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Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

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Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#231

Post by GFischer »

bdunbar wrote: post #87
Spooky23 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really -- think "free like a puppy". Planes are like boats, except you die if you screw up. There are plenty of repairs, storage charges, etc that can get expensive pretty quickly. General aviation is something you do out of love, not to save money.

> except you die if you screw up. That happens with boats, too. Perhaps not as often - boats don't fall out of the sky when they stop working - but it happens.

The death rate for yatch sailing is way below that of general aviation.

It's reported at 5.4 deaths per 100.000.

I've been involved in some ugly accidents myself as a crew member (a broken mast off the coast) and the only thing I got from that is an anecdote :) .

Unless you're in a mid-Atlantic crossing or caught in a storm, most screwups are recoverable. That's not to say you don't have to respect the sea - you definitely do.

http://www.uscgboating.org/statistics/accident_statistics.as...

sailing.about.com/od/navigationseamanship/a/Why-Sailors-Die-The-Most-Important-Safety-Lesson.htm

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#232

Post by gambiting »

baddox wrote: post #167
lutorm wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about it this way: have you ever had your car engine die on the road? For the vast majority of people, this just doesn't happen, even though people spend much, much more time driving than they would flying. Modern engines are remarkably reliable. And if it does quit, you can glide the plane to a forced landing. Long flights over water, mountains, or in poor visibility is a different matter.

> have you ever had your car engine die on the road? Yes, several times in the ten years I've been driving automobiles. Is that not common?

Never happened to me, and I also asked my dad who was a professional driver for a while, and used to drive trucks in the old soviet union - all in all,he's got 30 years of driving experience - never happened to him, unless he ran out of fuel or the batteries failed.

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#233

Post by blueskin_ »

awongh wrote: post #224
blueskin_ wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just about any can glide, but not necessarily well. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

I never knew about the glide ratio of large jets! And this story is amazing, mostly for the simultaneous levels of stupidity and competence involved.

Isn't one person's competence offsetting another person's stupidity what programmers and sysadmins do all day, every day anyway? ;)

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#234

Post by saalweachter »

sanoli wrote: post #204
existencebox wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm being a bit far fetched here, but what if someone up in management is banking on "phasing out the pilots." Autopilot has for a long time been "good at some things", and there's often debate here as to what purpose a human pilot increasingly does or doesn't have in the cockpit as the computerized solutions become more reliable. As there are fewer pilots, relegate the physical role to a babysitter; potentiall…

Pilots on todays big airline planes are pretty much babysitters to the autopilot. Still, it will be a long time untill the notion of flying a plane with no pilot is accepted by the public. Even though it will probably be safer, as you're taking a chunk of human errors out of the equation.

It's some combination of loss aversion and the associated guilt that comes from negative consequences of positive actions.

There is a trade off: fully automated transportation (planes or cars) will eliminate routine operator error, like falling asleep at the wheel. On the other hand, there will also be corner cases which humans could (sometimes) handle that the autopilot didn't.

And human psychology means that not only will we weight the losses more heavily than the gains, but when losses happen and people die, we will feel unimaginably guilty over the losses, no matter how many people were saved.

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#235

Post by sanoli »

saalweachter wrote: post #234
sanoli wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pilots on todays big airline planes are pretty much babysitters to the autopilot. Still, it will be a long time untill the notion of flying a plane with no pilot is accepted by the public. Even though it will probably be safer, as you're taking a chunk of human errors out of the equation.

It's some combination of loss aversion and the associated guilt that comes from negative consequences of positive actions. There is a trade off: fully automated transportation (planes or cars) will eliminate routine operator error, like falling asleep at the wheel. On the other hand, there will also be corner cases which humans could (sometimes) handle that the autopilot didn't. And human psychology means that not on…

I can already see all the headlines when the first big accident happens involving a self driving car.

