Hi Bluskis,
I guess our experiences differ, but thats OK. What you and I think due to our individial experiences doesn't matter much.
Google is such a marvellous thing, I found this
NASA GA Reliability Report which attempts to give some figures.
Most of this is over my head, but it looks good
and as long as the source looks authoritative I always go straight to the conclusions anyway.
Page 34 says:
System reliability estimates are based on the probability that a Complex GA Aircraft Airframe System will successfully complete a 700 nautical mile six-hour flight.
The system reliability estimates are determined to be:
Airframe 0.99940
Electrical 0.99997
Powerplant 0.99986
Flight Control 0.98476
Ground Control 0.99598
Cockpit Instrumentation 0.976
So my understanding - which may be wrong, I am no stats whizz kid - is that you have a 99.986% probability of completing the 6 hour flight without an engine failure. I call that reliable, you don't. No problemo! What I did find surprising is the engine is more reliable than the airframe, I would never have got that - see how my individual experience is not worth much.
For a 100 hour a year pilot, 0.99986 ^ 16 = 99.77% of completing a year without an engine failure. That's a risk I am prepared to take.
What chance have you of having a problem after 300 hours, your experience?
0.99986 ^ 50 = 99.35 chance of getting through your 300 hours unscathed. This is extremely unlikely, to have this "on average", which implies more than once, is getting into very small numbers indeed.
You can put the figures in for a 1000 hour a year instructor (98% and I would be prepared to take that risk because I know that only a small percentage of engine failures result in injury due to training). A very busy 20000 hours a year flight school has 63% chance of getting through the year unscathed.
And if my figures don't exactly work out because not all flights are 6 hours long I don't care! It's close enough for me! So now we are getting some real statistically based numbers, let the GA SEP pilot make their own decision.
Regards