5 ms·

I grew up in Florida. It would take all my fingers and toes and more to count the number of times I have seen articles or even witnessed personally from the bea

I grew up in Florida. It would take all my fingers and toes and more to count the number of times I have seen articles or even witnessed personally from the beach a pilot of a small craft either die naturally at the controls or have some medical event that causes a crash and death. Why are small planes necessary? Am I wrong to believe what it seems like, that the overwhelmingly popular purpose is entertainment? Is anyone else sick of being lead poisoned? I am all for scrutinizing and restricting the driver's licenses of the elderly or those with severe medical issues that will inevitably lead to an accident. This goes doubly so for pilots. I know there's a lot young pilots. I take no issue with you. But it seems like most pilots and owners of small planes are over retirement age. It is the entitlement that gets under my skin, the entitlement to poison everyone on the ground with lead as well as put innocent bystanders in danger. Why do we allow this? There are severe problems with conservative ideals, and mainly it has to do with entitlement, a telltale symptom of mental illness, namely, narcissism. Fuck narcissists.

postalrat 4y ago
What do you think of all the people young drivers kill? Should people be prevented from driving they are a bit more responsible? Maybe around 30 years.
- Maursault 4y ago
  Poor judgement is not the same as incapacity. We have a framework to deal with poor judgement. What we also need is a framework to deal with incapacity.
  - ledauphin 4y ago
    we do - they're called Aviation Medical Examiners. The pilot operating this flight would have had, at minimum, a 2nd class medical, which has to be renewed every 12 months.
    - Maursault 4y ago
      > which has to be renewed every 12 months. That is simply insufficient. Introduce age to the standard and increase frequency of examinations with increasing age. And let's strongly discourage pilots over a certain age where reaction time, eye-sight and cognition is known to become more deficient. Yes, definitely let's discourage and restrict old people from operating dangerous machinery, no matter how rich and entitled and personally insulted they may be.
      - ledauphin 4y ago
        age is in fact part of the standard...
        Maursault 4y ago
        I think 4 examinations a year for any pilot over 60 is not unreasonable. Because only one examination a year for a 70yo is definitely absurdly unreasonable.
- nojonestownpls 4y ago
  You're entirely ignoring the cost vs benefit view that the original comment brings up: > Why are small planes necessary? Am I wrong to believe what it seems like, that the overwhelmingly popular purpose is entertainment? There's much much more positive benefit to the society from allowing young people to drive. It allows them to exercise their independence, socialize, escape bad (home or other) environments, explore the society they're about to enter. I'm not one to say passion (for flying) or entertainment are not good reasons to do something, but they stand much weaker as benefits when compared to the benefits of allowing young drivers.
exhilaration 4y ago
That's very interesting. It sounds like being one of the top destination for retirees might play in this -- Florida is #2 when it comes to oldest population https://www.prb.org/resources/which-us-states-are-the-oldest/ https://www.prb.org/resources/which-us-states-are-the-oldest... and I would bet it's #1 when it comes to oldest pilots (and drivers) who are most likely to "die naturally" when at the controls.
throwawayboise 4y ago
This was a turboprop, so no lead at least.
- Maursault 4y ago
  Nice catch.
causi 4y ago
I was all ready to criticize you for blowing things out of proportion but then I checked the numbers. Damn, small aircraft create 50% of airborne lead contamination.
ManBlanket 4y ago
Man I'm making a big assumption here but for someone who hasn't experienced a plane crashing into their home you seem to have a lot of angst for something that doesn't affect you in the scheme of things. Are you self aware enough to ask yourself if you're foisting your own baggage onto the shoulders of people and things you view as outsiders? Let me be the voice of reason here, my man. You're the only person that has the power to make you chill the fuck out. If you want to represent whatever tribe you hail from as better than conservatives, the elderly, or small planes I guess, you gotta change your attitude. The only thing launching into a weird tirade about airplanes, lead, and the elderly over an article about a guy landing a plane makes you seem kinda narcissistic, entitled, and maybe even a little bit mentally ill yourself. Your life would only get better the second you decide living in a haze of anger over shit you can't change is no means to an end. If you're so focused on that anger, you're not focused on the things you can change to make your world better. Please, chill out, go pick up trash in the park or something. I promise it'll make you feel better.
- Maursault 4y ago
  FWIW, your entire comment is an ad hominem fallacy. You must ignore the person and focus on their argument in order to argue rationally. > doesn't affect you in the scheme of things. I have subsonic hearing and I live in a rural area, not particularly near any small or large airport. What drives me nuts are diesel school buses (something about the low frequencies) and those really slow single prop planes that seem to want to linger around my airspace, sound-polluting the entire area with harmful low frequencies. And for what? Entertainment and entitlement. We need diesel school buses right now and until electric buses become available to school districts, so I'll just deal with that. A vehicle gets you from point A to point B. Most of these planes and flights, nearly all of them, leave and return to the same airport a few hours later. They're not traveling anywhere, they're just bored. While I can empathize with boredom, I really don't tolerate being victimized by the bored. It isn't just me. Wildlife and Mother Nature and gravitational potential hates small engine planes.
  - mb7733 4y ago
    For one thing, for remote communities, small planes are an absolute necessity, not simply for recreation. You've lumped together all small aircraft with hobby flying. That aside, I think your environmental argument against hobby flying is interesting, but this other chip you have on your shoulder regarding "entitlement" and "the elderly" and "entertainment" people isn't very persuasive. Dismissing something as "just entertainment for entitled people" is silly. Hobby flying is far from the only environmentally damaging thing that humans do only for entertainment.
