AOPA ASF response to ABC Nightline piece - whitewash??

Unpleasant, but closer to reality.
alfadog said:
Oh really?

So if some factory poisons the water and kills your children, and those of all your neighbors, you feel that that should be OK as far as a regulatory framework is concerned provided that you have recourse against the corporation for your dead children? They should be able to kill just as many as they like so long at we can go after them. And when the shell corporation folds without liability to the principals, you can bury your children with the squat that any sector of industry owes anyone. Heaven forbid anyone should be regulated.

Because that is the proximate and "logical" extension of your argument.
Click to expand...
 
Yep, that's the way it is and is likely to continue. Which industry isn't regulated in some way? Have you ever noticed that,when the government screws up, the guy in the suit comes on TV and expresses regret and vows they will do everything in their power to assure it doesn't happen again? Do you consider that as a guarantee?

alfadog said:
Oh really?

So if some factory poisons the water and kills your children, and those of all your neighbors, you feel that that should be OK as far as a regulatory framework is concerned provided that you have recourse against the corporation for your dead children? They should be able to kill just as many as they like so long at we can go after them. And when the shell corporation folds without liability to the principals, you can bury your children with the squat that any sector of industry owes anyone. Heaven forbid anyone should be regulated.

Because that is the proximate and "logical" extension of your argument.
Click to expand...
 
wabower said:
Yep, that's the way it is and is likely to continue. Which industry isn't regulated in some way? Have you ever noticed that,when the government screws up, the guy in the suit comes on TV and expresses regret and vows they will do everything in their power to assure it doesn't happen again? Do you consider that as a guarantee?
Click to expand...

Then we are in agreement.
 
wabower said:
So you don't care about the poisoned neighborhood as long the industry is regulated?
Click to expand...

LOL. I do not know how you infer that. But again, my point in the thread here is that:

1) The public has the right to ask how pilots are regulated as regards training and if those regulations are sufficient.

2) GA should be able to come up with good answers to such questions that go beyond bunched-up panties over "freedom" or "how wrong the media gets it".

3) AOPA did not have a good answer.

Do you disagree with any of those premises?
 
alfadog said:
LOL. I do not know how you infer that. But again, my point in the thread here is that:

1) The public has the right to ask how pilots are regulated as regards training and if those regulations are sufficient.

They don't have a right to ask me squat. If they've got a question they should talk to a guy named Heurta in DC. Sufficient for what? If they're looking for more guarantees they need to call the FDIC.

2) GA should be able to come up with good answers to such questions that go beyond bunched-up panties over "freedom" or "how wrong the media gets it".

There are no good answers. Just give them the "we regret the problem and are doing everything we can to be sure it doesn't happen again." It works for FEMA, EPA, and every other suit who gets caught with his pants down, so it should work for GA.

3) AOPA did not have a good answer.

See #2. Every GA publication to which I subscribed (at the time) has used "deplorable" during the past few years to describe the safety of our segment of the industry. What would your answer have been?

Do you disagree with any of those premises?
Click to expand...

Evidently.
 
wabower said:
alfadog said:
LOL. I do not know how you infer that. But again, my point in the thread here is that:

1) The public has the right to ask how pilots are regulated as regards training and if those regulations are sufficient.

They don't have a right to ask me squat. If they've got a question they should talk to a guy named Heurta in DC. Sufficient for what? If they're looking for more guarantees they need to call the FDIC.

2) GA should be able to come up with good answers to such questions that go beyond bunched-up panties over "freedom" or "how wrong the media gets it".

There are no good answers. Just give them the "we regret the problem and are doing everything we can to be sure it doesn't happen again." It works for FEMA, EPA, and every other suit who gets caught with his pants down, so it should work for GA.

3) AOPA did not have a good answer.

See #2. Every GA publication to which I subscribed (at the time) has used "deplorable" during the past few years to describe the safety of our segment of the industry. What would your answer have been?

Do you disagree with any of those premises?
Click to expand...

Evidently.
Click to expand...

Thank you.
 
alfadog said:
Straw man argument. It is not about zero risk, it it about what level of training and recurrent training should a GA pilot have. What are the problem areas. We accepted a "limitation on freedom" when we required pilots to have licenses. Would you undo that?
Click to expand...

