ABC article alleging "hobby aircraft" not safe

[ClintonB]

My 182 was purely for “hobby use”.

If you are not working in it, isn’t that the point of flying, a hobby.

 

[Marty_d]

So when any GA aircraft gets hired out for a "hobby' flyer to bore holes in the sky for an hour, it becomes a hobby aircraft?

Doesn't matter who owns it, just who's driving it.

[turboplanner]

The word hobby in that story was a positioning word; if you read it the intent was to show that Recreational Aircraft operations were unsafe. If you fly a Recreational Aircraft it would be very much in your interest not to have your freedoms curtailed based on false information or your training and flying made more expensive based on people's perception that there were 27 deaths in 12 months in these aircraft, whereas if there are any issues with deaths they are NOT in RA.

As you know I do push for zero fatalities, but I'm aware that we all stuff up, so there will be an annual figure, but if that figure is falsified for some reason that's another story.

I don't hear RA people referring to their aircraft, built to strict standards of design as "hobby planes" and while you could once refer to RC and Control Line aircraft as hobby planes, I doubt whether they would let you get away with it today.

When you read back over the threads, if advisors and politicians have been part of the 9,000 viewers of the story, some of them will be kicking the "probem" upstairs.

[onetrack]

Webpage viewing numbers must be data-crunched. From my 25 years of buying and selling on the 'net, these are the critical data figures. For every 100 clicks on average on a webpage, only one is actually interested in what has been written.

 

The other 99 are accidental clicks, or "drive-by" clicks, because a viewer just wanted to find if the written info was interesting (and it wasn't), and dozens of "bot clicks" by Google bots, and a hundred other internet data miners.

Of the 90 people who actually read the entire article and are interested in it, 85 would be aviation enthusiasts with maybe a couple of dozen pilots amongst them.

The other 5 viewers would be "industry professionals" trying to see if there's any new take-home information in it. They wouldn't take long to realise there isn't.

 

I think you place too much emphasis on the ABC's ability to influence decision-making as regards recreational flying rules and regulations. The problems only start when the webpage viewers are in the hundreds of thousands, and the article is on multiple major media sites, and social media pages - and there's a dedicated media "push" against the subject of the article, with multiple articles continuing the same theme.

 

I'm more concerned about the major media sites - and in particular, a local major newspaper - producing articles after aircraft crashes, trying to link unconnected events by tenuous links, to make events appear related, and an ongoing problem.

I'm referring to the seaplane crash off Rottnest where the media are linking unrelated seaplane crashes, and even the death of a previous owner of the seaplane business (in a helicopter crash), as indicative that the seaplane charter industry is full of shonks and cowboys, all cutting corners and putting pax at risk. It's pure media clickbait at its best.

 

Edited January 12 by onetrack

[Area-51]

I am extremely disappointed with the lackluster turnover rate of replenishing on Marketplace and lack of community support by the media companies toward minority interest groups... It is stifling the development of my hobby aircraft pursuits. ☹️

[turboplanner]

The horse has bolted on this, with a lot of discussion on various FB and other websites.

It affects RA Instructors, RA students, RA pilots and RA flying schools, so I would recommend these people hit the net and see who the players are and what they are saying and how it might affect you.

Discussing it publicly just gives them a heads up.

[jackc]

2 hours ago, turboplanner said:

The horse has bolted on this, with a lot of discussion on various FB and other websites.

It affects RA Instructors, RA students, RA pilots and RA flying schools, so I would recommend these people hit the net and see who the players are and what they are saying and how it might affect you.

Discussing it publicly just gives them a heads up.

Thats WHY I love meeting people personally, or at the least having phone conversations, which was our only choice,  in the Jurassiic era 🤩

[facthunter]

  You could send smoke signals but since I gave up smoking, I just wink and smile  etc. and help old ladies off trams till I found out some of them did not want to get off.  Nev

[Garfly]

1 hour ago, jackc said:

Thats WHY I love meeting people personally, or at the least having phone conversations, which was our only choice,  in the Jurassiic era 🤩

But back then, we'd never have known each other, right?  

 

(And for all that, I reckon it's more for better than for worse  ;- )

 

 

 

Edited January 14 by Garfly