Mxsmanic wrote:
Ron Wanttaja writes:

Cirrus: 23/3699 = 0.62%

New-Production 172s: 27/3003 = 0.89%

Why are you counting only new-production Cessna 172s? What about the other
26,000 Cessna 172s that are still flying?

Just because they're registered doesn't mean they're still flying. You
come up with a good way to tell how many are still flying, and we'll
have an apples-to-apples comparison.

Keep in mind that the FAA does not cancel an aircraft's registration
after a crash. Being on the registry doesn't mean the airplane even exists.

As a point of interest, there are more 50+ year-old Cessna 172s on the
rolls than there are new-production models. A third of them haven't
changed ownership in the past 20 years. Satisfied owners...or inactive
aircraft?

In 2009, there were 26,228 Cessnas of all vintages on the FAA rolls, and
115 accidents. This is a rate of about 0.43%...the Cirrus was about 50%
higher, but the new-production 172s had TWICE the accident rate of the
overall fleet.

Should we conclude that there's something wrong with the new-production
172s? Or is just in the way Cessna markets them?

Comparing new-production 172s avoids the active/inactive issues. The
172 came back into production within a few years of the Cirrus, thus the
two types should be evenly affected by the active/inactive aircraft.

The FAA has started an initiative to clean up the registry. We will
probably be seeing the total number of GA aircraft drop over the next
several years.

Ron Wanttaja