure 49, page 32 we see that 54.5% of the fatalities (or fatal accidents) are due to weather; 22.2% due to fuel management and 14.3% to mechanical. This is 91% of the fatal events. So transition training is the #1 solution?

I am neither a podiatrist nor a safety expert, but this seems out of whack. Granted, transition training ought to be easily accessible (see my previous post on that). But go after the major problem areas.

Am I out of touch with reality with having a goal that the RV community become the safest group around?

Why the he** are people running out of gas or running into bad weather?

Then I hear that some DARs will do the inspection and not even look at the plane. Who gives a rat's derriere about perfect FAA paperwork compared to making sure that the things on the plane that can kill you are acceptable?

I for one am tired of reading about RV pilots killing themselves and passengers.

 

[Ron Lee]

I just scanned AC 90-109. Paragraph 2b has this assertion:

"The predominant factor in experimental airplane fatal accidents is pilot performance, particularly in the transition phase to an unfamiliar airplane."

Yet if you read the statistics from the Nall report in my previous post, 91% of the fatal accidents are due to other factors. These appear to be nontrivial contradictory facts/assertions.

 

[Chino Tom]

Kitplanes May 2011

Two very good articles in the latest Kitplanes (May 2011) on this topic.
"Safety is no Accindent" by Ron Wanttaja and "Pilot Proficiency" by
Doug Rozendaal. Both worth the look. We have to do better.

 

[RV8R999]

Those percentages are Lethality Percent or the number of fatal accidents in a certain category as a function of total accidents in that category not a % of the total accidents.

Mechanical, Landing and Other contributed to the highest number of total accidents for EB aircraft in the 2009 report, same for 2008.

Landing, Maneuvering, Take Off and Climb were highest in 2007 and again in 2006.

So yes, I'd say training will certainly help.

 

[John Clark]

Somebody understands...

So let?s talk about something different?.how about the calendar? what?s the date today?

Thanks Bill, I needed that!

John Clark ATP, CFI
FAA FAAST Team Member
EAA Flight Advisor
RV8 N18U "Sunshine"
KSBA

 

[B25Flyer]

Reading, discussing, and writing about what other people need to do to improve safety misses the point. And it doesn't improve safety. Safety will improve only when each of us looks in the mirror and commits to change our personal behaviors that contribute to the problem.

If you believe that there's nothing you (I) can do to improve, then you are in a dream world.

This forum is a great place to shine daylight on our problem areas, but unless behaviors change, safety won't.

If we always do what we always did, we always get what we always got.... What we got is way too many dead friends...

All of us can do better... and still have fun... cause burying our buddies isn't fun.

 

[pierre smith]

I've tried to butt out...

...but I can't any more.

I have a dead boss who flew his Bearcat to fuel exhaustion on final into the ground at Flagstaff, Arizona. This man flew C-47's during the Berlin airlift after WWII and taught primary in AT-6's in the Army air corps.

I have also given transition training to guys who went home and flew off short grass runways after my admonition to not do so until they've flown 20 hours or so from a nearby, longer, paved runway. Needless to say, he went over on his back shortly after he left here, trying to land on that short, grass strip, with an RV needing a rebuild.

I've discovered long ago, that it's almost impossible to teach judgement skills
to hard-headed individuals who are going to do things their way, regardless of the advice given them.

Doug hits the nail on the head when he mentions behavioral change and that's only going to change with an improved attitude and a little more humility to listen to sage advice given by guys who've learned lessons the hard way.

Am I preaching to the choir?

Best,

 

[Alan Carroll]

In the 2009 report, Figure 49, page 32 we see that 54.5% of the fatalities (or fatal accidents) are due to weather; 22.2% due to fuel management and 14.3% to mechanical. This is 91% of the fatal events. So transition training is the #1 solution?

This is kind of a confusing figure because it mixes several different things on the same graph.

My read of the numbers of accidents (as opposed to lethality) on this graph would be:

All accidents:
Mechanical 21.8%
Fuel 4.0%
Weather 4.9%
Takeoff/climb 11.1%
Maneuvering 7.6%
Descent/approach 6.2%
Landing 20%
Other 24.4%

Fatal accidents:
Mechanical 11.5%
Fuel 3.3%
Weather 9.8%
Takeoff/climb 11.5%
Maneuvering 23.0%
Descent/approach 11.5%
Landing 0.0%
Other 29.5%

Mechanical, fuel, and weather together account for 30.7% of all accidents, and 24.6% of the fatals. Takeoff/climb, maneuvering, descent/approach, and landing are 49.3% of the total, 46% of the fatals.

 

[Ron Lee]

I misread the chart big time. My bad. In some ways that is good. For example, fuel management is a minor causal factor for fatalities. Weather is far lower than I thought...also good.

