Peter wrote:
in-flight pilot incapacitation is negligible (which makes the aviation medical system laughable)
Well, yes, but your statistical reasoning could be flawed (cv joke about piles of salt and lions). It could be that the medical system is nearly perfect, hence the excellent record. (I share your cynicism on the subject, but it’s very hard to prove.)
The way to “prove” it is to compare with a similar population which is not subject to the European medical requirements: the US one (or significant parts of it). It is now known that there is no statistical difference over there, with the US Sports Pilot Medical system. And one could hardly argue that US pilots have a healthier lifestyle than European ones 
In fact one could easily argue that those going for the SP medical are aware of a medical condition serious enough to deny the Class 3. It’s like the UK NPPL: most of those who went for it originally were those who could not get the Class 2.
Most likely, what controls the issue is pilots being smart enough to self ground if things are bad enough. But the regulatory establishment has a serious emotional issue with that one
In this case, ICAO compliance, together with the very powerful AME lobby, are the drivers in Europe.
My girlfriend and I popped up for a quick 30 minutes yesterday afternoon – we did the annual LAA permit renewal test flight. Time a 1,000ft climb at full power and best rate of climb, do a couple of stalls and check handling/speeds, dive to VNE and check controls ok, etc.
Reading this thread got me thinking that perhaps if we both go up for a quick flight we should be texting someone to let them know where we’ve gone and that they should start looking for us if we don’t text again in a couple of hours.
We talked about it and imagined what would happen on a practical level if we crashed into a field somewhere and killed ourselves, the wreckage not being discovered until the next day at least. Although someone somehow would likely notice our absence from somewhere within a day or or so, if they didn’t know we’d gone flying then it wouldn’t be a cause for alarm – just a surprise/irritation. Probably it would be getting on for a week before anyone (our employers perhaps, or neighbours) actually came and broke the door down at home, by which time our dog (in the kitchen) would long have run out of water :-(
I think in the future we won’t both go up without someone knowing.
Every flight I take now reports my position in three dimensions at least every 20 seconds, recorded on a public website. I think in the end the ELT requirement will likely go away in the U.S. which would be at least one benefit of ADS-B OUT… I would like to remove one box on my plane for every one added!
The comments earlier on motorcycle accidents got me thinking about the people I’ve known who have been killed or paralyzed riding motorcycles. There was one fatality as a result of collision with a car, a guy riding cross country from Canada as he did every spring. One year he didn’t make it, this was about 1990. During the same period I’ve personally watched untold motorcycle accidents due to loss of control, mostly without major injury but two friends paralyzed, one additional with severe physical limitations who later fell down the stairs and died, and one time circled back to find a guy who’d tagged along with the group crashed and dead. Incompetence or huge risk taking has been the more common theme, cars have not in my experience been the main issue. Like a lot in life things are not as they seem to the casual observer. You might think that with all the riding I’ve done in Europe, e.g. one lane Alpine roads with little forward visibility driven by maniacs in cars, that cars would be a big issue… but that’s not the case, you can almost always avoid them. Flying is of course another big example of that, one would think without experience that single engine planes would be crashing down on houses all day long. In reality, despite hundreds and hundreds of such flights every day from my urban base, it’s almost unknown. It does happen locally once every ten years of so, but not enough to be a significant concern.
Today a sign on my road to work said : last year in Texas we had 29,875 killed on road accidents so drive carefully (this is just in the state of Texas in one year) imagine the numbers for the entire country
If we had 30,000 pilots killed in one year flying would be banned.
And I know statistically that those are different events but still you have to look at the numbers and no one is mentioning restricting driving.
Interesting topic. For me, with 180 hrs on 2 years of PPL, I don’t see GA to be dangerous (yet). One can make flying as safe or as dangerous as you would like. I compare it with my other hobby: Freeride skiing, which can be a quite safe or a quite dangerous hobby at the same time. The magic rule is: Reducing your residual risk to minimums. A famous Swiss avalanche expert called “Werner Munter” came with a game changing risk reduction method: The 3×3 filter. Even though it has been developed to prevent avalanche victims, it helped me (in a modified form) also for making decisons in my flying career so far. If I stick to risk reduction and evaluation for each single flight, I’m quite sure that the residual risk of becoming a victim in an GA-accident is quite acceptable today.
