The Fear of Flying

[old man emu]

Participating in the Thread "Diagnose this..." has got me thinking about perceptions of flying.

 

Go through the many topics in this forum and there is a preponderance of discussion of worst case scenarios. It's as if Man found out how to fly like the birds, and the gods are determined to knock him out of the skies.

 

Over one hundred years since those fragile first aircraft clattered their way into the air, we are still convinced that every flight is a flight into catastrophe. Aircraft don't fly in response to the Laws of Physics. They remain airborne in defiance of Murphy's Law. At least that is what the popular feeling is.

 

Look at what those early pilots took into the air. Their engines were low compression, low power assemblies of metals with questionable metallurgical properties. Their fuels were of low quality and carburettion  was a developing art. The materials they built their aircraft from were of random specification, and the effects of aerodynamic loads were poorly understood, if at all.

 

1910                                                       2010

 

The novelty of flying was transformed into sensationalism by, once again, an ignorant meeja. Like Ancient Romans at the Colosseum, every public flight was a chance for people to see a hero fall to his death, like Icarus. Did the meeja of the 1920's report on the mundane successful early passenger flights from Cricklewood to Le Bourget? No. They concentrated on the failed pioneering long distant flights.

 

This concentration on catastrophic failure has remained with us, and forms the basis of our approach to flying. It has hamstrung the development of aircraft as essential components of transport and communication on this continent. It has provided the breeding ground for complex regulation of everything from the ability to obtain permission to learn to fly to the service life of small aircraft components.

 

Motor cars of the 1920s were not much better in their mechanicals, fuels or construction than the aircraft of their time, but both have been greatly improved over the past 100 years. Who amongst you take a trip in a car and constantly worries about engine failures or structural failures? Your greatest worry is the condition of the nut behind the wheel of the other car.

 

If aviation is to take its place amongst the efficient modes of transport available to the people, then we who practise it must abandon this mantle of Doom and Gloom in our approach to it, and  fight against the misrepresentation of its safety by the meeja.

[onetrack]

Unfortunately, the large percentage of early aviation deaths robbed us of many talented, inventive, and very capable aviation people. People ranging from Charles Rolls, right through to Capt Lionel Woolson, inventor of the Packard diesel aero engine.

 

Many would say that these deaths are Evolution at work, removing the risk-takers from the genes of Mankind. However, surprisingly, we still have hordes of risk-takers amongst us.

 

Many of the early aviation deaths were completely preventable, and were caused by exactly the same reasons why aircraft crash today - pilot error, inadequate maintenance, airframe overstress via poor piloting - and flying into bad weather on VFR.

 

Despite the huge emphasis on aviation safety and proper and thorough maintenance, aviators still crash back to terra firma regularly with predictable results. As Julius would say, "Why is it so?"

[old man emu]

We lost a lot of pioneers to railway accidents and early motor car race accidents, but the meeja has not made those deaths so sensational as to instil a fear of train travel of motoring in the General Public. Comparatively, the use of motor vehicles has ended more lives in the last 100 years than have both air and train use.

 

I disagree with the statement, "Many of the early aviation deaths were completely preventable, and were caused by exactly the same reasons why aircraft crash today". How could those early aviators known what they were stepping into. Prevention is a result of experience, and those pilots and designers had not built up the experience. They were crossing the steam by jumping from rock to rock, and calling back to their followers where it was safe to step. The next jump could have landed them on a slippery rock and given them a dunking.

[APenNameAndThatA]

There is one fatal accident per 100 000 hours. So, if you fly 50 hours per year, you have a one in 2000 chance of dying. The baseline rate of deaths for middle aged people is about 1 in 1000 per year. The baseline rate of deaths for kids is about 1/2000. So, if you regularly take your kids flying, and they die, its probably going to be in your airplane. 
 

The road toll is rightly a big concern. IIRC, It is the number one killer of people in their early 20’s... and it is much much safer than flying RAAus. 
 

So a) RAAus could do with being safer, and b)  this is nothing to do with the straw man of saying people say that every flight is a flight into catastrophe. 🙄

[Flying Binghi]

Going back about 40 years ago I remember a helicopter mustering pilot who used to explore the full capability’s of his helicopters performance in every flight. He died when puttering along slowly on a motorbike behind a mob of cattle - hit a rock or something with the front wheel, didn’t slide, just landed wrong and were dead. 

Some say when yer times up, yer times up...

 

 

 

 

.

