GA fatality rates: How do we compare?

[denverpilot]

What does that have to do with what I posted? It would be a better analogy if I had posted that I'm in favor of removing the licensing requirement for pilots, which I'm not.

You said no one should have to justify their hobby to others. I can only go by what you say, not by what you meant to say.

If you meant to say you want all hobbies with any risk evaluated by government and anyone outside the hobby should STFU because outsiders do not need to be involved in the decision to partake in the hobby, only bureaucrats, because they're smarter people, and regulators get to set all the rules, then say that. I don't mind.

I agree with your assertion that I don't have to justify my hobbies to anyone, and like everyone else, I put up with the regulations to do them.

Like I said earlier, the best way to get folks to change the topic quickly is to ask them if they were mandated to retrain to properly drive their car after their last auto accident. They instantly "get it", that we're way more regulated than they are, and they want no part of it.

If we were really about safety, recertification (and initial certification) to drive a ground based motor vehicle would be much much more regulated and difficult and expensive.

The majority would never put up with it. They'd riot if driving training by a pro and a logbook were required to both be allowed by regulation to drive and to get insurance.

Or require same for a boating license if driving is too far for ya... we've mentioned before that any idiot can buy a boat and be on the water tomorrow.

In the end it's about how much freedom you want. We willingly submit to a system that's pretty heavy in regs and bureaucracy in order to fly. I submit to criminal background checks to partake in one of my other hobbies.

Neither will keep me from killing myself or someone else while doing either hobby, in the end. Only my own personal care will actually accomplish that end. Government could disappear tomorrow and I'd still be as safe or unsafe as I was the day before.

 

[Everskyward]

You said no one should have to justify their hobby to others. I can only go by what you say, not by what you meant to say.

If you meant to say you want all hobbies with any risk evaluated by government and anyone outside the hobby should STFU because outsiders do not need to be involved in the decision to partake in the hobby, only bureaucrats, because they're smarter people, and regulators get to set all the rules, then say that. I don't mind.

I agree with your assertion that I don't have to justify my hobbies to anyone, and like everyone else, I put up with the regulations to do them.

Like I said earlier, the best way to get folks to change the topic quickly is to ask them if they were mandated to retrain to properly drive their car after their last auto accident. They instantly "get it", that we're way more regulated than they are, and they want no part of it.

If we were really about safety, recertification (and initial certification) to drive a ground based motor vehicle would be much much more regulated and difficult and expensive.

The majority would never put up with it. They'd riot if driving training by a pro and a logbook were required to both be allowed by regulation to drive and to get insurance.

Or require same for a boating license if driving is too far for ya... we've mentioned before that any idiot can buy a boat and be on the water tomorrow.

In the end it's about how much freedom you want. We willingly submit to a system that's pretty heavy in regs and bureaucracy in order to fly. I submit to criminal background checks to partake in one of my other hobbies.

Neither will keep me from killing myself or someone else while doing either hobby, in the end. Only my own personal care will actually accomplish that end. Government could disappear tomorrow and I'd still be as safe or unsafe as I was the day before.

My post had nothing to do with how I feel about regulation but I see you have somehow made your reply into some antigovernment rant.

 

[petrolero]

all pilots are rated above average

I know what you mean. But you don't need to be above average to stay alive in an airplane - unless the data shows that half the pilots are dying (and it doesn't show that).

The way I think of the stats is how close does my flight profile come to that of the crash scenarios included in whatever accident sample set we're talking about.

What makes my flight different from a VFR into IMC crash or a fuel starvation crash or a CFIT or an E-AB crash? All those things are included in the statistics. It's not enough to say "this is different than that" I have to take specific steps to make sure this isn't that. I have to have a decision making process that I follow that includes exits (no-go, landing, diversion, whatever) while it's still safe. If I push the boundaries then I am getting closer to one of those accident scenarios.

It's not that I think I'm overall just 'better' than other pilots, or above average, but I do sit back and think about those major crash categories and what I'm doing that makes my flight unlike flights that failed. That's why I think studying stats is less useful than studying accidents.

Human factors is an important thing to consider though. After all no sane pilot takes off thinking "I'm going to die in this airplane today. Here we go!" Most pilots I know are humble enough to know that they shouldn't push their envelope without additional training and/or gear.

 

[Jimmy cooper]

You said no one should have to justify their hobby to others. I can only go by what you say, not by what you meant to say.

If you meant to say you want all hobbies with any risk evaluated by government and anyone outside the hobby should STFU because outsiders do not need to be involved in the decision to partake in the hobby, only bureaucrats, because they're smarter people, and regulators get to set all the rules, then say that. I don't mind.

