9 ms·

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 fle

by lutusp 13y ago

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 the pilots I knew in 1980 (instructors as well as students) had been killed in flying accidents. That's another reason for the decline in activity.

ekianjo 13y ago
> 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 ?
- lutusp 13y ago
  > By the way, are there some kind of autopilots on modern amateur planes? By "amateur planes" do you mean ultralights or experimental homebuilts? The answer depends on which -- an ultralight could hardly tolerate the extra weight that a decent autopilot would require. And most experimental homebuilt owners probably want the pleasure of actually flying their planes. Autopilots are more attractive to people who fly long distances and not for pleasure. I had a Mooney 201 years ago that I would fly on business, and the flights tended to be long and a bit boring, so I had an autopilot installed. Picture of me putting my bicycle in the backseat of my Mooney: http://i.imgur.com/R5qVo.jpg http://i.imgur.com/R5qVo.jpg
  - mistercow 13y ago
    >an ultralight could hardly tolerate the extra weight that a decent autopilot would require Where does most of the weight come from in an autopilot?
    - jrockway 13y ago
      Equipment to move the control surfaces automatically, I'm guessing. (I think the most common setup is to have a motor move the trim controls, and I'm not sure ultralights even have trim.)
    - ars 13y ago
      I would assume the actuators to actually control the plane. I doubt ultralights are fly by wire.
      - mistercow 13y ago
        Oh, that makes sense, although I guess I'm a bit surprised that FBW isn't common with ultralights, given its advantages.
        TylerE 13y ago
        I'm not aware of of any aircraft costing less than the 8 figures equipped with FBW. It's a LOT of added complexity/cost for very little gain in anything that isn't either dynamically unstable (e.g. modern military aircraft) or so large that the flight controls can't be comfortably operated by hand, and is rare even in the bizjet and smaller airliner market. On all small aircraft (and some larger older ones, DC-3s for instance), muscle is the only thing that moves the control surfaces. They're very well designed and counterweighted so that the required effort is quite minimal.
        jcoby 13y ago
        In the US an ultralight has to be under 254 pounds and does not require any training or licensing to fly. In most other countries an ultralight is more like the sport class in the US. At 254 pounds you want light and simple. FBW requires actuators. And controllers. And sensors. And power. And then you have to double up everything for redundancy. You would easily eat up 50 lbs or more making a reliable FBW system and it would cost 3-4x what the entire aircraft cost. Even with normal light aircraft a FBW system is both unneeded and overly complex. Cables and pulleys are extremely reliable. They are inspected every year (along with the engine and various other pieces of the aircraft).
- jeiting 13y ago
  My airplane has an autopilot which is connected to my GPS giving hands off enroute flying. Anything complicated, takeoffs, landings, etc is still done by hand. Really helps combat fatigue on my long trips.
- tlrobinson 13y ago
  From the makers of X-Plane: http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/hardware/seeker-avionics/ http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/hardware/seeker-avionics/ (I don't fly and know nothing about this but it sounds pretty cool)
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    Excellent link, thank you!
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    That's amazing, think of all the lives it will save!
- jrockway 13y ago
  Yes, there are autopilots. They vary in complexity from just keeping the wings level, to altitude, vertical speed, and heading holds, to fully-programmable routes.
- bulte-rs 13y ago
  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.
jeiting 13y ago
You must be fantastically unlucky, by my research (I'm afraid I've lost the citation) the number of pilots who die in flying accidents is about 1/50. How many pilots did you know?
- lutusp 13y ago
  A reasonable number, but many of them were stunt pilots -- or thought they were stunt pilots. I didn't mean to create a false impression. Also remember I mentioned that was a 12-year period.
  - jeiting 13y ago
    Ah, the subset of stunt pilots will run a MUCH higher risk profile. That would explain a lot.
  - WildUtah 13y ago
    but many of them were stunt pilots Lincoln Beachey thought it was a dream to go up to heaven in a flying machine The machine broke down and down he fell thought he'd go to heaven but he went to Lincoln Beachey thought it was a dream ... RIP Lincoln Beachey, drowned in SF Bay 1915 [0] http://www.radiolab.org/story/159748-loop-loop/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/159748-loop-loop/
  - pubman 13y ago
    This would have been key information in your original statement for sure.
  - The_Fox 13y ago
    That reminds me of something I heard once- "there are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots."
    - miahi 13y ago
      And then, there's Jurgis Kairys[1] doing things like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWaSgofuD6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWaSgofuD6g at 60. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurgis_Kairys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurgis_Kairys
lisper 13y ago
Wow, you have had some extraordinarily bad luck. Not a single one of my flying acquaintances has ever been in an accident, and I've been flying since 1996. (I do have one non-pilot friend who was killed in a GA accident.)
- lutusp 13y ago
  > Wow, you have had some extraordinarily bad luck. Yes -- all except the fact that I gave up the activity before getting killed myself. :)
Stratoscope 13y ago
This was my favorite airplane from my old flying club: http://www.pbase.com/geary/image/120224799 http://www.pbase.com/geary/image/120224799 That's my mom and me when I took her flying on September 3, 1977. I have the logbook right here that I carried on that flight. Sadly, this plane was involved in a midair in 1982, and the instructor and student pilot died: http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20020917X03685&key=2 http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20020917X... It's weird, if you sell a car and then it gets in a wreck and someone dies, you don't think about it much - or do you? I guess you're not likely to find out it happened. But it really shook me up that two people came to a tragic end in the same plane I used to fly. R.I.P.
- emhart 13y ago
  That is an amazing photo :) Sorry to hear about the fate of the plane, but thanks for sharing the memory.
- HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