topher515 4y ago
It seems like you're conflating two issues here: 1. Old people like to fly small planes and crash them more than others [citation needed?] 2. Small planes emit toxic chemicals that are slowly poisoning everyone Personally I'm horrified that we allow issue (2.) to continue given all we know now about the dangers of lead poisoning. But I don't particularly care about issue (1.) since I generally think people should be allowed to risk their own lives as they see fit.
- Maursault 4y ago
  > since I generally think people should be allowed to risk their own lives as they see fit. But what if your life was in danger because of this. Because it is, even if the risk to you and your loved ones is low, it is not zero. If there was good reason for accepting this risk, that would be one thing. But there simply is no other rational reason than thrill for flying a small plane around for a few hours and landing in the same place. Someone's else's right to thrill does not eclipse my right not to be assaulted by harmful sounds, my right not to breathe harmful chemicals, and my right to not to be killed by a crashing plane.
  - zokier 4y ago
    How many bystanders have died, or even injured, in hobby aircraft crashes?
    - pilot7378535 4y ago
      I hear it happens with emergency beach landings especially—consequently they're somewhat of a last resort. Couldn't find a statistic though. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/02/sunbathers-killed-as-light-plane-lands-on-beach-in-portugal-reports https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/02/sunbathers-kil... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatalities_from_aviation_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatalities_from_aviati...
mastax 4y ago
The FAA has been dragging its feet certifying lead free aviation fuel.
jcrawfordor 4y ago
2020 numbers from the FAA show that while GA overall had 7,600 hours of personal use, there were 11,854 hours of commercial use in non-Part 135 GA. We can assume that single-engine light aircraft are more likely to be in personal use, but they are also the most common category for instruction, which is the most common commercial use at 5,498 hours. It might seem a bit tautological to say that "a major purpose of GA is train pilots for GA," but GA pilots are the beginning of the career path for on-demand and airline pilots, and the current feeling is that there needs to be more to sustain airline staffing. Major commercial uses of single-engine aircraft include light cargo (especially the Caravan, involved in this case), air medical transportation, and aerial surveying and observation (e.g. railroad and pipeline ROW safety inspection, a very common use of light aircraft where I live). What I mean to say is that there are a wide variety of useful applications of small aircraft, not the least of which is instruction---their second most common application. The phenomenon you get at has more to do with the historical demographics of aviation. For various reasons that boil down mostly to World War II (which had the effect of a massive government subsidy of both aircraft and pilot training), the cost of entering aviation as a hobby or career has significantly increased over the last decades. Very few young people can afford to obtain a pilot's license and operate an aircraft today, compared to say the 1970s. This is of course a major contributing factor to concerns over staffing levels in the airlines. Similarly, the pace of both development of new aircraft and replacement of the existing aviation fleet has slowed significantly since the '70s. This is most obvious in the fact that a huge portion of the GA fleet today, especially aircraft in personal and instruction uses, were manufactured in the '70s. Both the pilots and the aircraft themselves are aging out, and much of the HN dialog around the issue of leaded fuel seems to miss this point. While the FAA's very slow progress in approval on a 100LL equivalent non-leaded fuel is indeed a problem, I think a much bigger problem is the fact that not even flight schools and charter companies can afford to obtain aircraft with engine designs much newer than the period of a decade after WWII. Unleaded and diesel aviation piston engines are in service right now, but certifying them for use in older aircraft tends to be prohibitively expensive, if it's even practical. The cost increase from a used but current aircraft from the '70s or '80s to a newer design more likely to be trusted on unleaded fuel, on the low end, tends to be a difference between sub-$100k and over-$500k. The argument I am making is that the continued use of leaded fuel probably has less to do with the fuel than with the fact that the current market and regulatory situation in aviation has almost frozen the fleet in time. There are also obviously concerns about medical certification of private pilots, particularly with the introduction of the BasicMed program which, in practice, makes it significantly easier to hold a pilots license with ongoing medical concerns. Reform of the medical certification system is critical, but it's probably more important that we address the underlying phenomenon that entering aviation as a career has become more and more difficult to such an extent that the average age of professional pilots has consistently increased for decades. Mandatory retirement for commercial pilots was raised from 60 to 65 in order to mitigate this issue, but that was only a temporary fix, and the five years it really bought have long since passed. All of this said, accidents due to medical incapacitation are actually pretty rare. Bruce Landsberg of the NTSB, in a letter to AOPA Pilot, put it at about a dozen incidents per year in GA... out of around 400 fatal accidents. This actually seems to overstate the problem as not all of those dozen are fatal and the NTSB sometimes ends up attributing loss of orientation to medical incapacitation simply because they couldn't find any other likely reason. For this simple reason, "narcissism" of older pilots is probably not a major contribution to aviation accidents. More philosophically, narcissism is no doubt a contributor to common types of serious and fatal accidents like unintended IMC, but if anything the young are probably the greatest offenders there.

