Been lurking around the Vans Aircraft forums and stumbled upon this article on safety. While you may not agree with everything there, it's still worth the read. Lots of relevant info.

http://www.vansairforce.net/mytakeonflying.htm

I encourage EVERYONE to click on the link and read it completely. There may be some things you do not agree with, but never the less it will make you stop and think. Be honest with yourself when you read it. There is some good stuff in there.

G44 wrote:I encourage EVERYONE to click on the link and read it completely. There may be some things you do not agree with, but never the less it will make you stop and think. Be honest with yourself when you read it. There is some good stuff in there.

I concur - I read it earlier. I feel like in some areas he makes a very logical, strong point and in others he seems aggressively risk averse. But it made me think about what I'm comfortable doing and why I'm comfortable doing it, so there was goodness in the exercise.

I agree with all of that except flight following. My work was too low for that. Not all that is done to treat crops or teach Ag is appropriate with passengers.

Interesting post. Everyone has their own areas of risk tolerance and risk aversion. Here are a few things that I do/don't do for better and for worse:

I wear a helmet in the husky but not in the 185.

I've been flying since 1986 and have zero hours logged at night and have no intention of logging a single hour in my future. When I got my instrument rating, the FAA allowed me to keep my night flying exemption.

I use spider tracks so that even if I crash like Steve Fossett, my location will be better known.

My planes receive regular maintenance and are not neglected.

I wear a floatation vest with a sat phone, Delorme in reach, and survival equipment.

I have great fire retardant clothing but am not always good about wearing it consistently.

Fly safely.

I generally wear cottonish clothing, and I don't wear a helmet. I do use flight following for cross country flying, but not local sight-seeing. I do fly at night, and in IMC. And I have threatened to turn over pilots who flagrantly flaunted the rules, though I think I've actually turned over only a couple in 43 1/2 years. I don't do 2' AGL low passes--never have. I've done some dumb bell things in the past; I hope not to repeat them in the future.

But mostly, I fly pretty conservatively, taking into account that just flying has an element of risk. I try to keep the risk element relatively low, because frankly I enjoy flying, and I really don't want an obit statement that says, "He died what he loved to do." Nope, don't really love the idea of crashing.

Cary