Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?

Jay Honeck schrieb:

Unfortunately, one of the things I learned (the hard way) was that FBOs
will "skate" on maintenance of their rental fleet when they are under
intense financial pressure.

Just as owners do.

And, since I don't know ANY FBOs that aren't under "intense financial
pressure" -- what does that say?

That the renting rates are too low?

Stefan

Jose wrote:
BTW, a friend of mine owns a C-150. His insurance (full coverage) is
about $600/year. An FBO on the same field pays $6000+ to insure their
C-150 - and their insurance contains far more restrictions, and has
higher deductibles, than his. Think that's coincidence, or does it
maybe say something about the relative safety of rentals vs. private
airplanes?

No.

I think it has to do with exposure. There is a large field of pilots
who will be flying the airplanes, with the bulk of it being training or
flight by less experienced (or less current) pilots.

The open pilot warranty on my friend's plane is private pilot with 5
hours in make and model. No rules about being current or experienced.
In fact, there are more rules at the FBO - my friend can just go up and
shoot 3 touch&goes solo if he goes out of 90-day currency and be
covered, but the rental insurance stipulates that you must be current,
or hire a CFI to get current.

Nevertheless, you are right - exposure is a factor. Rentals fly more.
Of course those of us who own and fly over 100 hours a year get a
discount, not a surcharge. Think about it - the average private plane
flies 26 hours a year, but those who increase the exposure 4x get a
discount. That's because the OVERALL (not per-hour) risk of flying
100+ hours a year is less than the overall risk of flying 26.

The insurance companies have figured out that hours flown don't tell
the tale on a private airplane - more hours is actually better, because
increased pilot proficiency is more than offsetting increased exposure.
Rentals don't work that way - virtually none of the pilots are
proficient, because they just don't fly enough. If they could afford
to fly enough, they would be owners. More hours on a rental simply
means more exposure.

The local flight school has a twin. Now, to be honest, it does fly
about 2.5x the hours mine does. But the insurance is almost 10x, for
poorer coverage, on a slower, more docile plane with many more
operating restrictions. This is normal. In the time that I've owned
my twin, the flight schools on the field have managed to destroy three
of them. That is the reason for the huge difference in insurance.

It has something
to do with it being a profit making venture too, I suppose.

Not really. It has to do with the risk.

Michael

The rest of your post could be more or less summed up as saying "There
are good owners and renters, and there are bad owners and renters."
Which is true, of course, but sheds little light on the subject.

It sheds quite a bit of light on the subject, inasmuch as it suggests
that
the answer to your original question is that no, there is no significant
difference between the fatal accident rate for rental airplanes and
owned
airplanes due to maintenance.

No, your statement says you don't know the answer.

Of course, neither do I -- but that's beside the point!

Nor do I, and I'm not sure that the answer can really be obtained--even if
every question is asked every time and all of the answers are meticulously
compiled.

What I would really find interesting, and also what I read into the original
question, is the relationship of accidents caused by mechanical failure to
airplanes flown with outstanding symptoms of problems.

Of course, that opens the issues of how a symptom comes to be noticed by a
pilot or by a line person, how that becomes a formal squawk, and how squawks
are investigated and cleared. The specifics will never probably be
resolved; but OTOH, a lack of gross statistical evidence favoring owned or
rental aircraft may mean that the difference is not dramatic.

Perhaps owners can only justify their investment by pride of ownership,
control of the equipment list, and having a particular aircraft cleaned and
ready on demand. Perhaps renters can only justify their position in terms
of freedom from most fixed costs and the flexibility of pay-as-you-go.
Perhaps neither can add safety as a primary justification--at least not on
the basis of overall fleet statistics.

Peter

I really have to laugh at this approved lightbulb/not approved lightbulb
issue.
When the manufacturer builds the first prototype, they look around for
something that will fulfill their need.
If someones says "We need a light bulb and socket that will meet the
lumens requirement", where do you think they look first?
They go to an automotive supplier because the parts are plentiful and
above all cheap.
Only when the manufacturer applies for certification of the entire
aircraft does the light bulb and socket get its official paperwork.
They aren't about to reinvent wheel (well, not government contractors
anyway) and spend money they don't have for something they can get off
the shelf.
The parts that are "approved" may or may not come off a different
assembly line. If the part is approved as is when it comes off the
assembly line and the only difference is that it goes in a different
box, then the approval arguement is lame.
Why would a manufacturer build a separate assembly line for a specific
use that any of its normal production would meet?

