I'm doing 40'000km per year (and I don't have the impression that I'm that
exceptional), half of it between the place I live and the airfield. That's
about 500 hours, or 3 times my annual flight time :-(

--
Bert Willing

ASW20 "TW"


"Bruce Hoult" a écrit dans le message de
...
In article ,
(Martin Hellman) wrote:

When I got back into soaring in 1994 I had a similar concern and
concluded that, within about a factor of two, soaring and driving had
about the same risk of dying on an annual basis. That estimate is
consistent with the UK poster who came up with 6000:1 for driving and
2000:1 for soaring in the UK, since my estimate was rough. (It's hard
to know how many glider pilots are active.) Also, it could be that the
crowded skies in Europe produce a higher fatality rate.

On an hourly basis, that makes soaring much more dangerous for the
typical pilot who flies about 100 hours a year, vs drives about 500.

Who the heck (other than a professional driver) drives 500 hours a year??

The average car here in New Zealand does around 15,000 km/year, and we
drive a *lot*. If you assume an average speed of 80 km/h (which is
probably a bit low) then you're talking about something like 200 hours.

I suppose there may be a lot of people in other parts of the world who
spend a lot of time waiting at traffic lights, or in traffic jams. But
that's not *driving*, and it's surely less likely to kill you than is
driving at 100+ km/h. If you're going to count that time towards
"driving" then I think to be fair you've got to also count the whole day
I spend at the glider field, not just the hour of that I spend flying.

-- Bruce