Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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#1894343
The thing is that risk should be considered as having two parts - the likelihood of the bad thing happening, and the severity of the outcome if it does happen.
So although the engine doesn't know it's over water and the risk of failure hasn't changed, the severity of the outcome if it does fail over water is much worse...
JAFO, Forfoxake, TopCat liked this
#1894349
Miscellaneous wrote:
lobstaboy wrote:...the severity of the outcome if it does fail over water is much worse...

Not necessarily so if you are flying over Texas with so many pet tigers. :wink:


as for Australia, with sharks and box jellyfish in coastal waters, deadly snakes and spiders inland, and saltwater crocodiles on the edge between .. :? :)
lobstaboy, Ibra liked this
#1894352
kanga wrote:
Miscellaneous wrote:
lobstaboy wrote:...the severity of the outcome if it does fail over water is much worse...

Not necessarily so if you are flying over Texas with so many pet tigers. :wink:


as for Australia, with sharks and box jellyfish in coastal waters, deadly snakes and spiders inland, and saltwater crocodiles on the edge between .. :? :)

Are you suggesting one should spend as much time as possible airborne when down under, for reasons of self preservation? :D
kanga liked this
#1894358
Miscellaneous wrote:..
Are you suggesting one should spend as much time as possible airborne when down under, for reasons of self preservation? :D


.. having, of course, first checked on a thorough preflight that no nasty crittur has stowed away and is sharing the cockpit with you :)

[On Bill Lancaster's Avro Avian flight to Australia in 1927, with his non-pilot sponsor in the other cockpit with the control column removed, soon after takeoff in India he noticed a krait in his footwell. He trimmed the aircraft very carefully, unscrewed his column bolt, extracted the column, used it as a stick to kill the snake (trying not to press either rudder pedal), then reinserted and resecured the column ..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Lancaster_(aviator) ]
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1894365
Spamcan Defender wrote:
TopCat wrote:27nm from Lands End. For me it's doable at 9000'; Dover to CGN at 6000' for the same reason. Southampton to Guernsey DCT, absolutely not.


Personally, I just dont get that...... :doh:
I've flown IOW-Guernsey, IOW-Deauville etc all direct and without much in the way of stress....My own mitigations are lifejackets and a raft which I think are sensible given the route. I'd definitely contemplate a trip to Iceland (via Faroes) and have already planned a trip to Scotland inc Shetland.

You'd (and I include ALL licence holders) be as well not having a PPL if the worry factor is so high...

Well there's a generalisation if I ever heard one.

Not that I give a damn whether you think I should have a PPL or not, I'd just refer you to my comment here, where I point out that not everyone's attitude to risk is the same.

As
I wrote:Those that are happy to fly long distances over water in a single, or at night, may gain meaning from their experiences doing such things, and that's fine. I don't criticise them. But they're essentially gambling on the quality of their engine maintenance, not on their own abilities. Can you put your hand on your heart and be confident of getting a family of four including two small kids out of a sinking, inverted, PA28 and into a life raft in a rough sea? No? Then you're gambling if you fly those missions, let's be clear.


And, as @lobstaboy points out:
lobstaboy wrote:The thing is that risk should be considered as having two parts - the likelihood of the bad thing happening, and the severity of the outcome if it does happen.
So although the engine doesn't know it's over water and the risk of failure hasn't changed, the severity of the outcome if it does fail over water is much worse...

So any assessment of the risk that ignores the latter is simply delusional. Take the risk by all means, but at least recognise it for what it is.
lobstaboy, JAFO liked this
#1894369
TopCat wrote:...but at least recognise it for what it is.

That's generally where it falls over. IMO it is rare for an accurate risk assessment to be made. Not helped by the subjective nature of the task. Some perceive risk as much higher than it is (or than others if you prefer) and most underplay actual risk when the activity is something we really wish to do. For example some may be averse to water crossings, however they may choose to adjust their assessment to tick off a beach landing at Barra. :D

This is most obvious on the forum when forumites criticise the chosen activity and perceived risk taking of others. :D

How would we forumites assess Dave McLeod's Orion Face solo climb (solo being unprotected)? :D The immense size of the face may make it difficult/impossible to see him on the face if viewing on a phone.

#1894375
Fun video @Miscellaneous but we mostly don't have any useful knowledge. The question is how would other climbers assess the risk, surely?
You're right though, risk is an elusive beastie to pin down. It is, and should be for us, subjective.
On the other hand a lot of research and thinking now underpins the assessment of risk in hazardous industries like nuclear, offshore and so on.
The military are quite good at it too...
#1894377
TopCat wrote:
Spamcan Defender wrote:
TopCat wrote:27nm from Lands End. For me it's doable at 9000'; Dover to CGN at 6000' for the same reason. Southampton to Guernsey DCT, absolutely not.


