It's amazing the stuff you can learn on BCP. I had to look up "NOE:"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Overhauser_effect

My guess is that it's like ground effect, except if you're low enough, you get it at a nuclear level?

Just like ground effect.... With variants.

* NOESY, 'Nuclear Overhauser Effect Spectroscopy
* HOESY, Heteronuclear Overhauser Effect Spectroscopy
* ROESY, Rotational Frame Nuclear Overhauser Effect Spectroscopy
* TRNOE, Transferred Nuclear Overhauser Effect
* DPFGSE-NOE, Double Pulsed Field Gradient Spin Echo NOE experiment

Things are ROESY till you get too close something you shouldn't and some civilian gets NOESY, then you're HOESY.

Gump

Rob wrote:
Norms comment on the GA safety record is somewhat skewed by the fact that GA craft are not built, equipped, nor maintained to the level of most professionally operated craft ... but more importantly, neither are the operators.
Rob

Good post, Rob, except I'd like to clarify the above part. I wasn't comparing GA safety to commercial safety. That would be an unfair comparison for the reasons you mentioned. I was comparing commercial past with commercial present accident rates and, separately, GA past to GA present accident rates. I could have stated it in clearer language ... my error in lame proof reading.

BTW, I was quoting from an excellent article entitled, “The Psychology of Safety”, by J. Mac McClellan, appeared in the June, 2010 issue of FLYING magazine. I've referred to this article in another thread on BCP and I recommend it for everyone reading this thread as I think it applies to the subject matter under discussion. This is what I was quoting:

"McClellan is reporting on an innovative study conducted by Avemco Insurance. In the past decades airlines and corporate flight departments have made great progress in reducing the number of accidents. Not so in general aviation. General aviation kills 500 people in an average year." Italics supplied.

Rob wrote:The romantic notion of low and slow is a farce...

I always interpreted that saying as pertaining to choice of aircraft, not necessarily the low end of a particular aircraft's speed envelope.

Zane wrote:

Rob wrote:The romantic notion of low and slow is a farce...

I always interpreted that saying as pertaining to choice of aircraft, not necessarily the low end of a particular aircraft's speed envelope.

Bingo. Some of us choose to fly the slow stuff cause it is just more fun for 90% of the flying that we do. There are times I would love to have a 180 sitting in a hangar just for the I gotta get there trips though.

And for the record, I do fly my Avid much differently than I flew the 180 or the 172, but about the same as I flew the PA12.

Rob wrote: Norms comment on the GA safety record is somewhat skewed by the fact that GA craft are not built, equipped, nor maintained to the level of most professionally operated craft... but more importantly, neither are the operators.

I would be interested to know, just out of curiosity, the number of fatalities in LSA compared to GA, or even back-country pilots compared to conventional pilots and if there is a correlation between these, and altitude at the onset of the accidents.

I think all the accidents were close to the ground as in very very low, and I'm pretty sure that most were in a stalled or at least if there was time to see the ground the controls were pulled all the way back!! At least all of them but the midairs!!

This is kind of like saying most deaths are caused by heart failure, or a gunshot? Damn I think every one is heart failure, natural or man made??

IF you fly low thats your decision. If you do not, thats yours also. Just keep it to your self as I really don't care if you bitch at me because of the way I fly! You have every right to and that what make this the USA!! I just don't really give a Crap if you do!

I like low unless I'm headed somewhere then it works real well to have a turbo, deice, IFR, and an autopilot.

Grass, Wet tires and Tree bows in the landing gear are great, Not so many people down here to run into!!

$.02 GT

Well, if statistics of what I suggested in my earlier post were available, perhaps it could be determined whether GA pilots were crashing while doing things that backcountry or LSA pilots were doing safely, which might show an indication of lack of training (or common sense) to do that type of flying in an aircraft unsuited for it.

Or perhaps statistics like that may be able to show a correlation between GA aircraft (which typically fly at a high altitude right?) and backcountry type aircraft (that may typically fly at a lower altitude all the time), to determine exactly if it is altitude, or pilot experience, type of plane and/or build quality (or all of the above) that are contributing to such incidents.

I read a Joe Nall report that tgere were 5 fatal accidents from LSA and homebuilt for every GA accident.
Training, low alt, and mechanicals were the main reasons

I just did a quick search of the NTSB database. From Jan 1 2009 till present all US Amatuer build aircraft there were 506 crashes (reported) and 177 fatalities. A quick scan looked liek the majority of those were go fast planes with the RV series leading the pack. Lots of RV 6 and 6A with a hand full of RV 4 and 7 tossed in. Lancair's and other fast flyers were high on the list too.

