How safe is flying?
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I find it difficult to determine the definition of "dangerous" in the context of "flying".
If you ride a motorcycle /pushbike /drive a car / walk etc, you are in very close proximity to others doing the same in conflicting directions. (please remember the "very close" part.
If you fly a light a/c you are not, "in spite of the "crowded skies" lobby".
Therefore you are more in control of your own destiny when flying than you are when on the ground.
If YOU choose to fly in a thunderstorm, fly a single engine a/c (piston) over water for long distances, over mountains in high winds etc, then YOU are placing yourself in a situation that YOU may not be able to control all the way to it's conclusion.
On the othe hand you may have little choice but to drive to work in a snowstorm within inches of numerous, perhaps less competent, persons.
Therefore it's far more dangerous to be on the ground standing at a bus stop than at 5000ft strapped into anything.
Statistics are just numbers that naysayers use.
Most people in the developed world die in bed.
Most people in the developed world die when they are old.
Most people in the developed world die having drawn a pension.
Solution: Don't join a pension scheme, spend all your money on an a/c while you are young, instead of sleeping, fly it at night, low so you can see the ground, slowly to give yourself time to avoid things. This will ensure you do not get old, therefore you should not die.
Flippancy mode OFF.
If you ride a motorcycle /pushbike /drive a car / walk etc, you are in very close proximity to others doing the same in conflicting directions. (please remember the "very close" part.
If you fly a light a/c you are not, "in spite of the "crowded skies" lobby".
Therefore you are more in control of your own destiny when flying than you are when on the ground.
If YOU choose to fly in a thunderstorm, fly a single engine a/c (piston) over water for long distances, over mountains in high winds etc, then YOU are placing yourself in a situation that YOU may not be able to control all the way to it's conclusion.
On the othe hand you may have little choice but to drive to work in a snowstorm within inches of numerous, perhaps less competent, persons.
Therefore it's far more dangerous to be on the ground standing at a bus stop than at 5000ft strapped into anything.
Statistics are just numbers that naysayers use.
Most people in the developed world die in bed.
Most people in the developed world die when they are old.
Most people in the developed world die having drawn a pension.
Solution: Don't join a pension scheme, spend all your money on an a/c while you are young, instead of sleeping, fly it at night, low so you can see the ground, slowly to give yourself time to avoid things. This will ensure you do not get old, therefore you should not die.
Flippancy mode OFF.
Mostly I fly gliders, but just like powered a/c, the most critical time is the first few hundred feet where the towplane engine can fail or the rope can break when landing in the trees as slow as you can is about all you can do.
Twin turboprops blasting through a busy thermal can get your attention, but at least I have a chute -- can't say I'm blameless on the other side as I once found myself flying a C-172 through a well populated area of lift
The best way to keep yourself safe is to fly the same as you would for your flight test. Get the wx and NOTAMs, calculate your fuel and w/b, do a proper preflight including verifying adequacy of proposed runways vs. load and density altitude, use a checklist... and you will have eliminated many of the popular accident causes.
Twin turboprops blasting through a busy thermal can get your attention, but at least I have a chute -- can't say I'm blameless on the other side as I once found myself flying a C-172 through a well populated area of lift
The best way to keep yourself safe is to fly the same as you would for your flight test. Get the wx and NOTAMs, calculate your fuel and w/b, do a proper preflight including verifying adequacy of proposed runways vs. load and density altitude, use a checklist... and you will have eliminated many of the popular accident causes.
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Having had an engine failure at 1100', I now know that sh!t happens even when you appear to have done all the preparation possible and everything is the equivalent of CAVOK. The interest of non-flying friends afterwards has been interesting and a chance to prove that what's been said above.
However, I'm very, very glad it didn't happen over water...
I have felt far more compromised, in terms of 'danger' in many other situations and few, if any, have been in the air.
When flying, I am in charge of the pre-flight, the planning, the flying, navigation and landing. As I see it, I am the biggest liability. The importance of others is reduced to matters of maintenance and the proximity of other aircraft.
On the ground, the mere existence of other people, whether in cars or not, adds more variables to the outcome of stepping outside ones front door than can be calculated.