It's not about zero risk?

Ok, what's the acceptable level of risk?

I recall a thread a while back about how meeting minimal acceptable standards wasn't considered good enough. Which is kind of oxymoronic.
 
Bob Noel said:
It's not about zero risk?

Ok, what's the acceptable level of risk?

I recall a thread a while back about how meeting minimal acceptable standards wasn't considered good enough. Which is kind of oxymoronic.
Click to expand...

Quite true. How many of us heard these words when the examiner signed our logbook for the first time; "Now go learn how to fly an airplane." I did.

While your question is a legitimate one, it is not really the question I raise in this thread. That said, obviously that level varies from person to person. We will not all agree on whatever limit is set. Personally, I am not very risk-averse as anyone that has driven in a car with me would tell you. I will not go into flying an airplane except to mention that on Friday I was teaching myself how to land in a turn in the Luscombe.


Let me give you an example from my somewhat wilder youth. I was once on my motorcycle and found myself boxed in by three patrol cars and forced to the side of the road. One of the officers told me they had received calls about how dangerously I was driving. Call or calls, this was 40 years ago. And one of them said he had personally witnessed my riding. They were going to ticket me for "reckless driving", a serious offense. I explained I was not drunk and knew what I was doing. (I just liked to go fast, scrape the pegs, lift the front wheel a little - not like kids today.) The officer agreed I must know what I was doing or I would be dead and handed me a ticket for careless driving, just a regular moving violation.

So my question in return is at what point does my "right" to enjoy my vehicle on my own terms on the public highways become something that other, more conservative, drivers on the road have the right to limit via laws and police?

ps, I still have it on my bucket list to learn to wheelie like the kids today do it. My present bike is a bit of a pig, I need something lighter.
 
Last edited:
alfadog said:
So my question in return is at what point does my "right" to enjoy my vehicle on my own terms on the public highways become something that other, more conservative, drivers on the road have the right to limit via laws and police?
Click to expand...

putting aside that my question wasn't answered...

In response to your question here, I'm ok with you putting yourself at risk, well, I would prefer you didn't, but hopefully you know what I mean. The limitations come into play when you put others at risk.
 
I came to a realization this morning(albeit quite late, and probably obvious to everyone else) this is not about us. The media, and for that matter the letter organizations "supporting" out chose activity(in this case GA) really do not care whether the activity is safe, relatively safe, dangerous, or suicidal, what they care about is making money, and the only way to do that is to be dramatic, and the masses love negativity, and this is what sells. If it was not for articles or programs clearly produced for their shock value, these companies would be much poorer.

Do any of us really believe that AOPA, EAA, or any the major organizations out their that are supposed to be supporting GA did not have a opportunity to contribute to this story and show the other and more positive side of the story? But why should they. As long as we perceive(and probably rightly so) that there is a war trying to destroy GA we as a group are more likely to donate and join these organizations to "protect" our interests. Many years ago someone told me that the last thing the American Cancer Association wanted to do was to wipe out cancer, because then they would be out of jobs. Personally I find that pretty cynical but there are days I wonder how far from the truth they were. Getting rid of the war on GA will not destroy AOPA, or EAA, but will certainly decrease their bottom line. Likewise, do any of us believe that with the political connections these groups have that anything will be truly done to end GA. At the end of the day these higher ups in these organizations have only one concern and that is to make themselves more money, and without GA they will have to find somewhere else to make it. I doubt their friends would do this to them.
 
I don't think it goes that far, I doubt they had an opportunity to contribute directly to the story if they did it would have been spun to ABCs view. Matters not what people say, it matters who is editing the story. But there is truth to the notion of regulatory fear based fund raising, user fee fear is probably the best aopa recruitment tool. Yet aopa got on their knees for ads-b, useless hacks.
 
Bob Noel said:
putting aside that my question wasn't answered...

In response to your question here, I'm ok with you putting yourself at risk, well, I would prefer you didn't, but hopefully you know what I mean. The limitations come into play when you put others at risk.
Click to expand...

How much risk? That is the question you pose and I replied that there is no answer to it. Every other driver on the road puts me at added risk. If you drove in my city, you would put me at risk. Because I do not think that you would disagree that the least risk I can have while driving is to have the entire system to myself.