postalrat 4y ago

What do you think of all the people young drivers kill? Should people be prevented from driving they are a bit more responsible? Maybe around 30 years.

Maursault 4y ago
Poor judgement is not the same as incapacity. We have a framework to deal with poor judgement. What we also need is a framework to deal with incapacity.
- ledauphin 4y ago
  we do - they're called Aviation Medical Examiners. The pilot operating this flight would have had, at minimum, a 2nd class medical, which has to be renewed every 12 months.
  - Maursault 4y ago
    > which has to be renewed every 12 months. That is simply insufficient. Introduce age to the standard and increase frequency of examinations with increasing age. And let's strongly discourage pilots over a certain age where reaction time, eye-sight and cognition is known to become more deficient. Yes, definitely let's discourage and restrict old people from operating dangerous machinery, no matter how rich and entitled and personally insulted they may be.
    - ledauphin 4y ago
      age is in fact part of the standard...
      - Maursault 4y ago
        I think 4 examinations a year for any pilot over 60 is not unreasonable. Because only one examination a year for a 70yo is definitely absurdly unreasonable.
nojonestownpls 4y ago
You're entirely ignoring the cost vs benefit view that the original comment brings up: > Why are small planes necessary? Am I wrong to believe what it seems like, that the overwhelmingly popular purpose is entertainment? There's much much more positive benefit to the society from allowing young people to drive. It allows them to exercise their independence, socialize, escape bad (home or other) environments, explore the society they're about to enter. I'm not one to say passion (for flying) or entertainment are not good reasons to do something, but they stand much weaker as benefits when compared to the benefits of allowing young drivers.

