More accurate statistics?

Here is a sobering suggestion how we can get more meaningful
statistics, at least for XC pilots, instead of using the number of SSA
members as a reference, which is far from reflecting the number of
active pilot:

Use the OLC 'statistics - all flights' for the year (http://
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...sp=2011#p:0 ;)
to find the toal number of pilots who submited at least one flight
this year since each pilot is listed only once (1023 for USA in 2011).
Then cross refernce with the list of names of pilots got killed in
2011, and you get a meaningful statistic for XC pilots. I don't have
all the names but I know of at least one OLC participant who is no
longer with us this year, which makes it at least 1/1000.
Someone who has all the names can come up with more accurate number.

Ramy

On Oct 13, 8:31*pm, Ramy wrote:
Here is a sobering suggestion how we can get more meaningful
statistics, at least for XC pilots, instead of using the number of SSA
members as a reference, which is far from reflecting the number of
active pilot:

Use the OLC 'statistics - all flights' for the year (http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...t=olc&rt=olc&c...)
to find the toal number of pilots who submited at least one flight
this year since each pilot is listed only once (1023 for USA in 2011).
Then cross refernce with the list of names of pilots got killed in
2011, and you get a meaningful statistic for XC pilots. I don't have
all the names but I know of at least one OLC participant who is no
longer with us this year, which makes it at least 1/1000.
Someone who has all the names can come up with more accurate number.

Ramy

Ramy,
last year I read on RAS that there were 350 contest pilots in the US.
I wonder if that is an accurate number, but the first thing that I
thought of was the regular accidents at contests. That would be a
very easy statistic to develop; average number of contest pilots and
average accidents over 10 years. I think you get a scary ratio.

Brian

On Oct 13, 11:31*pm, Ramy wrote:
Here is a sobering suggestion how we can get more meaningful
statistics, at least for XC pilots, instead of using the number of SSA
members as a reference, which is far from reflecting the number of
active pilot:

Use the OLC 'statistics - all flights' for the year (http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...t=olc&rt=olc&c...)
to find the toal number of pilots who submited at least one flight
this year since each pilot is listed only once (1023 for USA in 2011).
Then cross refernce with the list of names of pilots got killed in
2011, and you get a meaningful statistic for XC pilots. I don't have
all the names but I know of at least one OLC participant who is no
longer with us this year, which makes it at least 1/1000.
Someone who has all the names can come up with more accurate number.

Ramy

Interesting idea based on assumption that active pilots fly XC and log
their flights to OLC.
My club is an example of one that will not favor this method.
"Rough" (very) statistics.
Members that are "active" defined as flying at least 10 flights last
year- about 60.
Total flights- about 1600
Members flying cross country - about a dozen
Members logging into OLC- about 3.
Possibly Frank Whitely would have a way to get a better handle on US
activity though obviously there is some activity that SSA does not
see. I would guess that is not a huge percentage of total activity.
FWIW
UH

On Oct 14, 10:43*am, wrote:
Interesting idea based on assumption that active pilots fly XC and log
their flights to OLC.

I don't think that was an assumption. Ramy did not propose to compare
the known fatalities overall to the numbers on OLC, but to look at OLC
total pilots vs. OLC total accident pilots. That's sensible when you
want to evaluate the risk of "the kind of flying OLC pilots do".

The remaining problem is that fatal accidents are still rare enough to
produce low numbers, so the derived level of "risk involved in XC
flying" may be sobering, but not all that informative. More helpful
statistics than these actuarial ones would include specific risk
factors, and OLC won't give you any of that.

A worthwhile exercise. I suspect someone flying long flights over the
Sierras is more likely to post to OLC than someone flying 100km
flights out of Peoria, and the former is also much more likely to get
killed. I think 1/1000 is a lower bound for pilots flying XC out
west.

