AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - May 2018 - 20

LETTERS

FROM OUR MARCH 2018 ISSUE

Risky business
How safe is flying? Editor in Chief Thomas B. Haines' reflection
on risk had readers wondering
I just finished reading Thomas B. Haines'
article "Waypoints: What's the Risk?" It
could not have come at a better time for
me. I am a 48-year-old orthopedic surgeon
who started flying one year ago. I have 100
hours under my belt and I recently bought
my first airplane. It's a 2000 Cessna 172R.
The exact model I got my ticket in. I tried
to steer away from all models that have the
nickname "Doctor Killer" and stay within
my own capabilities.
I read these stories that continually
come out about general aviation accidents.
I often wonder how close I have come to
avoiding catastrophe without knowing
it. It's encouraging to know that it is still
something you think about with 40 years
of flight experience under your belt.
Daniel P. Moynihan
AOPA 10171933
Hernando Beach, Florida

Keep it up

Just tell want to tell you guys I really enjoy
AOPA Pilot magazine. I'm a former U.S. Air
Force instructor pilot, commercial license,
and right now I love flying gliders. The
magazine has a perfect mix of articles and
I read just about the entire thing-please
don't mess it up!
John Murtari
AOPA 9906433
Lyons, New York

Kid approved

Sarah Deener's article "Kid Approved"
and the accompanying video couldn't have
come at a better time for me. I can't wait
to take my young son flying and the information that's out there about flying with
a toddler is not very, well, informative. I
really enjoyed her candid story.
Joseph Friedman
AOPA 5643993
New York, New York

I am based at Columbia Airport (4G8), a
small strip just outside the inner ring of
20 | AOPA PILOT May 2018

WAYPOINTS

What's the risk?

BY THOMAS B. HAINES
Editor in Chief

Recent accidents don't answer the age-old question
LIFE IS FULL OF RISK. And pithy quotes about risk. A personal favorite: "Only those who will risk going too far
can possibly find out how far one can go," said T.S. Eliot,
which sounds like a recipe for fuel exhaustion to me.
As pilots, we face risk with every flight. Flying a general aviation airplane is more dangerous than walking,
or even driving a car. But it's not as risky as a lot of other
things-and the benefits are tremendous, both in time
savings and in personal satisfaction.
The key to balancing risk is understanding the capabilities of your airplane and of yourself. But even that
leaves out the incalculable risk of events that you can't
control, such as when a perfectly good engine decides to
send a piston through the cowling without warning-or
at least without a warning you could detect in advance.
On Christmas Eve, a Florida pilot found out in a fatal
kind of way that taking off in near-zero-visibility conditions is especially risky. According to some reports, it was
so foggy he had the Cessna 340 towed from the hangar to
the terminal because he didn't want to risk taxiing near
WEB

The AOPA Air Safety Institute's Flight Risk Evaluator is designed to help
you quantify the risks of an upcoming flight and decide whether to go,
stay, or delay. www.airsafetyinstitute.org/flightriskeval

Editor in Chief

TOM HAINES has

been flying general
aviation airplanes
for 40 years,
evaluating the
risk of every flight.

parked airplanes in the fog. He crashed right after rotation, killing all five on board.
We don't know yet what happened. It could have
been the disorientation of the fog at rotation. A failed
engine. A distraction in the cockpit. But whatever it was,
the takeoff was riskier than it would have been on a clear
day. And the weather cleared at the airport an hour or so
later. In general aviation, no regulation stops us from taking off in zero-zero conditions. That freedom to fly comes
with a responsibility to manage our own limits.
An Oklahoma physician crashed into the Gulf of
Mexico in January after taking off in his Cirrus from
Oklahoma's Wiley Post Airport, headed to pick up a rescue dog in Georgetown, Texas. The 292-nautical-mile
flight would take him about 1.5 hours at FL190 with a
30-plus-knot tailwind. Who could blame him for taking
his turbocharged airplane into the flight levels?
But as he neared Georgetown, he stopped responding to ATC queries. Fighters were scrambled to follow
him as he crossed into the Gulf of Mexico. Despite firing flares and other techniques, they could not raise him