Most of us here seem to be reasonably confident that we can accept a degree of calculated risk because the rewards are enormous. For confirmation, I refer all to the G-EMMA's 'postive' thread.
However, I'm very, very glad it didn't happen over water...
I have felt far more compromised, in terms of 'danger' in many other situations and few, if any, have been in the air.
When flying, I am in charge of the pre-flight, the planning, the flying, navigation and landing. As I see it, I am the biggest liability. The importance of others is reduced to matters of maintenance and the proximity of other aircraft.
On the ground, the mere existence of other people, whether in cars or not, adds more variables to the outcome of stepping outside ones front door than can be calculated.
Most of us here seem to be reasonably confident that we can accept a degree of calculated risk because the rewards are enormous. For confirmation, I refer all to the G-EMMA's 'postive' thread.
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In the U.S. approximately 360 people die each year in general aviation accidents, or about 1 a day. This is in comparison to 43,000 killed each year in cars, or 117 a day.
I have no idea how many are injured in either category.
The trick to avoiding your being one of those ‘one a day’ fatalities is to know, understand, and stick by your personal limitations. If the wind is higher than you’d prefer, either at your departure airport, or at your arrival airport, then don’t go. If the ceilings are too low, or are threatening to go too low, don’t go. If there is violent weather on your route of flight, don’t go, etc, etc, etc.
Remember you have control, and you make the decisions. As had been said many times before, most pilots kill themselves by flying into conditions they are not prepared for, or not trained for, or by doing stupid things at low altitude. Famous last words from many a pilot have been, “Hey watch this!”
Watch your instruments, believe your instruments, pay attention to what’s going on outside the cockpit, and if you’re renting an aircraft, spend a little time in the maintenance area before deciding if you really want to rent their aircraft.
I learned to fly at 50 and now having just turned 60, I have over 650 hours. Of all things I’ve learned to do in my adult life, flying has given me the greatest pleasure. If that means I must eventually pay the highest price, well it was never my plan to lay in bed waiting for it anyway.
LIVE your life, don’t sit around worrying about what might happen, get out there and do it!
Just be sensible, that’s all.
Regards,
White Bear.
I have no idea how many are injured in either category.
The trick to avoiding your being one of those ‘one a day’ fatalities is to know, understand, and stick by your personal limitations. If the wind is higher than you’d prefer, either at your departure airport, or at your arrival airport, then don’t go. If the ceilings are too low, or are threatening to go too low, don’t go. If there is violent weather on your route of flight, don’t go, etc, etc, etc.
Remember you have control, and you make the decisions. As had been said many times before, most pilots kill themselves by flying into conditions they are not prepared for, or not trained for, or by doing stupid things at low altitude. Famous last words from many a pilot have been, “Hey watch this!”
Watch your instruments, believe your instruments, pay attention to what’s going on outside the cockpit, and if you’re renting an aircraft, spend a little time in the maintenance area before deciding if you really want to rent their aircraft.
I learned to fly at 50 and now having just turned 60, I have over 650 hours. Of all things I’ve learned to do in my adult life, flying has given me the greatest pleasure. If that means I must eventually pay the highest price, well it was never my plan to lay in bed waiting for it anyway.
LIVE your life, don’t sit around worrying about what might happen, get out there and do it!
Just be sensible, that’s all.
Regards,
White Bear.
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In the U.S. approximately 360 people die each year in general aviation accidents, or about 1 a day. This is in comparison to 43,000 killed each year in cars, or 117 a day.
What we do need to see when we look at the statistics is what keeps coming back again and again and a cause or contributing factor. Controlled flight into terrain. Fuel exhaustion or mismanagement. Continued VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions, and so forth. The fatalities, the mishaps, the crashes, the close calls that continue to happen...these largely keep happening for the same reasons.
The most dangerous component in the airplane continues to be the pilot.
This is not a constant. You may not be able to control an engine bearing failure. You may not be able to control an instrument failure, or a fuel leak, or a stuck landing gear, or a fire. But you can control you. You're by far the single most dangerous thing in the airplane, and ironically, the only component that can make it safe. In fact, you're the only component in the airplane that can alter a dangerous situation to ensure a safe outcome, and like all components in the airplane, you're required equipment.
