Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site terak.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!hao!noao!terak!doug
From: doug@terak.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Re: is general aviation safe? (long)
Message-ID: <229@terak.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Dec-84 13:05:44 EST
Article-I.D.: terak.229
Posted: Mon Dec 17 13:05:44 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Dec-84 00:27:09 EST
References: <1243@orca.UUCP>
Organization: Terak Corporation, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Lines: 77

[I am still on retainer as the Devil's Advocate]
 
>     Having thought about learning to fly for a few years,
> I've sometimes wondered whether general aviation is reasonably
> safe or really quite dangerous. The three main issues seem to
> be:
>     1.  The mechanical reliability of the aircraft.
>     2.  The ability of the average pilot to cope with a real
>         emergency (landing on trees, control surface failure etc.
>         as has been dicussed recently).
>     3.  The survivability of a typical crash.
>
General Aviation CAN be safe.  This depends (as we've all heard
too often) almost entirely on the pilot.

Unfortunately, there is an ENORMOUS amount (and I do mean a whole
bunch) of pressure on GA pilots to cut corners.  Fact is, most
pilots who fly regularly cave in to these pressures in some aspect
or other at least occasionally.

You see, if you don't cut corners once in a while, you cannot
fully depend on your plane for transportation.  For instance,
most serious private pilots get their instrument rating, so
that they can depend on being able to use their planes even
in bad weather.

Duane Cole is a prominent airshow pilot, who is best known for his
dead-stick aerobatic show which ends in a dead-stick landing.
He is very vocal in his belief that IFR flight in single-engine
planes is Russian Roulette.  He feels that if the visibility is
so bad or the ceiling so low that it isn't safe to fly under the
weather, you'll never pull off an emergency landing after an
engine failure.  And if it IS safe to fly under the weather, why
would you want to fly IN the weather?

In Duane's book, "Happy Flying, Safely", he tells of a plane
manufacturer's rep complaining, "Duane, you're killing the
utility of single-engine planes."

Duane replied, "And YOU are killing the PILOTS."

Duane always allows 1 or 2 DAYS extra for layovers on every
cross-country flight (he can't take the airlines, he needs his
plane for the next airshow, right?).  Makes transportation
by private plane too slow and undependable for most people,
so they don't allow time for weather or equipment delays.

Another problem is that pilots who think of their airplanes
as Transportation invariably move up to the most capable (and
hence expensive) plane that they think they can afford.  This
brings a corollary that they can NOT afford to keep said
plane in 100% shape.  Each pilot has his own idea of just
what are go/no-go items, those items which absolutely MUST be
fixed.

Now, consider this... if you have maintained your plane to such
a degree that you have a 99% chance of arriving without trouble,
then you have over 50% chance that you will have trouble within
70 flights.  If for a single flight you have a 99.9% confidence
level, then you have that 50% chance of trouble within 700 flights.

99.9% is a very high degree of confidence, but even if you allow
3 hours for each of those 700 flights, that is only 2100 hours
of flight time.  2100 hours is definitely in the "experienced"
category, but not particularly unusual.  After all, at 200 hours
a year, this is only 10-1/2 years of flying.  I, for one, plan
to fly more than 10-1/2 years of my life.

But if the trouble that you encounter is fatal, you can't
"average it out" in the future.

My Rx for safety:  buy less airplane than you can afford, then
keep it in 100% shape; use cars and airlines for Transportation,
use your plane for fun and for when you're NOT in a hurry.  This
will keep the pressure down so you can fly wisely and safely.

Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug