Informal poll for the IR's: do you fly single piston in IMC?

[agpilot34]

Wednesday afternoon, I lost a fellow pipeline patrol pilot over in Arkansas when their 182 went down near Batesville, AR. I didnt know the man personally, but in a fairly close knit small profession, it still hits close to home. Just initially looking at the conditions, I am pretty sure we'll end up finding out that they pushed the weather risk TOO far, and used some really poor judgement. The weather here that day was around 300' and anywhere from 1/2 to 1 1/2 mi. visibility, and I am told it was about the same over in that part of the world. Absolutely no reason in the world to be out trying to get down the pipeline in conditions like that. They were enroute from Jolliet, IL back to Barr Air Patrols' base in Mesquite, TX, and never arrived. They were found Thursday some time about a mile from the Batesville, AR airport down in the timber. Dont know at this point whether they were still on line, or were attempting to get into Batesville. I know that Avbug and I have disagreed in the beginning of this thread, but after going back and reading his posts, and having him explain his position a bit further, it turns out he and I share the same view, just a different way of exlaining it. He knows what he's talking about, friends. I had my first night time electrical failure a couple of weeks ago, and although it happened in night VFR conditions and I landed without incident, I can definitely see how things could have been much worse had there been a few more risks involved.

 

[USMCmech]

Again, show me the math.

I did, it's a very simple formula,

Risk = (probability of an accident) X (losses per accident)

None of these variables can ever be zero

The risk of a lightening strike is inevitable, is it? Hogwash. Show me the math, scientist. Show me the math.

The odds of an average person living in the USA being struck by lightning once in his lifetime has been estimated to be 1:280,000

"Eliminate the risk of being struck by lighting by staying inside your car or a building durring tunderstorms." Nice try. Lighting can injure you inside, and it can happen far away or even without any thunderstorm.

Roy Sulivan has the record for being the human who has been struck by lightning the most times. He did everything possible to eliminate the risk of beig struck by lighting, but it still happened. Two of his hits were while he was inside a car, and two were inside buildings, supposedly "safe" areas.

Must accept risk! Must! Cannot live without it! Cannot make it go away! No! Will not! Cannot! Love risk! Embrace risk!

This is called human nature, ALL humans love taking risks, for without it there can be no rewards.

If you reject this notion, how did you get your job? You embraced a risk of rejection becase of the reward.

I like to tell individuals to think of an engine failure in terms of inevitability. Does this mean that the individual will have an engine failure? Of course not. But I like to stress the mindset to prepare for it, which is part of risk elimination. But to take that into your fatalistic world, we ought not fly, because not only is the engine failure inevitable, but so is the crash

Exactly,

There is always a given probablility of an engine failure durring any flight, therefore you should take steps to mimize the damage that coud do = less risk.

But, you have not reduced risk to zero, you have not "elimnated" it.

Carry a second engine and you double the probability, but you drasticly lower the losses of that event = less risk which is good thing.



You seem to belive that I run around telling people to take foolish risks, because crashes are inevitable, I don't. I take every possible step you have described to eliminate risk in my flying and I demand my students do the same. Risk in anything we do should never be just accepted, it should be understood, studied, and minimized.

Life is too precious to waste by taking foolish risks. However it is also too precious to waste by not taking any risks.

 

[minitour]

Insurance is based on gambling.

No. Insurance is based on the law of large numbers. They know they'll have X losses and pay Y dollars in claims. They also know you and I will continue to pay our premium as well as everyone else in the "pool" and that offsets the losses.

It's not gambling in the least.

-mini

 

[Fearless Tower]

No. Insurance is based on the law of large numbers. They know they'll have X losses and pay Y dollars in claims. They also know you and I will continue to pay our premium as well as everyone else in the "pool" and that offsets the losses.

It's not gambling in the least.

-mini

I'd disagree...insurance is indeed gambling....very calculated gambling on the part of the insurance companies, but gambling nonetheless. Insurance companies do lose once in a while (for example, recent extreme hurricane damage payouts).

 

[mamba20]

dont be a *************************, if there is no ice, no storms and you have decent wx for approaches then why not go?

 

[agpilot34]

Yeah, THERE'S an intelligent statement.

 

[GEXDriver]

dont be a *************************, if there is no ice, no storms and you have decent wx for approaches then why not go?

It is clear that you have totally missed the point of this thread.

 

[Muddauber]

No, won't do it. We did it in fighters just long enough to get VMC and we had a bang seat.


Muddy

 

[FrozenPilot]

Thank you USMCmech for a post that makes sense without twisting around the facts or another's words. avbug must have been an opinion journalist in another life.

 

[avbug]

No twisting necessary. No mathematical formula exists, even given the assumptions provided in the foregoing theoretical attempt, to prove inevitability, or demonstrate that risk is inevitable.

Acceptance of risk, and therefore gambling in aviation, remains a foolish and asinine endevor for which no justification may be found legitimate.