Everyone is okay with flying in a simulation but how about a real plane?

[OmniAtlas 93]

Hello fellow queenslander, I'm planning to look into the Toowoomba flying club. We will see how it goes, perhaps take a flight as a birthday present :)

 

Aren't you suppose to stall before you touch down in the smaller planes?

[Noel 4,572]

Statistically speaking, getting in a car is far more dangerous, yet why is nobody scared of cars?

 

I don't think so! If you compare hours in plane versus hours in the car, they are in a near statistical dead heat. I think this is a much more important metric than miles moved. If you then factor in DUI as the source of the fatality, which is the case in about 75% of car crashes, and you are an astute & alert driver and don't DUI, you can drastically reduce your own risk of an event. Furthermore, it is a lot easier to pilot a car safely than pilot an aircraft safely--no contest ;o)

 

Noel

[NikkiA 7]

I don't think so! If you compare hours in plane versus hours in the car, they are in a near statistical dead heat.

 

They're near a dead-heat by passenger-miles, but the current states are around 130 deaths per billion passenger-hours for cars, vs 30 for air. That's a 4x difference. Of course, cars are still 'near infinitely' safer than motorcycles at 4800+ deaths per billion passenger hours.

[signmanbob 592]

I thinj the problem with an aircraft over a car is that during an auto accident, you usually feel you have a chance to survive. In an aircraft, you realize quickly that your goose is cooked, and you're just along for the ride.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2

[Doc943 0]

My recent trial flight in a Cessna was great although l forgot everything l've been doing on the sim for the last 20 years!!! Eventually started scanning my six and relaxed. I think the big difference is the real environment where you feel and see the world around you dynamically changing in a very vulnerable little cockpit! I was happy to flare on landing but forgot to brake as I don't use pedals at home! Lol

[nuNce 2]

I just wish I had more financial support to get me to the ATPL or so, but I guess it's never gonna happen.

 

Same here dude. The most I can hope for is ultra light or soaring, still better than nothing. If I could wake up in the morning knowing that I have 8 hrs in an aicraft in front of me, I'd be much happier to get up early. :(

Fact is flying in Europe is really expensive and with the economic crysis and fuel prices rise it is getting worse day by day.

[Kosta 122]

Fact is flying in Europe is really expensive and with the economic crysis and fuel prices rise it is getting worse day by day.

 

Yep, you got that right.

[Lowflyer 97]

I thinj the problem with an aircraft over a car is that during an auto accident, you usually feel you have a chance to survive. In an aircraft, you realize quickly that your goose is cooked, and you're just along for the ride.

 

Not wanting to sound disrespectful or anything, but if I ever started thinking like that I'd give up flying instantly.

[brucewtb 250]

The chances of you being killed or injured in commercial airliner are very very remote. That being said I would never fly Garuda and would be wary of flying in any aircraft in Papua New Guinea and I always get a bit nervous when flying through turbulence at low altitude in an airliner. Now I don't have the stats to prove it but I doubt that flying in a GA aircraft is safer than driving a car - about the same as riding a motor bike as suggested previously in this thread seems closer to the mark.. With GA aircraft I would be interested in finding out about the relative incidence of engine failure in piston, turboprop and jet engines.

 

Bruce

[Benjamin J 751]

I can relate very well to most points that were raised here. I have been sitting in airliners sicne I was 6 months old, and we went to visit the rest of my family in Israel - show them the baby, I guess. My babysitter of that time told me recently (we found each other over facebook) that after that trip I was only drawing ATC towers and aircraft. My love for aviation was thus born when I was really young.

 

Still, I hate heights and am scared as hell in situations were I get the feeling I could fall. On top of high buildings, where there's a wind, I'm seriously scared when standing less than a meter from the railing, even if it's made out of sturdy materials or is all glass. Even if there's no wind though, I'd probably stand for a short time at the window out of curiosity, but I'll back away pretty soon. In aircraft I have no problem with this, although I do dislike turbulence. Otherwise I'd feel comfotable in pretty much any plane. As long as I'm not reminded of the place I'm at, there's no real problem.

