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- Hacker News
- memento moriby lstodd
- Personal aircraft. The great equalizer.by comrade1234
- Seems aircraft have been hard on tech this week.by pixl97
- I worked for a small successful company in the pharmaceutical industry. One of their founders died in a crash in his small personal aircraft. He was a really nice guy and very charismatic. I was not working there when the accident happened, but I was sad to hear about it.
I agree with OP's sentiment.
by jmartrican - “Doctor killer” for a reason.
It can be monotonous and degrading, but commercial air is the safe way to travel.
by master_crab - I clicked a news article a few months ago about a crash... Google has since decided I need to know about all future aviation accidents. I was surprised how frequent it happens. Two brothers were killed in a Cessna just the other day.
I suppose it's a combination of lower maintenance standards and pilot experience, definitely doesn't make me want to hop in a small plane anytime soon.
by kylecazar - Actually he survived, he just has to turn on 39 more radio transmitter towers before he can be rescued.
(and thank you for Far Cry Primal)
by marshray - Why don't planes have parachutes? like a huge parachute that pops on stall to slowly descent the plane?by brador
- Probably the same reason why you can't wear an airbag suit in commercial airplanes.by amelius
- Some do [1]. But in GA the costs to fly are so high that adding yet another cost means it is impractical for most GA pilots.by jmward01
- by dxdm
- Some do. Sr-22 for example.
However, often if you’re handling things well, loosing an engine isn’t the end of the world.
A lot of accidents happen very close to the ground, at height wear a parachute wouldn’t necessarily be helpful anyway.
A parachute, a great solution for some scenarios, but for many, it’s not going to change the outcome. Such examples would be mid collisions, low altitude spiral dives, fires, or anything related to a shortage of oxygen. You also need to consider that during a lot of accidents, other factors, such as weather might be impacting the decision matrix of the pilot, and that might prevent them from using a parachute until it’s too late.
The parachutes are also another maintenance item in increasing the cost of running the plane, and generally, the airframe won’t survive the accident, so people are hesitant to deploy them.
by verelo - Sad for this.
I am wondering: what's the data on how safe, or unsafe, "private" planes are, e.g. compared to commercial jets?
- In order of safest to least safe: commercial jets, automobiles, general aviation aircraft, motorcycles, messing around with Jim.by addaon
- You'll want the McSpadden report (formerly the Nall report) here [1]
Pay attention to the accidents per 100,000 hours in commercial vs non-commercial fixed wing. Commercial is about 10-40x safer.
[1] https://www.aopa.org/training-and-safety/air-safety-institut...
by schmookeeg - Bad two weeks for aviation.
- Hmm? What else did I miss?by zahlman
- by toomuchtodo
- >Guillemot helped transform Ubisoft from a mail-order software business into one of the world's largest video game companies
Wrong, Guillemot and his family greedy, destroyed one of the most successful gaming companies in the gaming history.
If you have been following the gaming space within the last 5 years or so, it is safe to say that he won't be missed, and it opens the door for Tecent to bring the Ubisoft back to its glory if that is even possible at this stage.
by h4kunamata - by cf100clunk
- My Dad, a flight instructor, loves to remind me that there are bold pilots and old pilots. But there are no old bold pilots.by seanvk
- Chuck Yeager seemed pretty bold and died at 96.
Yay, one old bold pilot.
by lostlogin - I briefly entertained flying planes as a hobby. I live next to a small-ish local airfield and a coworker of mine got his license there. Then I learned more about it, and there's way to many accidents like these for me to be comfortable with the risk I'd be taking.
I have no issue with flying commercial planes, but I guess I don't trust myself _and_ the smaller planes enough to do this.
RIP Claude, horrible way to die.
by Insanity - It is the same reason I decided against getting a motorcycle (I also decided against getting a PPL as well).by k8sToGo
- Well it's not the safest thing but you control most of that. You decide whether to take off or not, what weather you accept, whether to do a proper walkaround.
Usually accidents are due to people taking too many risks. Yes it can happen but you can prevent a lot by being a stickler for safety.
And you can put down a GA aircraft in a field easily. When I flew gliders they always taught us to constantly evaluate every field you see as a potential landing site. This behaviour is not focused on enough for powered flying IMO. My instructor would suddenly put his hands over my eyes and say "emergency, where are you putting down right now?" And not having a good answer would have you off the solo list for a week or so. It really helped keeping this in the back of the mind. I've not seen that in powered flying at all.
by wolvoleo - I got my glider license at 16 and private at 17. Majority of accidents are human error. Though yes an accident with a plane is much costlier than one with a car.
I encourage you to read NTSB accident reports. The work the investigators do and the reports they assemble are unparalleled. There are also good parallels to complex systems in general.
by miketery - I had a similar decision to make (pilot or motorbike) and the fact that 60%+ of aviation deaths are pilot error and something like 60%+ of motorcycle crashes are NOT the rider's fault - led me to be a pilot. At least then I can try to make good decisions, e.g, DO NOT FLY INTO WEATHER.by bombcar