Alton Bay Bonanza crash

[GeeBee]

30 minutes ago, wombat said:

Maybe I'm misinterpreting your statement and reading it through the lens of the attitude I've gotten from others here.  If so, my apologies.  But what it sounded like you were doing was complaining about the effect on your insurance rates of those that want to "experience" these kinds of places that you don't. Your statement reminds me of the guy who says that everyone who drives slower than him is an idiot and everyone who drives faster is a maniac.

You are misinterpreting. All I am saying is the complaints about insurance rates on this very board are legion. Go ahead, do a search. Yet we are engaging in an operation in which dispatch conditions are minimal and mostly at pilots discretion, and we dispatch to places and reasons which have no plausible and reasonable explanation for the risk. Think about it. 

[Shadrach]

4 hours ago, GeeBee said:

We wonder why our hull coverage is so high.

 

Pilots have really not broken much new ground in terms of how they bend airplanes.  GA accident rates are generally trending down. 

 

[wombat]

1 hour ago, GeeBee said:

You are misinterpreting. All I am saying is the complaints about insurance rates on this very board are legion. Go ahead, do a search. Yet we are engaging in an operation in which dispatch conditions are minimal and mostly at pilots discretion, and we dispatch to places and reasons which have no plausible and reasonable explanation for the risk. Think about it. 

Oh, I know all about the complaints.   I've responded to many of the complaints the same way I'm responding to yours. 

 

Bottom line: There is no plausible and reasonable explanation for taking the risk of flying single engine piston GA at all.   It sounds like you are saying that anyone that takes more risks than you has 'no plausible and reasonable explanation for the risk' they are taking.   But you have also not provided any plausible and reasonable explanation for why you are taking the risks you do choose to take in flying a single engine piston airplane at all or anything to explain why single-engine piston airplanes the way you fly is reasonable and the way others fly is not. 

 

You are sounding more and more like the "anyone driving slower than me is an idiot, anyone driving faster than me is a maniac" type of person here.    Personally I fly because I want to.   It's a choice that I make based on the costs and benefits to me given the environment I live in.   It's not a good decision in terms of a plausible and reasonable choice other than my pleasure in doing the things I want to in my life. 

[Hank]

27 minutes ago, wombat said:

Personally I fly because I want to.  . . . my pleasure in doing the things I want to in my life. 

I fly because it's something that I always wanted to do, and discovered time, money and talent in middle age. So I'm making up for lost time!

[GeeBee]

7 hours ago, wombat said:

Oh, I know all about the complaints.   I've responded to many of the complaints the same way I'm responding to yours. 

 

Bottom line: There is no plausible and reasonable explanation for taking the risk of flying single engine piston GA at all.   It sounds like you are saying that anyone that takes more risks than you has 'no plausible and reasonable explanation for the risk' they are taking.   But you have also not provided any plausible and reasonable explanation for why you are taking the risks you do choose to take in flying a single engine piston airplane at all or anything to explain why single-engine piston airplanes the way you fly is reasonable and the way others fly is not. 

 

You are sounding more and more like the "anyone driving slower than me is an idiot, anyone driving faster than me is a maniac" type of person here.    Personally I fly because I want to.   It's a choice that I make based on the costs and benefits to me given the environment I live in.   It's not a good decision in terms of a plausible and reasonable choice other than my pleasure in doing the things I want to in my life. 

I am so glad you are putting words and thoughts out on my behalf stretching beyond all reason what I am saying. All I am saying is look at the risk that is being taken, look at the reason for that risk, look at the results, don't complain about insurance rates.

As for people driving slower or faster, I could care less, as long as you stay in the correct lane.

[A64Pilot]

10 hours ago, Shadrach said:

Pilots have really not broken much new ground in terms of how they bend airplanes.  GA accident rates are generally trending down. 

 

I think GA accident rates follow the hours flown, so unless the rate is factored against hour flown as in x number of accidents per xxxx hours flown I don’t think it’s necessarily accurate.

I’ve seen rates that factor in hours flown, but usually it’s just a number per year.

[A64Pilot]

The sad thing is a Bonanza is a very easy airplane to fly, especially to land, reduce power and they come down right away, no float. They have short wings and pretty big flaps

I think that has a lot to do with their popularity, the ease of flying, especially landing.

If I could get past the nauseating tail wagging in light turbulence I might have bought one, a few years ago when I was looking you could get a V tail for about the same money as a J, because I think the average V tail is twenty years older.

[Shadrach]

10 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

I think GA accident rates follow the hours flown, so unless the rate is factored against hour flown as in x number of accidents per xxxx hours flown I don’t think it’s necessarily accurate.

I’ve seen rates that factor in hours flown, but usually it’s just a number per year.

The trends I’m quoting are per 100,000hrs. You can quibble with the methodology but it’s the best we have.