If GA would be so dangerous as some people here might think, IMHO the modern world would restrict it much more as it does right now. Yes, we have lots of rules and regulations, but still here we are… Anyone can still learn and apply for a PPL, almost just like learning and applying for a driver’s license. Flying a SEP overhead open water? Still allowed. Trough or overhead mountain valleys? Still allowed. NVFR? Still allowed. ILS down to minimums? Still allowed. If one SEP would crash after the other SEP, things would change very quickly. Especially in this modern world, where the majority of people only accept very less risks in their lifes…
magyarflyer wrote:
So enjoy it while it lasts. I see too many of my patients dying in a wheelchair in front of a tv of Alzheimer’s, cancer and stroke. To those quitting I am sorry to see you go and will miss you at the wing dings. Reconsider the options.Very well said. Unfortunately, there is quite a high risk of getting a fatal disease somewhere in life. Such risks wouldn’t be acceptable if we could choose to prevent them at all, but we cannot do much more then living a healthy life, according to the medical knowledge we have right now. My personal fear is not to die someday, but to get sick and die very slowly in bed or wheelchair at home or at a hospital.
Graham wrote:
Reading this thread got me thinking that perhaps if we both go up for a quick flight we should be texting someone to let them know where we’ve gone and that they should start looking for us if we don’t text again in a couple of hours.
Get a Garmin inReach or spot maybe?
Frans wrote:
the modern world would restrict it much more as it does right now
There is a fatal accident every 4 days. GA flying is such a low scale, almost non existent activity that nobody bothers.
My feeling is that there are many more ga accidents compared to the level of activity as there are car accidents compared to the amount of driving.
When I had 40 hours I didn’t think about 1/1000 of the things I think about now, after flying thousands of hours (and more than a decade of loose GA flying).
Thank you for the 3×3 remark, I’ll read up on it.
Snoopy wrote:
There is a fatal accident every 4 days.
Globally, there’s a fatal road accident approximately every minute.
Frankly, if I was as afraid of flying as some here seem to be, I simply wouldn’t do it. Defying gravity is inherently dangerous, no matter how you slice and dice it. The airline industry has achieved a remarkable safety record both through technology and rigorous training standards aided by multi-crew ops. In GA we can try to mitigate the risks by recurrent training, staying proficient and keeping our airplanes as well maintained as we can. It will still be a risky pursuit. We either accept that or, if we don’t, stop doing it. What we should, IMHO, not do is to operate an airplane with the mindset @Mooney has displayed in his earlier posts in this thread for the simple reason that we’d fail the IMSAFE test – more specifically the S = stress and the E = emotion part. If you’re not comfortable flying, stay on the ground. Nothing wrong with that.
My feeling is that there are many more ga accidents compared to the level of activity as there are car accidents compared to the amount of driving.
I am sure you are right, though any car driver is way more current than any private pilot, and has way less to worry about and way less to get wrong. There is someone near where I work (not in my company thankfully) who parks every day across 2 parking places; I tried to explain this to her but got a totally blank expression. There was literally no discernible neural activity between the two ears. A pilot who was like that would die shortly after takeoff.
I too don’t want to die in a dementia care home. My mother did so recently; took her 5 years. The average is 2.5 but she was physically strong. It is a really scary experience for the person, too – right until near the end.
The biggest challenge I find is finding interesting trips. Last year’s big one was the pinnacle of my flying – largely due to the stunning scenery at the far end, which thankfully I got on video. This will be hard to beat. I can see a lot of people give up because they have “done it all” and there is too much else going on in their life.
Another thing is mechanical or avionics problems. These have a corrosive effect on one’s confidence. I am only gradually getting back into flying now, having had the stuck valve fixed. I know most people would not bother about something like that, but I have had 17 years of zero mechanical issues, so this is a new one.
