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Time to say goodbye to aviation?

In recent times, this question has popped up in my own focus more and more. Several reasons in no particular succession.

I have to say, the recent perceived massive increase in loss of people I knew or knew off, all competent pilots, many of them very close to home has kind of shaken my own trust in our planes and in aviation in general to the core. Notable ones in no specific succession:
- The JU 52 crash in the Swiss alps: Top qualified crew with more experience than one can imagine, yet they lost this airplane and with it also basically eliminated classic airplane flying with passengers in all of Europe.
- The crash of jgmusic with his family hit home very badly, as we are in the similar constellation with our 3 year old. A whole family gone like this.
- The crash of Mark Brandemuehl in the US with a brand new Acclaim Ultra… horriffic ordeal for the family watching the guy suffer for 3 months in hospital before finally succumbing to his burns.
- The crash in Bergamo, where again a family was torn apart
The list goes on. Even the sight of that engine at ZRH simply made me ask myself what the hell we are doing with those old airplanes and archaic engine designs.

Then obviously there is the threat of legal reprecussion like the horrific cases in Germany. I can simply not exclude that I would not make a mistake like that and then have this consequence on my family?

We know that within the next 2-3 years, GA will be banned from Zurich without any chance of a replacement airport. Dübendort is a pipe dream which will not happen or if so over the dead bodies of the population, so do we have the right to force that against a majority of people who live there? Not sure. Zurich has communicated clearly that they want GA including biz jets gone from there rather yesterday than tomorrow, so it is just a case of salami tactics.

And obviously swiss politicians want us gone as well. So wait till the price of airplane plunges into nothing, which is expected if 2000 light planes go on the market at the same time? Or simply admit defeat and sell off?

I have also noticed that despite the good intentions I simply can not find the time to even regain my SEP rating… is it time to admit defeat?

I know the glass is always either half full or half empty, but currently I feel it is draining at an alarming rate. I have my medical in 2 weeks time, lets see what happens then…

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

@M_D it would indeed a pity if you hung up the headset – the classic 20F left unflown and unloved, although am sure it will find a home in North America.

For various reasons I hope simple fixed gear VFR/light IFR with good survivability due to low kinetic energy and modern harnesses/safety systems for modern designs, will provide private GA a long, and relatively safe future.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

My biggest motivation for owning a plane is the technology involved, because I dislike the throw away crap that despite my best intentions I’m forced to buy in other areas of life. Maintaining my plane also gives me a lot of stress relief, it’s something I’d miss if I couldn’t do it. The ADS-B nonsense in the US and unpleasant exposure to Garmin’s business model was a challenge but I got through it in the end.

Everything I enjoy involves risk management. I like doing it and I’d certainly have zero interest in living a low risk life, particularly one that has no flying and little reward. I’ve had a number of friends killed or paralyzed riding motorcycles, a smaller number in flying and a great number from old age. Enjoying life is the process of managing risks in every area until you die of something else…

I think the problem for aviation in Switzerland is Switzerland.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 26 Oct 13:38

Mooney_Driver wrote:

I know the glass is always either half full or half empty, but currently I feel it is draining at an alarming rate

We all face this at stages in our life. One must always have the glass half full, because the alternative is fatalistic drudgery. Aviation should always inspire for those that have participated. We have seen elements of our countryside that few ever witness. We have soared within clouds on a summer day, again where few have been. Yes aeroplane ownership is not for the feint of heart, but you should never give up. Everywhere I look at the moment the killjoys are trying to destroy everything, all aspects of our lives. Those that can must fly the flag!!!

Time is our biggest challenge. That is the area to manage and if necessary park stuff up until your life evens out and supplies that biggest treasure – free time.

Please consider other options before giving up entirely. Very hard to get it back once its gone.