Only when the manufacturer applies for certification of the entire
aircraft does the light bulb and socket get its official paperwork.

Maybe true... but that speaks to the approval process itself (and
whether or not the FAA approval process is stupid for any given part).
I agree that sometimes it seems stupid. But sometimes it's not, and
it's a slippery slope to decide which rules don't apply to you because
you are smarter than the FAA.

Back to one sip of beer seven hours before takeoff, vs two glasses of
beer eight hours before takeoff. One's legal, one's not. The one that
is not is probably safer than the one that is. But how far down the
line are you willing to go? And once you decide that, why not "just a
little" further?

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:01:11 GMT, Jose
wrote:

Back to one sip of beer seven hours before takeoff, vs two glasses of
beer eight hours before takeoff. One's legal, one's not. The one that
is not is probably safer than the one that is. But how far down the
line are you willing to go? And once you decide that, why not "just a
little" further?

Does avoiding the slippery slope lead to "zero tolerance"?

(Pick your favorite idocy associated with zero-tolerance enforcement.)

That's why I keep coming back to the tit on the bulb. My mechanic, at
least, is convinced that if I get hit by lightning and crash, if the
accident investigators find a titless bulb, they're gonna hang him out
to dry -- even if he didn't know about it and it had nothing to do
with the crash.

So when it comes to owner maintenance, I find it easier to tell myself
that any non-approved part can have a "tit" that I don't know about
and that I don't want to be responsible for messing up somebody else's
life -- even if it's a pretty long shot that I will..

I find that easier to wrap my head around than taking an approach
that in other situations leads to throwing a kid out of school because
there's no semantic difference between a butterknife and a K-Bar.

Apologies if my strawman doesn't apply to your version of slippery
slopes.

Don ("Semantic"? There must be a better word.)

Does avoiding the slippery slope lead to "zero tolerance"?

I see your point, but it's not quite on the mark. "Zero tolerance" is
an enforcement thing, not a compliance thing (where "compliance" is what
we do, and "enforcement" is what the Feds do. Yes, there are small
violations and big violations, and there is a difference between them.
However nobody has been arguing on the enforcement side of this. It has
all been on the compliance side - the (bad) attitude that it's ok to
pick and choose which laws to obey and which are beneath one's station.

Were I an (appropriate) FAA inspector who found a non-approved landing
light, I would probably know (or be able to find out) how serious a
violation this is. Ditto a two dollar Radio Shack microswitch for the
Piper stall warning ($700.00 if approved).

It might be that landing lights are tested in the flight levels, and
tractor bulbs are not. It may be that the stall switch is inspected
five times, and the Radio Shack switch has never been seen by human eyes
before. It may be just a palm greasing at the highest levels. I don't
know.

I do know that when I purchase an airplane, I don't want a collection of
parts that some prior owner thought were good enough.

If the FAA rules procedures for parts approvals needs an overhaul (and I
think it does) then it should be overhauled. But that's not the same as
being selectively ignored.

As a pilot/owner, I would have zero tolerance for my own rule breaking.
This is different from the FAA having a zero tolerance attitude
towards my rule breaking (to the degree of throwing a kid out of school
for a butter knife).

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Perhaps owners can only justify their investment by pride of ownership,
control of the equipment list, and having a particular aircraft cleaned and
ready on demand. Perhaps renters can only justify their position in terms
of freedom from most fixed costs and the flexibility of pay-as-you-go.
Perhaps neither can add safety as a primary justification--at least not on
the basis of overall fleet statistics.

Perhaps.

Interestingly, in preparation for my response to the thread "Owner's
Poll", I took a look at my actual expense of owning an airplane. (This
is something I NEVER do, for fear of what I might see... ;-)

To my delight, I found that it's costing between $8K - $15K annually to
operate our aircraft. At our current rate of flying (around 200
hours/year), that works out to between $40 and $75 per hour for a
140-knot, 1460 pound load hauling SOB of a plane.

