RIP to another one

There's a disturbing sub-set of fatalities that I don't fully understand: Experienced air-carrier pilots who fly home-builts or experimentals for fun. When they get in trouble, they can't recover. No, it's usually not mechanical or airframe failure, it's a pilot who lets the aircraft get beyond him/her.

Best guess: many of these aircraft just have a narrower design window of normality, and often a smaller designed-in margin to recover when things start to so south. Perhaps the air carrier thousands of hour in the cockpit also has led them to expect more latitude from the aircraft.

I'm sure there are exceptions (human and machine). Anyone else noticed this?
 
FloridaLarry said:
There's a disturbing sub-set of fatalities that I don't fully understand: Experienced air-carrier pilots who fly home-builts or experimentals for fun. When they get in trouble, they can't recover. No, it's usually not mechanical or airframe failure, it's a pilot who lets the aircraft get beyond him/her.

Best guess: many of these aircraft just have a narrower design window of normality, and often a smaller designed-in margin to recover when things start to so south. Perhaps the air carrier thousands of hour in the cockpit also has led them to expect more latitude from the aircraft.

I'm sure there are exceptions (human and machine). Anyone else noticed this?
Click to expand...
No, not really.
 
FloridaLarry said:
There's a disturbing sub-set of fatalities that I don't fully understand: Experienced air-carrier pilots who fly home-builts or experimentals for fun. When they get in trouble, they can't recover. No, it's usually not mechanical or airframe failure, it's a pilot who lets the aircraft get beyond him/her.

Best guess: many of these aircraft just have a narrower design window of normality, and often a smaller designed-in margin to recover when things start to so south. Perhaps the air carrier thousands of hour in the cockpit also has led them to expect more latitude from the aircraft.

I'm sure there are exceptions (human and machine). Anyone else noticed this?
Click to expand...
I'm curious about some data on this?
 
FloridaLarry said:
There's a disturbing sub-set of fatalities that I don't fully understand: Experienced air-carrier pilots who fly home-builts or experimentals for fun. When they get in trouble, they can't recover. No, it's usually not mechanical or airframe failure, it's a pilot who lets the aircraft get beyond him/her.
Click to expand...

Depends on the type of flying too.

The two recent ones I can remember involve flying with a bit more inherent risk. The UA guy that was formation flying a couple weeks ago and the AA pilot that died at FFZ a few months ago after an engine failure in his AT6.
 
scooter2525 said:
I'm curious about some data on this?
Click to expand...

I don't have it. It's the sum of things I've noticed over a few years. Searching through a ton of data for a few occurrences is more than I'm up for ( IMHO, the search criteria don't readily lead to an effective electronic way to do it, and a manual sifting would be a gargantuan task. That's my ex-wife's specialty, but she no longer does that for me <G>). I had hoped that posting it would bring the question up to a wider group, and perhaps provide some anecdotal evidence.

Possibly, there aren't enough occurrences to support my supposition. Perhaps the individual NTSB reports will not show a recognizable pattern of causes. But I think there is something here, and recognition could save lives.
 
wheelsup said:
I hate to say this but I have almost zero interest in GA. The risk is just too great. Truthfully I'm surprised I made it to 2000 hours in pistons.
Click to expand...
To each his own. After flying thousands of hours on both sides of the Pro/GA fence, I'll say from my perspective the risk in GA is not the pistons, or any other part of the airplane. It's the pilot and/or owner. The best jet jocks I know all fly little airplanes too. It's a large part of what makes them the best jet jocks.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
I hate to say this but I have almost zero interest in driving. The risk is just too great. 38,000 dead on the roads last year. Truthfully I'm surprised I made it 17 years driving cars.


:)
Click to expand...
Get the sarcasm... Yet... Driving IS in fact by far the most dangerous activity in which most people will ever participate in their lives. At least with flying it's generally your own fault if you screw up. The worst part about driving is that more often than not, regardless of how good you are, how attentive you are, how well you maintain your vehicle... there's still not a damned thing you can do if some texting idiot or drunk idiot takes you out. Drive a motorcycle? Multiply by 10x.
 
Inverted said:
Those who have zero interest in GA should be slapped back to reality. In my experience, some pilots that have been flying professionally only, are very poor at decision making and flying the airplane.
Click to expand...
"Now that I write term papers on my computer I won't ever play video games again!" ;)



Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
 
Some habits...

A good friend was flying international freight in 74s. He goes to the local GA airport to get checked out in a 4-place, so he can do some weekend trips. First landing, he flares v-e-r-y high, then goes around.

CFI says: "Remember, captain, your cockpit isn't 25 feet above the runway in this aircraft."
 
Inverted said:
Those who have zero interest in GA should be slapped back to reality. In my experience, some pilots that have been flying professionally only, are very poor at decision making and flying the airplane.
Click to expand...

Hot/cold cockpit, small, loud, SLOW, turbulent, etc are all reasons why I'm not too interested in getting back into a GA airplane. Unless this 'reality' has changed.

Some pilots flying professionally may be bad at making decisions but there are many many more flying GA that fit under that heading as evidenced by accident reports.
 