exhilaration 4y ago

That's very interesting. It sounds like being one of the top destination for retirees might play in this -- Florida is #2 when it comes to oldest population https://www.prb.org/resources/which-us-states-are-the-oldest/ https://www.prb.org/resources/which-us-states-are-the-oldest... and I would bet it's #1 when it comes to oldest pilots (and drivers) who are most likely to "die naturally" when at the controls.

throwawayboise 4y ago

This was a turboprop, so no lead at least.

Maursault 4y ago
Nice catch.

causi 4y ago

I was all ready to criticize you for blowing things out of proportion but then I checked the numbers. Damn, small aircraft create 50% of airborne lead contamination.

ManBlanket 4y ago

Man I'm making a big assumption here but for someone who hasn't experienced a plane crashing into their home you seem to have a lot of angst for something that doesn't affect you in the scheme of things. Are you self aware enough to ask yourself if you're foisting your own baggage onto the shoulders of people and things you view as outsiders? Let me be the voice of reason here, my man. You're the only person that has the power to make you chill the fuck out. If you want to represent whatever tribe you hail from as better than conservatives, the elderly, or small planes I guess, you gotta change your attitude. The only thing launching into a weird tirade about airplanes, lead, and the elderly over an article about a guy landing a plane makes you seem kinda narcissistic, entitled, and maybe even a little bit mentally ill yourself. Your life would only get better the second you decide living in a haze of anger over shit you can't change is no means to an end. If you're so focused on that anger, you're not focused on the things you can change to make your world better. Please, chill out, go pick up trash in the park or something. I promise it'll make you feel better.

Maursault 4y ago
FWIW, your entire comment is an ad hominem fallacy. You must ignore the person and focus on their argument in order to argue rationally. > doesn't affect you in the scheme of things. I have subsonic hearing and I live in a rural area, not particularly near any small or large airport. What drives me nuts are diesel school buses (something about the low frequencies) and those really slow single prop planes that seem to want to linger around my airspace, sound-polluting the entire area with harmful low frequencies. And for what? Entertainment and entitlement. We need diesel school buses right now and until electric buses become available to school districts, so I'll just deal with that. A vehicle gets you from point A to point B. Most of these planes and flights, nearly all of them, leave and return to the same airport a few hours later. They're not traveling anywhere, they're just bored. While I can empathize with boredom, I really don't tolerate being victimized by the bored. It isn't just me. Wildlife and Mother Nature and gravitational potential hates small engine planes.
- mb7733 4y ago
  For one thing, for remote communities, small planes are an absolute necessity, not simply for recreation. You've lumped together all small aircraft with hobby flying. That aside, I think your environmental argument against hobby flying is interesting, but this other chip you have on your shoulder regarding "entitlement" and "the elderly" and "entertainment" people isn't very persuasive. Dismissing something as "just entertainment for entitled people" is silly. Hobby flying is far from the only environmentally damaging thing that humans do only for entertainment.

topher515 4y ago

It seems like you're conflating two issues here: 1. Old people like to fly small planes and crash them more than others [citation needed?] 2. Small planes emit toxic chemicals that are slowly poisoning everyone Personally I'm horrified that we allow issue (2.) to continue given all we know now about the dangers of lead poisoning. But I don't particularly care about issue (1.) since I generally think people should be allowed to risk their own lives as they see fit.