It simply boils down to enough incidents, enough risk, to get attention. And media making much of perceived risk certainly comes into it. My point being, get over it, that is how it works in a civil society. Have a good answer. Still waiting for a good answer. A common answer seeming to be, "you know, GA safety is pretty bad." I do not know if that is true but it is certainly not going to fly as an answer to the public question.
 
alfadog said:
How much risk? That is the question you pose and I replied that there is no answer to it. Every other driver on the road puts me at added risk. If you drove in my city, you would put me at risk. Because I do not think that you would disagree that the least risk I can have while driving is to have the entire system to myself.

It simply boils down to enough incidents, enough risk, to get attention. And media making much of perceived risk certainly comes into it. My point being, get over it, that is how it works in a civil society. Have a good answer. Still waiting for a good answer. A common answer seeming to be, "you know, GA safety is pretty bad." I do not know if that is true but it is certainly not going to fly as an answer to the public question.
Click to expand...

The likelihood of someone steering their car into oncoming traffic and killing someone has to be MUCH MUCH MUCH higher than someone on the ground getting hurt by an aluminum rain storm from above or a mid air collision with another plane.

But, we have 40hrs worth of training, recurrent training and YGBFSM medical requirements and strict maintenance regulations to prevent something that is probably exponentially less likely to cause harm to innocent bystanders than driving. We let people 3 heartbeats away from death, in cars that shed parts as they go get out on the interstate and spool up to 75MPH within inches of other people and nobody's whining for more regulation there.

Can you imagine if the feds required a 3rd class medical to drive? Required more training to drive? required routine maintenance?
 
Why does anybody think comparing airplanes to cars is ever an effective or meaningful exercise?

bartmc said:
The likelihood of someone steering their car into oncoming traffic and killing someone has to be MUCH MUCH MUCH higher than someone on the ground getting hurt by an aluminum rain storm from above or a mid air collision with another plane.

But, we have 40hrs worth of training, recurrent training and YGBFSM medical requirements and strict maintenance regulations to prevent something that is probably exponentially less likely to cause harm to innocent bystanders than driving. We let people 3 heartbeats away from death, in cars that shed parts as they go get out on the interstate and spool up to 75MPH within inches of other people and nobody's whining for more regulation there.

Can you imagine if the feds required a 3rd class medical to drive? Required more training to drive? required routine maintenance?
Click to expand...
 
bartmc said:
The likelihood of someone steering their car into oncoming traffic and killing someone has to be MUCH MUCH MUCH higher than someone on the ground getting hurt by an aluminum rain storm from above or a mid air collision with another plane.

But, we have 40hrs worth of training, recurrent training and YGBFSM medical requirements and strict maintenance regulations to prevent something that is probably exponentially less likely to cause harm to innocent bystanders than driving. We let people 3 heartbeats away from death, in cars that shed parts as they go get out on the interstate and spool up to 75MPH within inches of other people and nobody's whining for more regulation there.

Can you imagine if the feds required a 3rd class medical to drive? Required more training to drive? required routine maintenance?
Click to expand...
That is one of the main issues in a nutshell. Over the last year, five years, ten years, for that matter over the last 110 years, how many people on the ground have been killed or hurt worldwide(except for aerial bombardments during wars) by planes, or parts of planes falling out of the sky. I would suspect that the number is fractions of the numbers of people killed by someone else's car in which they are not a passenger and probably a magnitude or more less if you add injuries to that number. Yet the government, and media is convinced that "reigning in those crazy GA pilots and their flying machines" is going to contribute to public safety.
 
wabower said:
Why does anybody think comparing airplanes to cars is ever an effective or meaningful exercise?
Click to expand...

In this case, I believe it is.

"Things we do that could cause harm to others"

I'm not trying to argue that flying is safer, cheaper, faster or the typical stuff.

Pick walking if you don't like the car analogy.

I'm more likely to fall into someone and harm them while walking down the sidewalk than I am to crash into someone's house in my plane.
 
douglas393 said:
That is one of the main issues in a nutshell. Over the last year, five years, ten years, for that matter over the last 110 years, how many people on the ground have been killed or hurt worldwide(except for aerial bombardments during wars) by planes, or parts of planes falling out of the sky. I would suspect that the number is fractions of the numbers of people killed by someone else's car in which they are not a passenger and probably a magnitude or more less if you add injuries to that number. Yet the government, and media is convinced that "reigning in those crazy GA pilots and their flying machines" is going to contribute to public safety.
Click to expand...

