Cobalt wrote:
From the typical accident pattern of these jets in private ownership (including private owners with CPL/ATPL and flying with other CPL/ATPLS) the catastrophic accidents have more to do with poor decision making rather than currency on type and handling.
I think you’re right on the money with this argument, Cobalt. I know rather little about aircraft but in my profession, medicine, the really difficult and thus acutely dangerous situations that require rarely used techniques to treat tend to be very rare. In my field of anaesthesia, Malignant Hyperthermia would be the best example (feel free to Google it). A typical anesthesiologist encounters it say between never and two times in his entire career. The difference between a junior doctor and an experienced head of department in rare situations are not that the senior doctor is much more “current” at performing the treatment – how would he for something that occurs only every decade or so in an entire hospital? – but that his judgement and ability to think outside of the “normal” procedures is often better.
This however does mean that hours worked/flown is a good indicator of safety. Neither in medicine nor in aviation. It is also largely a matter of attitude, character and training. I think the effect of “currency” as such might be overestimated.
Cobalt wrote:
… has nothing to do with currency.
Maybe not. But neither accident would have happened in a commercial environment where the kind of approach they did would not have been an option in the first place.
Peter wrote:
A pilot doing 800hrs/year … is likely to be flying in “all” wx.
On the contrary. A pilot with that kind of experience would be very careful about the weather he flies into.
Flying an aeroplane safely is much more a question of character first and foremost than ultimately the hours.
A low hour guy who knows his limitations will be safer to fly with than a 10’000 hrs guy who thinks he is invincible. As Cobalt sais, there were pilots with hours galore who made criminal misjudgements whether under pressure or just because they thought they could get away with it we will never know.
Even the airlines are not safe from people like that but mostly they have systems in place to weed out those folks eventually, but it’s not failsafe either.
Whether someone can safely fly his own jet or not does not only depend on the hours he has but primarily on what character he is. Someone who takes this task seriously and who knows how to fly responsibly will of course do a proper training and most probably fly initially with a second pilot who knows more about this jet than he does. But eventually he will in most SP certified jets reach the point where he can do it alone, it’s not witchcraft to fly one of these. In many regards, people who fly such jets tell me that they are easier to handle in critical scenarios than many MEP’s.
Most jets are also massively different how they handle icing and weather than small planes. Flying a Seneca in icing is a challenge for many of us and the system simply is there to get out out of the ice. Any plane with de-icing is more demanding to operate than one which has anti-icing which many, not all, jets have. A jet has the power to outclimb almost all weather whereas most piston and turboprops are sitting in the murk all day long.
There is nothing at all wrong in pointing out gotchas and what to watch for to someone who is interested in this. But the reaction over there generally was to tell the guy that he is insane and how dare he…. that is how most of it came across. And that is the same kind of banter which I hear even when talking to people who want to buy a PA28. The goal is the same, to make sure that this insolent boy, slave of fashion and upstart does not get to where they never did. Well, stuff like that annoys me.
A pilot with that kind of experience would be very careful about the weather he flies into.
I realise this is a far-out example but 800hrs/year is flying every day, likely 2x a day or more. There simply won’t be much choice about going or not going – so long as it is above the ops minima. I just can’t see any other way to clock up that many hours. But anyway that won’t be a private pilot – basically because he won’t have the time to have much of a life besides flying somewhere.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
But the reaction over there generally was to tell the guy that he is insane and how dare he…. that is how most of it came across.
It absolutely didn’t come over to me like that. People mainly told him the truth in so far as a) no VLJ currently on the market can fly the distance he requires, b) his (initial) budget would rather fit a turboprop than a jet and c) that his (real or fake) poor level of knowledge about the subject in general would make it advisable to either hire a pilot to fly this thing for him or accompany him on his trips.
Peter wrote:
There simply won’t be much choice about going or not going…
There is always a choice about going or not going. Those who think differently should drive subways instead of flying aeroplanes.
Peter wrote:
Some actual input would be interesting, say on a used (2M purchase cost) Mustang, but I am not exactly expecting someone to post what they pay because it’s not the sort of thing gentlemen talk about
I spent well under £100k in hangarage, insurance, fuel, eurocontrol, handling and engine/airframe programs for 200 hours last year. Obviously ignoring depreciation.
But that is with me as pilot.
Of course a two crew biz jet operation will have better safety record, no argument. But I’ll bet it won’t have 2x the safety record of single pilot operations in VLJ’s (if such statistics exists)… In any case, the OP on the other forum is obviously just a troll anyway, so there’s no real foundation for our pontifications…
But a final thought – my highest risk was with my initial piston twin. It had only one hydraulic pump, so if the wrong engine quit on takeoff, there would be no quick way to get gear up without manually pumping them for minutes with a little handle. Not very safe in a high stress situation, or when trying to climb and clear an obstacle. As I moved up the airplane chain, they got progressively safer: better and more redundant systems, better climb performance. Therefore, the turbines and the jets are much more safe than any piston plane. And in the case of the VLJ’s, they don’t even seem to have much yaw when an engine goes out. Certainly less than the twin turboprops. So therefore I just don’t buy into the great skills needed for jet or turbine flying – once you know the systems, they’re much easier to fly. Of course, things happen quicker on approaches etc, so you need a certain experience to stay ahead of the game, but that can also be learned pretty quick.
To the original point of this thread, here’s a new Hondajet owner summarizing his thoughts on the business benefits of the airplane at 1:50 and how he justifies it.
Weather and busy-ness.
The weather is ‘obvious’, at least compared to southern US. The busy-ness is that anyone trying to fly themselves to an important meeting in Europe is going to be:
Fretting before the flight about the profile (because it will be busy).
Tired on arrival because it was busy, and less prepared because they had no time to do anything but fly the plane.
Distracted during the meeting worrying about the flight back.
Flying in the US is simpler, thus allows for easier and more relaxing flights.