The same dates for all other aircraft NOT amatuer built in the US showed 2786 reported crashes and I did not bother to look at how many fatalities there were.

You can look up the NTSB database and sort it many different ways to get your data including fatal / non fatal so you can get total numbers. I can put together some cool graphs and pie charts and make the numbers look many different ways depending on my adgenda. Bottom line, you should always get more training than the minimum required. No longer teaching spins and alot of places not teaching full on stalls has lead to pilots being turned loose to carry passengers when they really are not fully trained to handle alot of situations. While the sport pilot is AWESOME for keeping alot of the older pilots in the air or for those who just choose to excersize the right to fly under the sport pilot rules and not get a medical, it does lead to alot of new pilots not getting as much training...

norm wrote:

Rob wrote:
Norms comment on the GA safety record is somewhat skewed by the fact that GA craft are not built, equipped, nor maintained to the level of most professionally operated craft ... but more importantly, neither are the operators.
Rob

Good post, Rob, except I'd like to clarify the above part. I wasn't comparing GA safety to commercial safety. That would be an unfair comparison for the reasons you mentioned. I was comparing commercial past with commercial present accident rates and, separately, GA past to GA present accident rates. I could have stated it in clearer language ... my error in lame proof reading.

Although at a glance it appears my reading / comprehension was lacking (and it usually is) I completely understood your first post. And I still stand by mine, but will clarify:

norm wrote:Over the last several decades commercial aviation has improved their accident records by leaps and bounds. Professional ops just get safer and safer.

Over the last several decades virtually every aspect of most commercial operations has been embellished with better equipment, better maintenance, and better trained operators... Their increasing safety record reflects that.

norm wrote:Over the last several decades general aviation has not significantly improved its accident record and it remains mired in the **horrible**, or, at least in the **undesirable** column.

Just looking at the avatars in this thread I can see several examples of 1940-50s technology, and given the removal of spin training, the average pilots training may not even be as good as it was several decades ago is it any wonder our saftey record has not gotten better?
It was my proof reading that was lacking, I agree with you 100%, GA is not even close to keeping up with the fwd safety trend commercial ops have shown.

Based on the current trend of thought patterns and lack of accountability, GA simply cannot get better. In fact it has to get worse, as the planes remain largely the same, ditto for pilots, and yet more and more obstacles and traffic appear...

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy flying 'low and slow' as much as all the other players at this party... but having done so for several thousand hours to eek a living, I now do so with a totally different outlook...

As to motoadv's last post I will say this, no surprises there... number one reason for going homebuilt is to get away from accountability... and just how much ongoing training is the average lsa pilot going to keep up on?

Take care, Rob

motoadve wrote:I read a Joe Nall report that tgere were 5 fatal accidents from LSA and homebuilt for every GA accident.
Training, low alt, and mechanicals were the main reasons

Indeed, I just skimmed through the 2010 Nall Report. Evidently, a trend is present within LSA that indicates a much higher accident rate than GA. I noticed though that the only area LSA fared better was in take-off related incidents compared to GA. I did not see any specific comparisons referring to low level flight as opposed to higher flight altitudes, so nothing much can be determined on that from the report. Nor did I see any comparison between LSA aircraft that fly backcountry compared to LSA that fly from conventional cement strips with towered airports, so nothing much can be gleaned on the type of pilot having problems in LSA type aircraft in general. Maybe there is another, better source of information with this kind of statatistics. If I have missed something to this effect, I welcome additional information and correction.

From what I read, training and mechanical dependability seemed to be the biggest issues. My assumption, based on this, is that this has to do with engine-outs and forced landings gone wrong. The fatality rate could be due to lack of training in engine-out situations and emergency, short field landings.

You guys can download the report http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/10nall.pdf

Off-topic from low level flight issues....Would it be safe to conclude that the current trend in disproportionate accident rates between LSA and GA aircraft does not reflect the original intentions of the Light Sport Pilot license training requirements when first conceived and legislated? In other words, have Light Sport rules been a failure?

I fly low for the same reason Charlie Sheen hangs out with hookers and porn stars. Sure it's stupid, but damn it's fun!

