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.