On Oct 14, 10:05*am, Liam wrote:
A worthwhile exercise. *I suspect someone flying long flights over the
Sierras is more likely to post to OLC than someone flying 100km
flights out of Peoria, and the former is also much more likely to get
killed. *I think 1/1000 is a lower bound for pilots flying XC out
west.

How I justify still flying:

Depending on your age,
a 1/1000 chance of dying in the next year is really not all that bad.
The point is,
we greatly tend, psychologically, to underestimate our chances of
dying of
numerous other causes of death besides gliding in a given year. We
all know some
80 year old or even 90 year old friends and relatives, and forget how
relatively rare they actually are, and how many members of the age
related peer group they were born with are not around any longer. We
kind of assume if we eat right and don't get in an accident, we'll be
around at 80-90 too. So we get really sad when somebody dies at age 60
in an accident, and might decide to give up flying because of the
1/1000 chance we might die from flying in the next year.

If you study the U.S. Social Security Actuarial tables of 2007:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

For a 63 year old male, not too far off from an average glider
pilot, your chances of dying in the next year of any of the many
other possible causes (I suppose that includes the 5-11 glider pilots
who die gliding each year in the U.S.) is about 14/1000.

There is a rule called the Gompertz law that says that the chance
of dying of any cause in the next year doubles with every 8 years of
age.

So if you are still flying at the age of 85, you have about about a
1/10
chance of dying in the next year just from the fact that you're still
alive at all. It only goes up another 1/1000 if you still fly
(assuming 85
y/o OLC pilots die at the overall average rate as other OLC pilots).
But maybe if you're still flying at age 63, would be better to
fly with other age 63+ passengers, so just in case something happens,
you
don't take along somebody with a better life expectancy with you, like
a healthy 19 y/o male who might have only had a 1/1000 chance of dying
in the next year
from all causes.

On Oct 14, 5:10*pm, Nia Casanova wrote:
On Oct 14, 10:05*am, Liam wrote:

A worthwhile exercise. *I suspect someone flying long flights over the
Sierras is more likely to post to OLC than someone flying 100km
flights out of Peoria, and the former is also much more likely to get
killed. *I think 1/1000 is a lower bound for pilots flying XC out
west.

How I justify still flying:

Depending on your age,
a 1/1000 chance of dying in the next year is really not all that bad.
The point is,
we greatly tend, *psychologically, to underestimate our chances of
dying of
numerous other causes of death besides gliding in a given year. *We
all know some
80 year old or even 90 year old friends and relatives, *and forget how
relatively rare they actually are, and how many members of the age
related peer group they were born with are not around any longer. * We
kind of assume if we eat right and *don't get in an accident, we'll be
around at 80-90 too. So we get really sad when somebody dies at age 60
in an accident, and might decide to give up flying because of the
1/1000 chance we might die from flying in the next year.

If you study the U.S. Social Security Actuarial tables of 2007:

*http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

For a 63 year old male, not too far off from an average glider
pilot, your chances of dying in the next year of any of the many
other possible causes (I suppose that includes the 5-11 glider pilots
who die gliding each year in the U.S.) *is about 14/1000.

There is a rule called the Gompertz law that says that the chance
of dying of any cause in the next year doubles with every 8 years of
age.

So if you are still flying at the age of 85, you have about about a
1/10
chance of dying in the next year just from the fact that you're still
alive at all. * *It only goes up another 1/1000 * if you still fly
(assuming 85
y/o OLC pilots die at the overall average rate as other OLC pilots).
But maybe if you're still flying at age 63, *would be better to
fly with other age 63+ passengers, so just in case something happens,
you
don't take along somebody with a better life expectancy with you, like
a healthy 19 y/o male who might have only had a 1/1000 chance of dying
in the next year
from all causes.

This is very interesting. Thanks for sharing. It makes sense, but
still does not explain why in 30 years of flying I know more dead
pilots than any other cause combined...

