
The Personal Airplane Is Taking Off - larrys
http://www.wsj.com/articles/forget-flying-commercial-the-personal-airplane-is-taking-off-1444330932
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carleverett
If you're interested in the concept of personal airplanes replacing commercial
flight, I highly recommend "Free Flight" by James Fallows.

There's a lot of things working against the concept. Weather constraints and
sport pilot restrictions are logistical issues, but by far the #1 issue is
cost. The Transition, Terrefugia, and A5 aren't doing much to solve this by
selling for $190-300k, so they definitely won't be changing how the general
public travels.

Regardless, I couldn't be happier with my Sport License. For now I can only
afford to rent, and not much at that. Were it not for the LSA category though,
flying would still just be a wish.

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cpncrunch
It's very difficult to beat the cost, safety and reliability of commercial
airlines. If you have $250k burning a hole in your pocket, something like a
Cirrus or Corvalis is probably a more useful option for trips up to about
1000nm.

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x1798DE
That's quite a short trip.

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michaelbuckbee
Guessing that's Nautical Miles and not Nano Meters.

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cpncrunch
Yes. nm is the standard abbreviation for nautical miles in the aviation world.

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hugh4
2 deaths per hundred thousand hours is really a lot.

So if you're a hobbyist, and you fly a light sport aircraft six hours a week
for thirty years, you've got a 20% chance of it killing you. (Right? I haven't
had coffee yet.)

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sokoloff
That's in the ballpark, but 300 hours per year is way, way over the average.
Anything over 100 is on the high-end of the range.

Several issues though:

The risk is far from linear. Infrequent pilots have much higher risk per hour.

The number of hours for part 91 (most private flying) flights cannot be
reliably determined.

About 75% to 95% of risk is under the control or strong influence of the
pilot. Weather, fuel, crew readiness, pre-flight planning and related issues
are much more under pilot control (if you're willing to cancel or delay
flights) than in comparable car trips. It's extremely rare for another pilot
to kill you.

I came up with 9% if you assume two fatals per accident.

Light sport is restricted to day VFR, which is lower risk, other things being
equal. Unfortunately, that also saps some utility and pushes you towards
taking a late day flight rather than waiting for better night weather. I don't
think LSA is viable for transportation, which makes it all the more unusual
for someone to fly 300 hours per year.

(Context: I fly about 150-200 hours per year, which is 80+% of our vacation
travel. I also read every NTSB fatal report.)

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cpncrunch
If you look at the stats (e.g. the Nall report on AOPA's website), the fatal
accidents mainly boil down to two categories: pushing the weather, and low
altitude stall/spins, and both of these are mostly down to the pilot.

So if you remove the "accident waiting to happen" category of pilots, the
fatal accident rate will likely be much lower. I've heard it said that GA has
a similar accident rate to riding motorbikes, which is another activity where
the risk mostly depends on the rider.

The type of pilot who is most dangerous is the type-A business owner who feels
they have to get to their meeting no matter what the weather. Unfortunately
these are the people who will have $250k in their pocket and want to use a
plane for transportation. Perhaps the only solution is to have self-flying
planes, similar to google's cars. (And of course, they would need to be
hacker-proof!)

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mordechai9000
The advice I was given is that, as a private pilot, you should never put
yourself in a position where you can't wait out the weather. Making it to your
job on Monday or your meeting or whatever is less important than your life and
the lives of your passengers. You don't have to go up, but you do have to come
down, as the saying goes.

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sokoloff
Couldn't agree more.

Just this prior weekend, we _had_ to be in Columbus, OH for my inlaw
grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary and then I had to be back to head out
to Re-invent in Vegas. With the hurricane possibility, we cancelled our plans
to use our airplane and booked 3 day advance purchase trips on one carrier to
Cleveland (to avoid connections on the east coast), then drive to Columbus,
then fly out of Columbus on a different carrier.

Was expensive on its face (4 people, late notice direct flights), but cheaper
than risking killing my whole family tangling with weather. Of course, the bad
weather didn't end up materializing, but you have to be willing to make those
calls frequently to use general aviation for travel to take the "get-there-
itis" pressure off.

If you're going to sweat the money for commercial tix/hotels/cabs or are not
willing to sit in the FBO weather room and pilots' lounge if you're caught in
weather in the middle of a trip, your risk is going to be way higher than it
needs to be.

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JulianMorrison
What I want is an Airfish ekranoplan [1]. It's got to be much cheaper to run,
and the risk of dying is far, far lower. You could probably use if for
distance travel if you followed rivers or coasts.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAfm0YtETSE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAfm0YtETSE)

