A few years ago I happened upon an article in a trade magazine, I believe it was Business & Commercial Aviation, which discussed the US Dept. of Labor annual report on the 20 most dangerous professions, measured in number of fatalities per 100,000 active practitioners of each profession. Interesting reading indeed.
For instance, law enforcement was not and had never been on that list. Big letdown for avid watchers of “Cops” and such. Neither was firefighting. But….
Pilots/navigators were in the top three every year! And this includes the vast number of supposedly very safe airline pilots! Therefore the statistics for the non-airline section of professional pilots (CFIs, crop dusters, air taxi and yes, helicopter pilots) must be terrible to get the whole profession in the top three most dangerous jobs year after year.
I was warned of this by those professional analyzers of relative risks, insurance brokers, when looking for life insurance. After several months’ searching, only Winterthur, a Swiss insurance company, was found willing to write life insurance for a professional helicopter pilot.
I keep climbing into that cockpit day after day for a – to me – very good reason: I like flying helicopters and am proud of my profession. The rational part of me, the part that compares product prices in the supermarket, is very aware that this infatuation is putting me at greater-than-average risk but submits.
Like other posters, I have lost friends to crashes. Some of them were true role models, the kind of professionals I strive to be, and their deaths confirmed to me that this occupation is risky even for the best amongst us.
str8, from your post it appears your flying was strictly for fun. If the fun has gone out of it there is NO REASON AT ALL for you to get back in the cockpit. After all the work and dedication you put into gaining your PPL and owning and running two aircraft, leaving the cockpit cannot have been an easy decision and anyone who thinks this decision classifies you as a wimp is an idiot. If, however, your life is not complete without flight, then your best support network (pardon the yoofspeak) are your fellow aviators. The most experienced instructors in particular will have gone through similar experiences and are by definition people persons, so I’d advice you to have a long private talk with the CFI you most respect.
The right decision is the one you make.