Single Eng. Piston over water

[USMCmech]

Avbug, you never answered my question.

Could you ever be the cause of an airplane crash? Yes or No?

Let me give you a maintenance example. I hear a lot of mechanics who believe leaving a tool in an engine or airframe is a calculated risk. They strongly urge their counterparts to refrain from marking their tools. Don't leave your name on your tools; it could come back to haunt you. That's assumption of risk, assumption of error. It does nothing to eliminate the risk; it assumes leaving tools in aircraft will continue to happen, and finds a way to keep from getting caught. Idiotic.

I am very concerned regarding FOD and tool control. My boxes are shadowed. Each shadow is labled. Each tool is marked and labled. Each tool that comes out of the box goes on a control sheet, each must be checked back into the box and off the sheet before th aircraft can be released. If I am in a shop and someone borrows my tool where it can't be accounted for, nothing gets released or flies until that tool is found. Control, risk elimination. More effort, not as easy...but anything less would be foolishness, dangerous, a "calculated risk," and idiotic.

This is the process of risk elimination. Do you open critical areas with pens in your pocket that could fall out and fall into the work, or do you remove them? I remove them. Risk elimination. I don't calculate that the chances are unlikely that the pens might fall out; I merely eliminate the hazard, which cannot then be put in play, and therefore eliminate a risk.

All well and good, I do the same things to try and prevent ever destorying a plane with a 3$ socket. To not take those simple steps would definately be idiotic.


However could there ever be a scenerio where you did leave a tool in an airplane causeing it to crash?



Since you skydive I would like to know how you eliminate the risk of your parachutes malfunctoning?

Since I have personally seen video tape of a "double malfunction" (which miracoulsy didn't kill the jumper) I would like this information before I take up skydiveing.

TSO'd rig,

Properly packed reserve,

AAD,

properly trained and experianced jumper,

Yes to all of the above, yet it still happened.

1 in 1000 chance of your primary chute malfunctioning, multiplied by a 1 in 10,000 chance of you reserve malfunctioning. You have a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of having BOTH certified, well maintained, paracutes not stoping your fall.

The simple fact is that jumping out of a plane wearing a parachute IS a game of russian roulete, only you have 10,000,000 empty chambers, and one live.


Calculating risk is actually a science, a realatively precise one too. It's called actuarieal science, the science of measureing and quantifying risk. I just gave a crude example above. Since insurance companies are in the buisnes of covering risk, they have a pretty good idea about what the risks in any given activity are.

FYI everybody, General Aviation is ranked closely to riding motorcycles on their scale of risk.

 

[QueensPilot]

Avbug:
Is it overwater flight? Or extended overwater flight? There are a lot of singles crossing the Long Island Sound from Long Island to Connecticut. You don't consider this idiotic, do you?

 

[minitour]

Avbug:
Is it overwater flight? Or extended overwater flight? There are a lot of singles crossing the Long Island Sound from Long Island to Connecticut. You don't consider this idiotic, do you?

It seems though it's just single engine flight...period.

-mini

 

[USMCmech]

What do the regs say about private, VFR rated pilots flying across a large body of water such as one of the Great Lakes? The straight across distance of Lake Michigan is about 60 miles. do you need a special rating to do it? or carry special gear for a distance like that?

For pt 91 operations, there are no regulations whatsoever beyond those covering normal X-country flight.

No requirements for lifejackets, flight plans, ect.

 

[U of I Tweak]

Well I'm glad Avbug thinks he's figured it out and has eliminated all risks he'll ever have to deal with while flying.

Although if you read just a couple of his examples, you wonder how he can fly at all. First we look at his statement that if he flies a single engine airplane, he always flies where there is an emergency landing site. I think that's admirable and a great way to limit risk. However, when it comes to takeoff, there is almost always a point where if the engine quits, there are no good options. Look at Palwaukee....congested city off the end of every runway. If you don't have enough altitude to turn back, you're not going to find a good place to land. I reduce the risk by climbing at Vx until I reach an altitude where I can turn back....but that doesn't completely eliminate it. The only way I can do that is to not take off.

Once in the air he mentions the fact of heavy traffic. One can just use the "big sky" theory or "calculate the risk and accept it," or do what he does. Using all the tools available to him, including visual scanning, radio calls, ATC and TCAS, he has eliminated the risk of being in a mid-air collision. Ignoring for the time being that he has repeatedly condemed relying on radios and such for use in collision avoidance, even using all of these tools does not eliminate the risk of a mid-air. Not everyone uses their radio, or has a transponder for TCAS to pick up and ATC is not infallable. Our eyes aren't suited for the task of picking up traffic. Eyes detect movement, an airplane on a collision course doesn't appear to move making it very difficult to detect. Again, using all the tools available to you to reduce the risk is great, but you're wrong if you think that you have completely eliminated the risk of a collision.

