Reading these accident reports, these guys were determined to get there (-itis), or die. 200 foot overcast takeoff in a single engine airplane? How's the chute going to help when you hit that unlit tower you ignored in the NOTAM? Repeated challenge, after ATC warnings, of heavy thunderstorms and freezing level? What was their preflight plan if the thunderstorm did their usual bad stuff? None!
There are reasons to die in airplanes, but in my experience, should usually involve fighting to defend your homeland and family, not to rendezvous with a rental car or hotel reservation. I wonder how many of these guys have died for Hertz or Hilton?
My old boss used to ask if we "had seen any red stars on the other airplanes or ships out there", and then proceed to inquire why this mission justified such a high risk. A sign at KIWS says "if you feel this uncomfortable in this briefing room, now, what makes you think it will get better, when you are out there in the klag?" Do you see any "Red Stars" out there?
I also see the same sequence, herein, as we discussed in the LOBO brief at OSH. Most of us are unaware how dependent we are on spatial mapping of our environment and, conversely, how extreme the confusion, when it fails. This is because our spatial sense is so good, it hardly ever fails us.
We also forget (or may have never seen) how confusing things are when our expected sequence of events, comes unglued. Have you practiced your departure/spin recovery in a thunderstorm? Or even VMC with an instructor? How about with ice on the prop and wing, and a failed pitot static system? How's that going to work out fer ya? How long does it take you to sort out which attitude is right, even with redundancy? Do you think this airplane might get going real real fast, if you accidentally align the velocity vector with the gravity vector at full power. It does.... much faster than the unprepared victim can process it:
In my quick back of the envelope calculation, add 2200 Horsepower to your existing 350! Convert[(g 3000 Pound 240 Knot), Horsepower]
Do you think reducing power and speed-brakes will help here? Whoops... there went my cabin pressure? Pop goes the left ear! Why is everything spinning (baro-corriolis effect) ?
It was not what we expected, so we have to recognize, disconnect from the former expectation, and then solve a new problem with a new plan. Autopilot complexity worsens this. Lack of simulators or instructors, familiar with the kill zone, frustrates this. Single point (or single technology) attitude failures really set you up for this. I retain my vacuum system and it saved me again last month. Did you know you cannot find the pitot heat switch or hit the terrain map button in severe turbulence? That's why Garmin displays terrain warning windows automatically, but it's usually too late.
We had this debate over many iterations in US Naval fighters, with a lot more engineering and flight test expertise, than we have access to here. Even in those arguments, there was similar confusion of redundancy, with relative reliability, robustness, elegance, standards, appearance, etc,etc. There were equally strong disagreements in that community. But, I think you will still see those boring, spinning masses, in those airplanes, as backup.
If we recognize the boundaries and limitations of our aircraft, our advanced systems, our training, and ourselves, we can avoid looking really stupid, as in these examples. Also the wide field, splattering of lunch, and parts, under the terminal descent, is pleasantly avoided.
There is a serious debate in flight test, about whether we can even encompass an envelope of this complexity, in our flight tests. Thereafter, it is just so easy to have overconfidence and have complacency slowly drift in, over many successful near misses. Reread the Challenger mishap
report. It's not just general, or experimental aviation, that's subject to this hazard.