Has anyone read the new flying magazine?
There is an article in it about a guy in a bonanza who crashed doing an
instrument approach using a hand held non-aviation GPS, but whats worse
is his maint. on his airplane, putting tape over the gas tank when he
lost his gas cap and so on.

I wonder if there are many people out there who actually take these kind
of chances.

I think more than we know. I work at a large general aviation field now but
when I worked at smaller more outlying fields I used to see all kinds of silly
and outright dangerous actions by pilots and mechanics alike. Just plain
neglect of maintenance and good flying practice were the most common. Flying
without preflighting was seen pretty regularly and usually by the same pilots.
Failure to perform Airworthiness Directives is probably the most common
maintenance fault. We have one occasional customer flying an Aerostar who
boasted to one of the mechanics that since his last annual cost him over
$30,000 dollars he was going to wait a few years before he had another. We
once got a look at his logbooks and there was at least no entry for an annual
for three years!
I suppose he could have had the annuals done and recorded separately from the
logbooks but I can't see a reputable shop doing that.

John Dupre'