Colin,
It would be interesting to see the Lancair
information broken down by number of aircraft flying by version of Lancair vs the
accident rate for each version. Does anyone have such information?
Bill B
From: Lancair Mailing List [mailto:lml@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Colyn Case
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013
2:50 PM
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Subject: [LML] Re: 4P AUGERING IN
Pete,
You make some good points but I don't think that is the whole story.
How many times worse would you expect the Lancair accident
rate to be based on the theory of intersecting a more demanding plane with the
fallibility of normal competent pilots?
Here are some numbers I dug up for a presentation I did at Sedona last
year:
Fatal accident rates per 100,000 hours. (formatted for a powerpoint
slide):
• Airlines - ~.01 (base line)
• Experimental – 2.33 (200X)
The Mitsubishi MU-2 is a plane that had horrendous accident rates when
operated by IFR rated commercial pilots. It is demanding, and also
different. However, with a similar fleet size to the IV series, it
recently has had 1 fatality in 3 years, a dramatic improvement. The
difference has been mandatory training.
What I see in the Lancair fleet, particularly in the bigger faster
models, is the intersection of a more demanding airplane with less well trained
pilots, often with a "nobody can tell me what to do" or a "it
didn't kill me last time" attitude. For some, it may be simply that
they don't realize what they are getting into. A lot of the accident
pilots were never on LML and/or never got proper training.
As a community, we have the option of training to a more demanding
level. Would we still have higher accident rates than we wish if we got
all that done? Probably. Would it be anywhere near as bad as it is
now? No.
Personally I think even GA rates are unconscionably bad. They are
driven by the "personal flying" segment pilots that don't have the
benefit of rigorous training and regular proficiency work. In the Lancair
fleet we recognize the issue and we do have the option of more rigorous
training. We also have the option of influencing our peers to get it.
I don't see why with some effort we can't be below the Experimental
accident rate of 200X worse than airlines within the next 3 years.
I don’t think the
issue here is whether the IV can be flown safely. It can. Those of
us on the forum are proof of such (full disclosure – I fly an ES-P). The
issue is how much margin of error the plane offers when the pilot makes a
mistake. Even the best of us make mistakes. Whether those mistakes
kill us or not is a function of how many we make in a row, how bad they are,
and how much margin for error the plane gives us. The first two are
relatively independent of the plane you are flying. The third is entirely
dependent. A plane like the IV, with very narrow margins of safety, will
kill more pilots than a plane that has a much broader set of safety margins
because pilots are human and make mistakes.
So, in my opinion,
relative to most other planes, the Lancair is less safe. Let’s stop
pretending otherwise. That is just part of the price we pay for high
performance. If you make a bad mistake, it is much more likely to kill
you, which is why it has such a poor safety record. This is not the
plane’s fault. Rather, it is because we as pilots can’t be perfect all of
the time.