Reducing the Accident Rate

"Snowbird" wrote in message
om...


and a long-time CFI. But his "solution" is to have a one-day
course, associated with the National Convention, in which
pilots pay a hefty fee ($100-$200) for 'recurrant training'
done by "national names".

I think perhaps a much more relevant and successful approach would be to
have this course be relevant to your specific airplane type.

Whether the program is done by a "national name" or not, how about a
specific review of accidents related to your airplane type and then a
discussion of how those accidents can be prevented?

This seems to me to be more "doable" than a generic "aviation safety"
program and it also seems to me that this would be more relevant to your
particular type association.



--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message ...
"Snowbird" wrote in message
om...
and a long-time CFI. But his "solution" is to have a one-day
course, associated with the National Convention, in which
pilots pay a hefty fee ($100-$200) for 'recurrant training'
done by "national names".

I think perhaps a much more relevant and successful approach would be to
have this course be relevant to your specific airplane type.

Well, I'm hazy on the details, but I think the idea is to somehow have
it be more "Grumman Specific".

The thing is:
1) something like 10% of the membership attends the convention
2) of that 10%, I think the fraction likely to pay $100 to attend
a safety seminar are likely to be the fraction most interested
in safety/recurrant training in any case.

Our type club already has an excellent pilot familiarization program
taught by type-familiar CFIs all over the country. I believe many of
the accidents involve pilots who either don't avail themselves of the
program, or who did so years ago (and have forgotten or gotten rusty
on what they learned).

I don't have great ideas, just the hunch a safety seminar may be a
good and useful thing, but I don't think it's going to address the
overall accident rate for our type (or any type) too much.

Cheers,
Sydney

"Snowbird" wrote in message
om...

I don't have great ideas, just the hunch a safety seminar may be a
good and useful thing, but I don't think it's going to address the
overall accident rate for our type (or any type) too much.

This is true of most recurrent training. It can be extremely helpful to
increase airplane utilization and/or improve safety for the self-selected
group which chooses to attend, but that is probably not a large enough group
from which to gather statistics. But addressing the overall accident rate
would require addressing pilot attitudes and also would probably require a
more realistic assessment by pilots of how much money they should spend on
maintenance -- both are uphill battles not likely to be won in a safety
seminar.


--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message ...
"Snowbird" wrote in message
om...
I don't have great ideas, just the hunch a safety seminar may be a
good and useful thing, but I don't think it's going to address the
overall accident rate for our type (or any type) too much.

This is true of most recurrent training. It can be extremely helpful to
increase airplane utilization and/or improve safety for the self-selected
group which chooses to attend, but that is probably not a large enough group
from which to gather statistics. But addressing the overall accident rate
would require addressing pilot attitudes and also would probably require a
more realistic assessment by pilots of how much money they should spend on
maintenance -- both are uphill battles not likely to be won in a safety
seminar.

For our type anyway, supposedly the accidents can be traced to pilot
judgement.

It's a pretty simple aircraft to maintain, anyway, Sen. Inhofe's propeller
notwithstanding. That was a simple case of his A&Ps not following the
maint. manual procedure, not of insufficient money on maint.

Cheers,
Sydney

"Snowbird" wrote in message
om...

For our type anyway, supposedly the accidents can be traced to pilot
judgement.

No doubt pilot judgment is a major cause of accidents.

It's a pretty simple aircraft to maintain, anyway, Sen. Inhofe's propeller
notwithstanding. That was a simple case of his A&Ps not following the
maint. manual procedure, not of insufficient money on maint.

It may be a simple airplane to maintain, but does that mean there are not
accidents due to insufficient maintenance? Even something as simple as a
worn tire can lead to an accident. Lots of "simple" airplanes are flown
well beyond TBO or have pencil-whipped annuals or even pencil-whipped engine
overhauls.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote
It may be a simple airplane to maintain, but does that mean there are not
accidents due to insufficient maintenance?

I think that's really the wrong question. The right question is - are
the majority of the accidents due to insufficient maintenance? Is it
the single biggest cause? Second biggest cause? Or is it down in the
decimal dust?

My experience suggests decimal dust.

Michael

"Michael" wrote in message
om...

My experience suggests decimal dust.

I think it is hard to know how many accidents are due to maintenance issues
by reading NTSB reports, just like they are inaccurate for other reasons
you stated.

It is one thing for the NTSB to determine that an airplane was "airworthy"
and "in annual." It is another to hangar fly and hear stories of engine
failures in an airplane where it is local knowledge that a given mechanic
does pencil-whip annuals or that a given airplane owner often cut corners on
maintenance.

Anecdotally I hear about a lot less engine failures among people flying
engines within TBO by hours and also under 10 years old than with older
engines... it would be interesting to tabulate the data someday in a
statistically valid manner.


--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com