To say I'm happy with that would be an understatement -- I'm
darned-near ecstatic. Considering that the equivalent aircraft on our
field (the closest I can come is a 182) rents for over $100 per hour,
it's nice to see that renting is actually MORE expensive than owning,
at least for now. (This can change with one mishap or engine problem,
of course.)

Obviously that figure doesn't include acquisition costs and opportunity
costs -- but over time aircraft tend to appreciate in value, so I am
looking at our Pathfinder more as a long-term investment than as an
asset.

That's my story, and I'm stickin' with it...

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 17:38:17 GMT, Don Tuite
wrote:

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:01:11 GMT, Jose
wrote:

Back to one sip of beer seven hours before takeoff, vs two glasses of
beer eight hours before takeoff. One's legal, one's not. The one that
is not is probably safer than the one that is. But how far down the
line are you willing to go? And once you decide that, why not "just a
little" further?

Does avoiding the slippery slope lead to "zero tolerance"?

(Pick your favorite idocy associated with zero-tolerance enforcement.)

That's why I keep coming back to the tit on the bulb. My mechanic, at
least, is convinced that if I get hit by lightning and crash, if the
accident investigators find a titless bulb, they're gonna hang him out
to dry -- even if he didn't know about it and it had nothing to do
with the crash.

So when it comes to owner maintenance, I find it easier to tell myself
that any non-approved part can have a "tit" that I don't know about
and that I don't want to be responsible for messing up somebody else's
life -- even if it's a pretty long shot that I will..

I find that easier to wrap my head around than taking an approach
that in other situations leads to throwing a kid out of school because
there's no semantic difference between a butterknife and a K-Bar.

Apologies if my strawman doesn't apply to your version of slippery
slopes.

Don ("Semantic"? There must be a better word.)

That's not typically how it works.... If you crash, the lawyers will
go after deep pockets (if there are any). If you're mechanic doesn't
have deep pockets, them finding the wrong landing light bulb on
your airplane isn't going to make a hill of beans difference....

Bela P. Havasreti

Recently, Bela P. Havasreti posted:

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 17:38:17 GMT, Don Tuite
wrote:

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:01:11 GMT, Jose
wrote:

Back to one sip of beer seven hours before takeoff, vs two glasses
of beer eight hours before takeoff. One's legal, one's not. The
one that is not is probably safer than the one that is. But how
far down the line are you willing to go? And once you decide that,
why not "just a little" further?

Does avoiding the slippery slope lead to "zero tolerance"?

(Pick your favorite idocy associated with zero-tolerance
enforcement.)

That's why I keep coming back to the tit on the bulb. My mechanic,
at least, is convinced that if I get hit by lightning and crash, if
the accident investigators find a titless bulb, they're gonna hang
him out to dry -- even if he didn't know about it and it had nothing
to do with the crash.

So when it comes to owner maintenance, I find it easier to tell
myself that any non-approved part can have a "tit" that I don't know
about and that I don't want to be responsible for messing up
somebody else's life -- even if it's a pretty long shot that I will..

I find that easier to wrap my head around than taking an approach
that in other situations leads to throwing a kid out of school
because there's no semantic difference between a butterknife and a
K-Bar.

Apologies if my strawman doesn't apply to your version of slippery
slopes.

Don ("Semantic"? There must be a better word.)

That's not typically how it works.... If you crash, the lawyers will
go after deep pockets (if there are any). If you're mechanic doesn't
have deep pockets, them finding the wrong landing light bulb on
your airplane isn't going to make a hill of beans difference....

Bela P. Havasreti

Perhaps not to settle a damage lawsuit, where the "deep pockets" make a
difference, but if that kind of thing is found during the investigation,
then the A&P's credentials may be in jeopardy. At the very least, it would
raise a cloud of suspicion about the quality of work done. Not being an
A&P, I don't know how strict the FAA's regulations are in this regard, but
if the line of responsibility is anywhere near as stringent as they are
for pilots, it would be a bad risk to take.

Neil