But is raises the question why so many in maneuvering phases and the "other" category?

 

[Alan Carroll]

But is raises the question why so many in maneuvering phases and the "other" category?

Good question. From earlier sections of the report "other" seems to be a grab-bag that includes incapacitation, collisions, bird strikes, etc., and "cause unknown". I'd guess that maneuvering includes aerobatics gone bad, buzz jobs, etc.

 

[John Clark]

Manuvering

This is a quote from the Nall Report under Maneuvering:

"Some of the accident maneuvers (such as turns in the airport traffic pattern)
were necessary but poorly executed. Others were risky activities like buzzing attempts, low-altitude night flights,
or attempted aerobatics by untrained pilots and/or in unapproved aircraft. Most were initiated at low altitudes,
giving the pilots little time or room to respond if anything went wrong."

Rather clear to me...

John Clark ATP, CFI
FAA FAAST Team Member
EAA Flight Advisor
RV8 N18U "Sunshine"
KSBA

 

[pkill]

One Safety thing we like do here is to read the NTSB Accident Reports, then we try to think of what we could have done to prevent each one.

NTSB Accident Database link: By just entering the Model only, RV-7A in our case, RV-7A accidents pop up.
http://www3.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/index.aspx


We saw an RV once with a big Dymo Label across the top of the panel which read

DON?T DO ANYTHING STUPID

Seemed like good advice.

Paul

 

[Mile High Relic]

Reading, discussing, and writing about what other people need to do to improve safety misses the point. And it doesn't improve safety. Safety will improve only when each of us looks in the mirror and commits to change our personal behaviors that contribute to the problem.

If you believe that there's nothing you (I) can do to improve, then you are in a dream world.

Bravo. I agree 100%

We sometimes see other pilots out there that may benefit from a nudge in the right direction, but I say focus on what you can change the most, and that is yourself. Collectively, we are the problem. I can't directly fix or improve the entire collection of A-B pilots, but I absolutely can and do work on improving myself.

But is raises the question why so many in maneuvering phases and the "other" category?

I don't recall ever seeing this brought up, but I have to believe some of the manuevering accidents could be avoided if all A-B planes had stall warning devices.

I was a 1/3 partner in a 6A several years ago. One of the co-owners became exactly the kind of awful statistic we are talking about. A newish owner in a maneuvering accident. A stall/spin base to final, with two fatalities.

Personally, I have had a stall warning sound unexpectedly a couple times in 500 hours. It is an eye opener. If that 6A would have had a stall horn or an AOA, my opinion is that there would be two fewer widows in the world today.

 

[MauiLvrs]

Am I out of touch with reality with having a goal that the RV community become the safest group around?

Why the he** are people running out of gas or running into bad weather?

No...
and
That is really good question.
With in cockpit weather and accurate fuel flow measurement, how do ya run outa gas.

Guess the must not be thinking "where am I going to land" when they are down to an hours fuel...

60% of the accidents are runnin outa gas and flyin into a mountain tryin to sneak under the clouds.

Duh ... DON"T DO THAT...

Oh and maneuvering close to the ground another 30%.

 

[Sam Buchanan]

60% of the accidents are runnin outa gas and flyin into a mountain tryin to sneak under the clouds.

Duh ... DON"T DO THAT...

Oh and maneuvering close to the ground another 30%.

The Kool-Aid is potent stuff......after we have gotten away with it a couple of times..........

 

[Caveman]

Dead Men Walking

From the NTSB database since 2002 - a quick 30 minute search
Kept it simple
Criteria: model-RV, Injury severity-fatal:

Number of people killed in RV's -211
Number of fatal accidents - 152
Phase of flight of fatal accidents:
Appch. 13
Climb 0
cruise 16
descent 5
landing 5
manuevering 46
Take-off 28
IMC 14
VMC 133

Many of these were piloted by very experienced people. Some ex military and some professional airline. Are you better than they? I'm not. Until we look in the mirror and say "There but for the grace of God go I" and then do what we can to lower our risk, RV's will continue to kill people at a higher rate then spam cans. Remember when Bonanzas were known as Dr. killers? Those of you my age probably do. Do you think Bonanza's are bad airplanes? I don't. Do you think Dr.s are stupid? (You can't fix stupid). I don't. The problem is not a low I.Q., people. Don't be #212. Wake up and listen to Van! Help keep me from doing stupid things and I'll try and help keep you. Learn from those we respect. Look at the stats above again. Are we running out of gas-not often. Are we making bad weather decisions (IMC) -I'd say so. Are we hot dogging (manuevering) - looks like it. Off the podium. Respectfully - Joe

 

[Alan Carroll]

From the NTSB database since 2002 - a quick 30 minute search
Kept it simple
Criteria: model-RV, Injury severity-fatal:

Number of fatal accidents - 152

I think this number is the total RV fatal accidents (since 1970s), not the number since 2002. I added up the accidents since 1975 and got the same number.

Either way the number is way too high; 152 equals about 2% of the fleet! One in 50 RV's has ended up in a fatal crash, a very sobering thought.

 

[Tonard Bales]

Cross Country + New Airplane = Potential Disaster

I read a write up somewhere recently about a VFR only Private Pilot flying a newly purchased RV coast to coast solo. He describes the loss of a flight instrument, scud running, barely missing an antenna farm as well as flying "on top" for the first time. Do we really have to wonder how some accidents happen?

 

[Sam Buchanan]

I read a write up somewhere recently about a VFR only Private Pilot flying a newly purchased RV coast to coast solo. He describes the loss of a flight instrument, scud running, barely missing an antenna farm as well as flying "on top" for the first time. Do we really have to wonder how some accidents happen?

You have raised valid points and I don't know why your post was deleted from the other thread. Your observation is one that many of us can identify with because we have put ourselves in dangerous (stupid) situations....and gotten away with it. Fortunately most of us have learned from those experiences, matured as aviators, and are much less likely to repeat those lapses of knowledge and judgment.

I know in the early days of my RV traveling I made some decisions during xcounty flights that put me within an engine problem, moment of disorientation, or weather entrapment of becoming a statistic and fodder for one of those articles in the magazines. Fortunately, I managed through either skill or blind luck avoiding that flight being my last.

Your point was well made, I hope all of us can learn from it, especially the pilots who are just now beginning their exploration of the wonderful capabilities of our planes.

 

[Ironflight]

I know in the early days of my RV traveling I made some decisions during xcounty flights that put me within an engine problem, moment of disorientation, or weather entrapment of becoming a statistic and fodder for one of those articles in the magazines. Fortunately, I managed through either skill or blind luck avoiding that flight being my last..

What's that old statement..."Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes form making bad judgments..."? Unfortunately, I have never found a way for people to push the edges of their judgment envelope without putting them right on the edge, and occasionally having them operate in the gray area where they might or might not fall over. You can tell a person "don't scud run in low visibility or you might run in to an uncharted tower", but until they experience the fear that comes from seeing a tower loom up when they weren't paying attention, it is hard to make that lesson stick.

I have spent decades being trained in all sorts of emergencies in simulations, and that works - it works very well. But most private aviators don't have that advantage, and learn out "in the real world". Lectures don't work, reading books doesn't work ("buy 'em books, send them to school, and they eat the covers...") - experience has to be gained somehow. Pushing the envelope with caution and an understanding of your retreat capabilities seems to be a good way to build experience.

Yup - I have been there on a long cross-country as an inexperienced VFR pilot (decades ago), learning the lessons that come wit getting out in the real world. Some of those experiences I would rather not repeat, but I sure am glad that I have the experience that came from being in those situation - because they keep me from wanting to go there again.

Bottom line - I don't berate a person for learning a few lessons the hard way. I don't write a letter to the editor of Flying every month because someone honestly admitted their trepidation, mistakes, and foibles in "I Learned about Flying From That". I applaud those who share the experiences that might make others take pause. Fundamentally, it is bad judgment that kills more people in aviation than anything else. Let's do a better job learning to make good judgments!

Paul

 

[Caveman]

What's that old statement..."Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes form making bad judgments..."? Unfortunately, I have never found a way for people to push the edges of their judgment envelope without putting them right on the edge, and occasionally having them operate in the gray area where they might or might not fall over. You can tell a person "don't scud run in low visibility or you might run in to an uncharted tower", but until they experience the fear that comes from seeing a tower loom up when they weren't paying attention, it is hard to make that lesson stick.

I have spent decades being trained in all sorts of emergencies in simulations, and that works - it works very well. But most private aviators don't have that advantage, and learn out "in the real world". Lectures don't work, reading books doesn't work ("buy 'em books, send them to school, and they eat the covers...") - experience has to be gained somehow. Pushing the envelope with caution and an understanding of your retreat capabilities seems to be a good way to build experience.

Yup - I have been there on a long cross-country as an inexperienced VFR pilot (decades ago), learning the lessons that come wit getting out in the real world. Some of those experiences I would rather not repeat, but I sure am glad that I have the experience that came from being in those situation - because they keep me from wanting to go there again.

Bottom line - I don't berate a person for learning a few lessons the hard way. I don't write a letter to the editor of Flying every month because someone honestly admitted their trepidation, mistakes, and foibles in "I Learned about Flying From That". I applaud those who share the experiences that might make others take pause. Fundamentally, it is bad judgment that kills more people in aviation than anything else. Let's do a better job learning to make good judgments!