I agree with your assertion that I don't have to justify my hobbies to anyone, and like everyone else, I put up with the regulations to do them.

Like I said earlier, the best way to get folks to change the topic quickly is to ask them if they were mandated to retrain to properly drive their car after their last auto accident. They instantly "get it", that we're way more regulated than they are, and they want no part of it.

If we were really about safety, recertification (and initial certification) to drive a ground based motor vehicle would be much much more regulated and difficult and expensive.

The majority would never put up with it. They'd riot if driving training by a pro and a logbook were required to both be allowed by regulation to drive and to get insurance.

Or require same for a boating license if driving is too far for ya... we've mentioned before that any idiot can buy a boat and be on the water tomorrow.

In the end it's about how much freedom you want. We willingly submit to a system that's pretty heavy in regs and bureaucracy in order to fly. I submit to criminal background checks to partake in one of my other hobbies.

Neither will keep me from killing myself or someone else while doing either hobby, in the end. Only my own personal care will actually accomplish that end. Government could disappear tomorrow and I'd still be as safe or unsafe as I was the day before.

Your closing paragraph is absurd. If you honestly believe that's true you should quit flying right now! Your a menace.

 

[petrolero]

My post had nothing to do with how I feel about regulation but I see you have somehow made your reply into some antigovernment rant.

I read that as a saying that no amount of regulation creates safety. It is only people's willingness to behave a certain way that does so. As such, those who don't behave that way or don't follow regs can't be regulated away.

IOW, it's illegal to fly VFR into IMC yet pilots do it. It's illegal to fly in ice yet pilots do it. Is it the regs that make us safer or our desire not to die that does so? Would we have a greater desire to die in the absence of regs?

All that is quite apart from an anti-government rant as I read it.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Labeling stuff as an antigovt rant is just a lefty loser nonsequitor to drop before disengaging.

 

[denverpilot]

My post had nothing to do with how I feel about regulation but I see you have somehow made your reply into some antigovernment rant.

I never said it did. You claimed that one should stand up and say ones hobbies are none of the business of others.

You've conveniently chosen to quickly recant your statement by claiming what you write isn't what you mean. Especially if it relates to my apparently non-PC hobby. (As if I care.)

Shrug. Oh well. I figured we agreed.

Treating other adults concerns about over-regulation and unprecedented government size and scope as a "rant" when they spend orders of magnitudes more money than we've authorized them to collect (because yes, ultimately we authorize spending what we've paid but I know no one who'd agree they authorized spending more) is childish.

I'm sorry if you like the county in levels of debt that can't be repaid in my lifetime, but I'm not particularly happy about it. I'm pretty sure most of the ills caused by politicians would disappear virtually overnight if they didn't have an open credit card account against my work and effort. Much of those evils are simply the religion that bigger and bigger rule books make us better people.

But I guess that's obvious. You decided to trash a rational and reasonable argument by claiming it was a "rant" dismissively instead of engaging in discussion. On a discussion board.

You can't really have it both ways. Either you meant it and people should do their hobbies and others who aren't harmed have no say in it, and that only changes if the person who doesn't like it can claim real damages, or you don't. That includes hobbies you don't like. And I don't like.

If I'm missing something, feel free to discuss. What part did I get wrong? That we need government oversight of hobbies?

 

[denverpilot]

Your closing paragraph is absurd. If you honestly believe that's true you should quit flying right now! Your a menace.

Oh really. That's cute.

Which regulation in a book will keep me from accidentally climbing into an airplane in changing weather that catches me by surprise and kills me?

I'm sure we've added some rule in a book that will make sure that someone like Scott Crossfield will never fly into a thunderstorm ever again, then?

I'm sure there's a rule in the rule book that will make sure Amilia won't disappear over the Pacific, too, right?

Or any of dozens of other ways to die in an aircraft.

After the fact, we can point a finger and say a pilot missed something in a weather forecast and it was their fault. Or that their navigation sucked.

They're still quite dead at the end of the day.

No rule book can ever save your life. Only you can save your life.

 

[Everskyward]

I never said it did. You claimed that one should stand up and say ones hobbies are none of the business of others.

You've conveniently chosen to quickly recant your statement by claiming what you write isn't what you mean. Especially if it relates to my apparently non-PC hobby. (As if I care.)

Shrug. Oh well. I figured we agreed.

Treating other adults concerns about over-regulation and unprecedented government size and scope as a "rant" when they spend orders of magnitudes more money than we've authorized them to collect (because yes, ultimately we authorize spending what we've paid but I know no one who'd agree they authorized spending more) is childish.

I'm sorry if you like the county in levels of debt that can't be repaid in my lifetime, but I'm not particularly happy about it. I'm pretty sure most of the ills caused by politicians would disappear virtually overnight if they didn't have an open credit card account against my work and effort. Much of those evils are simply the religion that bigger and bigger rule books make us better people.

