Quote:
Originally Posted by Buehler445
There is a lot right with what you've posted here, but also some wrong.
It takes work and hours, but I think the average guy could get competent enough with a small airplane to reasonably remove catastrophic pilot error from all but the most extreme outliers of situations. And let's be real here - a vast majority of terrestrial vehicle operators have not achieved this competency. Sure, the stakes are lower, but one can certainly get dead in a terrestrial vehicle.
Dad's got a 182 my grandpa bought and we've had some pretty in depth discussions about safety. Similarly some friends of mine (who happen to exist in a different universe financially than I do) love to fly and lent their plane to a friend who crashed it. I think there was a thread about it here. Anyway, they've dedicated themselves to safety, education and mitigating risk. I really think you can get there, but yeah, the fresh faced newly licensed pilot isn't there. Small planes catch a bad rap, but I'll repeat, I think the average small plane pilot can get competent enough to reasonably remove catastrophic pilot error from all but the most extreme outliers of situations.
Those friends of mine have a ton of hours in a simulator that they simulate crazy shit happening. Dad also took some aerobatics training that he said really helped to potentially prepare him for weird shit happening. Largely though, the go/no go decision framed with an objective analysis of your competencies as a pilot contribute the most to preventing bad shit.
I'm not a pilot but I love to fly in small planes. Grandpa built 3 different planes and I've got quite a few trips - mostly in the county in them, and I'm fairly comfortable that I've only been in one situation that could get hairy. It was a front that moved in and it was windy as ****. Our grass strip at the farm had an impediment that wrecked the aerodynamics in the wind. Dad had good presence of mind to identify what was happening and take another lap. I guess another time we flew into some ice, but that didn't take anything other than the decision to turn around.
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I grew up with Mooney's and Cessna's. Probably inheriting my dad's 172 RG. I bought him the 3 bladed prop he put on it. We used to rebuild airplanes in our garage. Favorite was the 1953 PA20 Pacer (Piper). It was white and metallic green. Had a stick. Here's me with it at Roosterville Airport outside of Liberty. I took off and flew nearly all of the dozens of airplanes we owned but never this one. As of last year, this plane has skid's on it and is being flown around Alaska.
