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  #91  
Old 04-09-2011, 07:44 PM
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dmaib dmaib is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gereed75 View Post

One of the points that Van discusses is the wide gulf between the controls in place on the "professional" side, and the number of controls that exist on "our" side. As an ex-military pilot, I am maybe more cognizant of that gap than others without that experience. I think that it is an important point. The gap is HUGE!!!!!

Pilots on the "professional" side (military and commercial), generally have lengthy periods of intense training, before becoming pilots and periodically during their careers. They operate professionally and painstakingly designed, built and maintained aircraft with 100's of hours of test and maintenance per flight hour. They fly in conformance to a myriad of regulations, SOP's, policies, manuals and local rules. They study constantly to maintain knowledge of those requirements and train and practice and train and practice. They do so under the careful supervision of standardization pilots, and check pilots, and flight leaders, and senior captains and line check pilots, LSO's, safety departments, flight surgeons etc etc. They are tested and checked constantly as to their proficiency and knowledge. Their decision making is constantly scrutinized, MOST CLOSELY BY PEERS!

Pilots on "our" side... well I think you get the point.

And don't kid yourself, we engage is flying activities that are just as risky, in some cases more so. Just peruse a standard day on the forums (or do a quick You-tube search) - first flight's, acro flights, buzz jobs, post maintenance test flights, airframe and system alterations, operations out of short grass strips, formation flights, Vne + excursions, alternate engines, alternate fuels, races etc etc etc.

What Van is saying is that we have to begin taking steps to close the gap between what the pro's do and what we do. If we don't, those who suspect we are having way too much dangerous and unsupervised fun, are already making plans to do it.
Right on the money, Gary. 100%
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  #92  
Old 04-09-2011, 10:44 PM
glenn654 glenn654 is offline
 
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I first want it to be known that IN NO WAY am trivializing the loss of any pilot or passenger lost in an aviation accident in any type of aircraft.

And I know that we all can and must redouble our efforts to make every flight as safe as possible.

But are the accident statistics posted entirely fair or accurate?
Considering that any accident regardless of the specific operation is included in the statistics.

For example, we have pilots who perform aerobatics, race (usually at low altitude), fly formation even formation aerobatics and any accident from these type activities are included as well as ordinary flight operations in the accident statistics for aviation.

I don't think we in GA and Experimental aviation especially are getting the best information we could.

Consider transportation by any other means......

Are accident statistics of automobile racing included in all automobile accident statistics? We know they are not but they are for aviation.

The same holds true for motorcycles.

Are horse racing, steeple chasing, rodeo, jumping etc included in accident statistics relating to ordinary horse riding? I seriously doubt it.....

In pure, cold statistical anaylsis, is a 2% loss over a ten year period with a sample of 7200+ aircraft an unusually high fatal accident rate compared to other modes of transportation? Especially considering that ANY accident is included in the aviation statistics.

I don't know......but I can't help wondering if our information is structured the best way possible to tell the true story.

Perhaps someone with the experience, knowledge, training and education can answer this because I don't know but have the questions.


Glenn Wilkinson
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  #93  
Old 04-09-2011, 11:10 PM
rwtalbot rwtalbot is offline
 
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Default Higher Still

I would suggest the accident rates would be higher than these figures make out as you have only included fatal accidents as recorded by the FAA. Many of Van's aircraft are flying all over the world and out of sight of the FAA.

What is even more concerning is the fact that these statistics only include fatalities. If we found a way to include the entire fleet and added non-fatal accidents to the mix against total flight hours it would look very bad indeed!

Regards
Richard

RV-7A - Flying

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Carroll View Post
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  #94  
Old 04-10-2011, 06:23 AM
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Alan Carroll Alan Carroll is offline
 
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Location: Madison, Wisconsin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by glenn654 View Post

But are the accident statistics posted entirely fair or accurate?
Considering that any accident regardless of the specific operation is included in the statistics.

For example, we have pilots who perform aerobatics, race (usually at low altitude), fly formation even formation aerobatics and any accident from these type activities are included as well as ordinary flight operations in the accident statistics for aviation.

I don't think we in GA and Experimental aviation especially are getting the best information we could.

