Puzzles me!
 

Just why does it happen??

I see and hear quite old people who have been flying for more than 30yrs and have obviously not killed themselves or had a fatal crash to still be here, yet i see and hear of young or younger people that have fatal crashes?

Puzzles me why some people seem to never kill themselves yet some other people do.

Do you think it takes certain type of person to be safe throughout their flying time?

Matt :hmm:

It's the well-known adage, "There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots".

Cheers

Whirls

So you think those who take unnecccesary risks, or scrimp on maintenance are the ones that suffer?

Matt

I think it's 50-70% luck. The rest can be influenced by good decision making, good handling and good equipment.

Doesn't one make ones own luck....

If a pilot takes an unnecessary risk and survives, is that luck or judgment? Those who don't take unnecessary risks are much more likely to survive.

Older pilots will usually have more experience and less of a risk-taking mentality than younger pilots.

Motor insurance companies also recognise that with drivers; young male drivers having the highest premiums with pensionable women having the lowest.

Not sure why the concept puzzles you?

Cheers

Whirls

In "The Killing Zone" Paul Craig explains that pilots due to inexperience and attitude. Low hour PPLs (like myself) are particularly vulnerable. These are pilots who have between 50 and 300 hours. (Students are amongst the least likely to kill themselves because they follow all the rules). A cavalier or complacent attitude is also a common factor in fatal accidents. Just read the AAIB reports.

Typical scenarios include flying VFR into IFR conditions, not looking out for traffic, poor fuel management and alcohol and drugs. I suggest pilots who think that luck plays a major role attend their local CAA safety evening more than just occasionally.

Getting IMC/IFR training is also a good idea.

Age is not a factor. Experience and being safety concious is what makes pilots survive.

Same as motorcyclists.

It is X% judgement and Y% luck.

The more you practice, the lower Y becomes, but it never gets to 0.

In other words with experience and training you are able to avoid situations you required luck to intervene in to keep you safe, and are able to recover from situations you didnt manage to avoid.

However with all the experience and training there are some situations it is almost impossible to avoid and recover from. Thats is when you still need to hope it is your lucky day.

You are wrong - if you fly with "older" people you will find out why.

I've thought a lot about this. 20 years ago, I crossed the 1000 hour mark, and thought I knew it all. I didn't wreck anything, but I sure came close, and scared myself into safety. Since then, I've watched and considered. I have flown with a lot of pilots, sometimes receiving their mentoring, though more often demonstrating and checkng them out on new aircraft or operations. Some have died in aircraft I have flown with them.

I observe the following (as total generalizations):

Pilots who learned young, seem more natural to fly, and better "hands and feet" than older new pilots. They take more risks, and are trying to impress and show off more than older pilots. They don't ding aircraft, they don't damage them at all, or they totally wreck them.

Pilots who learn later in life, do well understanding rules and limitations, and are much less likely to challenge them, but are less natural at flying, and will miss details. They think that because they have suceeded in life, and can affort the fancy plane, they feel self assured out of proportion, and might have a nasty surprise just ahead of them. They ding planes, though seem less likely to destroy them.

Because the older ""new pilots" are less likely to show off, and just want easy going flying fun under conservatively safe conditions, they are less likely to find themselves in challenging conditions, though if they blunder in, they will be more challenged getting themselves out safely.

The younger "new pilots" are out sewing wild oats. they have a keen understanding of what they have been taught, and the reflexes to handle most anything, but not the motivation, or life experience to avoid it.

The older old pilots, have seen it all and done it all, and have geneally given up showing off (save for the occasional need to put some young whipper snapper back in palce). They fly natually, and with instinctive skills, but are getting complacent, and that is a very real threat to safety. The "been there, done that" attitude will cause them to be casual, and miss the odd hazard, and sometimes it will bite them. A few near miss wakeup calls will set them straight for a while again, and might even drive them to more instruction.

I've been lucky, I've had the opportunity to do lots of test flying in differnet aircraft types, and I think it helps to keep me fresh. To ward off complacency, I trained for my helicopter license a few years back. I don't know if it has worked, but so far, so good.

Some applicable sayings:

Luck favours the prepared.

You begin flying with a full bag of luck, and an empty bag of experience. The objective is to fill the bag of experience befoe you empty the bag of luck.

Read, listen, practice, respect the laws (both legal and gravity), and never think you are invincable, and you'll do fine for a long time to come!

Pilot DAR

Yup.
Here in Arizona a few months ago there was quite a nasty accident with a single engine trainer with two brand new young pilots aboard.
No one knows exactly what happened as there was not a part big enough of the airplane to put in a shoe box...however, one of these new pilots was a known risk-taker, and had been re-examined by the FAA.

Not good.:sad:

Pilot DAR

Thank you for your excellent and thoughtful post!

Being an old "newer" pilot I found during spinning training what a different beast a normally benign PA-38 can be! I see no reason to be complacent. I debrief myself after every flight - how could I have done this or that better? Occasionally things go wrong unexpectedly - just when you think your landings are automatic you get a bounce or you find yourself veering off the runway.

