"Jose" wrote in message
om...
To be fair you should then eliminate all the flights where the pilot is
=more= careful or meticulous than Jay is.

Yup, or where the pilot is far more experienced, has more-advanced
qualifications (instrument-current), or is flying a more hazard-resistant
aircraft (deicing, stormscope, TCAS) that is subject to a more-rigorous
inspection schedule for passenger-carrying operations, and so on. (GA
commercial or business flights have a much better safety record than
personal flying.)

On the other hand, I think there *is* a reasonable way to approximate the
calculation Jay is asking for. If we look at training flights, we find
(according to the Nall Report) a fatality rate that's about half the rate
for GA overall (whereas personal flying in general has a fatality rate
that's about 1.5 the rate for GA overall). And we find that lower rate even
though training flights have a high concentration of takeoffs, landings, and
low-altitude maneuvering (the most dangerous phases of flight). So the
fatality rate for training flights plausibly gives us a reasonable estimated
bound of the rate for especially conservative daytime VFR personal flying.
(It's still more dangerous than driving, though.)

--Gary