I don't see what the huge problem is with using the term 'calculated risk,' but whether you calculate the risk or don't, it doesn't change the fact that it is there. Every time you get into any airplane, the risk of an accident, injury or death exists. To think that you have removed all risk is asinine, but if it makes you happy then go for it. Just don't condem other people for acknowledging that various types of flying have risks that can't be eliminated, and yet they choose to do it anyway.

 

[H.Agenda]

I cant believe this thread has gone on as long as it has..

Avbug has eloquently provided a rational, deductive thought process on risk that I think any sane pilot would have a hard time arguing with.


and single engine over water flights.. I wouldnt want to make a career out of that.

 

[mtrv]

I cant believe this thread has gone on as long as it has..

Avbug has eloquently provided a rational, deductive thought process on risk that I think any sane pilot would have a hard time arguing with.

Some statements are rational, and some are on the deceptive side, using the statistical numbers game. Anyone with at least a half a set of brains, is well aware, that numbers can be played in many ways, to make a convincing statement. Even if it's a bunch on nonsense balony. And here is such a statement:

Russian roulette places a 1 in six chance of taking that bullet. Or one in five if we use my Ruger SP101. Flight over the water, consdering only the possibility of an engine failure, is one out of two. Either it will fail, or it won't. At any given moment in time. Check your math.

If it becomes a 50/50 chance of engine failure over a body of water, then the same would apply to over land, conjested cities, etc. Just imagine every second aircraft flown, having an engine failure in flight! It just doesn't happen.

But even the one in six for Russian Roulette, is a numbers game. One or two people spinning a six shot cylinder could technically survive for years, even if they tried the scenario several times a day, and had a lot of luck in their favor.

Increase those two people to six, and the chance of a bullet in the head is guaranteed for one unlucky soul.

Do one in every six flights of the same single engine aircraft result in failure? Of course not! Would anyone care to fly any single engine airplane that had odds of 50/50 or one in six? Of course not! Are we flying six different aircraft where a mechanic has loosend the oil pan screw on one particular plane? Again, the answer is no.

Avbug is just playing a numbers game, that even himself can't really believe in!

P.S. If Avbug just happened to be flying that single engine turbine aerial tanker last week, that dropped it's load with precision along the side of the highway (might have been the freeway), then good job!

 

[sky37d]

What do the regs say about private, VFR rated pilots flying across a large body of water such as one of the Great Lakes? The straight across distance of Lake Michigan is about 60 miles. do you need a special rating to do it? or carry special gear for a distance like that?

There is lake crossing reporting service, required for single engine VFR aircraft. No special rating. Also, all the SE people I know who do that go as high as they can, in the hope that if something does go wrong they can get close to shore, if not land.

Unfortunately, most do not wear survival suits, because:
a. they will make it.
b. or, land close to a fishing boat and only spend 15 seconds in the water.
c. or, are totally unaware of the survival time, and hypothermia onset, in 60 degree water.
d. or, know the coast guard is standing by with helicopters that can pull them out in a couple of minutes.

 

[Lead Sled]

For what it's worth, here's my take on it...
As a professional, I go to great lengths to take as much risk as possible out of any type of flying that I do. Would I personally fly myself over a bunch of water in a single? I don't think that I could say definately yes or no, because it would depend upon many factors. I am not suicidal and I've been in this business long enough to have had a few engine failures in singles, twins, and even a couple in jets. If you loose an engine in a single - out over open water - the result, at best, isn't going to be very pretty. Under the best of circumstances, it isn't an operation to be taken lightly and you certainly need to be prepared and on your "A game". I think Clint Eastwood said it best when he asked the question: "Are ya feeling lucky, Punk? ...Well are ya?"

'Sled

 

[777-2H4]

Ah, that does make sense to get as much altitude as possible so you have more glide time if the engine goes.

There was a story last year of a guy in a Piper flying from Michigan to Wisconsin and he ran out of gas and had to ditch just 5 miles offshore from Milwaukee. he had called MKE approach already....in fact he also called 911 from his cellphone before he went down. he was able to climb out of the plane before it sank and still have the 911 dispatcher. THEN he made a dumb move. since he was a competitive swimmer in college he thought he could swim to shore in frigid water (last fall). Well, I never heard whether they found his body.

Pilot error in miscalculating fuel needs, AND no survival gear was on the plane.

There is lake crossing reporting service, required for single engine VFR aircraft. No special rating. Also, all the SE people I know who do that go as high as they can, in the hope that if something does go wrong they can get close to shore, if not land.

Unfortunately, most do not wear survival suits, because:
a. they will make it.
b. or, land close to a fishing boat and only spend 15 seconds in the water.
c. or, are totally unaware of the survival time, and hypothermia onset, in 60 degree water.
d. or, know the coast guard is standing by with helicopters that can pull them out in a couple of minutes.