in the cockpit, and authorities lost sight of the aircraft.
The U.S. Coast Guard ended its search for the missing aircraft after 79 hours of searching. It will be a while before
we find out what happened. Hypoxia comes to mind, or
some other debilitating medical condition.
Flying that high carries risk-but with the reward of
better winds sometimes, and higher true airspeeds. The
oxygen system is a single point of failure, so it needs to be
carefully monitored. That said, late-model Cirruses have
some amazing technology to help alert you to problems
and to provide an increased level of safety.
I wrestle with my own risk questions. I frequently fly
from Maryland to northwestern Pennsylvania, a straightline trip of 184 nm across the Appalachian Mountains. On
a recent windy winter day, the flight would have taken
one hour and 37 minutes in my Beechcraft Bonanza.
Altering the route to fly directly over six intermediate
airports increases the trip length by five nautical miles,
and on this day by one minute. I think I will do that from
now on. Makes for a more interesting flight anyhow.
When flying from Frederick, Maryland, to Appleton,
Wisconsin, a trip I make each year for EAA AirVenture
in Oshkosh, I cross over the tip of Lake Erie and the center of Lake Michigan, a distance of 577 nm and about 4.5
hours. Sixty-three of those miles, or about 24 minutes, are
over Lake Michigan. From 8,500 feet or so, my distance
out of glide range of land is measured in minutes. I have
inflatable life jackets for everyone aboard and make sure
before takeoff that everyone knows we are going over the
lake. They make the decision of whether to come along.
The alternative is a trip around the south side of
Chicago and then northwest to avoid Chicago and
Milwaukee airspace, a distance of 695 nm and adding
about 30 minutes of flight time-and thus requiring a
fuel stop. The overwater route is riskier. I've come to
accept that risk and trust the airplane I'm flying. I don't
judge those who choose not to come along.
Your risk tolerance is your business. The regulations in the United States give us a lot flexibility, one of
the great benefits of GA flying. As pilots we have a big
responsibility to understand the risk of each flight and be
prepared to manage it. And know that if something goes
wrong, others will judge you. It's a risk we take. AOPA
EMAIL thomas.haines@aopa.org
SOCIAL

Follow on twitter @tomhaines29

18 | AOPA PILOT March 2018

I have been to Oshkosh a few
times. After studying the
situation, I chose to fly by
Chicago after I heard survival
time in Lake Michigan, in the
summer, is about 20 minutes,
because of hypothermia. I
flew a Cessna 172. I'll take the
extra 20 minutes.
Dean Thommes
AOPA 1108552
Kalamazoo, Michigan

not fly direct, but rather IFBB (I Fly By
Boats). I would see a boat and fly toward
it. Another boat, toward it. My thought
process was that I wouldn't be far from
a rescue. After landing my thought was,
"Now I have to fly back!" The flight back
was not as bad, as I could see shoreline
pretty quickly after I was in the air. My
latest flight review this past fall we went
island hopping. It was great to read a positive article about one's local area.
Dean Fazekas
AOPA 5134800
Olmsted Falls, Ohio

The royal treatment

Received my AOPA Pilot magazine today
and was surprised to find an article on
sport hunting. While I recognize the aviation connection, I question the decision
to publish this. Unlike other topics, sport
hunting is controversial in today's world
and will generate some pretty negative
feelings among many people. I've been a
member of AOPA for a very long time and
I don't really want to have a photograph of
dead birds shot for fun be part of the image
of my organization. This is not a criticism
of the author-the article was well-written,
it's just a question of topic choice-AOPA
needs a positive, not polarizing, image to
keep existing and attract new members.
Please consider less controversial topics
instead for the future.
Tom Doblmaier
AOPA 1060021
North Wales, Pennsylvania

Cleveland (CLE). Ever since earning my
certificate many years ago, I had wanted
to fly to Put-In-Bay. This past summer I
finally did. Hugging the shoreline as long
as I could, I finally turned north over the
water. "Holy cow, what am I doing?" was
the first thought that came to me. I did

Test pilot

The March "Test Pilot" asks what is the
"largest" propeller-driven airplane, and
"largest" means size, usually interpreted to
mean wingspan. When it comes to wingspan, the Spruce Goose has a wingspan of
218 feet, eight inches, seven feet more than
the Antonov An-22.

http://www.airsafetyinstitute.org/fl

AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - May 2018

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