Personally, I just dont get that...... :doh:
I've flown IOW-Guernsey, IOW-Deauville etc all direct and without much in the way of stress....My own mitigations are lifejackets and a raft which I think are sensible given the route. I'd definitely contemplate a trip to Iceland (via Faroes) and have already planned a trip to Scotland inc Shetland.

You'd (and I include ALL licence holders) be as well not having a PPL if the worry factor is so high...

Well there's a generalisation if I ever heard one.

Not that I give a damn whether you think I should have a PPL or not, I'd just refer you to my comment here, where I point out that not everyone's attitude to risk is the same.


OK, firstly that wasnt intended as a personal poke.. :thumleft: .... I'm just surprised that the level of risk aversion indicated by some on this thread would appear to be such that flying would seem incongruous with that viewpoint..... :scratch: :scratch:

Taking flying over water as an example....at what point does an expanse of water become 'too much'?? Is it purely subjective or do folks use a quantitative method such as distance?? Is a 1km wide lake, for example, too much or not??

The other question is, would you fly from, say, Norwich to Rotterdam in a typical light twin? Do you percieve that as 'safer'? I only ask as I think the answer would be interesting. I qoute an extract from http://www.aviationsafetymagazine.com below........

Does having two engines increase the likelihood of an engine failure? Were not sure but we would guess it does, since the more engines you have, the more likely something will break. More to the point, if one does fail, would you have been better off with just one motor in the first place? In some cases yes, in other cases no.

Between 1972 and 1976, the NTSB investigated the outcome of twin-engine crashes and concluded that in the event of an engine failure that resulted in a crash, the likelihood of it being fatal was four times greater than a crash in a single.


So, the percieved 'extra safety' of a twin is not what it first appears.... :think:

The bottom line is, I GET that some folks are hugely risk-averse but surely that has to limit the utility and enjoyment of flying in varying degrees. I dont particularly want to die in a plane crash but I'll certainly use my aircraft to the fullest extent (Turbo Arrow III) but take sensible mitigations along the way.

SD
#1894379
lobstaboy wrote:On the other hand a lot of research and thinking now underpins the assessment of risk in hazardous industries like nuclear, offshore and so on.
The military are quite good at it too...

Indeed, however when it comes to assessing flying risk it very much depends on the individual, the mood they are in, what they had for breakfast, which side of the bed they got out and, mostly…how much they want the objective. I think what I'm suggesting is that rather than it being based on fact and logic, it's 90% emotion. :wink:

I'd suggest the biggest influencer on risk taking is likely to be who, if anyone, is in the aeroplane with you. And that doesn't change the risk. :D
#1894382
Back a page - unfortunately I can imagine the faces of the happy occupants of the aircraft posted by @Ibra during an engine out over afforested areas of the Grampians, for instance. I fly solo whenever possible, certainly not with family members.
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By FlightDek
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1894384
Miscellaneous wrote:I'd suggest the biggest influencer on risk taking is likely to be who, if anyone, is in the aeroplane with you. And that doesn't change the risk. :D


It does change the risk as risk is dependent on probability of something happening and impact of the outcome.

I agree the likelihood hasn't changed but the impact is different depending on who is in the aircraft. A fatal accident when flying solo and your children have lost a parent. A fatal accident when flying with your partner leaves your children as orphans. This is definitely a greater risk
TopCat liked this
#1894386
@FlightDek I agree, however the point I was making is that the likelihood of an incident has not changed. And the decisions we make are as much influenced by emotion and kidding ourselves, as by hard logic. IME pilots overestimate the likelihood of a successful landing over land. In simple terms they 'assume' landing on water 90 % fatality versus landing on land 90% chance of walking away. Don't jump all over the 90%, it's only plucked out of thin air to make my point. :D The reality is much more complex than that. :wink:

I was only recently saying to a fellow forumite that I have flown on my own so much over the last 40 or 50 hours that I have an unease if I have a passenger. It used to be it felt odd to fly on my own. :D
#1894391
Miscellaneous wrote:
I'd suggest the biggest influencer on risk taking is likely to be who, if anyone, is in the aeroplane with you. And that doesn't change the risk. :D


Yes, this may be right. But the point is that it DOES change the risk. It doesn't change the likelihood of the bad thing happening (eg ditching) but it does change the severity of the outcome (eg killing yourself Vs killing your whole family).
Emotion will drive that. But that is acceptable, even correct. To infer that because a decision has an element of emotions in it, then it is in some way less accurate is wrong in my view (ftaod I'm not implying that you said that, but it does get said).

Edit to add: I see @FlightDek has made the same point.
I'm not a statistically significant sample but I've had three enforced landings over land and I'm still here. I'm confident that had they happened over water I'd be dead.
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