PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Robinson helicopters added to safety watchlist
Old 29th Oct 2016, 15:08
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aa777888
 
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Pants brings up an interesting analogy.

If Pants had said "Volkswagen has to buy back hundreds of thousands of diesel vehicles because the drivers keep crashing into other cars, into bridges, and in general losing control and killing themselves and others" then he'd have a point. But of course Volkswagen does not have to do that, nor does any other automobile manufacturer.

Similarly, some cars are much safer than others, both intrinsically (e.g. larger, more airbags, etc.) and demographically (e.g. purchased by older, wiser, more experienced drivers, vs. younger, more reckless drivers, etc.). Indeed, this link is quite interesting:

Driver death rates

Although sadly it does not distinguish between intrinsic safety and demographical effects.

As the saying goes, you pay your money and you take your chances. Some vehicles are intrinsically safer than other vehicles. Mixing it up with large trucks on a busy highway is much safer when you are driving a large SUV than when you are driving a motorcycle. Should we outlaw all motorcycles? Where do you draw the line?

When I arrived for my very first helicopter lesson I knew that the R22 was more challenging to fly and with less of a safety margin than anything that had a turbine and three or more main rotor blades. And, if I hadn't, the SFAR 73 safety lesson certainly made that clear. I assessed the risks and went on with it anyway. I could have decided to spend more money by learning in a Enstrom at twice the price, or even in a 206 at four times the price. I paid my money and took my chances, eyes open. No different than when I made the decision to purchase my first motorcycle (or, for that matter, when I decided to stop riding motorcycles).

So, where do we drawing the line? Perhaps we better start banning a whole bunch of much more dangerous stuff (like motorcycles), first, eh, before getting started on Robinsons?

OK, ready for massive holes to be poked in my analogy...
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