what_next wrote:
Quite a few well known entrepreneurs lost their life in flying accidents.
Judging just this statement, I think you may have hit a correlation, but not causality here.
There is PC12 mountain take off, and then there is PA18 mountain take off…
http://www.redbull.com/en/adventure/stories/1331823769504/paul-guschlbauer-alaska-flights
Edit – it seems Dads lock up their daughters near SC pilots (also the Maule guys, Jacko)
I think you may have hit a correlation, but not causality here.
That’s an interesting philosophical debate.
Take the old stereotype: the Beech Bonanza – a “doctor killer”. Only (well, mainly) well paid professions with adequate spare time could buy one, so a lot of those who crashed them fitted that occupational profile. Strictly speaking one can’t say that they crashed because they were doctors (or lawyers, etc) but when the correlation gets that direct…
Another big factor in that correlation pot is that professional high achievers tend to be unwilling to take advice from what they see as “lesser” people i.e. flying instructors. Most instructors will be able to tell lots of stories of that. So, more crashes involving professional high achievers. N2195B (a top economist), N403HP (a top businessman), and that is just two from my base. Obviously one can’t tell if they didn’t take instructions, though the 1st one did say “I always fly” [regardless of wx] as he embarked on his last flight.
But, to be fair, the PPL training business is poorly geared to cater for the very clients who are the most likely to be able to fly in the long term because they can afford it… hence
But, to be fair, some instructors I have had could not teach one to get pi*ssed in a brewery… anybody who has ever achieved anything in business etc will be very unimpressed with one of those. I have flown with a good number of completely mad FIs.
Jacko wrote:
Where did I go wrong? Should I have offered to sell the Maule?
I would advise caution on the “risks of flying” argument; the boss might find the simplest answer to that is your suggestion to sell the Maule
Peter wrote:
Another big factor in that correlation pot is that professional high achievers tend to be unwilling to take advice from what they see as “lesser” people i.e. flying instructors.
This, I would call causality. If you crash because of your attitude, which stems from your background as an entrepreneur, then what_next is right and his point holds true. But just because you see a lot of entrepreneurs in plane crashes, you cannot draw such conclusions. You would at least have to divide the number of crashes per group by the number of hours flown by entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs.
I respectfully disagree.
Owning a plane is expensive and time intensive. Employees cannot typically decide about their time, nor are they typically able to get reimbursed for flying private.
So, faster private aircraft are typically owned by self employed people or businesses owners, such as doctors, tax consultants, SME owners, and many more. And of course some individuals who can afford it.
Therefore, if such an airplane crashes, the likelihood of the pilot being a self employed person or business owner, with some financial success, is intrinsically higher than average. What does that tell us about the pilot’s proficiency or willingness to accept advice ?
Nothing really, I would say. It’s just a statistical cluster. And what is this cliché about business owners and entrepreneurs having an “attitude” ? Most of these I know are quite the opposite. People who work hard to afford planes typically don’t have attitudes. They don’t have time for that crap.
There is PC12 mountain take off, and then there is PA18 mountain take off…
http://www.redbull.com/en/adventure/stories/1331823769504/paul-guschlbauer-alaska-flights
Edit – it seems Dads lock up their daughters near SC pilots (also the Maule guys, Jacko)
Typical Cub drivers! They load all their camping and fishing gear, dirt bikes, ice boxes, guns, spare fuel and daughters in a friend’s proper bushplane so they can fly those irresponsible stunts. You’d never see a Maule pilot behave like that. 
But seriously, I just don’t buy the “unsuspecting passengers” mantra routinely peddled by people who think that wearing a tie or uniform to exercise the privileges of a pilot’s licence makes them intellectually superior to the rest of humanity. It does bring a smile, though, when those professional pilots use the term “skygod” to sneer at amateurs who use the whole flight envelope for the love of it.
EuroFlyer wrote:
I respectfully disagree.
With whom?
My use of the conditional words “would”, “if” and “but” is crucial in understanding my post, as is the context in which I made it (as a reply to Peter saying that overly confident business owners who reject advice had a correlation with crashes). I don’t think either that this is necessarily true, but if it were, it isn’t merely a correlation, it would then be a cause for the crashes that could explain it.
My point was that there is probably a correlation when you look at crashing pilots vs. the general population, but you cannot infer that being an entrepreneur (or doctor, or lawyer) makes you more likely to crash if you compare two pilots.
Either way, I don’t think we have data to support or reject that hypothesis because you would need to factor out so many other influences that the sample is too small to do that.
Jacko wrote:
Thanks for your help Archie, I thought it might be worth a try, but it didn’t work.
Oh sorry, I thought we were talking about a proverbial “Jacko” !!!
Apologies again…
Rwy20 wrote:
With whom?
Rwy20, yes, you’re right, sorry I didn’t use the quote function – I didn’t mean your post, but Peter’s, the same you answered to…
