Okay, so maybe flying *is* dangerous...

Gig 601XL Builder wrote:
"Doug" wrote in message
oups.com...
Ah yes, but flying a small, tandem, amphibious aircraft hangared at my
particular airport, flown by a 50 something pilot with Commercial, IFR
and CFI ratings, is actually quite safe, statistically. In fact, I
don't believe there has EVER been a fatality in one of those!


But Doug, you're not statistically relevant until you die in a crash and
burn. Then, because since relatively few people do crash and burn you will
have an effect on the statistics.

Think about it.

Yes, but what are the chances of that?

Michael wrote:

Safe as houses.

Judging from the photos of Biloxi, that's not necessarily very safe.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

Jim wrote:

Have I got this sorted out?

Yep. I knew this but couldn't figure out how to put it clearly. You did it very
well.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

Doug wrote:
Ah yes, but flying a small, tandem, amphibious aircraft hangared at my
particular airport, flown by a 50 something pilot with Commercial, IFR
and CFI ratings, is actually quite safe, statistically. In fact, I
don't believe there has EVER been a fatality in one of those!

Using that logic, any flight made by George Patterson is perfectly safe. He's
never bent an airplane.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

George Patterson wrote:
Doug wrote:
Ah yes, but flying a small, tandem, amphibious aircraft hangared at my
particular airport, flown by a 50 something pilot with Commercial, IFR
and CFI ratings, is actually quite safe, statistically. In fact, I
don't believe there has EVER been a fatality in one of those!

Using that logic, any flight made by George Patterson is perfectly safe. He's
never bent an airplane.


I just had a quick resume of all the people I know who died in vehicle
accidents, marine accidents and flying accidents.
Vehicle deaths are way way out front.

george wrote:
I just had a quick resume of all the people I know who died in vehicle
accidents, marine accidents and flying accidents.
Vehicle deaths are way way out front.

how do those numbers relate if you divide them by the total number of
people you know who drive vehicles, operate marine vessels, and fly
airplanes?

-R

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:29:59 GMT, Jose
wrote:

If each jump carries a 1-in-10000 chance of dying, wouldn't the 1000th
jump also carry a 1-in-10000 chance of dying?
Yes. But the odds of being dead before reaching the 10,000th jump
increase with each jump you make.
The more times the coin turns up heads, the more likely the next toss
will be tails?

Actuary's numbers relate to populations, not individuals.

But you knew that. You just left out the smiley

No, I meant it as I stated. The "population" in question is the
population of coin tosses (or jumps).

Suppose you have an exploding coin. It explodes (with great violence)
when it falls heads, and doesn't when it falls tails. If you flip that
coin once, you stand a fifty fifty chance of being dead from it.

If you keep flipping the coin all day, you stand a much greater chance
of being dead at the end of the day, even though if you survive, you
stand only a fifty fifty chance of being killed by the NEXT coin toss.

But I think you knew this too. With a statisitics discussion (like
this) it's hard to know whether the misunderstanding is =in= the basic
math, or in precisely what is being said =about= the (understood) basic
math.

Well, I *do* like the exploding coin.

Don

Don Tuite wrote:

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:57:28 GMT, Jose
wrote:


If each jump carries a 1-in-10000 chance of dying, wouldn't the 1000th
jump also carry a 1-in-10000 chance of dying?

Yes. But the odds of being dead before reaching the 10,000th jump
increase with each jump you make.


The more times the coin turns up heads, the more likely the next toss
will be tails?

No, but the odds of getting at least one tail after 100 flips is greater
than getting a tail on just one flip. Remember, it only takes one bad
jump to kill you and the odds of getting one bad jump is greater if you
make 100 jumps than if you make one.

Matt

Gig 601XL Builder wrote:

wrote in message
oups.com...

"Gig 601XL Builder" wr.giacona@coxDOTnet wrote in message
news:ed0Re.6670$7f5.4709@okepread01...


The probability of a person having successfully made 9999
jumps surviving his 10000th jump is very different (and less)
than the probability of a person who has made no jumps,
successfully making 10000 safe jumps.

No, if the abolute odds of not surviving A jump are 1:10,000.
The odds of death are 1:10,000 on jump #1,#2,...#10000...
#20000. The dice don't have a memory.

Yes, but a jumper *does* have a memory.
A jumper cannot have a second jump *unless* the first jump was
successful, correct?

Above, I was comparing two jumpers, one who had 9999
jumps under his belt, and another who had 0 jumps under his
belt.

For the new jumper, his odds are 1:10,000 (if that is accurate)
for his first jump.

For the experienced jumper, his odds of surviving his *first*
jump are 100%, since he already survived his first jump. It
is no longer in the realm of "probability", it is now in the realm
of certainty, since it is in the unchangeable past.

To give another example that might make things more clear,
suppose we have two people:

1) One person is going to take a revolver, put one bullet in
the gun, and play "Russian Roulette" 1000 times.

2) A second person has already played (and survived) a
game of Russian Roulette 999 times, and only has to
play it for one more time.

The second person has a 5/6 chance of survival.

Do you honestly give the first person 5/6 chance of survival?
I would give him (without calculating precisely) somwhere
around 0.005 % chance of survival.

There is a difference.




The odds for an something to happen on any given roll,trigger pull or jump
don't change



True, but that isn't the issue at hand. The issue is surviving a SERIES
of future events, not just the next one.

Matt

"Jim" wrote in message
...
On 30 Aug 2005 06:01:00 -0700, wrote:


It isn't dangerous to go skydiving (1-in-10000 chance of dying) once.
But "being a regular skydiver" where one jumps 100 or perhaps 1000
times in a lifetime gives you a much less trivial chance of being
killed.

Curious.

If each jump carries a 1-in-10000 chance of dying, wouldn't the 1000th
jump also carry a 1-in-10000 chance of dying?

If one flips a fair coin, over the long run there is a 1-in-2 chance
of either side coming up. If one flips a fair coin 1 million times do
the odds of either side coming up change?

No. Gambler's Fallacy.

moo