[Bruce Tuncks]

We are but victims of our inheritance, and the fact is that our tree-dwelling ancestors left us with an innate fear  of heights. So do not expect people to be rational about flying.

[Jabiru7252]

If we were meant to stay on the ground, we'd have roots...

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

And Binghi, the Moslems think like you do...  "it is written" is a thing they often say. They say this about road accidents and so they don't wear seatbelts and they die a lot. When making an appointment there the correct thing is to add "inshallah" which means " god willing".

[onetrack]

I doubt whether it's possible to change the meeja's insistence on making every aircraft crash into horrifying, shocking, appalling, front page news - because sensationalism sells in the meeja - regardless of whether it's headlines on a news poster or clickbait on the 'net. It has been that way for as long as newspaper owners have existed - although it has reached new heights in the modern advertising age. And a fear of crashing back to Earth in flimsy flying machines, is a very basic fear.

 

It is true, that when you're numbers up, it's up. But that doesn't mean we need to ignore rules, regulations, and teaching, that is all designed to reduce crashes, serious injuries and fatalities - because all these are a cost burden worn by the entire community - sometimes directly, often indirectly.

 

I found an interesting and exceptionally comprehensive 2010 Finnish study on ultralight crashes. It's titled, "Ultralight Aviation Safety and its Improvement through Accident Investigation". I believe this very thorough study needs more circulation.

The study explain how Finnish ultralight aviation did not exist before 1982 - when some Finns saw ultralights in action in the U.S., and started to embrace the sport with gusto.

However, in the years from 1982 to 2009, the ultralight crash rate in Finland was exceptionally high, and increasing each year.

It was the excessive number of ultralight crashes in 2009 that led to Finnish authorities investigating every ultralight crash, finding the reasons behind the crash, and addressing the main problem that caused the crash.

 

The study found that by investigating every ultralight accident and finding the reason/s behind it, and then disseminating the crash report information, has also led to an increased level of attention to safety in ultralight flying.

This a pretty good result for a country with only 1/5th the population of Australia, and some pretty unfavourable flying conditions a lot of the time.

It's also an interesting study, because the Finnish personality is generally gung-ho and adventurous - coupled with good equipment operating skills - as witnessed by the domination of car rallies, by "the Mad Finns".

 

However, despite the study stating that the crash rate was reduced by studying accidents and disseminating the information widely through the community - they also state that there are numerous other factors involved in ultralight crashes, besides the very obvious ones, found via thorough accident investigations.

 

Regardless, I think the Finns have done a very good job in producing this study. But the bottom line is, they found that the increasing crash rate of the early years was the same pattern as repeated in any other country - a lack of adequate pilot training, an often poor level of kit construction, poor levels of maintenance, and getting into unfavourable weather conditions. 

Fully 25% of the Finnish ultralight crashes were directly caused by pilots inability to recognise the symptoms of an approaching stall - an indication that ultralight pilot training for the Finns in that era, was totally inadequate.

 

https://www.turvallisuustutkinta.fi/material/attachments/otkes/tutkintaselostukset/en/ilmailuonnettomuuksientutkinta/2009/s12009l_tutkintaselostus/s12009l_tutkintaselostus.pdf

[Ryanm]

On 17/10/2020 at 9:30 AM, old man emu said:

I disagree with the statement, "Many of the early aviation deaths were completely preventable, and were caused by exactly the same reasons why aircraft crash today". How could those early aviators known what they were stepping into. Prevention is a result of experience, and those pilots and designers had not built up the experience. They were crossing the steam by jumping from rock to rock, and calling back to their followers where it was safe to step. The next jump could have landed them on a slippery rock and given them a dunking.

I don't think that's changed. Yes, we've advanced somewhat since those first flights, but "we don't know what we don't know".

We've seen engine manufactures make mistakes with fatigue life of various metal components, yet we'd probably say we know all we can about metal.

 

Fundamentaly yes, the basic design is pretty ironed out, but look at the horror story that Boeing has been dealing with for over a year.

[facthunter]

With U/L flying, the risk factor is very much in YOUR hands. The "when your times up, it's up" would require a massive amount of organising and devising considering Laws of Physics apply universally.. Surely Dog has more important things to do in this really BIG universe.  WE inhabit a very small blue speck of dust in an obscure solar system in an arm of the milky way our galaxy which itself looks like a speck of stardust like all other galaxies do in the sky, if you are far enough away. Nev