Yes, as a long-time fixed-wing RC hobbyist, it's generally the newbie idiots who do stupid things that threaten the entire hobby. Despite all the new rules (which I don't even bother to keep up with anymore), I still fly my planes like I always have. And just like always, I don't bother anyone and no one bothers me.
Yeah that’s the dream alright. So many of them are so incredibly inconsiderate that it gives the rest of us a bad name.
I’m legitimately too embarrassed to fly it around anyone because of how incredibly inconsiderate your average hobbyist is. Even though I actually have a reason to fly it (I get paid).
If a decent pilot is following the existing rules/recommendations, then they won't be flying over people, or at least anyone other than themselves, so when something goes wrong, they are extremely unlikely to hurt anyone.
I stopped my private pilot training short of actually getting my license and even now, more than 20 years later, I can guarantee you I wouldn't make some of those mistakes.
No, these guys had no business trying to control any kind of airplane.
It's also why things in aviation are so fixed and difficult to change. Not having any new civil aviation planes for 30 years worked... how about 40, 50? When will it break? Well, when someone develops an easy to build, easy to fly, inexpensive experimental craft and zillions of people do it all at once (hasn't happened yet).
One of the more interesting things I've found is that a huge number (easily a majority) of instructors are recently trained flyers, because there is a pipeline to train them and they're cheaper than using experienced pilots (esp for multi-engine and more complex airplanes). They also know all the ins-outs of the training and rule books (with recent changes) so they know how to pass all the tests and how to teach that. Sooooo you have a bunch of inexperienced pilots teaching all the new pilots... there's likely a failure there, but it hasn't reared its head. We still have a lot of ex-military folks around who didn't learn that way.
Who do you want flying when things go bad? People who have spent many hours with things about to go bad (military, emergency/fire, sail plane pilots) who have experience dealing with it. Those people can also be fun/terrifying to fly with, because they will take risks.
I've done a lot of FSX over the years and I'm starting to get into MSFS these days, and at least half of the time the ATC tries to kill me in some manner or other. I wasn't surprised when I saw that at all.
Yeah, that’s the stereotype of the fighter jock or, as someone on HN once put it, „fixed-wing enthusiast“. A man (always), flying with enthusiasm, intuition, not too much alcohol, direct controls etc.
It’s bullshit, of course. The archetype, if it ever existed, has been in decline since 1945 at the latest. Within that time, miles traveled have increased 15-fold, accidents have been reduced by 95 % (for a combined risk reduction of factor 300) while costs have come down by 80 %.
The adrenaline junkie will get bored and kill everyone with carelessness or controlled-flight-into-terrain. Because the total number of exciting situation in your 30 year career is, to a near approximation, zero. A good pilot today is a bureaucrat, meticulously running through checklists day after day.
There was at some point a philosophical split between Airbus and Boeing, the former going for fly-by-wire including automatic modification of pilot inputs etc., while Boeing was culturally invested that archetype of a pilot and preferring more direct controls. The outcome: no discernible difference in the safety records of these supposedly different approaches. Pilots from very different backgrounds? No difference. What matters for safety isn’t character, it’s process. And that’s great because processes scale, natural-born aviators don’t.
Yup, every pilot I know, even if they will never fly one, now knows what to do. None of them express any reservation other than the way flight control software is headed.
Of course, but I do meet a lot of the ones that didn't. Those guys have a lot of perseverance, although many of them, just like me started in fixed wing.
I wonder what the Venn diagram of single-engine plane owners and people who don't like being told what to do looks like.
[I am seriously curious; on the one hand, owning and flying a small plane is an expensive, privileged hobby which tends towards the lower-upper-class demographic, but it also requires complying with a shit-ton of government regulation and direction already.]
I am going to say you are probably more right than me. I haven't flown in over two decades, so things are bound to be different/better nowadays and procedures and safety improves.
Take my replies here with a grain of salt and as being 'old school'. :)
Or those who are flying in poor weather ('marginal VFR').
So many accidents read as the pilot really shouldn't have, but did anyway.
These can be greatly mitigated by ensuring that pilots stay current, for instance the clubs I belong to demand 6 monthly re-testing, rather than 2 years the license demands. Not to mention, if you don't fly for 4 weeks, you have to pass a mini re-test. In my clubs long history they have never lost a club plane or pilot.
Maybe. I never had a fear of commercial flying, but the first few lessons in a cessna 152 on a sunny day sure reminded me why people are afraid to fly.
That, and me almost killing me and instructor a few months later did that too. At least now, I can slip on landings in a very safe and accurate manner.
edit: I'm sure a few lessons can desensitize a person
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