With a passenger, not so low, (I have heard many times from passengers that they were surprised how conservative/non scary of a ride I gave them, and I cringe every time I hear a passenger recounting a ride with a pilot who went out of the way to really give them a thrill by flying stupid. By myself away from anyway/anyhow causing problems for others, very low. There IS something to be said for low level manuvering really showing you close up the effect of an uncoordinated turn, more clearly then at 5K perhaps, and I like to think low level flying skills would help in an engine out (it does, and it has, for me anyway). I like to do it slow, in my case about 65 mph or less, plenty of control authority but a little more time to see whats ahead. Like ANY other activity (except maybe hanging with hookers and pornstars) one would hope you'd get better/safer the more you do it. I use the trim up trick also.

I would never waste the time or breath to defend low flying to one against it, it's a personal thing to me, you like red I like blue, like arguing religion or politics we're both right. Just don't put others at risk, obviously, by yourself, go for it and don't screw up!

Courierguy!!
Were you really low enough to scare the little moosey?
And if you were alone! How were you able to take the picture??? Who was flying the airplane?
You might have not only endangered yourself!! but could have endangered your airplane also!!! AND WHAT ABOUT THAT POOR LITTLE MOOSEY THAT IS HAVING TO WALK IN THE DEEP SNOW???
Shame on you.
GT

FYI Any wildlife pics I post are on the first and only adding to the challange of course, but more importantly not pissing off/harassing said wildlife.

My Nikon D60 continues to blow me away, low file content for email settings, through tinted lexan, while moving etc. etc., darn near every shot is usable. I can't imagine what it is capable of if I ever took it off the AUTO setting.

One unexpected, but obvious now of course, very cool thing about winter ski flying: getting to SEE all the animal tracks you never see in summer!

As a low time pilot myself, I understand the cables, towers and obstacles being a risk.
But when people talk about engine failure, why is it ok to fly IFR in a single engine plane,and engine failure is not taken into account as much.
I think it would be as dangerous or even more an engine failure at imc than at low altitude VFR.

Courierguy
I was hoping you would see some humor in my post!
GT
If not my apologies!
Great Photo and yes the tracks to find and see are wonderful!

motoadve wrote:As a low time pilot myself, I understand the cables, towers and obstacles being a risk.
But when people talk about engine failure, why is it ok to fly IFR in a single engine plane,and engine failure is not taken into account as much.
I think it would be as dangerous or even more an engine failure at imc than at low altitude VFR.

motoadve, as you've see on this thread so far, different pilots have different opinions as to what's OK ... for the most part, it's a matter of personal risk assessment. I wouldn't presume to tell another pilot - such as Akavid - that its wrong for him to fly the way he does. I gave the reasons that I don't fly low - because you asked in your original post if it's wrong to do the kind of flying you like to do, and so I tried to address that part of your post. It's OK to disagree, even strongly, as long as one doesn't get into personal attacks.

Me and the others who arent' big fans of flying low (as defined by me, at least, as a small fraction of 500 feet AGL), at least for recreational flying (as opposed to when it's your paying job) - are only stating why our personal minimums are higher than some of the others on the thread. Nobody's pointing fingers, or "reprimanding" as Zane put it, or saying, "this is it - this is the rule for me, the rule for you, and the rule for everybody else" unless it's a matter of obeying the officlal FAA flight regs.

But pointing out the risks involved in someone's flying choices isn't the same as criticism. It's just analysis ... take it for what it's worth, be it little or large.

So back to your question on single engine IFR - the same approach of personal risk assessment applies to flying IFR, or even VFR in questionable weather, no matter whether single engine or multi. Everybody needs to decide for themselves how much risk they are willing to tolerate to carry out their intended flight mission. The trick is, some people make risk management decisions without really thinking through the analysis part. Which results in taking on unrecognized risk, or failing to properly mitigate the risk through other decisions about the flight in question.

What's nice about threads like these - even if they result in some anger or posturing or scolding - is that you get to hear a lot of different and often clashing perspectives about things you may never have thought much about. If I only hear stuff I agree with, then I'm not learning anything. I've learned some good stuff from this thread, and I expect you have too.

Definitely im glad i posted this thread, it gives me a wide real life perspective of the subject, and i really appreciate all posts.

M6RV6 wrote:Courierguy
I was hoping you would see some humor in my post!
GT
If not my apologies!
Great Photo and yes the tracks to find and see are wonderful!

M6,
I did! I just got sidetracked into wanting to make it clear I don't, and don't think much of, harassing wildlife from the air. One flyby is my rule. Yeah I know you were joshing me

A great thread!