Seggy
Well-Known Member
Eh, it doesn't need to be twice as bad as the national average. If the operators invested in better equipment, better safety cultures, etc., it would be a lot better.
Stick and Rudder..
- Thread starter Retired in SAN
- Start date
Eh, it doesn't need to be twice as bad as the national average. If the operators invested in better equipment, better safety cultures, etc., it would be a lot better.
KSCessnaDriver
Well-Known Member
I do know that the safety record up in Alaska is abysmal compared to the rest of the industry.
According to the Flight Safety Foundation "Over the five years of 2004 to 2008, the latest for which complete data is available, the general aviation accident rate for Alaska was 13.59 mishaps per every 100,000 flying hours. That is more than two times worse than the comparable figure for the United States as whole: 5.85 accidents per 100,000 flying hours."
So how does that fit into your argument?
If you are so obsessed with safety, why did you ever come out of your bubble? Because quite frankly, you seem like the type that wouldn't let a child hold an ink pen because "it could be dangerous, think of the children."
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
The accident rate in Alaska commercial aviation is still higher than it should be, but some huge improvements have been made and there are a lot of people out there working very hard to improve things.
I do know that the safety record up in Alaska is abysmal compared to the rest of the industry.
According to the Flight Safety Foundation "Over the five years of 2004 to 2008, the latest for which complete data is available, the general aviation accident rate for Alaska was 13.59 mishaps per every 100,000 flying hours. That is more than two times worse than the comparable figure for the United States as whole: 5.85 accidents per 100,000 flying hours."
So how does that fit into your argument?
On the other hand someone who has evidently forgotten everything they ever knew about little airplanes, and never even been to Alaska ( much less flown there) can shut the hell up.
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Area 5150
Model citizen, Zero discipline
Eh, just friendly jabbing among friends. They'll all be happy again, once Doug pushes this button:
Plus, everyone is a little testy over Allegiant becoming legacy status.......................
** cough**
amorris311
Well-Known Member
I think they have. Things have gotten a lot better up there in recent years. Still not so great, but Rome wasn't built in a day. Alaska is also its own animal. Flying is about the only mode of transportation for some of these people. Lots more small planes flying around up there then down here. I'd pump the brakes on the safety culture arguments as well. You and I know just as much about that in Alaska as the guys debating the 3407 accident.
Seggy
Well-Known Member
None, but it doesn't take one who has been through a training program to share facts from the Flight Safety Foundation.
Every time one is critical of something in Alaska, those who have flown up there LOVE to tell others they haven't and those who haven't should shut up. Ok, but that is something we call group think.
Seggy
Well-Known Member
Good! Why was it so bad for so long then?
Why should I shut up? Because I was critical of someone showing off for the camera (in Alaska) I am labeled an outsider who doesn't know right and wrong operations because they were simply from Alaska?
D
Deleted member 27505
Guest
That vid is an excerpt from a film called "Long Props, Big Rocks". You can buy it someplace, or just patch together all the excerpts.
Seggy
Well-Known Member
Huh?
D
Deleted member 27505
Guest
I do know that the safety record up in Alaska is abysmal compared to the rest of the industry.
According to the Flight Safety Foundation "Over the five years of 2004 to 2008, the latest for which complete data is available, the general aviation accident rate for Alaska was 13.59 mishaps per every 100,000 flying hours. That is more than two times worse than the comparable figure for the United States as whole: 5.85 accidents per 100,000 flying hours."
So how does that fit into your argument?
C'mon, meow. Percentage-wise, more people die of eating fast food. But, then I'm a coockoo for cocao puffs single-engine guy. Plus, 83.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
D
Deleted member 27505
Guest
I used to have to wear a helmet at chess club practice. That's not required anymore?!?
KSCessnaDriver
Well-Known Member
Probably just you. It seems the stupid seems to come out of the woodwork anytime a 121 type see's something that isn't 121 approved and has to point out (just like iceman) that it's dangerous.
D
Deleted member 27505
Guest
Well, you know why they call it a cockpit... no • allowed.
D
Deleted member 27505
Guest
Ohhh, JC just ate my noun!!!
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
This guy was demonstrating his skills, many of which he uses in the course of his professional flying, in front of the camera.
