MedEwok wrote:
In fact, I often have a feeling that as perhaps the only low-hours, low-currency pilot on EuroGA who is nevertheless regularly posting (and even more regularly reading) I get tolerated here but not more. I understand that my presence here is not as valuable as that of many other contributors, who have way more experience and thus way more interesting things to tell about GA.
You shouldn’t feel that way. I, for one, appreciate your posts and would very much like you to stay. I also believe that your perspective as a low currency pilot is important. Reading EuroGA you could get the impression that all private pilots have lots of money, time and opportunity, but actually the bulk of us have low currency.
And of course I hope you go on flying as well. As Peter writes, risk compensation can make up for a lot in lack of currency.
MedEwok wrote:
If 10 hours is all I can fit in an extremely busy schedule, then so be it. I still strongly believe that things will improve once the kids grow up, once my wife finally gets onboard etc.
I think we all have been in this situation, at least those of us who started early in life (as in pre-children, pre-family house(s), pre 30’s work your a$$ off period etc). Things may improve, but not necessarily the way you “plan”. Chances are you get divorced, your children becomes a part time thing, leaving more time for your stuff. For your next partner you chose wiser, one that either accept 100% that you need time for flying, or one that likes flying herself. Either way, better chose one that has her own hobbies she cannot live without.
IME, good pilots are the ones that started early, preferably in their teens. Even if they only fly one hour every other year, they still fly better and safer than those who started late and fly every other day. When it comes to safety in recreational GA, stick and rudder skill is king along with an intuitive understanding of the physics of flight. Even then it is dangerous, the brain works in mysterious ways sometimes, and this can hit the very best at any time and should be taken into account.
Flying model aircraft, RC, is by far the best way of getting this intuition, but today we also have very good sims that probably work in a same manner I guess. But they are probably better suited for transatlantic flights on autopilot, and that doesn’t help much.
If you fly only 5 h each year, make each minute of those hours count, and you will be better off at those things you train for than most people flying 100+ hours each year on autopilot. This won’t make you a “good cross country pilot”, but with only 5-10 h at disposal, you can forget all about that in any case.
LeSving wrote:
If you fly only 5 h each year, make each minute of those hours count, and you will be better off at those things you train for than most people flying 100+ hours each year on autopilot. This won’t make you a “good cross country pilot”, but with only 5-10 h at disposal, you can forget all about that in any case.
I second @LeSving’s strategy. I would also add, if you can, fly with another, more experienced pilot – but try not to pick up his bad habits 
As a newly minted PPL, I would fly with a more experienced pilot, learning from him, especially tips concerning weather strategies because this was something which for me was akin to dark arts.
I also made sure that as often as I could, every trip went to a different airport, allowing me to practice setting up to find the field, to fly the circuit, be prepared for long and also short runways. I also would choose to make every second or third landing a simulated engine failure from 2000 feet (Ziellandung) to ensure that if the worst came to the worst, I would stand a fair chance of a successful landing. Doing things like this means the hours you fly become more productive.
@medewok (name always rings „star wars“ to me, don’t know why).
I like your posts and your contributions are as valuable as everyone else‘s. And we need a doctor on this board :)
I spoke to a german pilot last week. He bought a experimental Europa for around 40k. He keeps it in a trailer (no hangar worries). He drives it to his homefield after work, rigs it up and goes for a flight. Takes him 30 minutes to get going. He spent a long time talking to me, explaining everything about PH-reg experimentals. Super knowledgeable and extremely helpful.
As obscure as this one or other ideas may sound to some, if you like to fly for the sake of flying, there is a way. It doesn’t depend on having lots of money or lots of free time. It needs to be planned, and placed somewhere in between your other priorities. There was a Zenair something 2 seater experimental on planecheck for 19k. EASA reg, good to go anywhere.
Maybe join a club? Get into UL flying? Take one day a month to go flying? Connect with some other pilots and fly together once in a while (50/50 costs)?
One thing: I always tried to fit in my family, kids, friends into this flying thing. I came to realize that it works best when I do it for myself, not for others. Pilot friends excluded of course.
There’s nothing better than just flying alone, not having to take care of anybody else. Feels a bit like first solo everytime. And it gives „mental strength“ to then spend good times with the aforementioned, just not on the same day. Alles hat seine Zeit.
I’m sure you know all this already. Fly safe.
MedEwok wrote:
I have not previously answered to this, but rest assured I have read your post. You are not the first, nor even the second person on EuroGA to suggest I should quit flying.
Look, I got my ME IR and had to stop flying for 10 years due to location where I worked. I managed to get back into it somewhat about 7 years ago. Fly or don’t fly, that is up to you. But nothing wrong with your contributions on here.
Thank you all for your kind words. I did not want to derail this thread though. I do of course agree with @Malibuflyer in principle that currency is vital in achieving safe operations. I just wanted to point out that we should not discourage fellow pilots by prescribing arbitrary minimum hours beyond those we already have to follow to maintain our ratings, as doing so will only further weaken GA and the safety benefit is dubious (do low-hour pilots like myself really make up a disproportional part of the accident statistics? Do we have any data on that?)
LeSving wrote:If you fly only 5 h each year, make each minute of those hours count, and you will be better off at those things you train for than most people flying 100+ hours each year on autopilot. This won’t make you a “good cross country pilot”, but with only 5-10 h at disposal, you can forget all about that in any case.
I agree with you, LeSving, as usual a sensible comment by you. Most of the measely few hours I flew this year were spent in the circuit, polishing my landings, as well as doing slow flight training and practiced forced landings. I am well aware that I’m not very current but I feel safe to fly fair weather ops and would probably be able to walk away from most forced landings in my home area (North German plains do make forced landings easier, thankfully).
