The real risk of general aviation

A certain USA Today article has been making the rounds of the aviation corners of the interwebs this week. I'll be the first to admit that I haven't read it myself. However, the consensus seems to be that the author made many false accusations and misuses statistics in an impressive manner.

Thus, I was pleased to read a very different take on the matter this afternoon. Jeff Schweitzer put together a superb - if not slightly wordy - piece that dissects the USA Today article piece by piece. Whether you're a pilot or not (especially if you're not and/or you believed that other article, actually!) I'd highly recommend taking the time to read it. He nailed it.

Unfit for Publication: How USA Today Got Everything Wrong

USA Today splashed across its June 18, 2014, front page the breathless headline, "Unfit for Flight" to dramatize the deadly enterprise of flying general aviation aircraft (small airplanes). We learn in bold print there have been 45,000 deaths attributed to small aircraft and dozens of multimillion-dollar verdicts that reveal lies and coverups.

There is only one problem: Nearly every inference about aviation in the article is wrong. Let's put this in perspective statistically. If a private pilot flew 10 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, for 30 years, it would take over five lifetimes to be involved in a fatal accident.

Continue reading the full article here: http://huff.to/1pjtWlE

Well this was a bit ridiculous

One could say this is not the expected sequence of events during - and following - a peaceful flight in your glider on a nice, sunny afternoon. Understatement of the year? One could say...

Pilots returned, one by one, to Bermuda High Soaring in Jefferson, S.C. By about 5 p.m. on July 26, 2012, the lift had died and everyone had returned to the gliderport—everyone except Robin Fleming. No one remembered hearing from Fleming since 1:30 or 2 p.m., and Jayne Ewing Reid, co-owner and chief tow pilot of the glider club and commercial operation, was worried. 

She called pilots who lived in the region and asked them to try to contact Fleming on their handheld radios. She flew the club’s Piper Pawnee in the direction of Fleming’s last known radio call, but found no evidence of the missing glider or its pilot. 

“This is when you get that feeling that something’s not right,” she said. Fleming always called if he landed out. Worried that something had happened to Fleming, an avid glider pilot and instructor at Bermuda High, Jayne Ewing Reid and business partner Frank Reid decided to file a missing airplane report. Neither suspected that Fleming was in trouble with the law. 

Fleming, 70, had been arrested for breach of peace after flying his Rolladen-Schneider LS8-18 sailplane noiselessly over the H.B. Robinson Nuclear Generating Station at an altitude of 1,518 feet msl - by his estimates, about 1,000 feet over the power plant’s dome - on his way to search for lift at nearby Lake Robinson.

Read the full article at AOPA Online.

Editorial on security and GA

This is such a rational response to the tragic, suicidal plane crash in Texas that I have to share it on here. I hope that at least one person visiting this blog who is unfamiliar with GA reads this. Hopefully, they will gain insight into just how terrible of an effect knee-jerk reactions can have on our ability to fly.

Airplanes Don't Kill People, People Do

As we mourn the losses from the recent attack in Austin, let us also keep a healthy perspective. General aviation is the lifeblood of this country's economy. Calling for more restrictions on the freedom to fly simply makes no sense.

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People fear what they do not know, and the inner workings of aviation certainly are mysterious to all but pilots. So a terrible event like what happened in Austin brings forth fearful cries to restrict personal flying, known broadly as "general aviation" or "GA" for short. That initial response is understandable, but terribly misguided. The best way to counter the many misperceptions about flying is to bring to light the true benefits of general aviation, which should help dampen any future impulse to place restrictions on private and corporate airplanes.

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If you believe that airplane use should be subject to further security measures, ask yourself the following question. After a car bomb goes off, do you immediately call for restricting the use of automobiles and trucks? Of course not because that would make no sense. Nor does the call to restrict private aviation, for the very same reasons.

[Click here for the full article]

h/t: Aeromot on the AOPA Forums

TSA PSA

I thought the video I posted last year was good TSA satire, but this is simply outstanding. Enjoy! :)

This pretty much sums up the TSA

UPDATE: I finally posted the photos from taking my friends up sightseeing, so head over to that post if you'd like to see the pics.

I just had to share this with my fellow pilots. Enjoy! :)

Please help save GA... write to the TSA!

This isn't a normal post from me, but this also isn't a normal situation. Well the TSA may want it to become the norm but doing so could literally put an end to aviation as we know it. What am I talking about? Basically, the Transportation Security Administration is proposing a major rule change - the Large Aircraft Security Program. It would require all operators of aircraft 12,500 pounds or heavier to undergo significantly increased security and regulation due to a perceived security threat.


However, I and the majority of pilots in this country realize that this is little more than an exaggerated response to an unfounded threat. The reality is that these regulations would likely do little more than severely impact general aviation in a very negative manner. And, more importantly, it would set a dangerous precedent for government oversight that could easily trickle down into regulations affecting the small aircraft I and most of the readers of this blog fly.

The fact of the matter is most general aviation aircraft pose no security threat. Their size and payload simply aren't sufficient for any sort of significant act of terror. The TSA is proposing that operators of these aircraft undergo extensive criminal history checks, security screening of baggage, checking passengers for matches against the no-fly list, and paying for sanctioned audits to ensure compliance with these regulations. Put simply, the only real effects this will have on aviation are out-of-control costs and a marked impact on the convenience and utility of GA.

As pilots and, most critically, citizens of the United States we can't just let the government take away more and more of our rights. I'm absolutely not condoning doing anything that puts us more at risk of a terrorist attack or otherwise threatens our security. However, needless regulations and an increasingly restrictive attitude towards general aviation do nothing of the sort. We must put a stop to this nonsense and ensure that aviation in fact lives on. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

So what am I asking of you?

1) Please, please, please submit your comments to the TSA opposing this proposed regulation. You can enter them through their online submission form, just click the yellow icon under Add Comments to the right of TSA-2008-0021-0001. This must be done by February 27th!

2) Write your representatives in Congress with the same message you send to the TSA. If you don't know who they are, click the following links for the House and the Senate.

For more information on this situation, visit Max Trescott's (2008 National Flight Instructor of the Year) website for a great post with many more details. You can also find more commentary on this issue at AOPA's Advocacy page for GA Security.

UPDATE: If you even remotely care about this issue, I urge you to read Capt. Steve Tupper's letter to the TSA about this issue. It's one of the most eloquent, pointed, and scathing responses I've ever read.

"You’ll note that I’ve largely neglected the TSA’s disingenuously-phrased specific requests for comments. But I’ll be happy to directly address one, namely the weight cutoff for the LASP.

"If I were the TSA, I’d avoid the neighborhood of 12,100 pounds. There’s a hornet’s nest of public outcry waiting for you at 12,100 pounds. About 1,375 of those pounds consist of a Merlin engine. That engine and the rest of the airplane constitute a large part of the reason that you hold the jobs that you do and that you have promulgated the NPRM in English instead of German or Japanese."

Well played, sir.