 

In the end it of course all boils down to feeling secure or not, which is what all of you already said. Generally I feel secure in a plane. I cna look out of the window without problems and will often do that happily. When there's turbulence or something of the kind, I tend to be reminded of the fragility of the aircraft. It feels as though we're not entirely in control. I say "we" quite consciously, for I trust the pilots, be it in a small or a large plane. The pilots are not the problem for me. It's being reminded of the fact that even if the pilots are really good, the environment can still do something to mess it all up.

 

I guess this might be related in a way to my rather sturdy belief in evolution through natural selection. In no other field of biology is it so emphasized what farreaching consequences change sin the environment can have. Feeling the force of the environment, however exciting it could be, just terrifies the hell out of me.

 

So in summary, I do feel safe in airplanes, big or small, although I like the bigger ones better sicne they are mroe stable. Turbulence is much less of an issue then. Boeing 767 usually has been my favorite, because of the two seats on each side of the plane. Means there's only one other person sitting next to you when sitting at a window ;-)

[Chock 17,769]

That being said I would never fly Garuda

 

Bruce

 

Yup, they seem to be an airline with a large number of incidents, although ironically enough, it was a Garuda 737 which is the only Boeing 737 ever to have pulled off a belly landing in water: In 2002 one of their 737s suffered one of the infamous water ingestion flame outs on both its CFM-56 engines after passing through a rain squall with the throttles on a low setting - a phenomenon which led to the instake spinner on the CFM-56 being redesigned. The 737-300 in question bellied it into the Bengawan Solo River in Indonesia, with all but one on board surviving, the fatality being a stewardess who was killed when the tail broke away. And for trivia fact fans, the Bengawan Solo River name features a redundant word, since Bengawan actually means river.

 

Al

[Lowflyer 97]

Now I don't have the stats to prove it but I doubt that flying in a GA aircraft is safer than driving a car - about the same as riding a motor bike as suggested previously in this thread seems closer to the mark.

 

There seems to be a bit of confusion going on in this thread because some people are talking about tubeliners while others are talking about GA. I believe those who say flying is safer than driving are talking mainly about the former.

[Skysurfer7 34]

-Are you afraid of flying?

-Well...it's not the flying part that concerns me....it's the CRASHING part I have issues with :Party:

[Bartbear 10]

An old and wise pilot once said :

 

"The secret of safe flying is to make sure that your amount of takeoffs always equals your amount of landings at the end of a flight". :Applause:

[Manny 1,293]

I thinj the problem with an aircraft over a car is that during an auto accident, you usually feel you have a chance to survive. In an aircraft, you realize quickly that your goose is cooked, and you're just along for the ride.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2

 

True...thats why you do the pre flight heck diligently before you take off and you don't pre drive check in a car. Any trouble in a car, you can pull over and kick check your tires. Even if your fuel gauge says, its 80% full, you still open the tank and shove your finger in to see the physical fuel and even smell it to see its 100ll and not kerosene (Jet fuel)... So you do all those checks for flying.

 

GA is riskier than Airliner. And although you try to reduce incidents, when it happens fatalities are much higher than when you are in a car.

 

I have a book with me on my bedside.. its called "The Killing Zone: How and why pilots die".

 

http://www.amazon.co...s/dp/007136269X

 

Every GA Pilot ought to own and read this again and again... Its a detailed statistical analysis of GA accidents. Its grouped by category. "Fuel starvation", Take off accidents". Landing accidents" etc etc. These are from the FAA accident reports.

 

Since you cannot learn from your own mistakes (Many times), reading each incident helps internalize like you could have made this mistake and learn from others.

 

About checking the fuel yourself.... there is one where a person lands for refueling and the attendant at the FBO fills the aircraft but does not put the fuel cap on. This guy takes off...and in a few minutes, all the fuel gets sucked out ...and the engine quits.. But since had just refueled the aircraft and he had checked the fuel gauge as being full just a few minutes ago, his mind refuses to accept the fact that it is fuel starvation.,

 

Another interesting statistical fact is a newbie pilot with 70 hrs safer than a a pilot with around 130 hrs. The reason being, a new pilot does things properly from what he has learned...but slowly atrophies/bad habits and becomes sloppy... and then ater 350 hrs or so starts becoming safter again. Its the 110-200 hrs experience the worst point. Most accidents have happened during this experience phase. So if you are apprehensive about going up with a newly minted licensed pilot, you need not be too concered..but he/she has 130 hrs , then be very concerned. ;)

 

There are so many interesting stuff like this in the book.

 

Manny