Flying your family

Well, I don’t think it’s THAT safe, Peter. I don’t have them at hand Peter, but most experts agree that flying small GA planes is around 12 times more dangerous than driving … on average of course (I am sure that your flying is much safer than that!). I would say it’s comparable to riding a motorcycle.

I do fly my family around Germany, two or three times a year, or to CZ or France and to Croatia. It doesn’t happen verry often though because we can only fly
- on days without school
- when the weather is better than my personal minimum for such flights (1000 ft AGL)
- the weather on both the destination and for the flight back is good enough
- my wife and me both have the time …

Last year we cancelled two of 4 flights: One to Nancy (weather too low and forecast bad) and one to Avignon (high winds and uncertain forecast).

most feel that the IR/IRr is a must, to do it seriously and regularly

No, not really. I did more family trips before I had my IR Family flights are only done when the weather is nice. Also under IFR, you often have the oxygen hassle which is a big no with the family. I fly IFR these days because that requires almost zero preparation and you can doze enroute but if I cross the Alps, then I add a VFR segment so that I can stay at max FL130 instead of the minimum FL150 for IFR. Austrian ATC are used to this, they still handle you as an IFR flight during that time.

((With the family i now mostly fly IFR in VFR conditions around FL 90-110, that works best for me))

but most experts agree that flying small GA planes is around 12 times more dangerous than driving … on average of course (I am sure that your flying is much safer than that!). I would say it’s comparable to riding a motorcycle.

Statistically that’s probably true, but there is a big spectrum of attitude to risk, ranging from really careful all the way to having a death wish, and of competence too.

The crappy FTO training system, designed to deliver a large # of young kids to jet RHS positions, gets away with it because they fly a very capable plane, have to do a TR and usually have a very good pilot in the LHS so the potential for screwups is limited. Well, not when the LHS is a muppet too and the old boy is sleeping in the bunk because he was “out with” his squeeze all night the night before, and then you get AF447. But it does not produce competent private pilots. A new IR holder cannot even work out a Eurocontrol routing (and indeed the pilot of N2195B could not – he used to get another pilot I used to fly with to work them out for him)…

So, given that most fatals are due to pilot error and not a mechanical failure, if you read EuroGA regularly you will be at the “good” end of the spectrum

I have about 150000km on 2 wheels and I used to ride with some people who would overtake a bus on a humpback bridge, just for the kicks. On a Kawasaki 750 2-stroke of course

I did more family trips before I had my IR

Yes, but how many hours do you fly a year?

I used to do long trips VFR too – Crete Santorini

But I was lucky with the wx on those. I cannot see how those trips could have been done on any year since then. There has been so much more convective wx since. I guess the conditions are changing.

Nevertheless I have never done a long VFR trip like that without some flight in IMC. All were done VMC on top and often that involves going up/down through a hole which doesn’t actually exist. And all involved oxygen.

I would not ride a motorbike today in the UK. There are 3.5 x more cars on the road than when I stopped doing it (1980) and much of the increase is people who can barely see. One ends up having to constantly overtake several of these in one go… One motorbike “gang” I know goes out ~ 6am to avoid this stuff. The majority of bike deaths are caused by car drivers.

Whereas in flying it’s 99.99% down to you, alone.

I used to do long trips VFR too

I think family (read: kids) and long trips are mutually exclusive. 2:30h is a reasonable leg size. And never without an attractive destination, they get no joy out of the flying as such.

Mali Losinj LDLO is a good family destination for me, we go twice a year. Takes 2:15. However, I would not go unless the weather is good and that basically means VMC all the way. Nothing more boring than Croatia in bad weather

Thaty’s very true, but in Europe one needs the IR to get up into the sunshine.

This

is usually impossible under VFR, especially when it involves a bit of this (warning: a boring video)

Disagree :-) Even VFR i fly on-top as much as possible … and it’s almost always possible during the summer!

Agree: Mali Losinj is perfect. So are Cannes, Nancy, Avignon, Portoroz, Zell am See or Prague … from Southern Germany.

but if I cross the Alps, then I add a VFR segment so that I can stay at max FL130 instead of the minimum FL150 for IFR. Austrian ATC are used to this, they still handle you as an IFR flight during that time.

Now, that is interesting information to have… FL 130 is still oxygen altitude and probably also “cloud altitude material” if the sky is not clear, but then one does not need as big or turbocharged an engine as if one was flying at or above FL 160 or more…