Beyond that, when we engage in recreational flying, we dial in the level of risk to property or person we are comfortable with. This covers a lot of territory and I don't think it should invite much scrutiny until it infringes on the safety or property rights is others.
Beyond that, when we engage in recreational flying, we dial in the level of risk to property or person we are comfortable with. This covers a lot of territory and I don't think it should invite much scrutiny until it infringes on the safety or property rights is others.
A Life Aloft
Well-Known Member
Perhaps it's the voice of experience think.
Having not flown there yet, (can't wait) I have read several books, watched many shows and read a lot of articles on flying in Alaska. It's just not the lower 48. In fact I was doing some reading just recently and here are just some excerpts:
"Because the distances are vast, the terrain often impassable, and the road network rudimentary, Alaskan life is held together by a small-plane aviation system in a way that has no counterpart in the rest of the country. The famous example is the capital, Juneau. No roads whatsoever connect it with the rest of the world, so you get in and out strictly by boat or plane. When I first visited Anchorage in the early 1980s, I was surprised to see how many people had small planes on their property or float planes in the water, how normal rather than strange it was for people to know how to handle an airplane.
Jagged peaks, steep fjords and foggy conditions along the coastline; extreme weather in the interior, tricky winds and fast changing weather. The same rugged terrain that makes aviation necessary also means pilots can rely less on air-traffic controllers to help. Radar works on "line of sight" principles, so the controllers' radar can't see airplanes flying between mountains.
Thus Alaskans have an unusual need to fly, and face unusual dangers when they fly. The natural result is a different risk-reward calculation than in other parts of the country. Alaskan pilots get used to making trips in circumstances that would persuade someone in, say, Nevada or Pennsylvania to wait another day. The higher average level of skill among veteran Alaskan pilots buffers some of the resulting higher risk.
Storms are especially common in the Aleutian Islands, the Alaska Peninsula, and southern Alaska, with wind speeds of more than 50 miles an hour. Large swaths of the state are also jagged and mountainous, with mountaintops frequently obscured by clouds. And the places with the most treacherous weather and landscape also tend to be most remote, so air travel is the only way to get there. Poor infrastructure doesn't help: Many accidents occur on isolated dirt or gravel air fields, where it's easy for a plane to skid, especially if it's icy or muddy, or on lakes, where it's hard for seaplanes to land unless the water is flat. (About one-third of takeoff/landing accidents in Alaska involve seaplanes.) Further, Anchorage has the busiest seaplane airport in the entire world.
Alaska's safety record looks to technology. That same week, I drove north from Anchorage to the town of Birchwood, where I met 50-year backcountry veteran Terry Holliday. A former neighbor of Graybill's, he specializes in the kind of wild and woolly aviation that John Graybill introduced me to. Holliday sometimes touches down where no plane has ever landed: tundra, beaches, gravel bars. Electronics are useless for takeoffs and landings in those settings, he told me. The only things that can keep a pilot alive are skill, judgment and experience. "I've survived all these years without technology," says Holliday, who has never had a major accident. "I'm not against it, but for my kind of flying, it's not going to do me any good."
In an age of electronic marvels, we tend to look to technology to solve our problems. When it stands in for expertise, however, it puts itself between us and the world around us. It mediates and insulates. At its best, technology can empower. There is no one freer than a pilot in Alaska with an airplane. When you take off, you can have thousands of square miles entirely to yourself. There is no mediation. It is a matter of you, your machine and the wilderness. And that's pure freedom.
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Nark
Macho Superpilot
The problem dear boy, is that you as an outsider don't know what is safe and what is dangerous.
There is nothing dangerous about that video. It is nothing more than calculated risk. Guess what, just like 100% of 121 flights.
And since you've never been through a part 135 Alaskan ground school, don't get on a soap box and tell those here that they need to change cultures...
You have no idea what is covered. I'll tell you this much, a crap load more than the 121 initial and recurrent I've been through.
Also, the light pistons flying around the SE will fly circles around anything you've ever flown at Pinnacle corps in terms of avionics.
Sorry dude, you've been called out and don't have a leg to stand on in this debate. Not just by me, your dear, dear friend either.
