aviatoreb

Quote: fantom Trees....who likes trees? l/Bush_Mooney.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480" />

Quote: mooneygirl Well as some of you know from AOPA's Close Calls, Lessons Learned that I have experience landing in the trees. As mentioned in an earlier post, I had the uprising terrain, without an engine producing the power necessary for flight. I was going to post pictures, but looking through them just now, I am not able to do it. Still pretty upsetting. I did have the voice of my instructor in my head saying "if you are going to hit something, hit it as slowly as possible, and hit the least expensive thing." We began to impact trees after I cut the engine and put the plane into a "landing flare" at 55 mph. Lots of lessons in my situation, but the two things I did absolutely right: 1) fly the airplane all the way to the ground; 2) don't try to turn around and go back to the airport if you don't have the altitude [i had 150 feet].

Mazerbase, I don't understand what is the meaning of your adjusted risk column. Ummm - Also - your bicycle is shockingly slow. You need a faster bike. I bike at least double that speed on average. Sometimes a lot more than that. I saw a comment above regarding the low numbers being low enough not to worry about. From above, "as opposed to the rather miniscule risk.Even at 1or 2 fatals per 100000 flying hours...actual risk is low...or too put into odds..how many eons would it take to win the lottery at those odds???" It does not take as many eons as you might think, and the accumulated risk can be surprisingly high: In the following for simplicity of computation I will assume statistical independence of an event during each hour to the next - this is not quite right but good enough for a rough estimate I believe and definitely the non-independent computation is MUCH harder. Let p=1.5/100000 be the probability of a fatality event in 1 hour of exposure. 1-p is the probability of no fatality in 1 hour of exposure. (1-p)^n is the probability of no fatality in n-hours of exposure 1-(1-p)^n is the probability of a fatality in n-hours of exposure. Take an average pilot such as myself who flies roughly n=100 hours in a year. Then, 1-(1-p)^n=1-(1-1.5/1000000)^100=0.0015=0.15% chance of a fatality event per year. Let q=0.0015 If you fly for 30 years, then the chance of a fatality event in 30 years is. 1-(1-q)^30=0.0440=4.4% 1-(1-q)^40=0.0582=5.82% in 40 years ...or if you fly more, then q=0.003 and 1-(1-q)^30=0.0861=8.6% and 11.31% for 40 years. The punchline is that even a small number like 1.5/100000 becomes a large number with repeated exposure and it does not take eons. As I said, the real way to do this computation is by a field called rare statistics which has its own tools and a great pain in the neck but the above gives you an idea. No two ways about it - flying is not a no risk activity. That said, I bike race - and I ride roughly 12hrs per week. I incur a much greater total risk cycling than flying. But then I like to think that this activity mitigates some of the other usual risk like heart disease and cancers, etc. Bath tubs are dangerous too and I stand in a bath tub to take a shower after each bike ride. Sometimes I go in a canoe ride. Nice thing about any of these activities, flying included, is that bulk average probabilities like p=1.5/100000 across a population is not likely your personal probability. You might be much worse but hopefully you are better. I am a believer that in this particular activity, that 90% of the risk is concentrated on 10% of the people. I.e., those hotdoggers who have no fear or hesitation to launch into a building thunderstorm. So if I am right, I like to think that with good aeronautical decision making (vow to make the right decision every time and don't launch even if you will be late if the weather aint right), excellent recurrent training (I do believe that statistically skills are not as important as basic decision making - this is why airline pilots still die in Cessna 172s sometimes - but skills are important nonetheless!), make the decision to maintain your airplane in absolute tip-top shape and never skimp on premptive maintenance (and this too is a smaller term in the risk too since we know that mechanicals are the smaller part of the incident scenario risk - nonetheless chase out all the demons!) - do all these things and believe my 90% risk on 10% of the people concept and you may put yourself out of that 90% of the risk category. If so, then maybe-maybe p=1.5/(10^6) for you personally. This is not mathematics, just a wish. And a working principle on how I approach the activity. And a promise to myself.

& Quote: Mazerbase I can't remember where but this question was studied and the answer turned out to be trees. I'm not sure I understand why but the highest chance for survival was not water but trees. nbsp; Seems counter intuitive but that is what I remember.

Quote: Wistarmo I compare this to a book called, "Flying Out of Danger" by Goldstein (1984) who does show data for 100 million passenger miles at that time, with fatality rates per 100 million passenger miles of 1.0 for driving, 13 for general aviation, and 0.086 for airlines. I will try and find more current estimates of general aviation fatality rates per 100 million passenger miles to provide a more accurate comparison to driving, motorcycles, and airlines.

