Congratulations! Waiting a few days only makes you a partial dick! (just kidding) Anyway, I am not trying to belittle your concern, or call you out in any way, but I think the same could be said about a lot of things that we do throughout our lives. For example you could say the same thing about someone taking their family in a compact car on a freeway at night. There might be someone traveling the same road as you who has had too much to drink (which is probably nearly every night) and they could be so inebriated that they crash into you and kill you along with the rest of your family. Everything we do involves some sort of risk. Flying is no different than driving or in some cases just walking on a sidewalk next to a busy street. In this case the Cessna 150 is probably just as safe as most other single engine planes, when maintained and flown within it's limitations. In fact in some cases, maybe even safer. With just a 10 to 15 mile per hour wind, it can fly a ground speed in the 30's. I think I would like my chances better putting that one down in a tight spot better than my Comanche.
Having flown in the Rockies, the Appalachians, and in the Alaska mountain range, I can tell you that flying in Connecticut and New York is probably the safest of those mountainous places to put a plane down. But aside from all of that, I don't believe that we should be trying to live our lives risk free. As aviators we are blessed to be able to experience the pure exhilaration of flight in a way that most people can only dream about. Sure there are risks, but there are risks in everything we do. Furthermore, the risks we take as pilots are not nearly as great as many things in this world and are far less than most people think.
My mother-in-law was not very thrilled when I got my pilot's license not too long after my wife and I got married. It scared her to death. She has never flown with us in 30 years. She thinks we would be much better off driving. How should I respond to that suggestion when I have lost my father and mother in a fatal car accident, two aunts in two other different fatal car accidents, an uncle in still another fatal car vs train accident, and finally, my grandmother and grandfather in a fatal car accident? I just tell her that safety is always my priority and hope she understands.
Risks are just a part of life. If the focus of our lives is to live risk free, are we really living?
Finally, If you are like me and you remember how inspired you were the first time you read the poem "High Flight", how can you not feel that the small risks we take as pilots are worth it?
"Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of earth....."
Every time I fill to the caps I drip fuel until takeoff, at which point I can’t see it drip any more.
