From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!alice!rabbit!wolit
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Title: Re: WSJ Articles
Article-I.D.: rabbit.662
Posted: Thu Aug  5 17:19:31 1982
Received: Sun Aug  8 02:50:42 1982


I agree that there's nothing very new or surprising in the articles.
Their semi-hysterical tone, however, does serve to point up an
interesting disparity that exists in the attitude of the general public
(and also among many in the aviation community) toward flying as
opposed to other forms of transportation.  People demand an
extraordinarily high level of safety, training, and professionalism in
flying that they neither expect nor even desire in bus, train, sea, or
automobile travel.  They see flying as being done in meticulously
maintained, state-of-the-art vehicles, guided by a team of computers
and human experts in the air and on the ground.  At the same time,
they ASSUME that the buses and trains in which they ride are barely
holding together, and are driven by everyday people like themselves.
They get in their cars or boats, without fastening seat belts and
often drunk, drive off without the slightest pretense of an inspection,
and navigate within ten feet of other vehicles at relative speeds in
excess of 120 mph, and yet are outraged to learn that builders of
small planes don't make them able to withstand 40g crashes.
General aviation pilots feed this myth, partly to reassure nervous
friends and relatives, partly to reassure themselves ("whistling past
the graveyard"), by supporting the idea of the perfection of aircraft
and air traffic control technology, often stressing that what they do
is the same as what airline pilots do.

Certainly, no one connected with the aviation industry is going to try
to debunk this mythology.  The government, the airlines, the makers of
airplanes (both big and small) benefit greatly from it.  I, for one,
would find it difficult to tell my parents, for example, that I'm
about as well trained to fly a plane as I am to drive a car
(recognizing the relative difficulties of these tasks), or that, in
order to make it light enough to fly and cheap (!) enough to buy, the
people who made my plane made it LESS crashworthy than Toyota made my
car.

OF COURSE, if every FBO had a simulator for its 152's of the kind that
the airlines use for their 747's (if such a thing existed), student
pilots would be better equipped to fly them safely.  The problem is,
there would be no student pilots who could afford the training (which
explains why there are no such simulators around).

Perhaps we should take a more realistic approach to answering
challenges such as those presented by these articles.  Instead of
juggling statistics around (useful if you want to confuse the
opposition, but otherwise meaningless), we should say, "Yes, general
aviation does not have an admirable safety record.  Neither does
automobile or motorcycle driving.  We try to do the best with what we
have to work with, but recognize that we are human, and have limited
financial resources, just like you."