We preflight powerplants, we preflight fuel, airframes, charts, weather, etc. Do we preflight ourselves as much as we should? Are we tired? Are we going through a divorce? Are we going beyond our comfort and training, just because we legally can? Are we carrying minimum fuel just because it's legal? Are we going because we feel pressure to get there? Could this flight wait until the morning? Is there a better way? Wouldn't it be a good idea to invite a second person along on this flight, today? We're legal to takeoff because we have the necessary landings in our logbook..but are we really proficient? Is an occasional flight review and a landing enough? How long has it really been since training was received on...partial panel? Electrical failures? Forced landings? Night landings without the lights?
Particularly as a private pilot, there's seldom someone looking over your shoulder whipping you into shape, checking up on your recency of experience, ensuring that you're performing to standard, or requiring you to undertake regular, recurrent training. It's all on you.
Recently I called the cell phone company about a problem. They reminded me that I hadn't updated the phone in a year. Can't be, I thought...has it been that long? Training is the same way...you might not realize how long it's been until the engine really quits, until you find yourself partial panel at night in a featureless area, or until something occurs that takes you squarely out of the day to day routine operations and into a place where that unused training is required.
A few years ago I went to DeLand, Florida. It's a well known drop zone. I had my parachute, had my license, but it had been a little while. I elected to pay for some recurrent jump training. I got quizzed, got put in the training harness, went through all the drills...and even though I wasn't required to do that, and it cost extra money, seeking the additional refresher training was worth every penny to me. We may not be required to seek the training legally...but then who says we have to perform at the legal minimum all the time.
In the kind of flying I'm doing right now, one of our requirements is called an equal time point alternate. We have to have reserve fuel for a variety of different circumstances, that being one of them. ETP alternate fuel is only fifteen minutes on arrival...it's considered emergency fuel. That's not much. Not much at all. Fifteen minutes of fuel remaing. For us, that would be about seven thousand pounds. We don't ever do anything like that, however...it would be insane Most of the time we land with closer to 40,000 lbs of fuel...roughly an hour and a half of fuel, instead. It's more than what's required even at our regular destination or an alternate, but we land with it anyway. Who's to say that unforecast winds, mechanical problems, or other situations won't arise that fall outside of our plans? If we plan for the bare minimum all the time, then we can't be too shocked if our plans occasionally fail or fall short. It's a judgement issue.
The pilot is the most dangerous component, and the ability to address that is entirely in your hands. The question, then, once more...is not how dangerous is flying, but how dangerous are you?
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Liam548
Have a look in your local hospital A & E dept and you will always see more motorcyclists than pilots!
I think that flying carries a risk of death (small) and that riding motor cycles carries a risk of injury (high).
The chance of you being involved in an accident and suffering pain and injury is considerably higher on your motorcycle, yet you still ride one. Don't worry too much about aeroplanes.
Me? I fly for a living but I am just too damn scared to ride a motorcycle any more.
Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice!
UTF
Have a look in your local hospital A & E dept and you will always see more motorcyclists than pilots!
I think that flying carries a risk of death (small) and that riding motor cycles carries a risk of injury (high).
The chance of you being involved in an accident and suffering pain and injury is considerably higher on your motorcycle, yet you still ride one. Don't worry too much about aeroplanes.
Me? I fly for a living but I am just too damn scared to ride a motorcycle any more.
Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice!
UTF
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The motorcycle comparison is meaningless, because on a bike you are at the mercy of every half blind driver on the road. I've done some 6 figure # of miles on 2 wheels so I know. And I wouldn't ride a bike in the present traffic density.
Whereas in flying some 99% of the risk is down to the pilot.
The size of the residual "1%" or whatever is down to the build quality of the aircraft and its maintenance, and that is also to a large degree under the pilot's control. I know renters get little choice but they can always choose to walk away and rent something better. The best way to get this residual % down is to become an owner, get seriously clued up on maintenance, build a trustworthy team of people you can call on for different jobs, and then you can manage the whole process.
