Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?

"Vaughn Simon" wrote:
Bingo! Just using an airplane (or most any machine) regularly is better
for it than allowing it to rot unused. Having watched the tie-down area at
my local airport for decades now, I see no evidence that private owners maintain
their aircraft better than the FBOs maintain their rental fleets. I see dozens
of planes where I fly that seem to sit there forever without any use. Would
you rather fly the airplane that flies every day or the one that hasn't flown for
the last 90 days? I don't like feeling like a test pilot!

At our airport, there's a marked difference in how owners of planes at
tiedowns maintain their aircraft vs. owners of planes *in hangars*.
That's not to say *some* of those at tiedowns are not well maintained,
but you do see many that have obviously been parked and sitting for WAY
too long w/o being flown.

unicate wrote:

At our airport, there's a marked difference in how owners of planes at
tiedowns maintain their aircraft vs. owners of planes *in hangars*.
Airplanes in hangars sit just as long. I'm sure you know what that does
to an engine.

Jay Honeck wrote:
Strangely, I can't seem to find any statistics on this seemingly
obvious (and easy-to-compile) issue. Does anyone know if any studies
have been done in this regard?

it might actually be difficult to make comparisons because I would
guess -- i.e., this is not based on any numbers/evidences, just
wild speculations -- that privately owned aircraft are used quite
differently from rentals; for instance, I would imagine that
the former are used more for travels and the latter more for
training for instance...

--Sylvain

On 21 Oct 2006 15:45:58 -0700, "Jay Honeck" wrote:

While discussing flight safety in a different thread, the idea popped
into my head that rental planes are probably more dangerous to fly than
owner-flown aircraft. In my case, some of the rental birds I used to
fly were down-right scary, and I know that they were often abused and
ignored.

This as opposed to my own aircraft, which have been meticulously
maintained and pampered. (And, other than the hangar queens that are
owned by "pilots" that never fly, every active pilot owner I know
treats their plane in much the same way.)

Strangely, I can't seem to find any statistics on this seemingly
obvious (and easy-to-compile) issue. Does anyone know if any studies
have been done in this regard?

It's not that easy to compile accurately, I think. The NTSB accident summaries
do include the owner and operator names, and has a "Oper_same" column, but
there's no way to really tell the relationship of the pilot to the owner. If
the pilot was "Joe Smith" and the owner is listed as "ABC Investments," was the
plane rented or did the pilot just operate it as a corporation for tax purposes?
If the "Oper_Same" flag is "N", was it rented or was it borrowed from a friend?

Certainly there are some owners who keep their airplanes in much better shape
than the average rental hack. But then, there are owners who cut corners and
defer repairs.

I have run a couple of analyses of NTSB data to investigate homebuilt aircraft
accident statistics. For these, I use a combination of Cessna 172s/210s as a
control group (leaving out the 172s involved in training accidents). During the
2002-2004 period, about 20% of the 172/210 group accidents were due to some sort
of mechanical problem, including faulty maintenance. But a third of those were
"unexplained engine failures" that might have been due to the pilot.

All boiled down, between 70% and 80% of the accidents had nothing to do with who
actually owned the airplane...the pilot goofed up. Perhaps some of the
remainder crashed because they were rental birds in poor condition, but the raw
number is not likely to be statistically significant. Convincing pilots to NOT
run their gas tanks dry would save more lives than tightening FBO maintenance
oversight.

It's interesting to note that I've seen the same argument made for
homebuilts...that homebuilt owners take better care of their airplanes. The
statistics don't bear that out. Homebuilts (which, it must be pointed out, are
generally manufactured *and* maintained by amateurs) have a mechanical-failure
accident rate about 50% higher than my C-172/210 control group.

Ron Wanttaja

This is a tough one Jay. I don't have figure 1 on this, but from personal
experience through the years I've seen it both ways. I've seen operations
that maintained their airplanes like a Swiss watch and many I wouldn't touch
with a 10 foot pole. I've seen owners who maintained perfectly and owners
whose airplanes I absolutely would not fly.
I think a useful and plausible answer to this one is going to be tough to
nail down.
Dudley

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
While discussing flight safety in a different thread, the idea popped
into my head that rental planes are probably more dangerous to fly than
owner-flown aircraft. In my case, some of the rental birds I used to
fly were down-right scary, and I know that they were often abused and
ignored.

This as opposed to my own aircraft, which have been meticulously
maintained and pampered. (And, other than the hangar queens that are
owned by "pilots" that never fly, every active pilot owner I know
treats their plane in much the same way.)

Strangely, I can't seem to find any statistics on this seemingly
obvious (and easy-to-compile) issue. Does anyone know if any studies
have been done in this regard?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Dudley Henriques writes:

I've seen operations
that maintained their airplanes like a Swiss watch and many I wouldn't touch
with a 10 foot pole. I've seen owners who maintained perfectly and owners
whose airplanes I absolutely would not fly.

Is it a question of will, or a question of money?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Recently, Jay Honeck posted:

While discussing flight safety in a different thread, the idea popped
into my head that rental planes are probably more dangerous to fly
than owner-flown aircraft. In my case, some of the rental birds I
used to fly were down-right scary, and I know that they were often
abused and ignored.

This as opposed to my own aircraft, which have been meticulously
maintained and pampered. (And, other than the hangar queens that are
owned by "pilots" that never fly, every active pilot owner I know
treats their plane in much the same way.)

Strangely, I can't seem to find any statistics on this seemingly
obvious (and easy-to-compile) issue. Does anyone know if any studies
have been done in this regard?

I don't know the answer to your question, however, the FARs for rentals
are more stringent than for privately owned & operated aircraft, so I'd
suspect that while many rentals may not be as pretty as privately-owned,
they are likely to be in better structural & mechanical condition.

The club that I belong to has around 15 planes, few of which would pass a
beauty contest. However, we also have 2 full-time mechanics, so squawks
are handled promptly and the regs are strictly adhered to. I feel quite
safe in these planes.

Neil


Neil

In article ,
"Neil Gould" wrote:


I don't know the answer to your question, however, the FARs for rentals
are more stringent than for privately owned & operated aircraft, so I'd
suspect that while many rentals may not be as pretty as privately-owned,
they are likely to be in better structural & mechanical condition.



Bwahahahahaha!!! That's pretty funny!! G

"Neil Gould" wrote:
I don't know the answer to your question, however, the FARs for rentals
are more stringent than for privately owned & operated aircraft, so I'd
suspect that while many rentals may not be as pretty as privately-owned,
they are likely to be in better structural & mechanical condition.

Dale wrote:
Bwahahahahaha!!! That's pretty funny!! G

Yeah, it's funny, but that *is* the prevailing *assumption* among
renters, and the FBOs bank on it.

On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 08:32:46 -0700, Xmnushal8y wrote:

Yeah, it's funny, but that *is* the prevailing *assumption* among renters,
and the FBOs bank on it.

Pilots should be more aware of the regulations than this.

But, while I knew that the only difference between rental and owned was
the 100 hour, and I also knew that the only difference between the 100
hour and the annual was the IA signature, I didn't - until I became
involved in MX myself - know just how much was possible WRT MX that wasn't
required.

As I mentioned in another posting, oil analysis is a good example of a
useful "inspection" tool that's not required. Not knowing about this, one
wouldn't know to ask the FBO if it is being done.

So I can see how one could easily fall into this mistaken belief. I did.

And, for obvious reasons, I don't think we can presume that the FBOs are
going to ever get better about teaching this.

- Andrew