Here is an interesting table I ran across last year of relative dangers, but before I show it, I will mention one of the weirdest stats I have seen. Did you know that world wide, on average 2 people per year die from coconuts falling on your head? Of course, I feel less at risk to this dangerous plight of the tropics since I live in upstate ny and we have very few coconut trees. Watch out if you live in Miami!! (I don't endorse the quality of the data in this table - I just cut and paste - but you get the idea). Risks Which Increase Chance of Death by 0.000001 (1 in a million), followed by the cause of death. • Smoking 1.4 Cigarettes (Cancer, Heart Disease) • Drinking ½ liter of wine (Cirrhosis of the liver) • Spending 1 hour in a coal mine (Black Lung Disease) • Spending 3 hours in a coal mine (Accident) • Living 2 days in New York or Boston (Air Pollution) • Traveling 6 Minutes by canoe (Accident) • Traveling 10 miles by bicycle (Accident) • Traveling 300 miles by car (Accident) • Flying 1000 miles by jet (Accident) • Flying 6000 miles by jet (Cancer caused by cosmic radiation) • Living 2 months in Denver (Cancer caused by cosmic radiation) • Living 3 months in average brick or stone building (Cancer caused by natural radioactivity) • One chest x-ray taken in a good hospital (Cancer caused by radiation) • Living 2 months with a cigarette smoker (Cancer, heart disease) • Eating 40 tablespoons of peanut butter (Liver cancer caused by aflatoxin • Drinking Miami drinking water for 1 year (Cancer caused by Chloroform) • Drinking 30 12oz cans of diet soda (Cancer caused by saccharin) • Living 5 years at the boundary of a typical nuclear power plant in the open (Cancer caused by radiation) • Living 20 years near a PVC plant (Cancer caused by vinyl chloride) • Living 150 years within 20 miles of a nuclear power plant (Cancer caused by radiation) • Eating 100 Charcoal Broiled steaks (Cancer from benzopyrene) The next time someone gives you a hard time about your airplane, give them hell for eating a steak or riding in one of those super dangerous canoes...they are way worse than small airplanes. Statistically that is. No joke. People are less adverse to canoes but they are very dangerous. I like canoes.

Quote: donshapansky I am a graduate of the GAMI pilot's school and I should clarify the parameters for running ROP. Below 8000' you are subject to a never operate zone of 100 ROP to 50 LOP due to operating stresses placed on piston/cylinder wall loading etc. etc. Above 8000' all limitations disappear for all naturally aspirated engines. The other parameter is fuel flow at full power, that being all EGT's should be below 1300 F preferably 1250 F. In the case of the IO550 you will need to be at 29 - 30 gph is my guess. I bet you that those figures are not in your Rocket Engineering manual. Case in point, my Rocket Manual for the TSIO-520 said the fuel flow needs to be 33 gph. With that setting my TIT was 1450 - 1500 F way too hot and cylinder head temps soaring to the 400's My engine man and GAMI both told me to raise the fuel flow to match the maximum manifold pressure I was seeing. My EDM 930 showed 37 - 37.5 in. By raising the fuel flow the TIT dropped to 1280 and the cylinder heads all sit at 350 F or less even on a hot Texas day. From my mechanical knowlege ( licenced auto, heavy truck and motorcycle) and 1800 hrs of using GAMI products and procedures I will not buy that LOP does exhaust pipe damage. At my current fuel savings of at 6.0 - 7.0 gph I have paid for exhaust system and cylinder replacements several times over. My $.02

Quote: Wistarmo To answer your question, for aviation statistics for general aviation go to the Nall report with AOPA: http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/09nall.pdf. The fatality rate is 12 per million passenger miles for general aviation and 5 for commercial aviation. For driving, try http://trafficsafety.org/. The fatality rate is 1.2 per million passenger miles for driving and 42 for motorcycles. Like DaV8or, I had always heard general aviation and motorcycles were equivalent, but motorcycles are about 3X worse than general aviation. For airlines, go to http://www.airlines.org. The fatality rate is 0.01 per 100 million passenger miles for airlines.

Quote: flight2000 Brian

Quote: Mazerbase Oh, definitely, the QT headset is the best. I bought one for my wife and promptly stole it. Had to get another for her to use. Now I'm planning on getting a 3rd set. I can wear any hat I want and they are much more comfortable for me than the other headsets I've used. If I had hair, I would also like the fact that it doesn't mess up your hair. The owner flies an M20B.

Quote: allsmiles Due to its size and design the iPad is too cumbersome in the cockpit. There are a lot of concerns and rightly so, on how and where to mount it. Where do you put this thing? It takes up a lot of space! In addition complicating positioning you have angle it a certain way to minimize glare. Functionally, the iPad is only an average navigator. Think about it. Should we really be playing with an iPad while flying ?! No software that I've seen, no Wing X, no Foreflight or anyone else, have any worthwhile navigational detail anyway. Synthetic vision or not! I hope I'm wrong and God forbid this never happens but someone somewhere is going to get bitten by this synthetic vision stuff on an iPad! And its GPS is marginally dependable. As for weather it can't compete with near real time as XM, even on a handheld. The only real justification I can see for lugging an iPad around in the cockpit is as an inexpensive pdf plate reader and not as a GPS. But of course my iPhone with Goodreader and pdf plates is my free backup plate reader. For a handheld GPS an Aera is an excellent choice. Of course I have plates on my 750 so i don't really use my iPhone either. But they are there.

Quote: Mazerbase I changed the bulb before I had a failure. I did so for two reasons. First, I wanted to try it out with the incadecent bulb as backup. Second, I now leave my LED landing light on all the time for increased visibility. I think of it as cheap insurance.