Maursault 4y ago
> since I generally think people should be allowed to risk their own lives as they see fit. But what if your life was in danger because of this. Because it is, even if the risk to you and your loved ones is low, it is not zero. If there was good reason for accepting this risk, that would be one thing. But there simply is no other rational reason than thrill for flying a small plane around for a few hours and landing in the same place. Someone's else's right to thrill does not eclipse my right not to be assaulted by harmful sounds, my right not to breathe harmful chemicals, and my right to not to be killed by a crashing plane.
- zokier 4y ago
  How many bystanders have died, or even injured, in hobby aircraft crashes?
  - pilot7378535 4y ago
    I hear it happens with emergency beach landings especially—consequently they're somewhat of a last resort. Couldn't find a statistic though. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/02/sunbathers-killed-as-light-plane-lands-on-beach-in-portugal-reports https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/02/sunbathers-kil... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatalities_from_aviation_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatalities_from_aviati...

mastax 4y ago

The FAA has been dragging its feet certifying lead free aviation fuel.

jcrawfordor 4y ago

2020 numbers from the FAA show that while GA overall had 7,600 hours of personal use, there were 11,854 hours of commercial use in non-Part 135 GA. We can assume that single-engine light aircraft are more likely to be in personal use, but they are also the most common category for instruction, which is the most common commercial use at 5,498 hours. It might seem a bit tautological to say that "a major purpose of GA is train pilots for GA," but GA pilots are the beginning of the career path for on-demand and airline pilots, and the current feeling is that there needs to be more to sustain airline staffing. Major commercial uses of single-engine aircraft include light cargo (especially the Caravan, involved in this case), air medical transportation, and aerial surveying and observation (e.g. railroad and pipeline ROW safety inspection, a very common use of light aircraft where I live). What I mean to say is that there are a wide variety of useful applications of small aircraft, not the least of which is instruction---their second most common application. The phenomenon you get at has more to do with the historical demographics of aviation. For various reasons that boil down mostly to World War II (which had the effect of a massive government subsidy of both aircraft and pilot training), the cost of entering aviation as a hobby or career has significantly increased over the last decades. Very few young people can afford to obtain a pilot's license and operate an aircraft today, compared to say the 1970s. This is of course a major contributing factor to concerns over staffing levels in the airlines. Similarly, the pace of both development of new aircraft and replacement of the existing aviation fleet has slowed significantly since the '70s. This is most obvious in the fact that a huge portion of the GA fleet today, especially aircraft in personal and instruction uses, were manufactured in the '70s. Both the pilots and the aircraft themselves are aging out, and much of the HN dialog around the issue of leaded fuel seems to miss this point. While the FAA's very slow progress in approval on a 100LL equivalent non-leaded fuel is indeed a problem, I think a much bigger problem is the fact that not even flight schools and charter companies can afford to obtain aircraft with engine designs much newer than the period of a decade after WWII. Unleaded and diesel aviation piston engines are in service right now, but certifying them for use in older aircraft tends to be prohibitively expensive, if it's even practical. The cost increase from a used but current aircraft from the '70s or '80s to a newer design more likely to be trusted on unleaded fuel, on the low end, tends to be a difference between sub-$100k and over-$500k. The argument I am making is that the continued use of leaded fuel probably has less to do with the fuel than with the fact that the current market and regulatory situation in aviation has almost frozen the fleet in time. There are also obviously concerns about medical certification of private pilots, particularly with the introduction of the BasicMed program which, in practice, makes it significantly easier to hold a pilots license with ongoing medical concerns. Reform of the medical certification system is critical, but it's probably more important that we address the underlying phenomenon that entering aviation as a career has become more and more difficult to such an extent that the average age of professional pilots has consistently increased for decades. Mandatory retirement for commercial pilots was raised from 60 to 65 in order to mitigate this issue, but that was only a temporary fix, and the five years it really bought have long since passed. All of this said, accidents due to medical incapacitation are actually pretty rare. Bruce Landsberg of the NTSB, in a letter to AOPA Pilot, put it at about a dozen incidents per year in GA... out of around 400 fatal accidents. This actually seems to overstate the problem as not all of those dozen are fatal and the NTSB sometimes ends up attributing loss of orientation to medical incapacitation simply because they couldn't find any other likely reason. For this simple reason, "narcissism" of older pilots is probably not a major contribution to aviation accidents. More philosophically, narcissism is no doubt a contributor to common types of serious and fatal accidents like unintended IMC, but if anything the young are probably the greatest offenders there.