  Airplanes are also more instantly recognizable than cars due to their tail numbers. I remember the day I turned on the news and saw the airplane I had first soloed in years before, upside down in a field. Happily both instructor and student walked away.
Udo 13y ago
> about half the pilots I knew in 1980 (instructors as well as students) had been killed in flying accidents. That's extreme. Is there any pattern? Where are you located?
- lutusp 13y ago
  > That's extreme. Yes, it is extreme, not the average. I should have added that the pilots I knew were largely instructors, stunt pilots and skydivers (and pilots who flew skydivers to altitude). So not a typical population.
MattBearman 13y ago
Wow, I knew flying light aircrafts was dangerous, but this really surprised me. And people tell me I'm taking risks riding a motorcycle.
- sokoloff 13y ago
  If you factor in all risks (the "as experienced" rate), GA flight is about as dangerous per mile as riding motorcycles. I firmly believe that 2/3rds of the fatality risk in GA is pilot-controlled and readily avoidable: weather, fuel exhaustion and "ostentatious display" (buzzing, etc) are relatively easy to avoid with nothing more than basic knowledge and firm discipline. On a motorcycle, many risks are rider-controlled but a lot of your safety is in the hands of people near you that you'll never meet. Less so in aviation, IMO.
  - pubman 13y ago
    ^ What he said
  - nathanstitt 13y ago
    IFR rated pilot here that's been flying for ~ 10 years. I agree with you 100% on the risks being largely under the pilots control. However I also believe that there's something about aviation that attracts the type of people who are uniquely unsuited for it. Daredevils, non-detail minded, and just plain incompetent. When you read the NTSB reports and such it's just not pretty. Pilot after pilot runs out of fuel or manages to run a perfectly good airplane into the ground / side of a mountain because they weren't observant. I'm not sure what the solution is though. We've had 30 years of the FAA and all the associations preaching safety to no effect. More regulation won't help either since all the main accident factors are already against some regulation or another.
    - wpietri 13y ago
      Doing user studies and paying attention to my own behavior, I grow more and more aware how rare consistent, no-error performance of tasks is. Stupid mistakes now seem more the human norm than the exception. What's especially sinister to me is how long it took me to really get that. And how much my self-perceived skill is more about my ability to recover from error than my ability to avoid error in the first place. Especially when it's over time periods long enough for fear to wear off. I'd never take up flying, because I know my attention would wander during those long periods of apparent calm but actual risk. Regarding why aviation attracts the wrong sort of people, if you haven't read about the Dunning-Kruger effect, I think it'll ring some bells for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
bergie 13y ago
Fuel is also a lot more expensive now. And that makes up quite a significant chunk of the flying costs. On a quick look, the price of an hour of flying has gone up nearly 50% in the last ten years in the aviation club I used to belong to.
- sokoloff 13y ago
  That's what 4.1% annual inflation compounded over 10 years will do. In real dollar terms, that price is very close to what it was 10 years ago.
  - bergie 13y ago
    Euro area inflation has been way lower than that, it seems. Including negative % on some years
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - scott_karana 13y ago
      Have fuel costs and taxes also done the same, though? Fuel will make the majority of operating costs if you fly with any frequency, I suspect.
  - mercutio2 13y ago
    Where do you get 4.1% inflation from? CPI for the USD hasn't gone up by that much in a single year for the last decade, annualized inflation is closer to 2.5% over that period.
    - sokoloff 13y ago
      4.1% is the 10th root of 150% minus 1. "OMG, this cost went up 50% over ten years!" sounds like a dire situation, when in fact it's a tiny margin over whatever inflation measure you prefer. If you take 2.5% as the annualized inflation, that's 28% over that 10 year period, meaning the other 17% increase is 1.6% "real dollar increase" per year. Hardly frightening, IMO.
jcoby 13y ago
The private pilot is a dying breed. Skyrocketing costs make it all but impossible for most people to get into. Even getting your private pilot's license often costs $8k-$10k. And then you are looking at $150/hr to fly a 20-30 year old C172. These skyrocketing costs make it so the fleet ages and becomes less reliable. So people get out. Or they die because they can't fly enough to get experience or the aircraft has a problem because it isn't flown enough. And costs rise further because there is no market. It's a downward spiral. And it seems that the FAA is completely happy with the situation. I've been out on beautiful days (low 80s, calm, 10 mi vis) and the CTAF is all but dead. Even 5 years ago there would have been 2-3 in the pattern and I would have heard a steady stream of traffic around the other 5 airports in the same frequency.
- smackfu 13y ago
  Most people I know who've done it are older and need a hobby and have spare money when their kids are gone and mortgage is paid off.
  - jcoby 13y ago
    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.
    - nathanstitt 13y ago
      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.
      - jcoby 13y ago
        I've heard that starting pay for ATP or cargo is somewhere in the low $20s and schooling is in the mid $100s. Is there any truth to that?
malandrew 13y ago
Whoa! really? I never imagined that deaths were that frequent. What were most of the causes of the accidents? Operator error? Poor conditions? Equipment failure? Has the rate of people dying off fallen as the equipment (planes and instruments) has improved? I had always assumed the decline has more to do with the economics of the sport and the amount of upfront investment necessary to get to the point where you can fly on your own.
- colechristensen 13y ago
  It is very rare that an aircraft falls out of the sky for any reason other than human stupidity. For decades, aircraft engineering has been well understood: the conditions for safe flight are known, staying in them is straightforward, and only very rarely does following the rules end badly. New technology has very little to do with this. The thing is that it's easy to make stupid mistakes operating and maintaining an aircraft, and unlike many other areas of modern life, there aren't training wheels to make it idiot proof.
- aaronsnoswell 13y ago
  In the 1950s, test pilots were dying approximately once per week [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_pilot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_pilot
  - jpatokal 13y ago
    There's a world of difference between the flying done by a test pilot, who's intentionally pushing the plane to its limits, and your average recreational pilot.