I'm saving up to buy one of these. :D

Japanese_Ohka_rocket_plane.jpg
 
wabower said:
Why does anybody think comparing airplanes to cars is ever an effective or meaningful exercise?
Click to expand...
As a mode of transportation there is no comparison, I would rather fly than drive.:wink2: However, in the context of a public health (read safety) I think the comparison is quite appropriate. The issue is how to improve the safety of an activity to what is acceptable by the general public. To answer the question, I suggest, a preliminary question is really necessary to answer, and that is what exactly is considered to be unsafe by the public, and what is the acceptable risk? To do answer this question, I suggest we need to look at some different activity but an activity that can affect the public similarly. I would suggest general automobiling would be that activity.
 
bartmc said:
In this case, I believe it is.

"Things we do that could cause harm to others"

I'm not trying to argue that flying is safer, cheaper, faster or the typical stuff.

Pick walking if you don't like the car analogy.

I'm more likely to fall into someone and harm them while walking down the sidewalk than I am to crash into someone's house in my plane.
Click to expand...

^^^This. That was the jest of my previous response. The only reason GA is demonized is because it's a niche activity, not because more people die in aggregate than driving drunk and its collateral damage.

I believe highlighting that disparity as a response is not a useless abstraction. Life is replete with risk, one's choices shouldn't be disproportionately targeted just because it's not practiced by one's peers.
 
hindsight2020 said:
^^^This. That was the jest of my previous response. The only reason GA is demonized is because it's a niche activity, not because more people die in aggregate than driving drunk and its collateral damage.

I believe highlighting that disparity as a response is not a useless abstraction. Life is replete with risk, one's choices shouldn't be disproportionately targeted just because it's not practiced by one's peers.
Click to expand...

Have any numbers to back that claim? Obviously not total, but per hour flown, airplanes in the fleet, number of pilots. Anything?
 
alfadog said:
Have any numbers to back that claim? Obviously not total, but per hour flown, airplanes in the fleet, number of pilots. Anything?
Click to expand...

No, I meant total. That's my point. The article appealed to the concept of collateral damage. But they fail to mention that if we're going to focus on collateral damage, which is the only metric that matters to the risk-averse that worries about their children slipping on their tub and thinking suing the bathtub manufacturers is par for the course, then more people are killed by cars than by small airplanes. This is an important metric because the media is trying to appeal to the fear of the pedestrian public, all the while giving them a pass for the fact they choose to allow their family members and friends to drive drunk, partake in road rage, offensive-type driving and generally expose and engage themselves to motor vehicle operation that leads to more pedestrian fatalities. But GA pilots are an unreasonable risk posed on the general public? They're not, and total deaths support that fact.

I see you're not denying total deaths are higher, so we seem to be in agreement there.
 
I think I have the answer. We should counter that texting while going 180 in the plane is safer than texting at 70 in a car.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I see you're not denying total deaths are higher, so we seem to be in agreement there.
Click to expand...

Of course we are.

Just one metric I found. I was wondering how GA deaths might compare to motorcycle deaths. For 2006, about 5000 Americans died on a motorcycle. About 1.1 million motorcycles were sold that year (a high number of sales that came down during the recession).

http://trafficsafety.org/safety/sharing/motorcycle/motor-facts/motor-injuries-fatalities

If 500 folks died in GA (actually it was 706, a high year), that would equate to 110,000 new airplanes sold if the proportion were constant. LOL. One site put 2006 GA sales at 3700, it was also a good year for airplanes. Using those numbers, we I do not present as anything scientific, GA is over 30 times more dangerous that riding a motorcycle - something many folks consider dangerous. Obviously sales do not speak to hours or miles, both better metrics.

Philip Greenspun made an analysis of flying vs. driving in cars using better metrics than me and came up as flying being 10 - 20 times more dangerous that driving.

http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/safety
 
alfadog said:
Of course we are.

