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I'm sure you have all heard this before, but I really want to get my PPL. Have always wanted to for years but now in my mid 40's I have the money to do it. I'm not interested in flying for airlines I have always been into aviation. The next best thing I could afford was RC aircraft but now she has become so terrified of things she doesn't want me to do it. The strange thing is she used to love flying in small planes in her 20's her sister took her up in her boyfriends planes a bunch of times. Now she says for some reason she has a fear of many things now. I know flight training will take up a lot of time where I'm away from the house she will be thinking I'm going to die. Seems like to me most crashes in small planes are because people take risk like flying in bad weather, or planes that aren't kept up well.
Do you have kids now? If so, that explains it! I used to do lots of things too, and wasn't worried I was going to do. Once I had kids, they were my primary concern and I didn't want them left without parents. At least your wife didn't say to buy some life insurance and then get the plane!
But it would scare me if I were her too. In the story linked below, one of the kids somehow was sucked out of the plane - not sure what happened - and then they crashed and the rest of them were killed. But can you imagine the horror of one of your kids getting sucked out of the plane?
Do you have kids now? If so, that explains it! I used to do lots of things too, and wasn't worried I was going to do. Once I had kids, they were my primary concern and I didn't want them left without parents. At least your wife didn't say to buy some life insurance and then get the plane!
But it would scare me if I were her too. In the story linked below, one of the kids somehow was sucked out of the plane - not sure what happened - and then they crashed and the rest of them were killed. But can you imagine the horror of one of your kids getting sucked out of the plane?
No kids we never got around to doing that I find it interesting to figure out what happened in crashes I read NTSB reports sometimes just to learn why things like this happened. I think people should discuss these things so people can learn from mistakes of others. Mid-air breakups are unusual weather could have been a factor or metal fatigue. The most interesting crash this year was the 2 sky diver planes that had a mid-air the video showing the wings on fire as they fell back to earth. Lucky for those guys all had parachutes.
Well let's just get down to it. You have a far higher likelihood of being killed on your drive to the airport or back. Or on your daily commute. Does she stress over that? No? That's because many people have an irrational and unreasonable fear of flight. Sensationalistic media only compounds this issue. When it comes to aviation laypeople have all kinds of gross misconceptions.
Well let's just get down to it. You have a far higher likelihood of being killed on your drive to the airport or back. Or on your daily commute. Does she stress over that? No? That's because many people have an irrational and unreasonable fear of flight. Sensationalistic media only compounds this issue. When it comes to aviation laypeople have all kinds of gross misconceptions.
This is very true but I believe the statistic applies to the traditional thought of driving to the local international airport and getting on an aircraft with a major carrier. I'll admit, I've worked either military or major carriers my entire career where certain quality standards are paramount. I have a friend who runs an FBO who was looking desperately for some guys with an avionics background. Since that is my bread and butter, I offered to go take a look at a few airplanes for him. What I saw made me want to puke. If I had found that mess on a major airliner, the aircraft would have been grounded, I'd be taking pictures and sending it to the four corners of the earth. I asked my buddy about it and he told me that, generally speaking, it's pretty much up to the owner of the aircraft to decide what they're going to pay for and not pay for. If he wasn't willing to pay for me to untangle the rat's nest of wires most likely soldered to the connectors with a Bic lighter then that was on him.
I had serious, serious, serious, ethical and moral concerns about letting a plane like that leave the ground. I went over to the next airplane and saw the same thing. Next airplane... Same thing... And so on and so forth. It was after I looked at about 10-12 aircraft that I realized they all looked the same and no one knew a single thing about how to arrange wire bundles, what kind of wire to use where, and so on and so forth. I'm surprised any of it worked at all.
I decided right then and there that I wasn't ever flying GA unless I got to do the most recent 100-hour inspection and I know for a fact that the owner would hate my guts after I got done.
This is very true but I believe the statistic applies to the traditional thought of driving to the local international airport and getting on an aircraft with a major carrier. I'll admit, I've worked either military or major carriers my entire career where certain quality standards are paramount. I have a friend who runs an FBO who was looking desperately for some guys with an avionics background. Since that is my bread and butter, I offered to go take a look at a few airplanes for him. What I saw made me want to puke. If I had found that mess on a major airliner, the aircraft would have been grounded, I'd be taking pictures and sending it to the four corners of the earth. I asked my buddy about it and he told me that, generally speaking, it's pretty much up to the owner of the aircraft to decide what they're going to pay for and not pay for. If he wasn't willing to pay for me to untangle the rat's nest of wires most likely soldered to the connectors with a Bic lighter then that was on him.