Ramy

On Oct 14, 8:43*am, wrote:
On Oct 13, 11:31*pm, Ramy wrote:

Here is a sobering suggestion how we can get more meaningful
statistics, at least for XC pilots, instead of using the number of SSA
members as a reference, which is far from reflecting the number of
active pilot:

Use the OLC 'statistics - all flights' for the year (http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0....html?st=olc&r......)
to find the toal number of pilots who submited at least one flight
this year since each pilot is listed only once (1023 for USA in 2011).
Then cross refernce with the list of names of pilots got killed in
2011, and you get a meaningful statistic for XC pilots. I don't have
all the names but I know of at least one OLC participant who is no
longer with us this year, which makes it at least 1/1000.
Someone who has all the names can come up with more accurate number.

Ramy

Interesting idea based on assumption that active pilots fly XC and log
their flights to OLC.
My club is an example of one that will not favor this method.
"Rough" (very) statistics.
Members that are "active" defined as flying at least 10 flights last
year- about 60.
Total flights- about 1600
Members flying cross country - about a *dozen
Members logging into OLC- about 3.
Possibly Frank Whitely would have a way to get a better handle on US
activity though obviously there is some activity that SSA does not
see. I would guess that is not a huge percentage of total activity.
FWIW
UH

The only way we'll get there is to have soaring organizations report
their activity as is done in some European countries.

To that end, a software package the enables such data collection and
eases the burden of record keeping for clubs, chapters, and commercial
operators that could generate periodic reports would move us several
steps forward. There are actually efforts in progress.

Then again, there are some clubs and commercial operators that have no
SSA affiliation. Within and outside of the SSA, several seem to work
at avoiding contact, though individuals within those organizations are
quite approachable.

Frank Whiteley

On Oct 14, 7:37*pm, Ramy wrote:
On Oct 14, 5:10*pm, Nia Casanova wrote:









On Oct 14, 10:05*am, Liam wrote:

A worthwhile exercise. *I suspect someone flying long flights over the
Sierras is more likely to post to OLC than someone flying 100km
flights out of Peoria, and the former is also much more likely to get
killed. *I think 1/1000 is a lower bound for pilots flying XC out
west.

How I justify still flying:

Depending on your age,
a 1/1000 chance of dying in the next year is really not all that bad.
The point is,
we greatly tend, *psychologically, to underestimate our chances of
dying of
numerous other causes of death besides gliding in a given year. *We
all know some
80 year old or even 90 year old friends and relatives, *and forget how
relatively rare they actually are, and how many members of the age
related peer group they were born with are not around any longer. * We
kind of assume if we eat right and *don't get in an accident, we'll be
around at 80-90 too. So we get really sad when somebody dies at age 60
in an accident, and might decide to give up flying because of the
1/1000 chance we might die from flying in the next year.

If you study the U.S. Social Security Actuarial tables of 2007:

*http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

For a 63 year old male, not too far off from an average glider
pilot, your chances of dying in the next year of any of the many
other possible causes (I suppose that includes the 5-11 glider pilots
who die gliding each year in the U.S.) *is about 14/1000.

There is a rule called the Gompertz law that says that the chance
of dying of any cause in the next year doubles with every 8 years of
age.

So if you are still flying at the age of 85, you have about about a
1/10
chance of dying in the next year just from the fact that you're still
alive at all. * *It only goes up another 1/1000 * if you still fly
(assuming 85
y/o OLC pilots die at the overall average rate as other OLC pilots).
But maybe if you're still flying at age 63, *would be better to
fly with other age 63+ passengers, so just in case something happens,
you
don't take along somebody with a better life expectancy with you, like
a healthy 19 y/o male who might have only had a 1/1000 chance of dying
in the next year
from all causes.

This is very interesting. Thanks for sharing. It makes sense, but
still does not explain why in 30 years of flying I know more dead
pilots than any other cause combined...

Ramy

in my case, almost all of my friends are pilots, so I suspect that
eventually i will have a lot of dead pilot friends. fortunately i
don't have any yet.