Peter wrote:
This may be already earlier in this thread, but do pick really nice wx for the family trip.
That is my intention. Though more difficult than it may seem, because nice wx is not the same for non-pilots as it is for us. For example, my longest solo trip during training was Leer-Papenburg EDWF to Hannover EDDV, about 100 nm one way. For that trip I chose a day with excellent weather because I also had to go back solo in the afternoon. Well the weather sure was nice in the common sense of the word, but lots of sunshine also meant lots of thermals even at 4000ft, and a lot worse down below. This made the ride quite bumpy…nothing a non-flying passenger would appreciate much. And that despite it being a perfect day for say “a day at the beach” or somesuch.
Flying with my kids has been a very rewarding expercience, my girls are three and four years old now and they have been flying with me on occasion since they were babies. When the prop stops when we’re home again they usualy ask when we’ll go again. The oldest calls a day of flying a ‘verrassingsdag’ or ‘surprise day’, I try to make a serious effort to go somewhere fun for the three of us. I guess it’s like Peter said, they are the most fun passengers you’ll fly with. Hearing protection has always been on my mind, and I’ve used these:
with limited succes tho. It depends very much on the kid if they stay on or come off.
Get to propperly know the plane you’ll be flying in and I’d take the alternative route as suggested. I always expect the worst outcome when it comes to ditching with kids, I’m very cautious). Make sure the headsets are connected and the DVD players are hooked up and charged, snacks and treats are within reach and the plane is fueled and ready to go. If the kids use the intercom make sure you can isolate the PIC/crew from the passengers, or you’ll go mad. The sterile cockpit environment is alien to kids, in more ways then one. If you rent, bring a vacuumcleaner and some wipes.
My wife doesn’t fly with me (she says she will, but I’ve got my PPL 6 years now. I’m not holding my breath… 
) so I usualy don’t have time to propperly prep the plane with the kids running around the apron, so make sure you have some time on your own before you leave.
You have quite a few variables to consider during this trip. Make sure the weather is not one of them, only go if the weather is CAVOK, this gives you only a marginal chance at best, so have a good alternative plan. But if it all comes together, you’ll have the time of your life!
loco wrote:
To go with a 50hr pilot, two small kids in a rental plane over the Baltic, she must have some serious tolerance for risk.
There is no evidence that flying with a 50hr pilot is any riskier than flying with a pilot of several hundred hours. On the contrary.
Patrick wrote:
There is no evidence that flying with a 50hr pilot is any riskier than flying with a pilot of several hundred hours. On the contrary
I’d love to see the stats supporting that.
I’d like to discuss the risk assessment / risk management aspect of this thread a bit more, picking up from page 1 and 2:
Airborne_Again wrote:
It has everything to do with it. A very common mistake in risk assessment is regarding risks as absolute. Either something is dangerous or it is not. Even accepting that the risk of a tragic outcome is 5x greater (just to pick a figure) in a ditching compared to a forced landing on land, the impotant thing is exposure.
This is very relevant. How do we view and assess risk? What is the actual risk of, for example, a total engine failure in the part of that 48 nm over water that is outside glide range? Is it even sensible to avoid that risk compared to other risks in life?
Is it really more risky than say driving 100 km on a congested Autobahn during the friday afternoon rush hour?
Not taking risks because there is no plan B is silly, because outside aviation we do this all the time without thinking about it.
In my profession, anaesthesiology, I deal with risk assessment on a daily basis. For most medical procedures there is no zero-risk plan B. In fact, not undergoing a procedure is often the higher risk alternative. If you have say colon cancer you may not survive an operation (unlikely ) but you will probably die from the cancer otherwise (ascertained if no other cause kills you first).
Back to our setting: yes you may die from having to ditch on a SEP because of engine failure. But what is the risk of this happening compared to going there by car, train and ferry? You could have a car crash, train crash or the ferry might sink. Is this really dramatically less likely than having to ditch during 48 nm over open sea?
The chances of an engine failure in that bit of water are tiny, especially if you have just flown for an hour over land and all looks good (a standard ferry pilot technique when picking up some shagged plane to fly across the Atlantic) but your chances of survival without a life raft are very poor. I would definitely buy or rent one (if you buy, don’t lend it to others, for various reasons e.g. they may like to have a look inside the package). There may also be a regulatory requirement for these devices.
Engine failures do happen however. I guess the majority (or a large minority) are due to running out of fuel, but some just happen even to well maintained planes. I recall one PA46 whose engine just stopped in cruise at FL250 or so near Bordeaux a few years ago. The family walked away but the plane was written off. That is in VMC; in IMC there are additional mechanisms.
Bobo wrote:
I’d love to see the stats supporting that.
Example based on a quick Google search:
Source: Page 8 of https://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/oamtechreports/2010s/media/201503.pdf, accessed today
We have had many threads previously on factors like risk compensation, and I haven’t read the PDF, but I reckon those stats could be dodgy for other more simple reasons.
For example if you plot total time on the x axis, you will get the initial rising line naturally, because the more hours you fly the more likely you are to crash Maybe I misunderstood the stats? Isn’t this like that “Killing Zone” book which most seem to agree is full of dodgy stats?
The subsequent downward slope could be due to people dropping out / tailing off their flying. Very few pilots, even with an IR i.e. significantly committed, reach 1000hrs.
The initial very low rate can be simply because fresh PPLs don’t go anywhere except the most trivial trips on a perfect day.
The slightly better initial rate for IR holders could be because they have had more training – roughly 2x more.
Peter wrote:
Isn’t this like that “Killing Zone” book which most seem to agree is full of dodgy stats?
Yes, but the research presented in the link above specifically mentions the stats from that book and their flaws and at least tries to rectify them. I’m not involved in statistics enough to judge how successful they are with that.
Peter wrote:
We have had many threads previously on factors like risk compensation, and I haven’t read the PDF, but I reckon those stats could be dodgy for other more simple reasons.
They might be – but there are many stats out there indicating that the risk increase at some point after being awarded the PPL, peak, and then decrease very much later on. The reasons you provide below are fair, but do not change those stats. Other reasons often mentioned are greater currency with a fresh pilot than the average pilot later on will ever have, and less complacency.
I have not seen any (dodgy or not) stats that support the claim that a 50hrs pilot poses a considerable threat, as opposed to slightly more experienced pilots.
Sure; it’s possible. But it could so easily be for reasons which are very little to do with the skills of the pilot. To throw something else into the pot: a large % of new PPLs give up at the 2 year license revalidation. They suddenly discover that they need to log 12hrs, which is going to cost them something into 4 figures! At this point they are in the 60-80hr TT region.
