steve SMITH

A member of the Philip Greenspun's Homepage community since October 13, 2009

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October 13, 2009, on General Aviation Safety:
The trip examples that Philip gives, being 24 hours late and severe turbulence are really quite rare, and far from the norm. Also, filing a flight plan has NOTHING to do with the quality of the pilot or his flight planning. GA can be as safe as one wants. It's not a toy, it's a valuable method of transportation like a car or airliner, that fills a gap very well between 100 and 1000 miles. Now, pilot skills and training are a requirement for safe flight, but with training and reasonable planning GA can come very close to the reliability of airline flying, without the hassles and delays. I hope I'm a good example, with 8 Million accident free air miles (22K hours), with good training and good equipment, my dispatch reliability is 99%. And when the trip can't be flown safely, I just delay or cancel... period. It's a GREAT way to travel.