Last edited:
wheelsup said:
Hot/cold cockpit, small, loud, SLOW, turbulent, etc are all reasons why I have no desire to get back into a GA airplane. Unless this 'reality' has changed.

Some pilots flying professionally may be bad at making decisions but there are many many more flying GA that fit under that heading as evidenced by accident reports.
Click to expand...

More stupidity has been curbed by a second crewmember that's why. I am not debating about the safety, but to just dismiss GA as potential lawn darts and certain death is a bit much.
 
Inverted said:
More stupidity has been curbed by a second crewmember that's why. I am not debating about the safety, but to just dismiss GA as potential lawn darts and certain death is a bit much.
Click to expand...

The only pilots I know who have managed to get themselves killed in airplanes happened in a 210 and a bonanza.

Both of them had their engine fail and it went poorly.
 
We have roughly an accident a day in Alaska across the whole spectrum. The only engine related one I know of was a highly experimental engine. Engine failures on normal lyc/cont engines is less than 1% of crashes.

And they're getting better. IMO the roller cams in the newer lycomings is a great improvement that is 80 years overdue. The engine monitors that record data that lycoming and some other engine shops are gathering is allowing statistical driven mx like never before. The new iE2 engines from lycoming are also where aviation needed to be 20 years ago, but it's nice to see development happening.
 
jtrain609 said:
The only pilots I know who have managed to get themselves killed in airplanes happened in a 210 and a bonanza.

Both of them had their engine fail and it went poorly.
Click to expand...
To be fair if one of those is the one I'm thinking of the engine failure was completely pilot-induced and 1000% preventable.

I've been close to 7 accidents over the years, of those only 1 was engine failure related and that had no injuries. The other ones were CFIT (3x, all with fatalities), misjudgment/loss of control on landing at an unimproved runway (2x, no injuries), and wandered into a level 4 while trying to pick up an IFR clearance (fatal). Also seen 1x pop a tank and didn't/couldn't get it back (off airport landing, no damage) and 3x engine failures of various degrees that made it back to the airport. Of those 3 1 was completely preventable, 1 completely out of the blue, and 1 I'm not sure of. Not sure what all of that means but there ya go.
 
Last edited:
wheelsup said:
Hot/cold cockpit, small, loud, SLOW, turbulent, etc are all reasons why I'm not too interested in getting back into a GA airplane. Unless this 'reality' has changed.

Some pilots flying professionally may be bad at making decisions but there are many many more flying GA that fit under that heading as evidenced by accident reports.
Click to expand...
One possible difference is that in GA there is a lot more leeway to make knucklehead decisions.
 
Don't ask me for data as I don't have any, just going by my gut, but it seems like there are professionals who don't fly ga that are great, some are knuckleheads, and some just get unlucky.

Then there are some professionals that do fly ga that are great, some who are knuckleheads, and some that get u lucky.

There some amateurs who are great, some knuckleheads, and some that get unlucky. But for the sake of self reaffirmation I'll just assume that what I do is what makes the best pilots.
 
There's a big difference between 121 and single pilot GA...let alone single pilot GA IFR.

Some do better at it than others...others make some bad assumptions based on inapplicable data, irrelevant experience or "what their buddies told them".

Take ADS-B or SAT radar. Super cool and an unbelievable tool over calling 122.0 and asking Flight Watch (RIP) "hey, where's the weather". It is NOT good for deviating around or penetrating lines of weather. It's designed for "hey, this is what's going on, DON'T go there". The fact that the data is delayed 5-10 minutes is a tidbit that might be easily overlooked. Missing that point is all it takes when cells/lines are moving rapidly.

Stormscope is NOT radar.

Controlled fields and radar from takeoff to touchdown works great...a non-radar departure from East Podunk Municipal when there is a obstacle DP and no RCO is a complicated trap waiting to be sprung on the unwary.

WAAS GPS navigators? They are the good stuff. Make sure you know how it works.

Autopilots? They work great and are practically a must have for single pilot IFR, but your STEC ain't the same as your Boeing or Airbus. Make sure you know how it works.

Methodical and careful pilots who understand the differences have better odds.

Richman
 
Fatal accidents are an intersection between:

- Pilot skill/experience
- Pilot proficiency
- Airmanship/decisionmaking
- Aircraft maintenance
- Aircraft design/build factors
- Operational factors (what are they trying to do with the airplane and under what conditions)
- Chance/fate is the hunter

As there is such a wide swath of values in each of these categories, it is dishonest to try and shoehorn one type of pilot and one type of aircraft into the mold and see a trend without some detailed actual data analysis (which none of us have).
 
wheelsup said:
I hate to say this but I have almost zero interest in GA. The risk is just too great. Truthfully I'm surprised I made it to 2000 hours in pistons.
Click to expand...
After flying 121, does flying piston GA feel "unsafe"? I ask because sometimes hot desert turbulence or flying over terrain where I could not safely put a Cessna down if the engine quit makes me long for something smoother, safer, and less anxiety provoking......
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top