Wallsofchina,
Time to take off the rose tinted glasses for a minute. We could all sit here and quote statistics, mind you RAA never release any unless it is a certain statistic that suits their cause, but none the less take the emotion out of it for a minute.
In the GA community, where there is a large sector of commercial operations where there is a job to be done, there are accidents, Ag prangs of late spring to mind. There are some PVT flights such as the one in CQ recently (no idea but I suspect VFR into IMC) and there are helo prangs for EMS or other ops, so lets say there are plenty of accidents in the last ten years.
Move to RAA and of late the number of deaths and non fatal accidents that make it into the news has seemed to have risen, and the ones that spring to mind are generally from really stupid actions. And I mean really stupid. Everything from RAAus Jabiru's departing Inverell into the dark and IMC heading east south east
to folk dam busting. Yes that Jab flight is real, presumed safe arrival.
So while there is a big difference between say a low level run up a scenic river in the remote NW of WA and buzzing skiiers on a popular SE Oz Dam, you would have to ask, where is the majority of cowboy stuff coming from? It seems to be coming from RAA folk, and when you weed out of the RAAus membership all the retired CPL and ATPL folk, which cuts the numbers down a bit, and I suspect they are not the ones doing the majority of cowboy antics, it would paint a far different picture.
So not just comparing apples with apples, lets compare the same variety of apples. The picture gets worse.
I am not employed as an aviation statistician, but I had a founding role in
RV Flight Safety which we put together as a result of the FAA saying......
"fix it or we will do it for you" in response to a far higher than acceptable accident rate for Exp/AB aircraft.
Part of this project I sat down for a day or two and poured through every NTSB accident report as well as ATSB reports for the previous 10 years, looking at the basic causes for the "higher" rate of accidents. When the VFR into IMC prangs were removed because those folk would have done that in a C172 or A36 anyway, there was an alarming trend. The bottom line was there were very few that could be traced to EXP/AB faults and even then a fuel line fault did not cause the fatality, it was the stall / spin into a paddock they should have landed in anyway.
The VAST MAJORITY of the accidents that were identifiable and preventable and the target zone of the FAA proved to be cowboy antics.
I am pleased to report that the Exp/AB folk in Australia have a significantly better record, I do not recall now but it was like 5 or 10 or more times less accidents per aircraft registered.
This survey DID NOT include RAA, as the data is not available.
By the way the name
rvflightsafety.org was the creative component of the only Aussie on the committee
.
So what did this prove to us....if the accident rate was to be fixed, all we had to do was kill off the cowboys, which they were doing themselves but not at a fast enough rate, and the FAA were not happy as it was.
The question was asked why the cowboys? It seems that the more adventurous folk who play cowboy antics are the ones who like to live on the edge, who think rules are for others, and it was their God given right to have the freedom to do as they please. The rebels as it were. They also seemed to be the ones that if they were in aviation they would be flying a RV/Thorpe/Lancair or something that was a high performance machine. Piper Cubs were not for them.
The more conservative of us, while adventurous etc, we far more disciplined. This was evident from the folk who stepped forward to form RV flight safety dot org. They were passionate folk, but most were ex or current military, airline or NetJets pilots, a few of us were private, and we had a good mix, but all very common philosophy to safety. So what we had was a culture of fun loving and adventurous, but at the same time safe operational types, and there was a dark and evil sub culture....who mostly made up the stats.
So back to RAAus. Their challenge is some how stamp out the "dark eveil sub-culture" who seem to think they can be cowboys and get away with it. They fail to see they are dangerous. And that is the problem. I have mates who are ex jet fighter pilots who could do buzz jobs like that and way better all day ong in their Yak or even a Saphire UL, and not be any more dangerous than a Cessna overhead at 500'.....but I am not one of them, and nor are most of the RAA or GA community. Fortunately, most of us know this and refrain.
The incident VH-XXX refers to is a classic case of
Boganus Moronus. I am sure no matter what type he was flying his behaviour was in that sub-culture mentioned above.
So why is it the RAA have a much larger population of these cowboys? (this is not inflamatory questioning for wallsofchina)............For a start, most of the folk flying Gulfstreams or KingAirs are doing so for a different purpose. The folk most likely flying a FTDK/A36/PAXX and RV10's are also doing so for a different purpose. They have high capital investment, generally highly trained, and as a result their decission making is less cowboy like.
Step into the more sporty group, the typical RV group Aerobatic tourers, slight increase in risky activity but often higher captial outlay, and a high proportion of Airline or Military folk who want fun but well trained and careful operations. Bigger scope though for cowboys and as was found in the USA the results show this.
Now we get into the next group. The low cost cost to entry, be it GA or RAA, but most likely RAA as its cost to entry is far less. So where do you think the budding top guns of the
Boganus Moronus species are going to wind up? And yes they can be 60 years old as well. This is why in my opinion RAA are most likely going to be the ones with the increasing problem. Their new Ops Manager is a really good operator, but heck what a job he has on his hands.
Despite what wallsofchina will say, this is not a slag off at them at all, this is just a summary of why I think they have a growing problem. Based on some genuine data analysis and learning from it, and a bit of common sense deduction.