Last Edited by BeechBaby at 26 Oct 14:19
Fly safe. I want this thing to land l...
EGPF Glasgow

Mooney_Driver wrote:

increase in loss of people

Obviously each accident is one too many, but are there really more accidents or are we just more sensitive towards those news as they interest us?
I am guilty of it too. I have decided not to fly with my family anymore for multiple reasons:
1) charter planes are impossible to assess for safety.
2) i don’t fly enough
3) too expensive
The exception is the Cirrus due to CAPS, but see point 3.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

threat of legal reprecussion

Any links?

Mooney_Driver wrote:

GA will be banned from Zurich

You can only fight it. Get a group of people together and sit down with the airport.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

can not find the time to even regain my SEP rating

So you have a plane but no rating?

always learning
LO__, Austria

Snoopy wrote:

Any links?

The customs issue discussed in the other thread?

Snoopy wrote:

So you have a plane but no rating?

Correct. The plane is in use though, just not by me at the moment. I did two trainig flights this year with the intent to regaining my SEP but found again that since 3 months I had no time whatsoever to do anything more.

I think not flying enough is one issue, however, what bugs me most ist that almost all the accidents recently were with really experienced pilots and such who fly more than enough. Peter’s inflight return to ZRH with a great outcome was one light in that tunnel, so was that remarkable emergency landing at St. Johns. But both had also the effect of demonstrating brutally how these engines can just let go and how! That really woke me up to just how brutal these failures can be. These two cases had great outcome, but the one of Mark Brandemuehl with a brand new Acclaim did not, despite the fact that he managed to land on the highway.

Obviously none of those would have been an event in a shute equipped plane, apart from an insurance case. This really makes me think whether to subject any passenger to this kind of engines. And if I can’t take my family on trips, then the whole purpose of owning a plane is gone.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Obviously none of those would have been an event in a shute equipped plane, apart from an insurance case. This really makes me think whether to subject any passenger to this kind of engines. And if I can’t take my family on trips, then the whole purpose of owning a plane is gone.

Good point.

At times like these I like to think about Edmont Thieffry who needed 51 days to fly from Brussels to Leopoldville in 1925. He was a smarter man than I and if he’s ok with it…

EBST, Belgium

This topic comes up periodically e.g. here.

I don’t know how long you have been flying, MD, but I’ve seen quite a number of high-hour pilots (owners, with IRs, etc) pack it all up around the 20 year point. Maybe that happens naturally? One has done the scenic routes…

I am coming up to 20 years and while I am not going to give up (have no rational reason to) I think that many in my position would. Due to the new UK CAA policy, I have zero lives left; one tiny mistake in next 2 years and my license is gone. In this post-Gasco position one is reduced to doing only the really easy fully-autopilot single-level flights, or flight going directly out of the UK, or Eurocontrol IFR flights. Fortunately I have done much of the UK in years past, have no interest in the standard UK GA runs to greasy fry-up joints, and the longer trips (e.g. Oban) I would do IFR. If I was doing the standard runs I would have to remove my transponder. I think flying with Mode S in this environment this would drive most people crazy.

What keeps me going is going to nice places and meeting up with nice people. EuroGA is a huge help in this respect. Without the community I would not be that interested anymore, and I have many emails saying the same thing. I think that is a good focus.

In fact I would say that pilots who have no social element in their flying are destined to pack it in within a few years of getting an IR and doing the main watering holes under IFR. I have known several such (who told me they have nobody to fly with and don’t do meet-ups) and all of them gave it up. Well, one still flies but strictly for his business, about once a month.

You list some crashes. I would say most of these sorts of crashes are easily avoidable. Peter’s Zurich one is really bad luck and potentially fatal, but the time window for the fatal outcome (above a town, or a forest, etc) is very short as a % of total flying time.

If Zurich is lost to GA and there are no nearby alternatives, I would give up too. If Shoreham closed I would have to drive 1.5hrs to Biggin (less to Redhill but that is water-logged grass) and would probably pack it in at that point.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

airways wrote:

At times like these I like to think about Edmont Thieffry who needed 51 days to fly from Brussels to Leopoldville in 1925.