Quote: scottfromiowa Check the MOA website. In the "back issues" there is an extensive article on gear warning. This is the radar "ground proximity" type that gives a voice through the headset...

Yeah - seems like a good idea to go LED from the standpoint of lowering the load on your poor alternator not to mention cooler and longer lasting. I will definitely go LED as soon as my first bulb blows. They are working for now.

Quote: Hank PAR46 LED lights are now approved!! Mooneys are listed on page 7 of 12 pages worth of approved aircraft: M22; M20, M20A, B, C, D, E, F, G, J, K, M, R, S & TN. NOTE #1: Installation is limited to previously approved landing/taxi light lamp size and location. Here's their link: http://www.whelen.com/pb/Aviation/STC/Parmetheus%20STC%20SA02212AK.pdf

Quote: Mazerbase Erik? What kind of name is Erik? Mad biker or Killer prof sound so much better! Name withheld to protect me.

Quote: scottfromiowa O.K, Am I missing something? On the Idaho thread Dave made the Dr. reference...and gets called a derogatory word for using the reference? Then we are talking about people on internet being civil? The Beech V-tail had an alarming rate of mid-air break-ups prior to strenghening. Aviation Consumer high-lighted and Beech denied. The Beech was and is a beautiful Expensive aircraft that was considered "the best" and many Dr.s bought them. A Mooney is also a beautiful "best" aircraft that has recently been crashing in numbers/frequency that is alarming...I believe that Dave's reference didn't warrant the reply in this link. I don't know how someone can call someone something used to clean a vagina and NOT be HIT by the moderator. NOT GOOD! That's just me...

Quote: sleepingsquirrel

Quote: DaV8or I find that public comment on news sites, youtube and other high traffic sites brings out the worst of humanity and are rarely of any value or worth reading. There are some really terrible people with computers out there.

Quote: RJBrown The part I had the problem with was easily adjustable on the ground without pulling the cowl. I carried a small pair of pliers to bend this part back to the proper shape. But in a pinch it can be done without tools. The cowl is 2 position only. "Closed" is not fully closed it is what Rocket calls "in trail". Open is fully open and there is no in between. As you pull it open the mechanism goes slightly over center. The cowl opens fully and then closes just a fraction. This is why it gets hard to push against high airspeed. As you close it you push it open against the airflow slightly before closing. The amount of "overcenter" is important none and it wont stay open. Too much and it is hard to close. Way too much and it can't close. In operation I would push the cowl knob just before leveling off when the airspeed is lowest. Once closed and up to speed it is impossible to reopen. The in-trail position is fine for short or slow climbs. At 200+ knots you can trade airspeed for altitude and "zoom" climb in 1000'+ steps quickly and easily. Closing below 100 knots makes it easier to push and puts less pressure on the part that bends. Kind of a cheep solution by Rocket. I considered machining a replacement out of aluminum block but never did. I was always worried that the part that keeps bending would eventually fatigue and break.

Quote: RJBrown

Quote: allsmiles 1. $60-$70K is way underpriced precisely because it doesn't exist new, and 2. you are lucky to have a $350K airplane for only 60-70K! Combining these two views you win! Keep the airplane in top shape and enjoy it !!

Quote: Parker_Woodruff True... The sad part is an M20F is one of the least expensive "complex" airplanes to keep running...I'd take one over a Piper Arrow from the same model year any day...

Some scattered thoughts: The only fatal accident in this area for as long as memory can serve was someone near and dear to many of us, actually. The senior aviator really as he was a 14,000hr pilot, CFI to many of us, and the DPE who signed off on my private and my IFR ticket. He was also just a great great guy. He had every possible rating including unusual airplanes such as the DC3. Anyway, he died in the mountains in what seems to be a "common" VFR into IMC event in a Cherokee 140 seemingly trying to get home from a long drawn flight exam to his hockey league. The strange thing is he always told us to go around the mountains as it only takes maybe 5 min out of your day to do so. My point here is that yes, flying is a serious business and it can happen to anyone. I had an interesting discussion with a fellow faculty member at my University where I teach. I fly and he does ice climbing. I think he is crazy and he thinks I am crazy. I also bicycle race btw. Really, I bet statistically we are both way better off than many many of our peers who live unhealthy lifestyles of smoking, drinking and over eating and sitting on the couch a lot. And we enjoy our lives with gusto. I approach my flying with a great deal of seriousness and I enjoy the process tremendously. It engages me completely. As to the bingo warning - the difference between the dangers of dying while playing bingo and dying while flying, or ice climbing, or bike racing - a death while playing bingo is just a matter mostly of a person will die eventually and it happened to come while playing bingo. Whereas when doing an activity, the activity can bring to pass a premature passing if not careful. I am a firm believer that the media are whores for covering certain kind of stories, such as plane crashes, in a manner that is entirely unrelated to where it fits in the broader mosaic of news. Otherwise we would see the news filled with daily car carnage.

Quote: HopePilot A Rolls Royce takes 450 hours to build by hand. How many hours did a Mooney 201 (or other model) take?