by lutusp 13y ago

ekianjo 13y ago

> 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 ?

lutusp 13y ago
> By the way, are there some kind of autopilots on modern amateur planes? By "amateur planes" do you mean ultralights or experimental homebuilts? The answer depends on which -- an ultralight could hardly tolerate the extra weight that a decent autopilot would require. And most experimental homebuilt owners probably want the pleasure of actually flying their planes. Autopilots are more attractive to people who fly long distances and not for pleasure. I had a Mooney 201 years ago that I would fly on business, and the flights tended to be long and a bit boring, so I had an autopilot installed. Picture of me putting my bicycle in the backseat of my Mooney: http://i.imgur.com/R5qVo.jpg http://i.imgur.com/R5qVo.jpg
- mistercow 13y ago
  >an ultralight could hardly tolerate the extra weight that a decent autopilot would require Where does most of the weight come from in an autopilot?
  - jrockway 13y ago
    Equipment to move the control surfaces automatically, I'm guessing. (I think the most common setup is to have a motor move the trim controls, and I'm not sure ultralights even have trim.)
  - ars 13y ago
    I would assume the actuators to actually control the plane. I doubt ultralights are fly by wire.
    - mistercow 13y ago
      Oh, that makes sense, although I guess I'm a bit surprised that FBW isn't common with ultralights, given its advantages.
      - TylerE 13y ago
        I'm not aware of of any aircraft costing less than the 8 figures equipped with FBW. It's a LOT of added complexity/cost for very little gain in anything that isn't either dynamically unstable (e.g. modern military aircraft) or so large that the flight controls can't be comfortably operated by hand, and is rare even in the bizjet and smaller airliner market. On all small aircraft (and some larger older ones, DC-3s for instance), muscle is the only thing that moves the control surfaces. They're very well designed and counterweighted so that the required effort is quite minimal.
      - jcoby 13y ago
        In the US an ultralight has to be under 254 pounds and does not require any training or licensing to fly. In most other countries an ultralight is more like the sport class in the US. At 254 pounds you want light and simple. FBW requires actuators. And controllers. And sensors. And power. And then you have to double up everything for redundancy. You would easily eat up 50 lbs or more making a reliable FBW system and it would cost 3-4x what the entire aircraft cost. Even with normal light aircraft a FBW system is both unneeded and overly complex. Cables and pulleys are extremely reliable. They are inspected every year (along with the engine and various other pieces of the aircraft).
jeiting 13y ago
My airplane has an autopilot which is connected to my GPS giving hands off enroute flying. Anything complicated, takeoffs, landings, etc is still done by hand. Really helps combat fatigue on my long trips.
tlrobinson 13y ago
From the makers of X-Plane: http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/hardware/seeker-avionics/ http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/hardware/seeker-avionics/ (I don't fly and know nothing about this but it sounds pretty cool)
- ekianjo 13y ago
  Excellent link, thank you!
- StavrosK 13y ago
  That's amazing, think of all the lives it will save!
jrockway 13y ago
Yes, there are autopilots. They vary in complexity from just keeping the wings level, to altitude, vertical speed, and heading holds, to fully-programmable routes.
bulte-rs 13y ago
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.

