Homebuilt planes are SOARING in popularity - but after two deadly US crashes in two weeks just how safe is this high-flying hobby?

Interesting article. The title is click-bait though, the article barely touched on the wrecks and was a many-word description of EAB in general. Glad they talked to Ron and not the lady who bought a house by the airport and now wants to stop the airplanes.
 
Two accidents doesn’t make a trend…..you should know this. :cool:
 
The article was OK (kudos to Ron W), but they need better proofreading on the photo captions... identifying Peter Sripol's electric ultralight as "A homemade electric-powered MK4 Cozy - similar to the plane that crashed".
 
Crap journalism akin to internet clickbait. They compare the accident rate of homebuilts to commercial aviation. Yes it is higher and is the highest segment in GA which even without the E-AB numbers is also way higher than commercial aviation. But that’s not anything we don’t know. GA as a whole has fatal accidents all the time. Case in point, day before yesterday we had a V35 Bonanza go down here in FL that killed 3 (the pilot and 2 on the ground).
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
This article should be titled:
"Ron @wanttaja defends experimental and homebuilt aircraft" :cool:
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Gracious. :)

About two weeks ago, a newcomer on a Facebook homebuilder's group asked if anyone could help him on an article about homebuilt aircraft. Several folks jumped on the guy, accusing him of planning a "hit piece" on homebuilts.

I felt that addressing the safety issue frankly, with data rather than hyperbole, was the right approach.

I sent the guy a PM and asked him what kind of questions he had. All of them were reasonable, the kind that someone with no connection to aviation might have. None of them were "leading" questions. As anyone on this group knows, I have NO trouble cranking out hundreds of words* when discussing issues, and I indeed did for Mr. Hammer, the author of the piece. From a quick search, I saw that DailyMail.com tended to go for sensationalist stories, but felt the best approach was a frank discussion of the issues and risks.

There *are* some minor errors in the article (I'm not in the cockpit of that Pietenpol, and many of their photo captions are wrong), but overall, I'm satisfied on how the information I gave him was used.

Ron Wanttaja

* Edit: I had to look. Over 1700 words, nine pages including photos, delivered the day after receiving the questions.
 
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Doc Holliday said:
Agreed. But for those who actually read the article will see that Ron did a good job, even with the daily mail.
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I read it. It’s not Ron’s contribution that I question, but the article itself which is 90% quotes and a tremendous number of embedded youtube videos that makes it hard to read. So much so that it’s very easy to stop before you get to the parts where Ron does a good of laying out the facts. If you stop reading early then IMO the impression that many uniformed people will come away with, between the clickbait title and the first few paragraphs, is not a positive picture of E-AB operations. YMMV……
 
tsts4 said:
I read it. It’s not Ron’s contribution that I question, but the article itself which is 90% quotes and a tremendous number of embedded youtube videos that makes it hard to read. So much so that it’s very easy to stop before you get to the parts where Ron does a good of laying out the facts. If you stop reading early then IMO the impression that many uniformed people will come away with, between the clickbait title and the first few paragraphs, is not a positive picture of E-AB operations. YMMV……
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Whatever.
 
Of course we all know and respect Ron as a conscientious and reliable source of aviation information.

But I wonder how much due diligence the article's author put into vetting their source? The article comes across as pretty much taking Ron's info for granted and running with it.

I wonder what that story would have looked like if the author had run into some wannabe "expert" who was full of nonsense, instead of Ron?

Thanks, Ron, for making sure we didn't have to find out!
 
tsts4 said:
I read it. It’s not Ron’s contribution that I question, but the article itself which is 90% quotes and a tremendous number of embedded youtube videos that makes it hard to read. So much so that it’s very easy to stop before you get to the parts where Ron does a good of laying out the facts. If you stop reading early then IMO the impression that many uniformed people will come away with, between the clickbait title and the first few paragraphs, is not a positive picture of E-AB operations. YMMV……
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It's kinda weird...it's like the Daily Mail already had a headline planned, and basically ignored the content of the article itself. The basic message in the story itself doesn't really match the headline.
Jim_R said:
Of course we all know and respect Ron as a conscientious and reliable source of aviation information.

