How do you get passengers over the fear of flying?

"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
news:WSaNb.49062$sv6.126431@attbi_s52...
|
| It's important to realize that your fearful friends may be right.
| Recreational flying is more dangerous than any activity that most
Americans
| engage in (unless we count dietary and exercise habits as an "activity").
| According to AOPA's Air Safety Foundation's 2002 Nall Report
| (http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/02nall.pdf), personal (non-business)
| GA flying has an average rate of one fatality per 56,000 hours of flying.
| At that rate, among people who do 100 hours per year of personal flying,
| about 1 in 20 are killed within 25 years. To put that in perspective, for
| 40-year-olds with a life expectancy of 80 years, 6.3 hours of life are
lost
| for every hour flown. For 10-year-olds with the same life expectancy, 11
| hours of life are lost for every hour flown.
|

Wanna check your math, there, Gary? And maybe you could mine the data for a
little more interesting information. You do come up with good stuff.

It would be more accurate to say that there is one fatal accident (as
opposed to fatality) every 76,000 hours of flying. That would be one fatal
accident every 760 years for people flying 100 hours per year. However, most
people fly much less than 100 hours per year. They also do not have long
flying careers. Most people fly for less than 20 years of their adult life.

It would be interesting to know whether accidents cluster around those who
don't fly very often (less than 50 hours per year) or those who fly a lot or
even professionally.

"C J Campbell" wrote:

It would be more accurate to say that there is one fatal accident (as
opposed to fatality) every 76,000 hours of flying. That would be one fatal
accident every 760 years for people flying 100 hours per year. However, most
people fly much less than 100 hours per year. They also do not have long
flying careers. Most people fly for less than 20 years of their adult life.

And if you eliminate the obvious Darwinism fatalities it is even
safer. Just like automobile accidents. Don't do the things that kill
most people and it is safer than raw stats would suggest.

Ron Lee

"Ron Lee" wrote in message
...
"C J Campbell" wrote:

It would be more accurate to say that there is one fatal accident (as
opposed to fatality) every 76,000 hours of flying. That would be one
fatal
accident every 760 years for people flying 100 hours per year. However,
most
people fly much less than 100 hours per year. They also do not have long
flying careers. Most people fly for less than 20 years of their adult
life.

And if you eliminate the obvious Darwinism fatalities it is even
safer. Just like automobile accidents. Don't do the things that kill
most people and it is safer than raw stats would suggest.

Not necessarily. You're right that the statistics reflect an unknown number
of dumb decisions that you and I might never make. But they also reflect an
unknown number of instances where a pilot escaped harm by exercising better
skill or judgment than you or I possess. We don't know which factor
predominates, so we don't know if our personal risk is greater or less than
what the raw stats show.

--Gary


Ron Lee

"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
news:_LvNb.59755$5V2.69373@attbi_s53...
Not necessarily. You're right that the statistics reflect an unknown
number
of dumb decisions that you and I might never make. But they also reflect
an
unknown number of instances where a pilot escaped harm by exercising
better
skill or judgment than you or I possess. We don't know which factor
predominates, so we don't know if our personal risk is greater or less
than
what the raw stats show.

At the CAA safety evenings in the UK, they open up the discussion
with the lecturer explaining saying hello, and that just by turning up,
even if they didn't stay for the lecture, they're 20 (or was it 15, can't
remember) times less likely to suffer a fatality than average. Nothing
magical about turning up, just that people who are interested in safety
in flying are those who aren't likely to have the accidents...they know
what causes fatal accidents and avoid such situations.

Paul

"Paul Sengupta" wrote in message
...
At the CAA safety evenings in the UK, they open up the discussion
with the lecturer explaining saying hello, and that just by turning up,
even if they didn't stay for the lecture, they're 20 (or was it 15, can't

Sorry, I wasn't concentrating when I wrote that!

Let's try again:

The lecturer opens the discussion by saying hello and explaining that
just by turning up...

Paul

"Paul Sengupta" wrote in message
...
At the CAA safety evenings in the UK, they open up the discussion
with the lecturer explaining saying hello, and that just by turning up,
even if they didn't stay for the lecture, they're 20 (or was it 15, can't
remember) times less likely to suffer a fatality than average.