Engine management also comes into it heavily - not taught in the PPL except (usually) to fly full-rich.
Whereas in flying some 99% of the risk is down to the pilot.
The size of the residual "1%" or whatever is down to the build quality of the aircraft and its maintenance, and that is also to a large degree under the pilot's control. I know renters get little choice but they can always choose to walk away and rent something better. The best way to get this residual % down is to become an owner, get seriously clued up on maintenance, build a trustworthy team of people you can call on for different jobs, and then you can manage the whole process.
Engine management also comes into it heavily - not taught in the PPL except (usually) to fly full-rich.
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Emma
My father lost a leg riding a motorcycle in 1927,it was a racing bike that he was tuning and running on the road when the throttle stuck open.
He was taken to hospital on a 5 bar gate strapped to the roof of a car!
He forbade me to have a motorbike,but I saved up my pocket money and bought an ancient one anyway, as soon as I was 17 I got an old car.
Lister
He was taken to hospital on a 5 bar gate strapped to the roof of a car!
He forbade me to have a motorbike,but I saved up my pocket money and bought an ancient one anyway, as soon as I was 17 I got an old car.
Lister
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Engine management also comes into it heavily - not taught in the PPL except (usually) to fly full-rich.
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You're saying that an individual is allowed to complete a full private pilot training curriculum and never be instructed in how to use one of the two basic cockpit powerplant controls? An instructor would have to be entirely incompetent to fail a student this broadly. How can a student possibly not know how to use the mixture?
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some aircraft seem safer than others
General Aviation Safety
is an article about aircraft safety and says that in a the chances of dying in a big jet airliner are .34 per million hours
5 times greater in a turbo prop so about 1.7 per million hours
and 16 deaths per million hours in a light aircraft
and for driving about .85 deaths per million hours in a car
Diamond Katana Review -- DA20-A1 Rotax-powered
says that if you fly a DA 20 your chances of getting killed are 2 in million hours so almost as safe as in a commercial turbo prop
that means you are 8 times less likely to die in one compared to other light aircraft, so there must surely be aircraft that you are 3 times as likely to die in
http://www.diamondaircraft.com/_imag...y01a_large.gif
they seem to claim diamond is safest compared to cessnas, cirrus and columbia which I would also think would be amongst the the safest
is an article about aircraft safety and says that in a the chances of dying in a big jet airliner are .34 per million hours
5 times greater in a turbo prop so about 1.7 per million hours
and 16 deaths per million hours in a light aircraft
and for driving about .85 deaths per million hours in a car
Diamond Katana Review -- DA20-A1 Rotax-powered
says that if you fly a DA 20 your chances of getting killed are 2 in million hours so almost as safe as in a commercial turbo prop
that means you are 8 times less likely to die in one compared to other light aircraft, so there must surely be aircraft that you are 3 times as likely to die in
http://www.diamondaircraft.com/_imag...y01a_large.gif
they seem to claim diamond is safest compared to cessnas, cirrus and columbia which I would also think would be amongst the the safest
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Very unfortunate. Also unforgivable, and unprofessional.
I would hope that if anyone reading this is subject to such poor instruction, they will seek training elsewhere, and insist that they're taught properly. There is no excuse at all for failing to teaching a student to use the mixture.
I would hope that if anyone reading this is subject to such poor instruction, they will seek training elsewhere, and insist that they're taught properly. There is no excuse at all for failing to teaching a student to use the mixture.
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White Bear
You learned to fly at 50! I have so much respect for you! I'm not saying 50 is old because my brother is 50, I'm the youngest in my family at 33 and always telling my brother who all down and out about getting old that he is not, I will tell him about you! maybe he will get his license! I doubt it because he is an idiot but good on you
You learned to fly at 50! I have so much respect for you! I'm not saying 50 is old because my brother is 50, I'm the youngest in my family at 33 and always telling my brother who all down and out about getting old that he is not, I will tell him about you! maybe he will get his license! I doubt it because he is an idiot but good on you
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Merlin V8
I got my licence two days after my 63rd birthday.