Snoopy wrote:
@medewok (name always rings „star wars“ to me, don’t know why).I like your posts and your contributions are as valuable as everyone else‘s. And we need a doctor on this board :)
I spoke to a german pilot last week. He bought a experimental Europa for around 40k. He keeps it in a trailer (no hangar worries). He drives it to his homefield after work, rigs it up and goes for a flight. Takes him 30 minutes to get going. He spent a long time talking to me, explaining everything about PH-reg experimentals. Super knowledgeable and extremely helpful.
As obscure as this one or other ideas may sound to some, if you like to fly for the sake of flying, there is a way. It doesn’t depend on having lots of money or lots of free time. It needs to be planned, and placed somewhere in between your other priorities. There was a Zenair something 2 seater experimental on planecheck for 19k. EASA reg, good to go anywhere.
Maybe join a club? Get into UL flying? Take one day a month to go flying? Connect with some other pilots and fly together once in a while (50/50 costs)?One thing: I always tried to fit in my family, kids, friends into this flying thing. I came to realize that it works best when I do it for myself, not for others. Pilot friends excluded of course.
There’s nothing better than just flying alone, not having to take care of anybody else. Feels a bit like first solo everytime. And it gives „mental strength“ to then spend good times with the aforementioned, just not on the same day. Alles hat seine Zeit.I’m sure you know all this already. Fly safe.
Hehe, I guess you meant this “tongue-in-cheek” but anyways, the StarWars connection is of course there, with Ewoks (such as the one depicted in my signature) being creatures from Star Wars Episode VI. My gaming nickname used to be “Ewok”, I “pimped” it once I was a med student by adding the prefix “med” to it, making the whole nick sound somewhat like MEDEVAC (thus creating a meaningful pun).
Of course there are loads of niches to pursue in GA. My problem isn’t so much the lack of money (though it doesn’t “come out of my ears” as we say in German) but lack of time, especially due to having two small kids and a wife who expects my full dedication to spend every non-working hour with the family. Money wise I could probably afford to fly 30 or 40 hours a year, which is one reason why I keep thinking about plane ownership (I could have flown twice as much after completing my PPL if it weren’t for various “let downs” by different rental outfits). But I am in the middle of what LeSving fittingly called the “30’s work your a$$ off” period of life, saving for our future house and for the kids. Even a comparably tiny investment (by GA standards) of 19 k for a 2 seater experimental would be too much at this point… :(
MedEwok wrote:
do low-hour pilots like myself really make up a disproportional part of the accident statistics? Do we have any data on that?
You can read the accident reports. They are filled with “high” hour pilots, at least the fatal ones. If this is purely statistics, or something else is of course debatable. There is an inherent risk to flying, and you only die once. This means there will be a peak in death rate at some hours flow, I think it’s around 3-400 h for GA? This will be the average flying hours for those who dies, but doesn’t really say anything about those who doesn’t die. It’s the latter group you want to be a part of, and that group consists of pilots flying anything from 1 h per year to 500 h per year, year after year.
Pure luck, just statistics or something more? Every pilot can chose the risk lever of every next flight, and every pilot can chose to plan (or not) according to the risk, and chose not to fly, or fly different accordingly. It simply cannot be pure luck, or “just” statistics, but mixed in with the actions of the pilot. Survival of the fittest is a proven concept. It doesn’t mean that some have zero possibility of dying, only that some have higher possibility of surviving every next hour.
From accident reports, the causes in almost all of them can be traced down to poor planning (including poor tactical choices when the plan doesn’t work out, poor discipline?) and loss of control. If we focus on planning and focus on being good at controlling that aircraft, there really isn’t much else we can do. We still aren’t bullet proof, but the chances of belonging to the latter group is so much higher. This is true regardless of hours flown per year. It’s just that when flying only 5-10 h per year, there really isn’t much you can do except “focusing”.
If you haven’t done so, I recommend reading the book “The killing zone – how and why pilots die”. One message was that not the low-time pilot is at risk (since, as written above, he/she/it is well trained after gaining the PPL, and typically is aware of of not having lots of experience), but the more experienced pilot is (“been there, done that. I’ll master the situation”).
In my view, simply put, as long as a pilot remains within his comfort zone, everything should be fine. I.e. if a low time pilot flies, say, 10h per year but makes sure weather is appropriate and he is mentally fit / fine with the planned flight, why not? In addition, regular checks with an instructor should uncover any topic where another instructional flight may help improving.
Unfortunately not a single statistic (including “the killing zone”) I’m aware of makes a difference between a 500hr. pilot who earned his ticket just two years ago and has flown 250hrs. each years since and an 500hr pilot who has the license for 50 years and has flown 10 hrs./yr. (Using the extremes to make the point). So there’s simply no fact based answer to the question.
In addition to that, almost every pilot in Europe with more than 100hrs./yr. does some kind of professional flying – with a very different risk profile than the typical recreational pilot.
Finally we are talking extremely small numbers with huge variations. Just to remind ourselves: If in a given year 1 pilot with 10hrs/year and 9 pilots with 100hrs./yr. would die in a crash (and if that would be statistically significant), the risk of the 10hrs/yr. pilots would be substantially higher than the risk of the 100hrs/yr pilots (if we define “risk” as the probability of dying per hour flown).
(Many ifs but I hope the point gets clear…)
Malibuflyer wrote:
Unfortunately not a single statistic
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics” is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent’s point.