jeiting 13y ago

You must be fantastically unlucky, by my research (I'm afraid I've lost the citation) the number of pilots who die in flying accidents is about 1/50. How many pilots did you know?

lutusp 13y ago
A reasonable number, but many of them were stunt pilots -- or thought they were stunt pilots. I didn't mean to create a false impression. Also remember I mentioned that was a 12-year period.
- jeiting 13y ago
  Ah, the subset of stunt pilots will run a MUCH higher risk profile. That would explain a lot.
- WildUtah 13y ago
  but many of them were stunt pilots Lincoln Beachey thought it was a dream to go up to heaven in a flying machine The machine broke down and down he fell thought he'd go to heaven but he went to Lincoln Beachey thought it was a dream ... RIP Lincoln Beachey, drowned in SF Bay 1915 [0] http://www.radiolab.org/story/159748-loop-loop/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/159748-loop-loop/
- pubman 13y ago
  This would have been key information in your original statement for sure.
- The_Fox 13y ago
  That reminds me of something I heard once- "there are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots."
  - miahi 13y ago
    And then, there's Jurgis Kairys[1] doing things like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWaSgofuD6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWaSgofuD6g at 60. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurgis_Kairys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurgis_Kairys

lisper 13y ago

Wow, you have had some extraordinarily bad luck. Not a single one of my flying acquaintances has ever been in an accident, and I've been flying since 1996. (I do have one non-pilot friend who was killed in a GA accident.)

lutusp 13y ago
> Wow, you have had some extraordinarily bad luck. Yes -- all except the fact that I gave up the activity before getting killed myself. :)

Stratoscope 13y ago

This was my favorite airplane from my old flying club: http://www.pbase.com/geary/image/120224799 http://www.pbase.com/geary/image/120224799 That's my mom and me when I took her flying on September 3, 1977. I have the logbook right here that I carried on that flight. Sadly, this plane was involved in a midair in 1982, and the instructor and student pilot died: http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20020917X03685&key=2 http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20020917X... It's weird, if you sell a car and then it gets in a wreck and someone dies, you don't think about it much - or do you? I guess you're not likely to find out it happened. But it really shook me up that two people came to a tragic end in the same plane I used to fly. R.I.P.

emhart 13y ago
That is an amazing photo :) Sorry to hear about the fate of the plane, but thanks for sharing the memory.
HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
Airplanes are also more instantly recognizable than cars due to their tail numbers. I remember the day I turned on the news and saw the airplane I had first soloed in years before, upside down in a field. Happily both instructor and student walked away.

Udo 13y ago

> about half the pilots I knew in 1980 (instructors as well as students) had been killed in flying accidents. That's extreme. Is there any pattern? Where are you located?

lutusp 13y ago
> That's extreme. Yes, it is extreme, not the average. I should have added that the pilots I knew were largely instructors, stunt pilots and skydivers (and pilots who flew skydivers to altitude). So not a typical population.

MattBearman 13y ago

Wow, I knew flying light aircrafts was dangerous, but this really surprised me. And people tell me I'm taking risks riding a motorcycle.