[wombat]

I wonder if the GA rate decline is largely due to the changing ratio of 'bugsmashers' like ours to jet traffic like Taylor Swift's.  If there was an 'hours flown' by model I think we could figure it out.  

 

To make it clear,  I think the accident rate is higher for single engine piston planes than for multi-engine turbines even within part 91.   Just thinking out loud, here are some of the factors I think make the ratio 

• Bugsmasher pilots tend to fly bugsmashers for recreation or personal pleasure and their recent time spent practicing is lower.
• Turbine/Jet pilots more often have specific periodic paid training requirements (Type certificates, recurrent training for insurance, etc)
• Bugsmasher pilots and aircraft tend to be significantly older.
• Turbine/Jet pilots will more often have two pilots in the cockpit with dedicated tasks.
• Bugsmasher pilots don't perform as thorough of flight planning nor is their maintenance as effective.

[Hank]

@wombat, you forgot the biggest, most important difference between bugsmasher and turbine pilots:

Most bugsmashers are flown by their owners, who have jobs outside of aviation; while most twin-turbines are flown by full-time professional pilots. 

[wombat]

1 minute ago, Hank said:

@wombat, you forgot the biggest, most important difference between bugsmasher and turbine pilots:

Most bugsmashers are flown by their owners, who have jobs outside of aviation; while most twin-turbines are flown by full-time professional pilots. 

I was trying to list the underlying reasons that having flying the plane as a job would make you a safer pilot.    More recent experience, more/better training, age, and time spent planning the flights.

[Hank]

8 minutes ago, wombat said:

I was trying to list the underlying reasons that having flying the plane as a job would make you a safer pilot.    More recent experience, more/better training, age, and time spent planning the flights.

Frequent professional maintenance, dispatchers, etc. Also Part 135 regs vs. Part 91.

[wombat]

Just now, Hank said:

Frequent professional maintenance, dispatchers, etc. Also Part 135 regs vs. Part 91.

I was thinking about just the flights that are part 91 since the discussion is about part 91 safety.  But maybe some of the aircraft are also flown as part 135 and the flights they do under part 91 benefit from part 135 requirements in training and maintenance.

[201er]

1 hour ago, wombat said:

I wonder if the GA rate decline is largely due to the changing ratio of 'bugsmashers' like ours to jet traffic like Taylor Swift's.  If there was an 'hours flown' by model I think we could figure it out.  

To make it clear,  I think the accident rate is higher for single engine piston planes than for multi-engine turbines even within part 91. 

This is already broken down in the Nall report or whatever they call it lately

 

 

[wombat]

That's not showing what I'm trying to discuss.  The accident rate combines the different aircraft classes of non-commercial fixed wing and my theory is that the change in relative hours flown by the different classes is causing the overall decrease, with the relative accident rate within each class remaining roughly the same.

[IvanP]

12 hours ago, Hank said:

@wombat, you forgot the biggest, most important difference between bugsmasher and turbine pilots:

Most bugsmashers are flown by their owners, who have jobs outside of aviation; while most twin-turbines are flown by full-time professional pilots. 

Yet somehow these "full-time professional pilots" somehow manage to do some incredibly dumb things, e.g., 

 - recent runway incursion at Midway by FlexJet

 - recent flip-landing in Toronto, etc. 

[wombat]

Yes, they do some dumb things.  But at a much lower rate than us amateurs.   Well, at about 1/3 of the rate.   I'm just estimating 1/3 based on a few of the numbers that I just mentally estimated ratios with from the graphs that @201er posted.

[Hank]

1 hour ago, IvanP said:

Yet somehow these "full-time professional pilots" somehow manage to do some incredibly dumb things, e.g., 

 - recent runway incursion at Midway by FlexJet

 - recent flip-landing in Toronto, etc. 

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. 

"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits."--Albert Einstein

[jetdriven]

13 hours ago, wombat said:

Yes, they do some dumb things.  But at a much lower rate than us amateurs.   Well, at about 1/3 of the rate.   I'm just estimating 1/3 based on a few of the numbers that I just mentally estimated ratios with from the graphs that @201er posted.

actually i think the SE piston accident rate between part 91 and 135 is something like 30 times less

 

[wombat]

2 hours ago, jetdriven said:

actually i think the SE piston accident rate between part 91 and 135 is something like 30 times less

 

Based on the data in the pictures @201er posted, if we just use 2022, the nonfatal rate per 100k hours is 4.84 for non-commercial and 1.52 for non-commercial.   Commercial is 31.4% of the rate of non-commercial.  For fatal it's .79 and .22, or 27.8%

In order to have a 30X ratio between the two for single engine piston, I think we'd have to have an inverse ratio (Commercial is more dangerous) for multi-engine and non-piston aircraft.   So I'm kind of questioning the 30X

 

[jetdriven]

ill go look again. The Nall report has a lot of info.