This thread is a little old, and possibly of no interest to anyone but me. But it is of intense interest to me, cos I'm a PPL who has been smiled on by Lady Luck, so I can afford high performance aircraft, and I am getting into flying jets. Safely flying jets. Much of the comment here has been along the lines of PPLs with the money for serious aircraft are, ipso facto, dangerous. The issue has been on my mind for some time, as I fly a high performance aircraft already - a Harmon Rocket - (yeah, there goes my anonymity, but whatever. Dunno why we PPRUNERS hide behind pseudonyms anyway, to tell you the truth. I think it encourages an immoderate tone in these discussions, although I guess those of us with aviation jobs need to be careful). I have also had some flying accidents and incidents in my time, which may have resulted from errors of judgement, but I don't think it would be fair to say that they resulted from a lack of discipline. While I do believe that it is easy to BUY more aircraft than you can FLY, I thought some here, especially MOR, may be interested to know that I am right now at a major jet warbird training facility in the US, and it has been very educational. Today we flew sorties in a Fouga, and an L-39. My instructor, who has decades of experience in training "rich boys and their toys" is very, very serious about safety, and we spent much of the day discussing this issue. He said that, on form to date, the most dangerous people by far in the jet warbird world are not, in fact, PPLs with fat wallets - they are ex military pilots, and ex airline pilots, with many thousands of hours flying very high performance aircraft in a highly regulated environment. (Being either military regs or airline SOPs) And often not so fat wallets. He suggested I look up the NTSB reports for jet warbird crashes. I have done so, and he appears to be absolutely correct. Most jet warbird crashes, in the US anyway, appear to be ill disiplined CFIT accidents, where very experienced and highly qualified pilots doing silly stuff fly perfectly good aircraft into the ground. I'm sure we've all met PPLs who take their flying very seriously. In drawing simple conclusions from incidents such as the Fouga accident, the recent helicopter crash in Raglan, and so on, I wonder if MOR and co are overlooking some basic statistics? How many PPLs with high performance aircraft are NOT crashing? My instructor went further in saying that, in his opinion, PPLs are often far MORE careful than the pros, because they are used to a far less regulated environment, have to make complex decisions throughout their flying career, and are aware that they don't have people looking over their shoulder so much. Arguably, we PPLs are subject more to the laws of physics than the laws of man, and I'm not sure it's very sensible to try and bend the former one iota.
Professionals, on the other hand, have professional flight planners, despatchers, engineers, and superior officers or managers to report to. He says some of these people, when they get the freedom that private flying offers, "go crazy". I think the truth is, as usual, far more complex than a simple analysis might imply. Fat wallet + PPL = risk factor. Yes. Said risk can be managed, with the right attitude. Less wallet + huge hours of professional experience ALSO = risk factor. Which also needs to be managed. ALL flying is risky in some way, and ALL the risks need to be acknowledged and appropriately managed.
PPLs bad, CPLs good? I really don't see the evidence to support that. (And I think if PPLs with day jobs got CPLs, we'd still basically be a PPLs, cos we don't fly commercially) Does proving a high level of TECHNICAL skill prevent JUDGEMENT errors? I doubt it. And it certainly doesn't change character, discipline, and so on.
Fat wallets bad? Nope. Not fair, not true. Anyway, I think it's the first part of P of F, isn't it? What is the main factor in generating lift?
Money
PPLs with tighter budgets, it would seem to me, might not be able to afford to stay current, if they don't own their own aircraft, or if they do, might be tempted to skimp on maintenance. I believe this is why CAA tries to keep an eye on professional organsations that aren't making much money. Too tempting to ignore an expensive, 'minor', problem for a while, if fixing it means you can't pay the rent for the month.
MOR, if you're in NZ or Australia, shoot me an email sometime. (I'd suggest PM but I have no idea how it works.) It's
[email protected], and my name is Andrew. Maybe we'll discuss this over coffee some time? I'll buy
Hmmmm. Maybe the anonymity thing is so you don't get torn apart in a public forum by the 'anonynyms'. I guess we'll see!!