Paul

Paul, that has been my experience as well. I agree with all your points. We need to widen our envelope at a very cautious pace.

I'm fairly convinced that one of the reasons I've survived my totally non professional flying hobby is that from about 1982 through 1996 I didn't feel like I could afford to rent often enough to stay current and safe. I quit flying and in the meantime I raised a family and worked at my career. This gave me time to develop a maturity and different outlook on life that I didn't even know I lacked.

I never gave up on avaition and I went for occasional flights with friends and read the magazines. One day I woke up and realized that I owned a nice boat and travel trailer and I was crashing R/C planes with frequency. I realized that "you know I could probably sell all this stuff and get into a flying club and be doing what I really want to do" and still have money for food.

By then I had learned a lot from flying R/C planes that no full size airplane instructor was capable of conveying to my pea sized brain. "Ahhh, so that's why that grouchy instructor said that an aft c.g. was dangerous", he's says while picking up his $600 worth of balsa wood splinters. Crashing those models and giving myself time to mature judgementally likely saved my bacon.

The person talked about in the coast to coast flight bared his soul and freely admitted he made mistakes. He had already learned the lesson. Publically berating him will only discourage him and others from opening up in the future. I was going to post a story about going to Monument Valley but now I'm not sure I want to. I made some mistakes and I've been flying a long time now.

Joe

 

[Pat Stewart]

Transition Training

As this thread has stated you cant fix stupid however each significant accident type should be addressed. This comment is about how to minimize accidents during the Phase 1 flight testing. The FAA rule that does not allow a passenger should be eliminated. I would suggest that a passenger should be allowed as long as that passenger has at least 100 hours in type. The passenger need not be a CFI. I also believe transition training in type prior to the first flight be required, something like five hours with a CFI. There are lots of new RV pilots that would fly most of their test period with a buddy who owns the same type if it were legal.

My 2 cents

Pat Stewart

 

[Tonard Bales]

God is my Co-Pilot

"There is no substitute for actual experience".

"You can't learn to ride a bike by reading about it".

"Every once in a while you have to come back to the pits with just the steering wheel in your hand" - Mario Andretti

All of the above have the same meaning, that is, one needs to push the envelope to develop skills. Let's be honest, every flight presents a certain amount of risk. (I admit that I say a prayer before engine start up and my key fob has a religious "tone"). With that said, unlike Mario Andretti's race car, one of the wonderful qualities of most airplanes is they have dual controls. Why waste them? The value of a safety pilot cannot be overstated. Having another skilled aviator next to me always makes the flight safer and more enjoyable. At the very least I have another set of eyes looking for traffic. At best I have someone who can take over if I suffer a sudden illness or just want to "take a break". The majority of my cross country flights are with another pilot. It gives me a chance to fly under the hood or do some other airwork. If we land somewhere I welcome the opportunity to let my buddy fly from the left seat on the return trip while I enjoy seeing the sights. If I am ever fortunate enough to have the opportunity to fly my newly purchased bird cross country you can bet I will have a "second" co-pilot for the whole trip.

 

[Buggsy2]

I have not looked at the statistics so I can only guess where the accidents are occurring....

...a series of articles by Ron Wantaja on the accident records of various popular lines of kit aircraft. He does a good job of laying the data out ....

I haven't read every post in this thread...so my thoughts might already be expressed here.

The two quotes above touch on one notion: before we think up solutions, shouldn't we understand the problem better? That is, we know What: that Experimental AB aircraft have a higher accident rate than certificated aircraft. Do we know Why? There are probably several significant reasons and a review of the NTSB reports should reveal the patterns. Sounds like Ron W. has done that or at least it is a good start.

Only after knowing the patterns of failure can we develop potential solutions to change the patterns.

Second, maybe it's time to develop some categories in between Certificated and Experimental. For instance, I don't consider myself a true experimenter. I'm closer to an assembler of a kit plane, and I find the closer I stick to the plans and instructions, the better my build is. Then you have the true experimenters who can build and modify a plans-built aircraft with confidence. Then you have those who hire someone to build their kit plane for them, they just want to fly it.

I would like to see the true experimenters left with as few restrictions as possible. The kit assemblers, like me, some more guidelines or restrictions. The hired guns, yet closer to LSA or certificated standards.

OK, that won't happen, or at least not soon. But maybe we should begin towards that? I know I'm not the first one to say this.

 

[jrs14855]

categories

Looking at the FAA website under Experimental preliminaries for just the last ten days I found the following:
Gulfstream 650 fatal
Yak 52 fatal-airshow
T28 landed short of runway
There was a ground collision between a GP4 and a Bearhawk with minor damage
A gear up in a Glasair
The Lancair fatal
Most of the rest, 17 total, are what I describe as fringe airplanes, for lack of a better description. Rans, Honey Bee rotor, VP1 etc.
Question- is the administrator using Yak 52, Sukhoi, Gulfstream 650 etc to make a case against homebuilts?? I don't know the answer and wonder if anyone including the FAA knows.
IF THEY ARE then we need a number of new categories. If the FAA is using "fender benders" to make a case against homebuilts, then they are on a "witch hunt". The FAA has a number of ongoeing 'witch hunts", a solution in search of a problem if you will, in progress as we speak.