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#236

Post by nathanstitt »

joshAg wrote: post #226
nathanstitt wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I'm not so sure that'll happen. Military pilots aren't getting as many hours as they used to, plus it's actually a pay drop for them to leave and work for an airliner the way it is right now. Right now the airlines have managed to talk high school grads into taking out huge student loans and drop 100K+ on a for-profit school, then take a job making ~ 20. There's no way that's sustainable though.

Actually, the air force is paying out the ass to get high-TiG o-3s/ low-TiG o-4s to reenlist. Like, a $20k to $30k reenlistment bonus (that's tax free and on top of their salary of roughly $70k, not counting their BAH, which can be another $10k to more than $40k (it's $2500/month if you're an o-3 getting a master's at the naval post graduate school in monterey), also tax free). The reason they're not able to keep tho…

Really, I hadn't heard that.

I was going off all the information that came out after the Colgate Air 3407 crash in regards to how feeder airlines treat their pilots.

I've talked to several CFI's who are moving into regional carriers and they report the same environments, i.e. high hours/low pay.

It sounds like maybe you're set if you can clear that hurdle and move directly to a "real" airline?

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#237

Post by bulte-rs »

nathanstitt wrote: post #177
jcoby wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Or they bought the plane 20+ years ago and still own it. When I go to EAA meetings I'm the youngest by 15-20 years and I'm in my 30s. I don't think I've ever seen a privately owned certified plane that was newer than 25 years old. It's all around a bad situation for general aviation.

Same here. I'm in my late 30s and am by far the youngest at any pilot gathering I attend. I really don't know where the airlines are going to get the next generation of pilots from. Of course with the horrible pay and hours, I can't blame anyone from not choosing that career path.

Luckily there is an ample supply of unemployed CPL-holders dying to take that right seat in an airliner (and sometimes even paying to do so).

(Disclaimer: I have a frozen ATPL(A) myself, worked for one of the biggest airlines and know at least 100 of mentioned unemployed pilots)

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#238

Post by nathanstitt »

nanidin wrote: post #217
nathanstitt wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I'm not so sure that'll happen. Military pilots aren't getting as many hours as they used to, plus it's actually a pay drop for them to leave and work for an airliner the way it is right now. Right now the airlines have managed to talk high school grads into taking out huge student loans and drop 100K+ on a for-profit school, then take a job making ~ 20. There's no way that's sustainable though.

When my neighbor retired from the airforce, he moved on to flying planes for FedEx. He is paid VERY well for that.

I've always heard that FedEx and Southwest are the absolute best employers for pilots, and the regional carriers (who I was primarily talking about earlier) are the absolute worst.

No real idea on how accurate that is, just stuff I've overheard in pilot lounges at airports :)

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#239

Post by bulte-rs »

ekianjo wrote: post #3
lutusp wrote: post #2

It's important to say that the general aviation population has gotten much smaller over the last few decades. It was a lot more popular 25 years ago when I flew much more than I do now. A number of aircraft manufacturers have stopped building small general-aviation planes for a number of reasons including liability and a reduction in public interest. I started flying about 1980. By 1992, 12 years later, about half th…

> about half the pilots I knew in 1980 (instructors as well as students) had been killed in flying accidents Wow, that's certainly dissuasive. By the way, are there some kind of autopilots on modern amateur planes? Or is that even possible to integrate any ?

I flew a Seneca V (twin engine, semi 'amateur' plane) during pilot training which was equiped with an autopilot.

Really helps when flying in congested airspace or while performing 'complex' arrivals.

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#240

Post by bulte-rs »

jeiting wrote: post #17
apunic wrote: post #15

Don't get me wrong but I do not get what's so exciting about flying yourself or owning a plane. Flying is for getting from point A to B. Flying just for fun missing any purpose might be fun the first couple of times but then it's like driving a bus from A to A.

Sex is for making children. I don't get why anyone would enjoy it more than once. Because you are flying in the air. In a machine. Above the ground. Like a god.

True, but do this for 200 hours... and you're out of options of new stuff to try. Then you try a bigger/better plane and/or more extreme manouvres.

Same as with sex: when you're bored with the regular stuff: try new manouvres or a new partner ;-)

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