How safe is it, really?

I need some information from people 'in the field'. My husband has
his private license and is just starting to work on his IFR for
recreational flying. He wants to buy into a plane partnership, saying
he will be saving money rather than renting.

We have 2 little girls. I worry for his safety as it seems there is
another small plane crash every other time you turn on the news. I
think he should focus on this hobby when the kids are older, not when
he has such a young family.

Your opinions would be appreciated.

Personal flying is about as safe as riding a motorcycle.

Mike
MU-2


"June" wrote in message
om...
I need some information from people 'in the field'. My husband has
his private license and is just starting to work on his IFR for
recreational flying. He wants to buy into a plane partnership, saying
he will be saving money rather than renting.

We have 2 little girls. I worry for his safety as it seems there is
another small plane crash every other time you turn on the news. I
think he should focus on this hobby when the kids are older, not when
he has such a young family.

Your opinions would be appreciated.

In article . net,
"Mike Rapoport" wrote:

Personal flying is about as safe as riding a motorcycle.


And depends greatly on the individual.

--
Dale L. Falk

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing around with airplanes.

http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flying.html

The accident rate is about 7 per 100,000 hours flown, and the fatal
accident rate is about 1.3 per 100,000 hours flown. Remember that
these are averages, and it includes high risk activities such as low
level maneuvering, scud running and fuel exhaustion. My guess is, for
a conservative pilot with an instrument rating, the rate is likely to
be about half of the above numbers. A typical private pilot flies
about 100 hours per year. At that rate, it would be 300 years before
he would encounter an accident, or 1500 years for a fatal accident.

Comparison to riding a motorcycle is a good one. But the difference
is, a motorcycle accident doesn't always make the evening news.



"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message link.net...
Personal flying is about as safe as riding a motorcycle.

Mike
MU-2


"June" wrote in message
om...
I need some information from people 'in the field'. My husband has
his private license and is just starting to work on his IFR for
recreational flying. He wants to buy into a plane partnership, saying
he will be saving money rather than renting.

We have 2 little girls. I worry for his safety as it seems there is
another small plane crash every other time you turn on the news. I
think he should focus on this hobby when the kids are older, not when
he has such a young family.

Your opinions would be appreciated.

On 30 Nov 2004 10:33:32 -0800, (Andrew
Sarangan) wrote:

The accident rate is about 7 per 100,000 hours flown, and the fatal
accident rate is about 1.3 per 100,000 hours flown. Remember that
these are averages, and it includes high risk activities such as low
level maneuvering, scud running and fuel exhaustion. My guess is, for
a conservative pilot with an instrument rating, the rate is likely to
be about half of the above numbers. A typical private pilot flies
about 100 hours per year. At that rate, it would be 300 years before
he would encounter an accident, or 1500 years for a fatal accident.

Comparison to riding a motorcycle is a good one. But the difference
is, a motorcycle accident doesn't always make the evening news.


I ride motorcycles and I fly. I feel much safer when I'm flying
because my safety is in my own hands to a much greater degree in the
plane than it is on the bike. If I die in the plane, it will almost
certainly be because I screwed up. If I die on the bike, it's just as
likely that I die from someone else's screwup.
Rich Russell

Richard Russell wrote:

If I die on the bike, it's just as
likely that I die from someone else's screwup.

Actually it will be because some automobile driver succeeded in his or her
attempt to kill you.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

Unfortunately, how safe people "feel" often bares little corelation to how
save they really are. One of the side-effects of the way many people learn
about aviation is that if they take a risk enough times - and get away with
it - they teach themselves that what they're doing is safe - which holds
true right up until the time it bites them in the bum.


I ride motorcycles and I fly. I feel much safer when I'm flying
because my safety is in my own hands to a much greater degree in the
plane than it is on the bike. If I die in the plane, it will almost
certainly be because I screwed up. If I die on the bike, it's just as
likely that I die from someone else's screwup.
Rich Russell

(Andrew Sarangan) wrote
The accident rate is about 7 per 100,000 hours flown, and the fatal
accident rate is about 1.3 per 100,000 hours flown. Remember that
these are averages, and it includes high risk activities such as low
level maneuvering, scud running and fuel exhaustion.

It also includes low risk activities such as flight training and going
around the patch to practice landings on nice VFR days. Further,
don't forget that this statistic includes business flying, which is
lower risk than personal flying.

My guess is, for
a conservative pilot with an instrument rating, the rate is likely to
be about half of the above numbers.

I do not believe this is realistic. I also do not believe there is
any data indicating that instrument rated private pilots are any safer
than those not rated.

A typical private pilot flies about 100 hours per year.

Really? A typical private airplane flies 26 hours a year, and owners
typically fly more than renters. I know relatively few private pilots
- all of them owners - who fly 100 hours a year or more.

At that rate, it would be 300 years before
he would encounter an accident, or 1500 years for a fatal accident.

A more realistic way of looking at it - the likelihood of surviving a
year of private flying is about 99.9%.

Michael

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
om...
The accident rate is about 7 per 100,000 hours flown, and the fatal
accident rate is about 1.3 per 100,000 hours flown. Remember that
these are averages, and it includes high risk activities such as low
level maneuvering, scud running and fuel exhaustion. My guess is, for
a conservative pilot with an instrument rating, the rate is likely to
be about half of the above numbers. A typical private pilot flies
about 100 hours per year. At that rate, it would be 300 years before
he would encounter an accident, or 1500 years for a fatal accident.

Comparison to riding a motorcycle is a good one. But the difference
is, a motorcycle accident doesn't always make the evening news.


I agree that those are the odds but I don't understand why you think that
the risk for a "conservative pilot with an instrument rating is about half".
Keep in mind that the 1.3/100k hrs includes corporate flying which has a
fatal accident rate *much* lower than for piston GA and a lot of the "GA"
hours are in that catagory.

Mike
MU-2

Just remember --- a car accident is not news unless it's really
unusual. Any aircraft event is considered news by the local
media because they don't know any better.