That would be an astonishing correlation, if true. Does the lecturer cite
any data to support the notion that it's true? (Even if these pilots have
ZERO chance of ever making a mistake of any kind, that would still make them
only 3 or 4 times less likely than average to suffer a fatality.)

--Gary

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
news:WSaNb.49062$sv6.126431@attbi_s52...
|
| It's important to realize that your fearful friends may be right.
| Recreational flying is more dangerous than any activity that most
Americans
| engage in (unless we count dietary and exercise habits as an
"activity").
| According to AOPA's Air Safety Foundation's 2002 Nall Report
| (http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/02nall.pdf), personal
(non-business)
| GA flying has an average rate of one fatality per 56,000 hours of
flying.
| At that rate, among people who do 100 hours per year of personal flying,
| about 1 in 20 are killed within 25 years. To put that in perspective,
for
| 40-year-olds with a life expectancy of 80 years, 6.3 hours of life are
lost
| for every hour flown. For 10-year-olds with the same life expectancy,
11
| hours of life are lost for every hour flown.
|

Wanna check your math, there, Gary? And maybe you could mine the data for
a
little more interesting information. You do come up with good stuff.

It would be more accurate to say that there is one fatal accident (as
opposed to fatality) every 76,000 hours of flying. That would be one fatal
accident every 760 years for people flying 100 hours per year.

According to p. 1 of the Nall Report, there are 1.22 fatal accidents per
100,000 GA hours. That's one every 82,000 hours. According to p. 5,
personal flying accounts for 48.1% of GA hours, but 70.8% of GA flying.
That comes to one fatal accident per 56,000 hours of personal flying.
That's every 560 years at 100 hours per year, or every 28 years among 20
pilots who fly 100 hours per year each. So as I said, it's roughly 1 in 20
within 25 years.

You're right though that I was conflating fatal accidents with fatalities.
So the probability in question is the risk that *someone* will die in the
plane you're piloting--not necessarily you.

--Gary

"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
newsLvNb.57987$Rc4.212328@attbi_s54...
personal flying accounts for 48.1% of GA hours, but 70.8% of GA flying.

Oops, that should say "but 70.8% of GA fatal accidents".

"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
newsLvNb.57987$Rc4.212328@attbi_s54...

| According to p. 1 of the Nall Report, there are 1.22 fatal accidents per
| 100,000 GA hours. That's one every 82,000 hours. According to p. 5,
| personal flying accounts for 48.1% of GA hours, but 70.8% of GA flying.
| That comes to one fatal accident per 56,000 hours of personal flying.
| That's every 560 years at 100 hours per year, or every 28 years among 20
| pilots who fly 100 hours per year each. So as I said, it's roughly 1 in
20
| within 25 years.
|

Twenty years ago personal flying was roughly twice as dangerous as it is
now. Seems a lot of the stupid ones killed themselves. Makes you wonder if
we are going to get a an upsurge in accidents now that so many people are
learning to fly again.

Nall is not the only source on aviation safety. Other reports have broken
the accident rate down by type of aircraft. The Cessna 152 and 172 have much
lower accident rates than average, for example. Some models approach the
safety record of airliners, but they tend to be flown only by professional
pilots.

Wow, I asked a short question and this thread has blown into dozens
of postings. I'm glad I'm not the only who was interested
in talking about this.

Also I would like to thank everyone for your thoughts.
I guess most of my friends will never go flying but that
is their choice.


Gary wrote:
According to p. 1 of the Nall Report, there are 1.22 fatal accidents per
100,000 GA hours. That's one every 82,000 hours. According to p. 5,
personal flying accounts for 48.1% of GA hours, but 70.8% of GA flying.
That comes to one fatal accident per 56,000 hours of personal flying.
That's every 560 years at 100 hours per year, or every 28 years among 20
pilots who fly 100 hours per year each. So as I said, it's roughly 1 in 20
within 25 years.

Is it me or do others
find all these stats just completely useless after a while since it
appears that if you add all the percentages up it comes out to
14,284% (Gary I'm not pointing this next comment you *at all*)
I'm starting to believe the old saying, "Statistics don't
lie. The people who use statistics lie." Gary's example is
pretty clear cut but most of these reports are quite
comfusing. (NOTE: I took 9 semesters of math above Calculus I
so my math is not exactly lacking)

Gerald