Just one metric I found. I was wondering how GA deaths might compare to motorcycle deaths. For 2006, about 5000 Americans died on a motorcycle. About 1.1 million motorcycles were sold that year (a high number of sales that came down during the recession).

http://trafficsafety.org/safety/sharing/motorcycle/motor-facts/motor-injuries-fatalities

If 500 folks died in GA (actually it was 706, a high year), that would equate to 110,000 new airplanes sold if the proportion were constant. LOL. One site put 2006 GA sales at 3700, it was also a good year for airplanes. Using those numbers, we I do not present as anything scientific, GA is over 30 times more dangerous that riding a motorcycle - something many folks consider dangerous. Obviously sales do not speak to hours or miles, both better metrics.
Click to expand...

Something to consider wrt the number of new aircraft sales and new motorcycle sales. How many motorcycles are still on the road after 40 years?
 
My perusal of his article led me to believe that Greenspun concluded all GA accidents were fatal to all aboard. Is that correct?

alfadog said:
Of course we are.

Just one metric I found. I was wondering how GA deaths might compare to motorcycle deaths. For 2006, about 5000 Americans died on a motorcycle. About 1.1 million motorcycles were sold that year (a high number of sales that came down during the recession).

http://trafficsafety.org/safety/sharing/motorcycle/motor-facts/motor-injuries-fatalities

If 500 folks died in GA (actually it was 706, a high year), that would equate to 110,000 new airplanes sold if the proportion were constant. LOL. One site put 2006 GA sales at 3700, it was also a good year for airplanes. Using those numbers, we I do not present as anything scientific, GA is over 30 times more dangerous that riding a motorcycle - something many folks consider dangerous. Obviously sales do not speak to hours or miles, both better metrics.

Philip Greenspun made an analysis of flying vs. driving in cars using better metrics than me and came up as flying being 10 - 20 times more dangerous that driving.

http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/safety
Click to expand...
 
I acknowledged that my reading was a perusal.

Your post cited his metrics as better than yours as well as his conclusions that differ from many others 2X. If he assumed all GA accidents are fatals, do you agree?

alfadog said:
You can read as well as I can, why the game? Make your point.
Click to expand...
 
For those that are interested in this sort of thing, here are two more attempts to relate GA safety to driving.

One thing I realized is how bogus the airline number is with their "passenger-mile". If you fly your Cessna 500 miles with a pax and do not kill anyone, you have 1000 "passenger-miles" accident-free. If the airliner flies 500 miles with 300 people, they now have 15,000 "passenger-miles" accident-free. A better metric is just miles traveled or hours flown for the airplane and that comes out a bit worse than driving for airlines.

http://www.flyingmag.com/forums/training-safety/flying-really-safer-driving

http://www.meretrix.com/~harry/flying/notes/safetyvsdriving.html
 
Last edited:
wabower said:
I acknowledged that my reading was a perusal.

Your post cited his metrics as better than yours as well as his conclusions that differ from many others 2X. If he assumed all GA accidents are fatals, do you agree?
Click to expand...

That are about 1.8 fatalities per fatal accident in GA and about 1.1 in auto accidents. Note that about 40% of fatal auto accidents involve two vehicles so the number per vehicle is less, say 0.7. If you have other numbers to provide or a point to make, I would love to hear.
 
When you introduce the research in support of a post, it's your burden to defend it. Are the fatalities per accident based on Greenspun's study or another source?

alfadog said:
That are about 1.8 fatalities per fatal accident in GA and about 1.1 in auto accidents. Note that about 40% of fatal auto accidents involve two vehicles so the number per vehicle is less, say 0.7. If you have other numbers to provide or a point to make, I would love to hear.
Click to expand...
 
wabower said:
When you introduce the research in support of a post, it's your burden to defend it. Are the fatalities per accident based on Greenspun's study or another source?
Click to expand...

Meh, I am not jumping through hoops for you. If you have something to offer or a point to make then you should do so.
 
Nor am I buying your half-cocked bull**** statistics. Just so we understand each other.

alfadog said:
Meh, I am not jumping through hoops for you. If you have something to offer or a point to make then you should do so.
Click to expand...
 
Bob Noel said:
Something to consider wrt the number of new aircraft sales and new motorcycle sales. How many motorcycles are still on the road after 40 years?
Click to expand...

Yes, very true. There are much better ways to figure it out and I posted some links above on some better attempts.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top