 

[Caveman]

I'm not sure about a witch hunt but I do believe it is not fair to lump all experimentals together. Case in point is the high fatality rate of the airshow pilots. How many of those are flying stock certified airplanes? Even the Extras and Edges are usually sporting hopped up engines. I'd wager these crashes skew the results towards the bad side.

I do think you can go back to the NTSB database and run an RV limited query and have enough information to scare ourselves silly. We've lost two hundred of our rank and file in 9 years and we think flying is safer than driving. We need to admit that we, or at least the majority of us, (including myself) are average pilots flying high performance airplanes and if we don't use good judgement we have a high likelyhood of taking ourselves and perhaps a friend or loved one out of this life early.

One point that I feel that I am in the minority on in this forum. I believe that we get so carried away with extolling the virtues of the RV series that we encourage very low time pilots to hop in them, get their license in them, and give the impression that they are mild mannered and easy to fly. Well kinda. Even the RV-9 though with all of its great low speed landing characteristics can get you in trouble in a hurry due to its astounding speed while flying cross country and into bad weather. Now the 12 is a different beast.

A Skyhawk or Cherokee gives you more time than the RV's unless you are smart enough to pull that "GO KNOB" back and slow down. Cross country training is in my estimation where most new pilots fall short. They just don't have enough of it to experience the different challenges that come up. They have to learn the hard way. I'd like to see people get 100 hours of low performance cross country before moving up.

Another problem I see is that the airplanes are so danged fun to fly that there is a nearly irrisistible urge to yank and bank, loop and roll, and do low level screaming passes. I am as guilty as the next guy to succumbing to this phenomenon. After all isn't that why we bought these things? To look cool and have fun?

I'm not trying to be a kill joy, I'm just trying to foster that little voice in everyone's head that might say, before I do this, maybe I'd better get more training or watch out for those low flying birds when I'm 200 mph 10 ft. off the deck or let's go up a couple thousand feet before we try this roll.

 

[Kyle Boatright]

One point that I feel that I am in the minority on in this forum. I believe that we get so carried away with extolling the virtues of the RV series that we encourage very low time pilots to hop in them, get their license in them, and give the impression that they are mild mannered and easy to fly. Well kinda. Even the RV-9 though with all of its great low speed landing characteristics can get you in trouble in a hurry due to its astounding speed while flying cross country and into bad weather. Now the 12 is a different beast.

A Skyhawk or Cherokee gives you more time than the RV's unless you are smart enough to pull that "GO KNOB" back and slow down. Cross country training is in my estimation where most new pilots fall short. They just don't have enough of it to experience the different challenges that come up. They have to learn the hard way. I'd like to see people get 100 hours of low performance cross country before moving up.

I agree, you're in the minority! At least on this point.

IMO, the X/C speed of the RV is a huge safety benefit. It allows you to get a weather brief, check the radar, launch, and actually go a pretty good distance before the weather has enough time to change radically.

Also, the speed and altitude capabilities allow you to get up high and visually identify (and detour around) isolated thunderboomers on summer X/C's.

As far as these airplanes encouraging people to do dumb things like low altitude maneuvers. I agree. Buzzing over your buddy's cookout at 200 mph and 50' above roof height, then pulling up into a climbing roll is a heck of a temptation. One I've resisted for over 10 years...

 

[jrs14855]

accidents

Joe, I agree with most of what you're saying. The Yak 52 airshow accident was an Experimental EXIBITION category aircraft.
definitely not a homebuilt. The vast majority of Airshow aircraft are Experimental Exhibition. The Reno racers may be Experimental Exhibition or they may be Amateur Built.
I don't think the loss of 200 RV's out of 6000 plus is significant. Yes it would be nice if the accident rate were zero, but that is not going to happen.
Out of the first 1000 Bonanzas, 100 crashed. Most accidents were weather related.
Out of the first 100 Lears 10 crashed. Many of the Lear accidents were 200 knot piston pilots trying unsucessfully to fly a 450 knot jet. The airlines had similar problems in the early jet days.
Van has lost two airplanes that I can think of, one to weather, one to aerobatics.

 

[gereed75]

I have been following this thread closely and thinking very hard about how to make a constructive contribution. I am heartened that the thread has made 8 pages. It is an important and serious topic. I am very concerned about the message Van is sending, and as I read and re-read it, I see us doing all of the things in this thread that Van says we do -rationalize, de-construct the data, point fingers etc. While we do that, the fun police are sharpening their swords.

