Real stats on engine failures?

Michael wrote:

True but I would assume that they thought that they had given the subject
adequate consideration. It is arogant to believe that everyone else is a
fool and you are not. My fovorite ezample are those pilots who are
confident that they could handle an IMC gyro failure when the record shows
that many (most?) cannot.

Yeah, I've heard that song before. Even believed it. Then I had my
AI tumble. At night. In IMC. On the climbout. While being
rerouted. In spite of what everyone told me, it was a complete
non-event.

Thanks for the narrative -- it's useful information.

I'm curious where the statistics are that show that most pilots cannot
handle an AI failure in IMC. This FAA report

http://www1.faa.gov/fsdo/orl/files/advcir/P874052.TXT

states that vacuum failures are a factor in an average of 2 accidents per
year, and that there is an average of one vacuum-related accident for every
40,000 to 50,000 GA IFR flight plans filed. That doesn't tell us much,
though, since we don't know how many non-fatal vacuum failures occurred
during those flights.


All the best,


David

David Megginson wrote
I'm curious where the statistics are that show that most pilots cannot
handle an AI failure in IMC. This FAA report

http://www1.faa.gov/fsdo/orl/files/advcir/P874052.TXT

states that vacuum failures are a factor in an average of 2 accidents per
year, and that there is an average of one vacuum-related accident for every
40,000 to 50,000 GA IFR flight plans filed. That doesn't tell us much,
though, since we don't know how many non-fatal vacuum failures occurred
during those flights.

I have about 700 hours flying behind a dry pump, and one catastrophic
failure. I also have about 1400 hours flying planes with gyros (some
of my time is in gliders and no-gyro taildraggers) and at least three
gyro failures. I have to believe that vacuum or gyro failure occurs
AT LEAST once every 1000 hours.

Assuming that the average GA IFR flight plan leads to 30 minutes of
IMC (I know a lot of them are filed procedurally so I'm being
pessimistic) that still sounds like 1 accident in 20,000 hours. So it
sounds to me like 95%+ of the pilots who experience vacuum or gyro
failure are handling it without an accident.

From what I've seen of GA IFR pilots, at most 10% are getting
recurrent training in partial panel operations to PTS standards.

Michael

Michael wrote:

http://www1.faa.gov/fsdo/orl/files/advcir/P874052.TXT

Assuming that the average GA IFR flight plan leads to 30 minutes of
IMC (I know a lot of them are filed procedurally so I'm being
pessimistic) that still sounds like 1 accident in 20,000 hours. So it
sounds to me like 95%+ of the pilots who experience vacuum or gyro
failure are handling it without an accident.

That sounds pretty reasonable. As I just mentioned in another posting, the
report also mentions that all of the fatal GA accidents from vacuum failures
in their study period happened in high-performance aircraft with retractable
gear.

From what I've seen of GA IFR pilots, at most 10% are getting
recurrent training in partial panel operations to PTS standards.

In Canada, partial panel is not even part of the IFR flight test (though we
do learn it during training). On the other hand, we have to retake our
entire flight test every two years, and the examiner can always fail
something (including the AI) if he/she wants to. The other benefit is that
without the partial panel and unusual-attitude recovery, we can take our
flight tests in actual IMC, as I did.


All the best,


David