I would have wanted to know how many accidents and how many deaths per flight. In the mid-'90s, when I still lived in DC, you could get a half an hour flight with an instructor for a nominal fee. I took my niece a handful of times, the first when she was 7, and we'd each get to fly. She did so well the first time the instructor gave her an extra take off and landing.
When I took her, I assumed that with an instructor, this activity was VERY safe, in large part because it's hard to find anything to crash into in the sky. Caution genes run in my family. My parents got seat belts in the '57 Chevy in 1960 or '61, we had the first Peugeot wagon in France with rear shoulder belts, as my father showed the men at the factory how to install them (a simple topological problem) and I got Bell hard-shelled helmet serial # 7022 back when you had to mail order them.
I'm still guessing that our flights were quite safe, but I'm wondering just a little.
Good questions. Short answer: the kind of introductory-instruction / sightseeing flights you're talking about are generally very safe. The main reason reason is they're almost all in good weather, and weather is *the* main risk factor in small-plane aviation.
The Nall Report does careful breakouts of almost every category you can think of, including accidents / fatalities during flight instruction. Nearly all in that category involve some kind of "demanding" instruction, as opposed to intro-sightseeing. For instance: aerobatic training, or stall-spin recovery or other maneuvers; or recognition of the "impossible turn" (trying to do a 180-degree turn and get back to the same runway you've just left, after an engine problem on takeoff); or instrument training in "actual" instrument conditions; and so on.
With the caveat that the details aren't yet known, it seems that the flight in New Jersey last week, in which two people died, was an instructional flight of some kind.
But, retrospectively, I think you can feel reassured that sending your niece on one of those 1990s flights was "safe" as opposed to "reckless."
I would have wanted to know how many accidents and how many deaths per flight. In the mid-'90s, when I still lived in DC, you could get a half an hour flight with an instructor for a nominal fee. I took my niece a handful of times, the first when she was 7, and we'd each get to fly. She did so well the first time the instructor gave her an extra take off and landing.
When I took her, I assumed that with an instructor, this activity was VERY safe, in large part because it's hard to find anything to crash into in the sky. Caution genes run in my family. My parents got seat belts in the '57 Chevy in 1960 or '61, we had the first Peugeot wagon in France with rear shoulder belts, as my father showed the men at the factory how to install them (a simple topological problem) and I got Bell hard-shelled helmet serial # 7022 back when you had to mail order them.
I'm still guessing that our flights were quite safe, but I'm wondering just a little.
Good questions. Short answer: the kind of introductory-instruction / sightseeing flights you're talking about are generally very safe. The main reason reason is they're almost all in good weather, and weather is *the* main risk factor in small-plane aviation.
The Nall Report does careful breakouts of almost every category you can think of, including accidents / fatalities during flight instruction. Nearly all in that category involve some kind of "demanding" instruction, as opposed to intro-sightseeing. For instance: aerobatic training, or stall-spin recovery or other maneuvers; or recognition of the "impossible turn" (trying to do a 180-degree turn and get back to the same runway you've just left, after an engine problem on takeoff); or instrument training in "actual" instrument conditions; and so on.
With the caveat that the details aren't yet known, it seems that the flight in New Jersey last week, in which two people died, was an instructional flight of some kind.
But, retrospectively, I think you can feel reassured that sending your niece on one of those 1990s flights was "safe" as opposed to "reckless."
Glad to hear it! Thanks!