Flying Spanner

For the most part I believe and my opion of recreational aviation could and can be safe from operator to operator. But as a general concern of people saying it is statistically safe, I believe is out right wishful thinking and are living in denial for the sport we love and would hate to discontinue. I'm happy for people to believe it is safe as it will let me continue to let me fly in the future, but I do believe otherwise. I fly with the reasoning that i am prepared take my chances at this given time in my life as I get so much back from it and try to protect myself as much as possible from the holes in the cheese lining up using common sense and good practices. If you compare RA/GA accidents say in a yearly total and compared to private passenger vehicle transport we come out smelling roses. But if you look at in this way, what do you think? Using my own averages as they differ so much betweens us all, For example: If you look at an airline passenger jet carrying say 400pax from Melbourne to London with 1 stop in between and return. People that fly long distance - average maybe once per second year. You would have total of 4 trips/sectors travel flt time totaling 40 hours Kilometers per seat 40,000 Kms. In one year, 1 airline may do the trip daily reaching 365 times trips a year with out incident hopefully. And without pax fatilities, no problems. Now let's look at pax car for example: People drive per year - Almost every one I cannot even work out how many trips or sectors I average year that I do! But as a guess between 2-4 trip/sectors minuim a day. I do average around 20,000 - 30,000 Kms a year Total hours in the car I cannot say but I would average 1 and a half hours a day totaling about 500 hours a year. Now if I look at flying my RA-AUS aircraft People who fly per year - minority I do about an average of 8o-120 hours a year private flying My average trip time would average about 1 hour So we looking about 80 to 120 trips a year. Distance flying 15,000 - 20,000 km's a year. Now if you look at the totals, I don't have the actual accident rates, but comparingly a calculated guess, this how I see it. If I were to compare the trips/sectors, I believe the car would win hands down in safety due to the high amount trips and the total qauntity per accident report in doing so. The total km's and distance per trip is much lesser in comparisons to other forms but there is still masses of time and trips involved for everyone. If I were to compare by distance kms I say the airliner would be much safer as it does less trips and travel so much further in small time than any other form. Then I look at our RA/GA aircraft and I see we don't travel that far, we do a fair amount of trips/sectors, and there just not many of us flying aircraft on regular basis for the comparison rates of accidents. It just doesn't seem to be convincingly safe. The other thing I do recignise is the difference in qaulity of operational standards from hanger to hanger in comparison to the airline and passenger vehicle operations out there, that must make a difference on your statistic chances of having a bingle in RA/GA? As I said this is my beliefs and opion as a pilot/maintainer. I believe we have much work to do in safety, culture and transparency in what we do.

I ask my myself why 3 Tech managers have crashed and burned in row and the current stand in had not previously offered himself for interview? Is he scared? Or can he predict this outcome? Any new TM to the organise will need time to catch up to his/her position and require introduction and training into the position learning the rules that apply to this niche category of flying. This position is a lot different to any of the other RAA flying operations position. The reasons being is that flying operations, such as airlaw, has for the most part just been adopted from CASA GA and applied to RAA in the same manner. For the Maintenace, registration and engineering the RAA has invented thier own custom set procedures and law making over time of which has a mine field of differences and holes compared to the CASA GA system and cannot be mirror matched and applied in rule making. With all this, the RAA only want to use 1 Tech manager to execute this whole area and at the same time there is a less pool of experienced individuals working along side the TM at the head office with less support or skills pool to bounce off. This leaves any TM isolated with less skilled oversight. If ever a TM ever leaves you have no redundcy in system and the issues formulate over time. When will the RAA wake up and admit the problems in this area and apply some common sense and apply more support and back up? Yes it will cost more money! When will they realize it's not a 1 man job?

I agree I have had 2 guys that have purchased eBay specials more lately that I can remember. One was great the other a shocker. They expect me to fill out the ACR and get on their way! Until I discover some nice little secrets like a welded up boom that's not straight in this case. I said I am happy to do the report but I will be writing it in the report. The guy never came back and I have not heard otherwise. This situation on its own proves its worth in safety. I think having the document makes things a little more formal. All the L2 has to do is note safety defects that a purchaser may not see or want to see as a safety risk. If the L2 is not comfortable they can simple refuse to sign any paperwork. If the owner knows about a defect and still chooses to fly the A/C it also shows pure negligence if an accident occurs. The owner can also opt for a second L2 if not happy with the report. As an L2 I back the ACR.