Mad Jock, you make all kinds of sense! That is the whole flap in a nutshell!
If all pilots maintained and improved their flying skills in the ways recommended by the Cirrus program, that would be soon reflected in the statistics.
The human soft centre in the midst of the tupperware is the fallible bit that involves innnocent family and friends, and for that reason a parachute is a good idea. The thing that pisses off those of us that try to be skilled and sensible is that the Cirrus is so expensive, and every time another unskilled wealthy pilot pulls the handle, another nice aeroplane has to spend a very long time in the shop before it flies again, which surely is represented in the insurance premium, which (full circle) only the unskilled wealthy pilot can afford!
So flying, instead of fun, is more of a money game than ever.
What truly makes my blood boil is pilots who take up trusting passengers and show off.
Or put their trusting family in danger when an airline would have been the right choice. I sat in Norfolk Virginia pilots lounge one Thanksgiving day....all day! waiting for the storm system to trek on overhead. I had two passengers who trusted me. Meanwhile a rich man took his family in his fancy twin up to Long Island through the storm system, and tried to land it at three different LI airports, without success, and returned to Norfolk while we were still sitting in the pilots lounge watching the NFL.
OK, he didn't kill the whole family, flying on a day with horrid weather. But they looked pretty miserable all the same.
When conditions cleared, we tried again around 15:00 local time to make it to New Jersey, met the nasty stuff at Baltimore, and without even thinking my plane did a 180. We went back to Norfolk, booked in a motel, and had a Chinese takeaway for Thanksgiving dinner. It was only a rented Cessna 172, IFR equipped (as I) but with a chicken pilot at the controls, living to fly another day as were my friends.
Many a PPL enjoys pretending to be a ATPL, but some conditions require more equipment, namely, brains, and a co-pilot.
Last edited by mary meagher; 2nd May 2014 at 12:20.
Reason: spelling