sokoloff 13y ago
If you factor in all risks (the "as experienced" rate), GA flight is about as dangerous per mile as riding motorcycles. I firmly believe that 2/3rds of the fatality risk in GA is pilot-controlled and readily avoidable: weather, fuel exhaustion and "ostentatious display" (buzzing, etc) are relatively easy to avoid with nothing more than basic knowledge and firm discipline. On a motorcycle, many risks are rider-controlled but a lot of your safety is in the hands of people near you that you'll never meet. Less so in aviation, IMO.
- pubman 13y ago
  ^ What he said
- nathanstitt 13y ago
  IFR rated pilot here that's been flying for ~ 10 years. I agree with you 100% on the risks being largely under the pilots control. However I also believe that there's something about aviation that attracts the type of people who are uniquely unsuited for it. Daredevils, non-detail minded, and just plain incompetent. When you read the NTSB reports and such it's just not pretty. Pilot after pilot runs out of fuel or manages to run a perfectly good airplane into the ground / side of a mountain because they weren't observant. I'm not sure what the solution is though. We've had 30 years of the FAA and all the associations preaching safety to no effect. More regulation won't help either since all the main accident factors are already against some regulation or another.
  - wpietri 13y ago
    Doing user studies and paying attention to my own behavior, I grow more and more aware how rare consistent, no-error performance of tasks is. Stupid mistakes now seem more the human norm than the exception. What's especially sinister to me is how long it took me to really get that. And how much my self-perceived skill is more about my ability to recover from error than my ability to avoid error in the first place. Especially when it's over time periods long enough for fear to wear off. I'd never take up flying, because I know my attention would wander during those long periods of apparent calm but actual risk. Regarding why aviation attracts the wrong sort of people, if you haven't read about the Dunning-Kruger effect, I think it'll ring some bells for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

bergie 13y ago

Fuel is also a lot more expensive now. And that makes up quite a significant chunk of the flying costs. On a quick look, the price of an hour of flying has gone up nearly 50% in the last ten years in the aviation club I used to belong to.

sokoloff 13y ago
That's what 4.1% annual inflation compounded over 10 years will do. In real dollar terms, that price is very close to what it was 10 years ago.
- bergie 13y ago
  Euro area inflation has been way lower than that, it seems. Including negative % on some years
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - scott_karana 13y ago
    Have fuel costs and taxes also done the same, though? Fuel will make the majority of operating costs if you fly with any frequency, I suspect.
- mercutio2 13y ago
  Where do you get 4.1% inflation from? CPI for the USD hasn't gone up by that much in a single year for the last decade, annualized inflation is closer to 2.5% over that period.
  - sokoloff 13y ago
    4.1% is the 10th root of 150% minus 1. "OMG, this cost went up 50% over ten years!" sounds like a dire situation, when in fact it's a tiny margin over whatever inflation measure you prefer. If you take 2.5% as the annualized inflation, that's 28% over that 10 year period, meaning the other 17% increase is 1.6% "real dollar increase" per year. Hardly frightening, IMO.

jcoby 13y ago

The private pilot is a dying breed. Skyrocketing costs make it all but impossible for most people to get into. Even getting your private pilot's license often costs $8k-$10k. And then you are looking at $150/hr to fly a 20-30 year old C172. These skyrocketing costs make it so the fleet ages and becomes less reliable. So people get out. Or they die because they can't fly enough to get experience or the aircraft has a problem because it isn't flown enough. And costs rise further because there is no market. It's a downward spiral. And it seems that the FAA is completely happy with the situation. I've been out on beautiful days (low 80s, calm, 10 mi vis) and the CTAF is all but dead. Even 5 years ago there would have been 2-3 in the pattern and I would have heard a steady stream of traffic around the other 5 airports in the same frequency.

smackfu 13y ago
Most people I know who've done it are older and need a hobby and have spare money when their kids are gone and mortgage is paid off.
- jcoby 13y ago
  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.
  - nathanstitt 13y ago
    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.
    - jcoby 13y ago
      I've heard that starting pay for ATP or cargo is somewhere in the low $20s and schooling is in the mid $100s. Is there any truth to that?

malandrew 13y ago

Whoa! really? I never imagined that deaths were that frequent. What were most of the causes of the accidents? Operator error? Poor conditions? Equipment failure? Has the rate of people dying off fallen as the equipment (planes and instruments) has improved? I had always assumed the decline has more to do with the economics of the sport and the amount of upfront investment necessary to get to the point where you can fly on your own.

colechristensen 13y ago
It is very rare that an aircraft falls out of the sky for any reason other than human stupidity. For decades, aircraft engineering has been well understood: the conditions for safe flight are known, staying in them is straightforward, and only very rarely does following the rules end badly. New technology has very little to do with this. The thing is that it's easy to make stupid mistakes operating and maintaining an aircraft, and unlike many other areas of modern life, there aren't training wheels to make it idiot proof.
aaronsnoswell 13y ago
In the 1950s, test pilots were dying approximately once per week [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_pilot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_pilot
- jpatokal 13y ago
  There's a world of difference between the flying done by a test pilot, who's intentionally pushing the plane to its limits, and your average recreational pilot.