Tell your brother to get a life!
Lister
PS I've been shopping,out in the garden with the chainsaw ,(with protective clothing),gathering winter fuel and dug a new flowerbed today.
Re the chainsaw,after the 1987 hurricane our local agricultural merchant sold over 1000 chain saws and one set of protective clothing.
Set of clothing circa £200---new leg £?????????
Life does not end at 30,40,50 etc,as long as you keep going,and have younger friends around you to keep you focused on the here and now.
Going to have a cuppa ,sit down and stroke the cat now.
Tell your brother to get a life!
Lister
PS I've been shopping,out in the garden with the chainsaw ,(with protective clothing),gathering winter fuel and dug a new flowerbed today.
Re the chainsaw,after the 1987 hurricane our local agricultural merchant sold over 1000 chain saws and one set of protective clothing.
Set of clothing circa £200---new leg £?????????
Life does not end at 30,40,50 etc,as long as you keep going,and have younger friends around you to keep you focused on the here and now.
Going to have a cuppa ,sit down and stroke the cat now.
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different aircraft safer than others
on the safety of flying
according to this General Aviation Safety
we have a 16 people wll die for every 1 million hours in a light aircraft
we have a .85 chance of dying for every 1 million hours in the car
so per flying hour in a ligh aircraft we are 20 times as likely to die as driving
in a jet airliner we have a .34 chance of dying per million hours
in a turbo prop commercial aircraft we have about 1.7 chance of dying so as safe as a car per hour
on the same website Diamond Katana Review -- DA20-A1 Rotax-powered
it claims that in a da 20 diamond katana there is 2 fatalities per million flight hours so on average 8 times safer than the average but one could argue that the aircraft probably covers 150 miles in an hour where as in the car in the uk one would be lucky to cover 70 miles in the hour (legally) so theoritaclly as safe and faster, for a long journey.
according to this General Aviation Safety
we have a 16 people wll die for every 1 million hours in a light aircraft
we have a .85 chance of dying for every 1 million hours in the car
so per flying hour in a ligh aircraft we are 20 times as likely to die as driving
in a jet airliner we have a .34 chance of dying per million hours
in a turbo prop commercial aircraft we have about 1.7 chance of dying so as safe as a car per hour
on the same website Diamond Katana Review -- DA20-A1 Rotax-powered
it claims that in a da 20 diamond katana there is 2 fatalities per million flight hours so on average 8 times safer than the average but one could argue that the aircraft probably covers 150 miles in an hour where as in the car in the uk one would be lucky to cover 70 miles in the hour (legally) so theoritaclly as safe and faster, for a long journey.
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After playing with the figures;
Driving a car
Chance is .85 per 1000000 hours = 0.00000085 per hour
Average driver does 10,000 miles per year @ average speed of 50 = 200 hours in the car giving a risk of 0.00000085 * 200 hours = 0.00017
Flying a light aircraft
Chance is 16 per 1000000 hours = 0.000016 per hour
Average 12 hours flying per year for average PPL giving a risk of 0.000016 * 12 = 0.000192
Overall difference is f1.129 making flying slightly more risky.
Riding a motorcycle is '33 times' more risky than driving a car making it more dangerous than flying.
But then these figures are produced from total data. Correct attention to your attitude and behaviour whilst partaking of any such activity will significantly reduce your chance of becoming a statistic.
How does your personal risk factor compute?
Driving a car
Chance is .85 per 1000000 hours = 0.00000085 per hour
Average driver does 10,000 miles per year @ average speed of 50 = 200 hours in the car giving a risk of 0.00000085 * 200 hours = 0.00017
Flying a light aircraft
Chance is 16 per 1000000 hours = 0.000016 per hour
Average 12 hours flying per year for average PPL giving a risk of 0.000016 * 12 = 0.000192
Overall difference is f1.129 making flying slightly more risky.
Riding a motorcycle is '33 times' more risky than driving a car making it more dangerous than flying.
But then these figures are produced from total data. Correct attention to your attitude and behaviour whilst partaking of any such activity will significantly reduce your chance of becoming a statistic.
How does your personal risk factor compute?