I've think I've posted this before but may worth putting it on here again.
We used to have a lot of crop spraying and fertiliser applied by air,by Piper Pawnee.
When I asked the pilot how dangerous it was and the accident rate,the pilot ,who was I reckon around mid fifties,said.
"There are very young pilots and old pilots,the ones in the middle are dead!"

He went through some cables later that year,but survived.
Lister:)
Old newish pilot,just about to amend my age.

It's a function of the Gompertz Curve.


http://www.apsnet.org/education/Adva...1_gompertz.png
Gompertz Curve


The death rate of low-hour pilots is small (because they're cautious, and the low-hour population is large).

Death rates start to rise exponentially with hours (as caution decreases, and the population pool decreases).

Then starts to drop off again (as experience builds, and population of really high hour pilots is very small).

Oilot DAR,

Thanks for the reply. Well im 31 so looks like i fall in the middle (dead) pilots. SO id better be careful.

Matt

Age, experience & luck
 

The services used to reckon there were several high risk points in a pilot's career, as his/her experience increased. They had - and probably still have a system which take a more careful look at pilots as they approached those zones.
I don't recall the hours involved, I think one was around 250-300 hrs then around 1200 or so. There is a third higher hour point I think. The first being a 'know-it-all' point, the second being complacency where we start thinking it's all too easy. A good fright helps - that is where the luck comes in. You have to survive it, or just be a prompt to others.

Still as a famous golfer once said - I think it was Sam Snead after sinking a particularly difficult very long putt - "It's amazing. The more I practice, the luckier I get."

Ask some of our military colleagues. I expect they will know where the high threat intervals are.

I think the Gompertz curve is slightly too simplistic for this purpose. If you plot risk of accident against experience (hours) I suspect there are a series of waves. Logically each wave will show features somewhat like the Gompertz curve, since feedback helps the surviving pilots learn from the mistakes of others, thus reducing fatalities until the lesson gets overridden with time.

Hmm, after 40 + years kicking around in aviation I guess I'm one of the older ones now, though there are some very much older wiser birds on here !

When I started taking helicopter training a few years ago, I was an odd mix of experienced and very novice. If it had to do with being off the ground at more that 50 knots, I had it fairly well worked out, if it had to do with all the unusual characteristics of flying at less than 40 kts, I was very new to it. There I was, with all of the students, among them as one for the first time in 30 years. My second first solo was 30.5 years after my first. It was a good lesson in humility for me! I had three instructers with whom I alternated. They kept saying to me "You already know this", but I saw the opportunity to be refreshed.

I past times, I'd be a check out pilot for a newer pilot on a relatively exotic GA type. I quickly learned to not assume that they knew how to fly well just becasue they could afford to. There were certainly times where I waited too long, and my very sudden "I've got it!!!" surprised them.

We are of all different skills and experience as pilots. It's amazing how we can help each other learn new things. Having flown Lycoming IO 360's for 30 years, in March, a very wise mechanic, who is also a new pilot, taught me something very simple and basic about checking the dipsticks on the DA42L.

To assume that we pilots are safe or dangerous, requires a lot of generalizing. I've met many very new pilots to whom I would lend my plane, and some very experienced pilots to whom I would not. The experience and skill are only a part of the equasion, its the attitude which really matters. Pilots of the right attitude never assume they know it all, and will always be willing to learn and share. Pilots with the wrong attitude don't listen well, and tend to show off. Whenever I'm around planes and pilots, and I hear "watch this", I watch out!

Keep reading here, and chatting with other pilots, and you'll find you're saying to yourself "yep, I can imagine how [that] could happen, I've come so close myself. I have to do better next time".

Safe flying, Pilot DAR

Another way of putting this is the old adage that "A superior pilot is one who uses his superior experience to avoid getting into a situation that might require his superior skill to get out of that situation"

The inexperienced pilot though gets into these situations and does NOT have the experience and skill to get out of that situation without luck on his side (after which, if he gets away with it, he has a bit more experience under his belt to enable him to progress towards being a superior pilot!)

I don't think inexperience is the problem, it is inexperience coupled with over confidence. Which seems to be a common trait among todays yoof. I have recently read "The Killing Zone" & it struck me that most of the examples were the result of utter gross stupidity through over confidence.
No old bold pilots & all that are just the end result.
What about "He who knows not, may be a wise man, He who knows not that he knows not, is a fool." ?
I also don't see what the puzzle is. "The Killing Zone" explains it pretty good.

Pilot DAR

I really like;

“I didn't wreck anything, but I sure came close, and scared myself into safety”

I have (only) 25 years of amateur aviation, but in the early days I pushed the limits quite hard. Some of my IFR flights in singles and some of my over water flights were, by my current standards, shear madness! This area is one where pilot mentoring can be very useful, as one can give a less experienced pilot a different perspective on what he is about to do.

I tend to say, there are bold pilots and old pilots and I am well into the transition!

Rod1