I mean, light GA (SEP) is risky.
Actually on the fatalities per 100,000 hour measure the Warrior/172/DA40 are safer than other private GA by a factor of 2 or 3, and close to 1:100,000. They are not far off Part 135 although still a factor of some multiples riskier than Part 121 (US turbine multi crew CAT). The airline industry operates to a risk framework of around 1 in 10 to minus 7, and Part 121 is the world safest by a factor of 3 or more. So current, simple VFR GA in one of these types is around 30x riskier than part 121, not 10,000×. (Sources AOPA, Flight Safety Foundation).
For the 60 plus forum members your mortality table is already at 1/2 percent, so SEP flying is not adding too much risk.
Also approximately 70-80% of the accidents in these types are survivable, albeit with mainly non morbidity injuries.
In part this is due to the docile and benign stall/spin characteristics, in part low kinetic energy at point of accident, and post 1986 better crashworthy design, and in part this large fleet sticks to relatively modest missions, mainly VFR.
Being IR rated improves safety but flying complex piston GA (SEP/MEP) in other than light IFR will put you in a risk bucket 2 to 3x higher than your DA40.
My Jodel DR1050 and Bolkow BO208C have 100% protection against asymetric problems with one engine out, and only 50% probability of an engine failure compared to a twin.
Flying into awkward strips increases your likelyhood of making a successful forced landing.
Instrument flying requires reliable instruments. Some accidents in Scotland have been attributed to instrument failure.
A considerable proportion of NTSB reports indicate lack of manoeuvering skills, and another considerable number are high risk behaviour.
There are not many “there but for the grace of God go I” VFR single bad accidents.
Doesn’t your Maule do ILS/RNAV and all that good stuff if asked to nicely?
Well not quite. Like most animals it’s only selectively responsive to voice commands. For instance if I tell it “tune destination tower” and there are two such frequencies, I have to select one by touching the screen. Bummer. (Mr Garmin, are you listening?)
More to the point, the nearest ILS is at Prestwick, 80 minutes drive from here; add another half hour for parking and then faffing around with yellow jackets, flight plans and ATC clearances on a big airport and by that time the Jackson family would be having lunch with friends in Warwickshire.
The whole point of a bushplane is to fly “door to door”, saving time and hassle compared with all other means of transport up to a radius of about 600 miles.
and only 50% probability of an engine failure compared to a twin.
Probability would say less than 50% as you forgot the significant proportion of double engine failure scenarios in a twin.
pistonfever wrote:
1) IFR Current & Equipped
2) Use large official airports with ILS/RNAV
3) Engage in multiple training events annual (i.e. 10-20hrs p.a.)
I disagree. The safety of CAT is mostly due to capable aircraft, standard procedures and two-pilot systems.
Bad weather doesn’t “just happen”, so if you are planning a VFR flight conscientiously the risk of inadvertent flight into IMC is extremely low.
You really need to motivate your item (2).
10-20 hours per annum training? The problem for most PPLs is not that they don’t attend enough training events, it’s that they don’t fly enough in the first place.
Frans wrote:
Restrisiko
Could as well be Norwegian
IMO private GA is too risky to be viewed as a general transportation method in the modern world, like a car, bus, train, CAT and so on. At some places it is the only functional private transportation, but that doesn’t make it less risky. GA at remote places have an abysmal safety record, probably because they fly a lot together with the fact that remote places are remote for a reason (terrain and weather, distances). In any case, the risk is accepted there as a part of life.
I see a tendency that younger pilots, or persons who have became pilots in more resent times in urban areas in particular believes that rules and regulations somehow will mitigate the risk. That is probably true, but the cause of this mitigation is almost exclusively that regulations restricts private GA. The result is people fly less, fewer people fly, and the flights done are low risk to start with (mostly local A to A on nice Sunday afternoons). There is nothing wrong with nice local flights on Sunday afternoons, but it draws a wrong picture of the risks involved in GA, and doing only that becomes boring after a short while.
I think for private GA to survive, we have to accept more risk, not less. We have to accept that private GA is inherently risky, and there is only so much we can do about it without restricting it out of existence. We know what it takes to make aviation almost 100% safe, but that road is irrelevant for private GA.
RobertL18C wrote:
So current, simple VFR GA in one of these types is around 30x riskier than part 121, not 10,000×. (Sources AOPA, Flight Safety Foundation).
My point was about all GA ops, but yes you can make it 0.5x riskier than part 121 by careful choice of mission/aircraft
RobertL18C wrote:
but flying complex piston GA (SEP/MEP) in other than light IFR will put you in a risk bucket 2 to 3x higher than your DA40.
Very true, personally, I would go in interesting weather in equipped C172/Archer/DA40 than equipped Mooney/Arrow/Beech, there are many technical factors to explain this apart from just complexity, most important is the benign handling at slow speeds and how quickly/stable you get from cruise to slow flare, the complex ones are good to fly high above at 150TAS but not your best friends when you get caught in the middle or when low: say you just don’t like it and you decided to land in a farm strip…
the complex ones are good to fly high above at 150TAS but not your best friends when you get caught in the middle or when low: say you just don’t like it and you decided to land in a farm strip…
Not true for the Beech Bonanza. Stallspeed with full flaps at 56 kts, rectable gear originally made for gras and farm strips. Both high and fast and slow and low are possible.
eddsPeter wrote:
Not true for the Beech Bonanza. Stallspeed with full flaps at 56 kts, rectable gear originally made for gras and farm strips
Could be, tough I don’t see that many in the back country side?
In any case it is matter of preference: “everybody” would agree that C182 is a docile aircraft that is capable of fast touring and IFR, touh few actually fancy it, however, I would be happy to swap it with a Mooney/Beech collecting ice anytime , the same “everybody” would agree that the SR22 is safe, but few have it’s budget while those who have fail to pull the chute
A King Katmai 182 can be fitted with a recovery ‘chute, 26G seats, air bag restraints and they have a stall speed of a Super Cub. If Volvo or Mercedes made SEPs it might look like a King Katmai.
