OT - Bad, bad, bad month for IFR

[L.Adamson]

To be clear: If you can fly the airplane without the advanced technology, and you fly the airplane as if you could lose that technology at any time, then the new gagets are a genuine safety improvement. If you can ONLY fly the airplane by using the toys, then you are a danger to yourself and others.

Had you kept with the word "technology" throughout this entire reply, then that would have been fine. However, it comes back to the use of the word "toys".

Every flight into terrain accident, that I previously listed in this thread was done with complete purpose. Each one of these cases (if applied to today's technology) could have had a different outcome, thanks to new and cheap technology (not toys) such as a small handheld Garmin 296 with terrain mapping data-bases.

 

[JimLogajan]

More crutches please!

My concern is that so many pilots seem to be RELYING on the technology rather than concentrating on aviating. Every available layer of protection increases safety, but as soon as pilots begin using the technology as a crutch rather than as an aid to good flying practices, then the tech is no longer actually a layer of protection, but becomes one of the dreaded holes instead.

But according to accident analysis done by various people (such as that found in the annual Nall report), in roughly 80% of fatal accidents the component in the aircraft that "failed" and was the main causal element was presumably the pilot, not any of the instruments or airframe.

I don't see how high tech instrument panels are any more a "crutch" than is an aircraft designed for lowest reasonable stall speeds or better power-off glide ratios. But since there are aircraft superior to the RV line in these latter categories, I'm confused by the shift in priorities during the whole process - if safety was a priority from the start, the RVs do not appear to be optimal choices.

 

[Steve A]

GA fatalities in Dec

We lose about 600 people a year in GA crashes and lose about 47,000 in automobile accidents. Read Airframe, a book by Michael Chrichton. In the book (a novel but generally is accurate in regard to national statistics) he relates how the media frightens the general population to believe flying is dangerous. GA is more dangerous than flying on the airliners but all of us with a stake in the aviation world need to know how we can do a better job of staying safe. We need to remind our non flying friends that it is not crazy to fly. It can be done safely and prudently.

 

[sportpilot]

I don't see how high tech instrument panels are any more a "crutch" than is an aircraft designed for lowest reasonable stall speeds or better power-off glide ratios.

Back in the 1970's the autopilot was king of the instrument panel. Sales were booming, pilots loved them it sure made life easy.. It was a great high tech gadget.

I know of 2 airline crashes with large loss of life, where the autopilot failed and crashed the airplane much beyound the pilots abilities to get things under control before impact. I only know of 2, but I bet there are more. This is not the first time aviation has hearlded the triupmh of the skies by balck box tehcnologies. JMO