You’ve got a good point there, though they were different times. Actually, if you would look at flights which from todays point of view are totally ridiculous to even contemplate then the one that crosses my mind is Lindberg. A totally overloaded airplane, no forward view but for a periscope and single engine. Yep, I know. Maybe we are all too soft and weak these days, but as I said, these were different times. Aviators were looked at as maybe a tad crazy but heavens if the population did not stand behind them. Today, aviation like everything else is mainly another thing which disturbs people and they don’t want it.

Matter of fact, I encountered a so called aviation fan recently who went to North Korea and tells me he liked the empty streets and the fact that there was hardly any noise at all. At my question if he did not think the price a tad high in the kind of society they live, he just shrugged and said he thought the people he saw appeared happy enough… unfortunately this guy is not alone. People these days are annoyed by everything, envious of everybody and if they have a chance to screw their neighbour they will. That is why aviation is under such scrutiny, the perils of a minority combined with the usual envy effect.

You know, my aviation ambition was to once cross the atlantic in my own plane. That ambition is gone however, seeing what rubbish engines we have I actually wonder whether it is safe to fly them at all. Nobody would accept a car engine of this technical epoch today and why would they do so. My car now has almost 300k km on its tach and runs like the first day. That engine has NEVER ever stopped unless the key was turned to off. Apart, it hardly ever needs any maintenance, I can’t remember when the plugs were even pulled, let alone changed last, it just runs and soldiers on. Why the hell can’t we have engines like that in aviation? In fact, the only engine we have which comes close is the Thielert/Austroengine. I’d have to say, I’d have more confidence in that those, maybe unwarranted.

Peter, I would even move to Birrfeld or Speck, as redoing my IR is illosorical anyway given the time I have at my hands (none). But what really worries me is the accident history of GA in the last several years, where I simply see so many well known and experienced faces die in freak accidents which most of the time turn out to be pilot error, mostly for the lack of ability to prove something else. If those people can’t fly safely from a to b, how the hell should I with my measly 500 GA hours? Am I better than people like those Ju Air Pilots, who had 25k hours between them and were maybe the most experienced JU pilots ever? Or the guy who crashed his TB20 into a mountain, Stefan I believe his name was? Or jgmusic, where 2 qualified pilots on board were not able to preserve the live of their child, which is the upmost duty any parent has? Or Mark Brandemuehl, who has probably sacrificed his own life to preserve that of some innocent motorway drivers but died in a way closest imaginable as hell? He leaves behind a wife and kids as well. So far, I’ve known close to100 people who lost their lifes to aviation, whereas I do not know one single person who died in a car crash, despite the fact that they are much more common.

Its not that I want to throw the towel and it would tear my heart out if I did (Have they founded pilots annonymous yet?) but somehow I see my responsibility to trying to protect and preseve my family at all cost. And flying proves really to be a risk I am struggling with, combined with the fact that if I can’t share my time with my family, then its not worth doing.

Last Edited by Mooney_Driver at 26 Oct 18:55
LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

@MD
For me the crashes you mentioned are not a good reason to stop flying.

Most aircraft accidents carry an element of human error(s) where wrong decisions have been made by the pilots or procedures have not been followed. We can all learn from these stories and try to do it better.

Catastrophic engine failures are extremely rare and most can be prevented with proper maintenance and inspections. Engine monitors and oil analysis help enormously in identifying problems in time.

What was the reason for the engine failure in LSZH? Are we sure the mixture was full rich on takeoff? Or was the pilots‘ stress level at a busy international airport higher than normal and he omitted this little point on the checklist leading to insufficient fuel flow, much higher temperatures and detonation?

IMO it is all about mitigating and managing the associated risks when flying small (& big) planes and aiming for smart and safe decisions.

You also have to feel comfortable with what you are doing. As people grow older they become more risk averse and at some point they might end their flying career they have enjoyed for many years.

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