I agree with Helen. A few years ago one of my best friends died in a trike accident. When he was flying transport type airplanes or fighters in the military, he had a perfect safety record, yet when flying UL type aircraft, he bent one and destroyed 2 in less than 2 years of flying. So what was the difference? How could there be such different results from the same individual?
My theory is that in his case, he simply did not put the same level of self discipline into his private flying that he did in his professional flying. The military and the airline are pretty canned compared to flying on your own. Runways have to be so long, takeoff data is calculated, very precise procedures are in place for how flights will be conducted. When you are flying GA, there is no one to tell you what to do. You have to make your own decisions about everything. How you choose to operate is, by and large, completely up to you. There are FARs, but you can choose not to follow them if you wish. In the airline industry, the check and balance on that is the other pilot whose ticket is at risk as well. Military flying is very dynamic, and very challenging, but there are procedures and policies in place to try to keep people from spreading airplane parts all over the place. I know of very few GA or UL accidents where inflight break up or failure was the cause of the accident. Generally, accidents are caused by an error in judgment and not having a plan and following it. Impulsive behavior is a classic way to bust your butt. Nothing like a crowd and a camera to bring out the best in a pilot. I have seen so many airplanes damaged by failure to go around I have lost count. For some reason, people don't seem to realize that the policies and procedures put in place to keep the military and airline accident rate low would work equally well when flying GA, but it's up to the individual to have the self discipline to keep himself out of trouble. Training and recurrent training professionally is way beyond what is required in the GA world. People are reluctant to pay for training beyond the bare minimums. That just seems to be human nature. And often people don't push themselves to practice to make themselves better. They just fly around visiting people and sight seeing and never concentrating on actually improving their skills.
My opinions only.
Jim
Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 6:41 AM
Subject: Re: Light-Sport Aircraft Yahoo group Fatal Stall/Spin Accidents, and other Aircraft Accidents
Inadequate transition/type training. An equally experienced light
airplane pilot would likely have accidents as well if put behind the
controls of an airliner with 5 hours or less of transition training.
Helen
On 8/11/2010 8:49 AM, wj18001900 wrote:
> I have read many official reports over the years about fatal stall/spin type accidents (and other aircraft accidents), and I find it interesting that since the United States government started collecting data on aircraft accidents many years ago, commercial rated&/or airline pilots, who when piloting large air transport aircraft have excellent safety records, yet when they fly on their own time in small general aviation aircraft, they as a group appear to have one of the highest accident rates for fatal stall/spin type accidents, and other types of aircraft accidents. How can this be possible, seeing as they have such a high level of experience over many years, in different weather conditions, during day and night flying, and in many different types of aircraft. It doesn't make sense that the most well trained, and safest (when piloting air transport aircraft) pilots have some of the worst safety records over all. Why has this been happening? How can these accidents be avoided /
> eliminated, if they happen to such well trained professional pilots?
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