Consider transportation by any other means......

Are accident statistics of automobile racing included in all automobile accident statistics? We know they are not but they are for aviation.

The same holds true for motorcycles.

Are horse racing, steeple chasing, rodeo, jumping etc included in accident statistics relating to ordinary horse riding? I seriously doubt it.....

In pure, cold statistical anaylsis, is a 2% loss over a ten year period with a sample of 7200+ aircraft an unusually high fatal accident rate compared to other modes of transportation? Especially considering that ANY accident is included in the aviation statistics.

I don't know......but I can't help wondering if our information is structured the best way possible to tell the true story.

Perhaps someone with the experience, knowledge, training and education can answer this because I don't know but have the questions.

Glenn Wilkinson
I would agree completely with the above. What's needed is a "Nall Report" focused just on experimentals (or just for RVs), to help answer these questions. The existing analyses don't provide much depth on this subject.

Its true that many RV accidents result from activities other than pure transportation. However, isn't that a large part of why we fly RVs?
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  #95  
Old 04-10-2011, 06:26 AM
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Alan Carroll Alan Carroll is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rwtalbot View Post
I would suggest the accident rates would be higher than these figures make out as you have only included fatal accidents as recorded by the FAA. Many of Van's aircraft are flying all over the world and out of sight of the FAA.

What is even more concerning is the fact that these statistics only include fatalities. If we found a way to include the entire fleet and added non-fatal accidents to the mix against total flight hours it would look very bad indeed!

Regards
Richard

RV-7A - Flying
Including all accidents is certainly possible since they're in the database. Just takes more work. There could also be additional issues related to non-uniform reporting of accidents not involving fatalities?
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  #96  
Old 04-10-2011, 08:07 AM
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Ron Lee Ron Lee is offline
 
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This Lancair data may be what some are looking for but substitute RVs.

http://www.pilottrainingreform.org/d...TR_WP_LOBO.pdf

The data posted by Alan is interesting. I did not understand the increasing rate for earlier models until a few minutes ago. You probably need to normalize each RV model to account for how long they have been flying. A simple way to do that (perhaps not statistically rigorous) would be to divide the fatality percentage rate by the number of years (or decades) since the introduction of that model.

Another way would be to give the yearly fatal rate per model. Then we might surmise if there is a model specific issue.

I just checked and the 8 series came out several years before the 7 series RVs. So if you move the 8 Series data above the 7s, then it all seems to make sense.

Last edited by Ron Lee : 04-10-2011 at 10:33 AM.
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  #97  
Old 04-10-2011, 09:46 AM
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Caveman Caveman is offline
 
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I don't think anyone is saying that RV's are the worst of the lot. We're just saying that there is a significant accident rate with RV's and we can do better.

Joe
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Last edited by Caveman : 04-10-2011 at 01:24 PM.
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  #98  
Old 04-10-2011, 12:28 PM
TSwezey TSwezey is offline
 
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Just a quick note: There have been 3 fatal RV-10 accidents.
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  #99  
Old 04-10-2011, 02:57 PM
jrs14855 jrs14855 is offline
 
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Default accidents

In my opinion most of the current concern from the FAA and the alphabet groups about amateur built accidents evolves from the dismal Lancair record and to a much lesser extent the Glasairs.
The Lancair accident record is appalling, MUCH worse than I would have expected. From the LOBO website:
flying crashed/destroyed %
Lancair 320/360 301 62 20.5
Lancair total fleet 922 167 18

In 2009 the accident rate was reduced by 50%
44% of accdents pic less than 100 in make model
Private pilots accounted for 56% of crashes
PIC more than 1000 hours in make/model NO SERIOUS ACCIDENTS
Landing 29% of accidents
Takeoff 22% of accidents.
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  #100  
Old 04-10-2011, 03:06 PM
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Ron Lee Ron Lee is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jrs14855 View Post
In 2009 the accident rate was reduced by 50%
This is flawed statistics use. While technically correct, if you look at the data from 2004 to 2009, it is very linear downward with an unexplained upward spike in 2008. I don't think that anyone is taking credit for reducing the accident rate 50%.
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