I had serious, serious, serious, ethical and moral concerns about letting a plane like that leave the ground. I went over to the next airplane and saw the same thing. Next airplane... Same thing... And so on and so forth. It was after I looked at about 10-12 aircraft that I realized they all looked the same and no one knew a single thing about how to arrange wire bundles, what kind of wire to use where, and so on and so forth. I'm surprised any of it worked at all.
I decided right then and there that I wasn't ever flying GA unless I got to do the most recent 100-hour inspection and I know for a fact that the owner would hate my guts after I got done.
I have no basis to doubt what you saw looking at the aircraft that you did ...
But I've looked under the dash and poked around at least several hundred GA aircraft over the last 30 years ... between pre-purchase inspections and poking around at other aircraft in shops that were opened up for annual inspections, or nosing around other aircraft at fly-ins where proud owners were showing off their planes ....
And I'd disagree with you that many GA aircraft look so poorly crafted. The original equipment in some, later avionics shops mods ... even many owner installed harnesses/wiring using supplied aircraft quality harnesses from GA targeted avionics retailers ... has looked pretty good to me.
The avionics shops that assisted with the upgrades in my own aircraft were experts in doing work properly and did very neat and safe installs in my bird. There was a lot of pride in the workmanship and these guys do this level of work everyday. I recently looked at a year model twin to my aircraft that was being parted out by a shop (after being totall'ed out from a hard nose gear landing which crumpled the firewall, trashed the prop/engine, and tore up the gearbox, wing tips, portions of the fueslage) ... and the gorgeous instrument panel IFR certified GPS and electronic panel was spectacularly done by a regional avionics shop to superb workmanship levels ... was in excellent condition. Unfortunately, they wanted more for the panel and an install in my plane than my plane is worth, so we couldn't reach a deal.
I know that my IA's wouldn't sign off anything like you described as being airworthy and they get pretty persnickity about these airworthiness and proper workmanship details. Their liability exposure is too great to miss such details.
Of all the GA aircraft I've looked at, only two in all those years were totally trashed in the avionics/electrical systems ... both early C180's, both planes assembled from multiple scrapped donor aircraft and put together very haphazardly (and likely illegally considering the mismatch of components from various models that didn't fit properly; whoever signed these off as airworthy after any of the repair stages should have his IA ticket pulled). It wasn't just the avionics that were junk, it was virtually every aspect of the aircraft that were blatantly wrong and not functioning properly. IMO, there were many obvious problems with these aircraft and the avionics/electronics were merely another manifestation of the overall attitude/concept/execution of these birds ... not some hidden feature rendering them unairworthy or cause to do an annual to discover the problems of this area.
Perhaps this is a regional issue, and in your area folk are less than stringent about compliance ... so you saw a high % of poorly maintained/altered aircraft. I know that folk around me take a high degree of pride in their aircraft ... and especially with flight hours being reduced in the last few years due to increased fuel/operating costs ... that there are a lot more hours spent on maintenance and keeping the aging aircraft in tip-top shape. Folk have the time and interest to see that everything is tickety-boo in their aircraft these days .... and take a lot of pride in showing off just how well maintained and proper everything is on their pride and joy. I can't even stop for fuel without somebody wanting to show off their aircraft these days.
Like you, I wouldn't just jump into anybody's GA aircraft without wanting to look around a bit and satisfy myself that it's airworthy ... but I believe I can get a pretty good impression of how a plane is maintained without having to do an annual on it to know. My concern here is that you're suggesting to a prospective wanna-be pilot that the state of the GA fleet is pretty poor, likely unairworthy, and that avionics installations are found with rat's nests and BIC lighter soldered connections. I haven't found that to be the case ... and I've never seen anything that looked like a cigarette lighter soldered connection.
My observations have been the same, Sunsprit. I can't recall seeing anything in years that didn't look right that I can recall other than a WWII observation plane that an acquaintance had bought 45 years ago when I lived in Alaska. It was in the process of being "fixed properly". I've seen plenty of panels that didn't look the best, but that was because new radios didn't fit right and/or didn't match other radios. I just can't recall seeing or hearing about bad wiring.
Was that instrument panel done by Wyoming Avionics, Sunsprit? They installed a completely new panel in my old Comanche 250 -- ripped out the old one with the plastic facing and replaced it with a beautiful metal design with post lights on everything, plus lights in the overhanging glare shield. It made a huge improvement. I didn't get new radios, as the ones in it were good (for the time), but I did get a new STec-60 (?) auto-pilot (altitude hold but not coupled to glide slope) to replace the original Piper monstrosity. I think the bill in the mid-80s was $12,000. With new radios I'm sure it would have been 3X that. I was also looking at a Storm Scope. $$$$!!! That was shortly before GPS came out, but I did have a nice Loran coupled to the AP. It's pretty easy to double the investment in a GA plane and never leave the instrument panel.