One of the points that Van discusses is the wide gulf between the controls in place on the "professional" side, and the number of controls that exist on "our" side. As an ex-military pilot, I am maybe more cognizant of that gap than others without that experience. I think that it is an important point. The gap is HUGE!!!!!

Pilots on the "professional" side (military and commercial), generally have lengthy periods of intense training, before becoming pilots and periodically during their careers. They operate professionally and painstakingly designed, built and maintained aircraft with 100's of hours of test and maintenance per flight hour. They fly in conformance to a myriad of regulations, SOP's, policies, manuals and local rules. They study constantly to maintain knowledge of those requirements and train and practice and train and practice. They do so under the careful supervision of standardization pilots, and check pilots, and flight leaders, and senior captains and line check pilots, LSO's, safety departments, flight surgeons etc etc. They are tested and checked constantly as to their proficiency and knowledge. Their decision making is constantly scrutinized, MOST CLOSELY BY PEERS!

Pilots on "our" side... well I think you get the point.

And don't kid yourself, we engage is flying activities that are just as risky, in some cases more so. Just peruse a standard day on the forums (or do a quick You-tube search) - first flight's, acro flights, buzz jobs, post maintenance test flights, airframe and system alterations, operations out of short grass strips, formation flights, Vne + excursions, alternate engines, alternate fuels, races etc etc etc.

What Van is saying is that we have to begin taking steps to close the gap between what the pro's do and what we do. If we don't, those who suspect we are having way too much dangerous and unsupervised fun, are already making plans to do it.

So what can we do?? A lot!! As said before, there is much "low hanging fruit". I suggest that we look at organizing an RV safety organization, probably in the form of a committee (something along the lines of Stu McCurdy’s FFI program). A worthy first objective might be to write a real and meaningful Safety and Emergency Procedures section for inclusion in that otherwise rarely used POH we all have. A section based on sound actual aircraft performance numbers and standardized emergency procedures. Something we could all train to every once in a while when we go to get our $100.00 hamburger. One that answers questions like "at what altitude is it prudent to make a safe return to a takeoff runway without augering in??"

That might lead to a voluntary recurrent safety course and training syllabus, and that might lead to other benny's like lower insurance rates for attendees and maybe even less dead RV'ers. And maybe no fun police.

Ron's goal of having the RV community be the safest in aviation is a great and worthy one. We might even have some fun along the way.

 

[B25Flyer]

The statistic reported here is 211 fatalities in 152 fatal accidents in 10 years over a fleet of 6000 airplanes....

If true, that is 2% of the RV pilots in 10 years.... That means 1 in 50 RV pilots will die every 10 years....

Does anyone really believe that is an acceptable loss rate?

I am not having a good year.... Amanda Younkin-Franklin is a very close friend of mine... She is alive, but she is in a really tough place... The Navy F-18 pilot that crashed at Lemoore, Matt Lowe, flew formation on my wing in Feb. One of the flight test engineers, Reece Ohllenburg, on the G-650 was from here and my wife worked with his sisters. Danny Sommers who crashed in the Skyraider in Utah spent the night here with me a few years back and while it would not be accurate to call him a close friend, but i knew him. All of these are in the last month....

We are not talking about 211 strangers, we are talking about our friends, neighbors, and hangar buddies. People lost their dads, moms, husbands, wives, kids, friends, and bosses. Lives of the remaining were destroyed when families, college savings accounts, and business were devastated by the loss of these people and the lawsuits that resulted.

I could go on, but I have witnessed first hand the devastation of families, and businesses, that occur as a result of an airplane crash.

I am sorry, but 211 fatal accidents in 10 years is not an acceptable statistic. We can do better....

That starts by looking at ourselves in the mirror, not pointing out all the faults of others.... And then committing to change our personal behaviors that contribute to the well understood reasons why our airplanes crash.....

Whether it is raising our weather standards, doing better preflights, not stretching fuel, stop buzzing, unauthorized low level acro, getting proper type specific training before a first flight, or committing not to turn back after an engine failure after take-off... The reasons why we crash are really well understood. Very little additional research is needed...

What is needed is a personal commitment to change our high risk behaviors....

 

[pierre smith]

Let's start..

, ......So what can we do?? A lot!! As said before, there is much "low hanging fruit". I suggest that we look at organizing an RV safety organization, probably in the form of a committee (something along the lines of Stu McCurdy?s FFI program). A worthy first objective might be to write a real and meaningful Safety and Emergency Procedures section for inclusion in that otherwise rarely used POH we all have. A section based on sound actual aircraft performance numbers and standardized emergency procedures. Something we could all train to every once in a while when we go to get our $100.00 hamburger. One that answers questions like "at what altitude is it prudent to make a safe return to a takeoff runway without augering in??"

That might lead to a voluntary recurrent safety course and training syllabus, and that might lead to other benny's like lower insurance rates for attendees and maybe even less dead RV'ers. And maybe no fun police.

Ron's goal of having the RV community be the safest in aviation is a great and worthy one. We might even have some fun along the way.

......



Very well said Ron and Doug.

To that end, I'll volunteer to start serving on a committee, with nearly 20,000 hours in a whole bunch of stuff and no accidents/violations on record.

Best,

 

[Ron Lee]

I am in too. Who else?
Pierre Smith
B25Flyer?
Gereed75?

I probably missed others who can help.

Is there a way to get a small group together on a telecon to brainstorm the multiple facets and approaches. Perhaps within a week.

 

[Alan Carroll]

the numbers

Below are the actual numbers of fatal accidents from the NTSB database, sorted by model. This table goes back to 1975 (not just the last 10 years as previously stated), and it lists accidents rather than total fatalities.

These data appear to show that the chance of a fatal accident increases with flight hours and/or airframe age. The RV-6/6As, which have been around since the late 1980s, have experienced a fatal accident rate of 2.4%. In contrast, the newer RV-7/7As stand at 1.0%. This is what you would expect to see as a result from the accumulated exposure to risks over time.

A case might also be made that the tandem airplanes have a worse history than the side-by-sides. The RV-4 has a higher fatal accident rate than the RV-6/6A, and the RV-8/8A is slightly higher than the RV-7/7A. Maybe due to more aerobatics, formation flight, etc in the tandem airplanes?



[URL="

 

[gereed75]

Yes I'm in. Gotta run right now but I will PM everyone who expresses an interest.

G Reed

 

[Caveman]

Ron I sent you and Pierre a PM.

 

[Ron Lee]

Until it changes, just PM or email me your name, email address, phone number and time zone and I will gather the info. Will plan on an initial brainstorming telecon (if anyone knows how to do that among multiple people) in the coming week.

Also indicate which evenings (and time) in the coming week work for you.

ronlee at pcisys dot net

 

[B25Flyer]

I am willing to participate, and I have access to a free conference call system.

Doug Rozendaal

 

[panhandler1956]

Me too

Guys,
Count me in, I think I could make a contribution.

 

[dmaib]

One of the points that Van discusses is the wide gulf between the controls in place on the "professional" side, and the number of controls that exist on "our" side. As an ex-military pilot, I am maybe more cognizant of that gap than others without that experience. I think that it is an important point. The gap is HUGE!!!!!

Pilots on the "professional" side (military and commercial), generally have lengthy periods of intense training, before becoming pilots and periodically during their careers. They operate professionally and painstakingly designed, built and maintained aircraft with 100's of hours of test and maintenance per flight hour. They fly in conformance to a myriad of regulations, SOP's, policies, manuals and local rules. They study constantly to maintain knowledge of those requirements and train and practice and train and practice. They do so under the careful supervision of standardization pilots, and check pilots, and flight leaders, and senior captains and line check pilots, LSO's, safety departments, flight surgeons etc etc. They are tested and checked constantly as to their proficiency and knowledge. Their decision making is constantly scrutinized, MOST CLOSELY BY PEERS!

Pilots on "our" side... well I think you get the point.

And don't kid yourself, we engage is flying activities that are just as risky, in some cases more so. Just peruse a standard day on the forums (or do a quick You-tube search) - first flight's, acro flights, buzz jobs, post maintenance test flights, airframe and system alterations, operations out of short grass strips, formation flights, Vne + excursions, alternate engines, alternate fuels, races etc etc etc.

What Van is saying is that we have to begin taking steps to close the gap between what the pro's do and what we do. If we don't, those who suspect we are having way too much dangerous and unsupervised fun, are already making plans to do it.

Right on the money, Gary. 100%

 

[glenn654]

I first want it to be known that IN NO WAY am trivializing the loss of any pilot or passenger lost in an aviation accident in any type of aircraft.

And I know that we all can and must redouble our efforts to make every flight as safe as possible.

But are the accident statistics posted entirely fair or accurate?
Considering that any accident regardless of the specific operation is included in the statistics.

For example, we have pilots who perform aerobatics, race (usually at low altitude), fly formation even formation aerobatics and any accident from these type activities are included as well as ordinary flight operations in the accident statistics for aviation.

I don't think we in GA and Experimental aviation especially are getting the best information we could.

Consider transportation by any other means......

Are accident statistics of automobile racing included in all automobile accident statistics? We know they are not but they are for aviation.

The same holds true for motorcycles.

Are horse racing, steeple chasing, rodeo, jumping etc included in accident statistics relating to ordinary horse riding? I seriously doubt it.....

