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characterizing our risk

szicree said:
I'm not sure this is the most constructive view. Could the same be said of commercial flight? To say that GA is so risky that it's simply a matter of time before it kills you sounds like surrender to me. I'd prefer to think of my flying one flight at a time. Why should any one flight be more dangerous than any single flight on an airliner? Is it the single engine? Buy/build a good one and monitor it. The lack of strict procedures? Make your own and stick to em. Worried about midairs? Get flight following and gadgetry.

I'm not trying to downplay the risks, but I sincerely believe that MY flying can be as safe as I make it.
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There are many things you can do to mitigate risk but the simple fact remains, things can happen that you have absolutely no control over. As far as the comparison of SE flying to commercial aviation, I'll let the statistics speak for themselves.
 
Unfortunately, letting the statistics speak for themselves is misleading. Stats must be interpretted. Consider this: Statistics tell me that my chance of drowning tomorrow is 1/88000 and that my chance of correctly choosing red on a spin of the roulette wheel is 18/38. But what if I live nowhere near water? The point is that the drowning probability varies from person to person and day to day, but the roulette odds don't. We say that the roulette trials are "identically distributed". Statistics work well for predicting such events, but not so well for those that are not. Consider the chances of dying from heart disease. The overall probability may be x, but for a person in good shape with no family history, the chances may be near zero.

My point here is that there are individual GA flights that are every bit as safe as a commercial flight and that it is a reasonable goal to strive to make them all so, one flight at a time.
 
Flyfalcons said:
There are many things you can do to mitigate risk but the simple fact remains, things can happen that you have absolutely no control over. As far as the comparison of SE flying to commercial aviation, I'll let the statistics speak for themselves.
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What's SE flying?
 
The Hunter S Thompson quote is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But a healthy attitude of "I'm not gonna let this thing get me" can go a long way toward increasing safety, especially if "this thing" includes the pilot.
 
I just came back from an Ag Aviation meeting/convention..

...in Savannah, Ga, yesterday.

Part of the program focussed on accidents/incidents and fatalities among our peers, all ag pilots and the facts are that even after ten years of operating our PAASS program (Professional aerial applicators support sytem), the human factors account for 58 % of the accidents....VFR in to IMC, fuel starvation, collision with the ground/obstacles, etc, all pilot induced and it hasn't changed much over the years, despite all of our efforts in the PAASS program and some very high dollar airplanes in the $600,000 and up category.

Granted, we work around more obstacles than anyone in GA but some of the accidents are simply because of foolish behaviour, a lot like those in GA.

In the end, a guy flying a $1.3 million dollar Air Tractor 802 doing a fire bombing demo, dumping water at low level, does a near vertical pullup, falls over on his back and into an unrecoverable inverted spin, all on video, including his inverted slam near the spectators. We sat there with near puke in our throats in disbelief.

Think, guys....think.

Best,
 
szicree said:
My point here is that there are individual GA flights that are every bit as safe as a commercial flight and that it is a reasonable goal to strive to make them all so, one flight at a time.
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I have no issues with operating with the mindset to minimize and eliminate every risk - that's what we should all be striving for. However, the simple fact is GA flying is not as safe as commercial aviation. Look at the NTSB website if you don't believe me. When I go fly the Beav I choose to accept the slightly higher risk inherent in those operations versus my day job, because it's something I enjoy. I strive to make every flight as safe as possible but I do know it is a more risky activity than sipping coffee and watching the DME numbers tick down.
 
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szicree said:
I'm not sure this is the most constructive view. Could the same be said of commercial flight? To say that GA is so risky that it's simply a matter of time before it kills you sounds like surrender to me. I'd prefer to think of my flying one flight at a time. Why should any one flight be more dangerous than any single flight on an airliner? Is it the single engine? Buy/build a good one and monitor it. The lack of strict procedures? Make your own and stick to em. Worried about midairs? Get flight following and gadgetry.

I'm not trying to downplay the risks, but I sincerely believe that MY flying can be as safe as I make it.
Click to expand...

Ahhh? But there is the rub: Your flying may be as safe as you can make it, true, but I?m sure the base jumper/free climber/cave diver can honestly say the same thing ? ?as safe as they can make it?. I think we need to realize that sport flying in itself is inherently dangerous and completely unnecessary, yet we do it anyway. When it comes right down to it we are not any different than the ?extreme sports? types.

To your other point, sport flying is a lot more dangerous than airlines because of more reliable equipment, better training, and strict processes found in airline flying. However, there is an important fact that is often overlooked in these ?apples to apples? comparisons, and some in this thread have nailed it: The ?fun? factor is very significant element in the mission profile of sport flying, yet it is completely absent in commercial operation. This huge variable, ?fun?, means different things to different people, and I think really invalidates much of the comparisons about safety. While our ultimate goal is the same as the airlines (completing the flight without injury) the risks taken on the flight are in response to the mission of the flight (i.e. ?transportation? or ?fun?). For example, half of my hours are spent going cross country with my bride on board (transportation). The mission requires getting from point A to B quickly and safely. For this reason, I fly at high altitude, use flight following, and fly the airplane like it?s an airliner. It?s as safe as I can make it, with huge margins for error. I also happen to find it very boring. Then there are the other hours that I fly, and the mission requirement is to have fun. This is where aerobatics, canyon flying, formation, cutting toilet paper, chasing rabbits, and other fooling around come in to play. Yes, I fly within my ?safe zone?, but my margins are much reduced and I know my risk of injury or death has just gone up considerably.

To make a long post just a little longer, I don?t think we are helping ourselves by pretending we fly for a practical reason and trying to draw a parallel with airline flying. At some level, we really are risk takers who enjoy a challenge. I don?t think this is any way surrender, but affirmation of reality.
 
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I am late to this thread. I think the focus on risk is off the mark. Risk is not constant, but a function of many factors. I think the key issue is proficiency. Proficiency is very hard to determine. Proficiency requirements vary wildly between pilots. Some can maintain high degrees of proficiency with very little flying time, others cannot. Unfortunately, most private pilots fly very few hours per year. I find that if my proficiency has deteriorated, I easly get task tunneling. If I have lost my proficiency on the EFIS and GPS, I get task tunnelling and my basic aircraft control and situational awareness degrades and I can get into trouble fast. It can really sneak up on you.

Someone famous once said flying is not inherently dangerous, it is just unforgiving. And so it is.
 
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