But I wonder how much due diligence the article's author put into vetting their source? The article comes across as pretty much taking Ron's info for granted and running with it.
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Same basic issue with any news story, the backgrounds of the sources. It's a lot of the reason MSNBC and Fox News can cover the same story 180 degrees off from each other.

Never have taken any journalism courses, so am unfamiliar with the standards they're expected to use when vetting sources. Like I mentioned above, I basically just responded to a request in a Facebook group. Mentioned my aviation books and my articles (aviation books are published by a well-established publisher, most articles can be found online with a Google search), and he already knew of my two online seminars on the EAA Homebuilt Week. Don't know the other folks quoted in the article. I did send the contact information for EAA's Director of Communications, but he doesn't seem to be quoted anywhere.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
It's kinda weird...it's like the Daily Mail already had a headline planned, and basically ignored the content of the article itself. The basic message in the story itself doesn't really match the headline.


Ron Wanttaja
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The people who write the headlines are looking for clicks. That's why you see titles on CNN like.. "This popular___ could lead to something bad for you." Instead of "___ may cause ___"
 
I just found out last night that a new non-pilot friends knew the couple that perished in this accident. I didn't know the details, but she did ask me what I thought of homebuilt aircraft. I told her like anything there are dangers involved in flying and we work diligently to minimize them. I hope the NTSB can shed some light on what happened here. Apparently the pilot was an experienced guy, but it does seem like the deck was stacked against him this particular night. Her husband is itching to learn how to fly. I'm a little at a loss about what to tell them.
 
Well, it is the Daily Mail - a tabloid aimed at unemployed low-information people gacked out on opioids for fake workers’comp injuries and antidepressants - same crowd that daytime TV commercials speak to. Just about the finest birdcage liner and fishwrapper ever produced.
 
Thanks for talking with the mail writer and being an advocate and voice of reason, @wanttaja
 
ateamer said:
"unemployed low-information people gacked out on opioids for fake workers’comp injuries and antidepressants"
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Careful with that kind of verbiage ... you could hurt some feelings on this forum! :rofl:
 
wanttaja said:
It's kinda weird...it's like the Daily Mail already had a headline planned, and basically ignored the content of the article itself. The basic message in the story itself doesn't really match the headline.

Same basic issue with any news story, the backgrounds of the sources. It's a lot of the reason MSNBC and Fox News can cover the same story 180 degrees off from each other.

Never have taken any journalism courses, so am unfamiliar with the standards they're expected to use when vetting sources. Like I mentioned above, I basically just responded to a request in a Facebook group. Mentioned my aviation books and my articles (aviation books are published by a well-established publisher, most articles can be found online with a Google search), and he already knew of my two online seminars on the EAA Homebuilt Week. Don't know the other folks quoted in the article. I did send the contact information for EAA's Director of Communications, but he doesn't seem to be quoted anywhere.

Ron Wanttaja
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Using “journalism” and “standards” in the same sentence seems to be a bit of an oxymoron these days ;).

Thanks, Ron, for all you do
 
Jim_R said:
Of course we all know and respect Ron as a conscientious and reliable source of aviation information.

But I wonder how much due diligence the article's author put into vetting their source? The article comes across as pretty much taking Ron's info for granted and running with it.

I wonder what that story would have looked like if the author had run into some wannabe "expert" who was full of nonsense, instead of Ron?

Thanks, Ron, for making sure we didn't have to find out!
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wanttaja said:
It's kinda weird...it's like the Daily Mail already had a headline planned, and basically ignored the content of the article itself. The basic message in the story itself doesn't really match the headline.
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You're a prescient man.
wanttaja said:
Same basic issue with any news story, the backgrounds of the sources. It's a lot of the reason MSNBC and Fox News can cover the same story 180 degrees off from each other.
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Conquest's first law: Everyone is conservative about the subject(s) they know best.
 
Morgan3820 said:
Whatever??? Not a cogent response. Typical :biggrin:
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empty replies are a great way to win internet points we all know moar interwebz points mean u r smartz.

Read the article. was not swayed either way. if you realize that ANYONE can build and fly an airplane (ultralight) its an amazing thing .
 
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