In pure, cold statistical anaylsis, is a 2% loss over a ten year period with a sample of 7200+ aircraft an unusually high fatal accident rate compared to other modes of transportation? Especially considering that ANY accident is included in the aviation statistics.

I don't know......but I can't help wondering if our information is structured the best way possible to tell the true story.

Perhaps someone with the experience, knowledge, training and education can answer this because I don't know but have the questions.


Glenn Wilkinson

 

[rwtalbot]

Higher Still

I would suggest the accident rates would be higher than these figures make out as you have only included fatal accidents as recorded by the FAA. Many of Van's aircraft are flying all over the world and out of sight of the FAA.

What is even more concerning is the fact that these statistics only include fatalities. If we found a way to include the entire fleet and added non-fatal accidents to the mix against total flight hours it would look very bad indeed!

Regards
Richard

RV-7A - Flying

[URL="

 

[Alan Carroll]

But are the accident statistics posted entirely fair or accurate?
Considering that any accident regardless of the specific operation is included in the statistics.

For example, we have pilots who perform aerobatics, race (usually at low altitude), fly formation even formation aerobatics and any accident from these type activities are included as well as ordinary flight operations in the accident statistics for aviation.

I don't think we in GA and Experimental aviation especially are getting the best information we could.

Consider transportation by any other means......

Are accident statistics of automobile racing included in all automobile accident statistics? We know they are not but they are for aviation.

The same holds true for motorcycles.

Are horse racing, steeple chasing, rodeo, jumping etc included in accident statistics relating to ordinary horse riding? I seriously doubt it.....

In pure, cold statistical anaylsis, is a 2% loss over a ten year period with a sample of 7200+ aircraft an unusually high fatal accident rate compared to other modes of transportation? Especially considering that ANY accident is included in the aviation statistics.

I don't know......but I can't help wondering if our information is structured the best way possible to tell the true story.

Perhaps someone with the experience, knowledge, training and education can answer this because I don't know but have the questions.

Glenn Wilkinson

I would agree completely with the above. What's needed is a "Nall Report" focused just on experimentals (or just for RVs), to help answer these questions. The existing analyses don't provide much depth on this subject.

Its true that many RV accidents result from activities other than pure transportation. However, isn't that a large part of why we fly RVs?

 

[Alan Carroll]

I would suggest the accident rates would be higher than these figures make out as you have only included fatal accidents as recorded by the FAA. Many of Van's aircraft are flying all over the world and out of sight of the FAA.

What is even more concerning is the fact that these statistics only include fatalities. If we found a way to include the entire fleet and added non-fatal accidents to the mix against total flight hours it would look very bad indeed!

Regards
Richard

RV-7A - Flying

Including all accidents is certainly possible since they're in the database. Just takes more work. There could also be additional issues related to non-uniform reporting of accidents not involving fatalities?

 

[Ron Lee]

This Lancair data may be what some are looking for but substitute RVs.

http://www.pilottrainingreform.org/documents/PTR_WP_LOBO.pdf

The data posted by Alan is interesting. I did not understand the increasing rate for earlier models until a few minutes ago. You probably need to normalize each RV model to account for how long they have been flying. A simple way to do that (perhaps not statistically rigorous) would be to divide the fatality percentage rate by the number of years (or decades) since the introduction of that model.

Another way would be to give the yearly fatal rate per model. Then we might surmise if there is a model specific issue.

I just checked and the 8 series came out several years before the 7 series RVs. So if you move the 8 Series data above the 7s, then it all seems to make sense.

 

[Caveman]

I don't think anyone is saying that RV's are the worst of the lot. We're just saying that there is a significant accident rate with RV's and we can do better.

Joe

 

[TSwezey]

Just a quick note: There have been 3 fatal RV-10 accidents.

 

[jrs14855]

accidents

In my opinion most of the current concern from the FAA and the alphabet groups about amateur built accidents evolves from the dismal Lancair record and to a much lesser extent the Glasairs.
The Lancair accident record is appalling, MUCH worse than I would have expected. From the LOBO website:
flying crashed/destroyed %
Lancair 320/360 301 62 20.5
Lancair total fleet 922 167 18

In 2009 the accident rate was reduced by 50%
44% of accdents pic less than 100 in make model
Private pilots accounted for 56% of crashes
PIC more than 1000 hours in make/model NO SERIOUS ACCIDENTS
Landing 29% of accidents
Takeoff 22% of accidents.

 

[Ron Lee]

In 2009 the accident rate was reduced by 50%

This is flawed statistics use. While technically correct, if you look at the data from 2004 to 2009, it is very linear downward with an unexplained upward spike in 2008. I don't think that anyone is taking credit for reducing the accident rate 50%.