But I guess that's obvious. You decided to trash a rational and reasonable argument by claiming it was a "rant" dismissively instead of engaging in discussion. On a discussion board.

You can't really have it both ways. Either you meant it and people should do their hobbies and others who aren't harmed have no say in it, and that only changes if the person who doesn't like it can claim real damages, or you don't. That includes hobbies you don't like. And I don't like.

If I'm missing something, feel free to discuss. What part did I get wrong? That we need government oversight of hobbies?

What you're missing is that you're the one who turned my comments into a discussion of government and regulation. I was speaking more on a personal level as in what your friends, family and acquaintances might think of your hobby. But I don't relate everything to government and regulation as you seem to like to do.

 

[denverpilot]

What you're missing is that you're the one who turned my comments into a discussion of government and regulation. I was speaking more on a personal level as in what your friends, family and acquaintances might think of your hobby. But I don't relate everything to government and regulation as you seem to like to do.

Fair enough. Do you not agree that The People are the government and their tendency toward nosiness and injecting themselves into other's business leads directly to regulation of others? I see them as completely intertwined and a strange behavior flaw in people who vote away their own freedom for no good reason whatsoever.

 

[Everskyward]

Fair enough. Do you not agree that The People are the government and their tendency toward nosiness and injecting themselves into other's business leads directly to regulation of others? I see them as completely intertwined and a strange behavior flaw in people who vote away their own freedom for no good reason whatsoever.

Who are we kidding? Aviation is a hobby which is highly regulated by the government. You have the freedom to choose the hobby but the regulations go with it. Same with other hobbies.

 

[hindsight2020]

One of the interesting things I've noticed about regulations in the context of promoting safety is how sometimes they end up making us less safe by altering our behavior in unintended manners. Examples that come to mind are the Superstition mountain accident, where the guy opted to crash into the darkness than violate a sacrosanct imaginary blue line on a sectional, or the aggregate mandate on the part of the FAA to spend 2x as much in order to install AHRS-based flight attitude instrumentation in non-EAB light piston aircraft. The former example has to do with regulations and the way we approach teaching our students about abstract figures of authority in the primal stages of their flying tenure (hint: we're teaching obedient sheep, not pilots in command), the latter example is just shameless profiteering and bureaucratic obstructionism.

As to the discussion about libertarian values and the political implications, I have no dog in that fight. I'm not opposed to a general level of regulation within this avocation. I do think several of the current restrictions could be lifted in the benefit of safety.

 

[coloradobluesky]

Well, lets see. If I fly an motorcycle, I'm 1/2 dead, and if I fly an airplane, I'm 1/4 dead and if I rock climb and kayak rapids, I'm 3/4 dead. I must be pretty dead by now. Oh, I get it,
I'M ALIVE!!

 

[denverpilot]

Who are we kidding? Aviation is a hobby which is highly regulated by the government. You have the freedom to choose the hobby but the regulations go with it. Same with other hobbies.

We put up with them. Doesn't really make them anything more than a nuisance for most folks. Anyone with a brain would certainly find books on aviation and hire non-moron instructors naturally minus the regulations around all of it, if they wanted to survive flying for long. Wrapping it in bureaucracies and law books really doesn't change much for anyone except those at the margins. Kinda like most laws.

One of the interesting things I've noticed about regulations in the context of promoting safety is how sometimes they end up making us less safe by altering our behavior in unintended manners.

Fatal skiing and bicycle riding accidents have risen significantly now that the nanny folk got helmets mandated. You see when you don't have a helmet on, you tend to lean toward not doing crazy stuff where you will knock yourself in the noggin. Once you stick a helmet on you get that invincible feeling and do far dumber things, and lots more of it.

Well, lets see. If I fly an motorcycle, I'm 1/2 dead, and if I fly an airplane, I'm 1/4 dead and if I rock climb and kayak rapids, I'm 3/4 dead. I must be pretty dead by now. Oh, I get it,
I'M ALIVE!!

Amen brother. Alive is good. Doing interesting stuff while alive is even better. According to most of the nannies I should already be dead. They live sad little lives. I'm about as far from a risk taker as they come, and nowadays talking to these boring people one starts to wonder what happened to them that they'd give up life for safety. Their choice. Just don't push it on everyone else.

I might even drink from a garden hose again next summer! Terrible. I know I should be drinking bottled water that costs more per gallon than the complete oil refining cycle to fill the truck costs, but I'll take the risk. LOL.

I'm sure someone somewhere paid by loans against my taxes is cooking up a new law to save me. Yay. Haha.