About 30 years ago a friend and myself looked into getting a Private Pilots License, could have been just a flight of fancy of a couple 20 something guys with no families to support, I might even have the promotional manuals somewhere .. Nothing ever came of it.
I don't know what the statistical breakdowns are for small aircraft crashes but I think if you fly a well maintained aircraft, don't try to do things beyond your and/or the planes ability, and stick to good weather flying(kinda tricky sometimes) your chances of having a crash let alone a fatal one is extremely small.
But you should not go against your wife's wishes on something this serious, maybe if you discussed it with her and went to the prospective school for a tour it would ease her mind, she would NEVER fly with you if you go against her wishes and something did happen think of what that would do to her.
My observations have been the same, Sunsprit. I can't recall seeing anything in years that didn't look right that I can recall other than a WWII observation plane that an acquaintance had bought 45 years ago when I lived in Alaska. It was in the process of being "fixed properly". I've seen plenty of panels that didn't look the best, but that was because new radios didn't fit right and/or didn't match other radios. I just can't recall seeing or hearing about bad wiring.
Was that instrument panel done by Wyoming Avionics, Sunsprit? They installed a completely new panel in my old Comanche 250 -- ripped out the old one with the plastic facing and replaced it with a beautiful metal design with post lights on everything, plus lights in the overhanging glare shield. It made a huge improvement. I didn't get new radios, as the ones in it were good (for the time), but I did get a new STec-60 (?) auto-pilot (altitude hold but not coupled to glide slope) to replace the original Piper monstrosity. I think the bill in the mid-80s was $12,000. With new radios I'm sure it would have been 3X that. I was also looking at a Storm Scope. $$$$!!! That was shortly before GPS came out, but I did have a nice Loran coupled to the AP. It's pretty easy to double the investment in a GA plane and never leave the instrument panel.
That must have been a sweet panel upgrade in your Commanche ... no doubt a pleasure to fly with the STec-60 and having the post lights in the metal panel.
Much nicer than "george", the single axis assistant in my C182 residing below all the Cessna panel plastic covers around the ole' steam gauges. My little panel upgrade was done by Roger at Mast-Comm at APA, with an NCS-812 and Mk 12 pair replacing the original worn out ARC radios and a Collins DCE-400 (predecessor to a true DME, a virtual waste of panel space). Roger and his daughter did beautiful work for many years on a lot of GA aircraft in the area, but it was the norm, not the exception for so much of the workmanship I've seen in the region. Have seen equally nice work at just about every avionics shop in CO and WY for decades, I've not seen anything that I'd ever be embarassed to fly with. I carry a handheld to get the closer splits when I need those frequencies ... usually an AWOS report; it was nice to have to get a current ATIS before start-up and taxi at congested airports (like APA).
The panel I was looking at in the salvage aircraft was a two-screen glass IFR GPS panel with all LED/digital gauges, 6 cyl engine monitor, and an engine turned one-piece panel. Post lights on the HSI and tach/manifold press/DG/altimeter that remained on the right-side of the panel for back-up below the original fuel guage engine cluster. The fellow had really dolled up that ol' Cessna ... Rosen visors, leather upholstery, all new glass, all new plastic interior trim pieces, full shoulder harnesses, new carpets, new seat tracks, center console between the front seats, and a baggage compartment extension. I was lead to believe that much of the work was done in Fort Love/Greeley area shops. He didn't have more than 50 hours on all the mods in the plane when he did the hard nose (collapsed the nose gear and crumpled the firewall) landing at Greeley. One of those o'shi* moments when he was able to walk away safely from the totall'ed bird, but it wasn't even fodder for Beegles at that point.
I'd love to put an IFR certified GPS in my panel where the Flybuddy Loran used to reside ... now with a cover plate over the removed tray area and the open space free'd up with the NDB radio gone, too ... but, as you observe, a lot of money for what would be a very limited use for me. My iPad2 does most of the same work and provides the information I need, it's just not IFR certified nor can be coupled to an autopilot (and I'll likely never be able to justify an autopilot upgrade in my bird, either). I hand fly respectable and consistent ILS and VOR/DME approaches with my old panel, but I don't push that capability to minimums.
IMO, the OP might do well to join AOPA now and use their resources to educate his wife about flying safety and GA ops. It might just be the incremental difference to get her to understand what GA is about instead of all the fear mongering unfounded stuff she's no doubt heard so far.
Do it. It's very rewarding. It can become a money sink though... I personally don't know anyone who has died (or even had an accident) while flying. That's over a twenty yr span. Just learn as much as you can, always exercise good judgement, make conservative decisions. Be thorough and don't get complacent. Good luck!
I worked with a woman whose father died in a private plane accident.. Years later I looked up the FAA report and it appeared he and his friend were goofing off and it cost them their lives. It was a shame, I know his daughter was heartbroken over it all.
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), but this is so true:
