How Safe are Small Airplanes?

                                                                                    Return to www.planesgalore.com

General aviation airplanes have one of the world’s best safely records among all forms of public transportation.  In fact, since 1950, the accident rate per 100,000 flying hours is down by more than 93%.

Some of us will always feel a little nervous about flying in small airplanes.  But here are a few facts about how safe they really are.  Nearly twice as many people are killed each year in recreational boating accidents than in accidents involving private planes.

A small plane that loses power at 10,500 ft altitude can glide for more than 15 miles.  This gives the pilot ample time to select an appropriate landing spot, over 700 square miles of available landing spots, in fact.

In 2006 out of 22.8 million hours of flight operations, general aviation had only 303 fatal accidents.  On the average, 80% of small plane accidents involve no loss of life.

According to the FAA approximatley 36% of all accidents occur during descent and landing.  Another 18% take place during taxi and takeoff.  Only about 15% of accidents are found to be due to mechanical failure of the aircraft.

Experience as well as equipment are often a factor in general aviation fatalities.  Statistically, pilots with fewer than 100 hours are the most likely to be involved in a fatal  crash.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Manufacturers of light aircraft continue to innovate with safety in mind.   Single lever controls, electronic displays with audible alarms, fuel injection to prevent carburetor icing, improved lighting, seats, belts and attachments, low fuel warning lights, internally lit instruments, more redundancy in instruments…all play a part in making light planes safer to fly.  When something does go wrong, the whole aircraft parachute is often there as a last resort.  This technology is credited with saving many lives.

Last year my husband’s flight instructor lost a wing in flight and crashed into a vineyard.  He was able to deploy the BRS chute on his Challenger light sport aircraft and walked away from the accident with only minor bruises.

Critics of general aviation say the accident and fatality rates are still too high and safety improvements lag behind those of commerical aviation.  So called general aviation accounted for 91% of all aviation fatalities between 2002 and 2005.

The highest fatality rate is among single engine, fixed gear airplanes.  These accounted for 118 fatalities in 2006, down significantly from prior years.  Collision with terrain, wires or trees was the most common cause (52.5%), followed by loss of control (42.5%).

So, while flying a small plane is still riskier than watching football, general aviation is safer than traveling by car.  There are one tenth as many accidents per vehicle mile and the accident rate has steadily gone down since 1980.  Pilot training is a lot tougher than what is required for a driver’s license.   Aircraft is closely regulated, aircraft mechanics are certified and the NTSB reviews and publishes details about every reported accident.

So, while is is true that commerical airlines have a significantly better safety record than general aviation, it is also the case that flying your own small aircraft coast to coast (if you are a licensed, experienced pilot) is considerably safer than the same trip by car.

General Aviation, A Medical Lifeline

They’re called “Compassion Flights”, or “Angel Flights”. The FAA calls them “aeromedical services”.  It’s a sector of general aviation that you may not think about everyday.  But in an emergency, perhaps a car accident, it’s a sector that can save your life.

I live in a fairly remote area of coastal California where medical evacuation flights are common.   Near my home is a large soccor field where critically injured and ill patients are loaded into helicopters and taken to nearby trauma centers and hospitals by highly trained teams of pilots, paramedic and flight nurses.  Without this service many survivable automobile accidents might prove fatal because of delays in treatment.

Cancer and burn patients often need highly specialized care, available only in major urban medical centers. In many parts of  the world general aviation pilots work through charitable organizations to volunteer their time, money and aircraft to fly patients and their families between their homes and remote medical care facilities.

One well known organization “Doctors without Borders” routinely fly medical personel to small towns and communities where they provide much needed medical exams, innoculations and training to local doctors and nurses.  Currently,  Doctors without Borders is supporting health workers in northeastern Congo.  This is an area where violent attacks on the local population are frequent and travel by car is too dangerous.   So medical teams travel by plane to provide supplies and assistance to Congolese health workers.  After attacks, medical teams fly in to the area to help in evacuating and treating the wounded.

Another rapidly developing area of medical air transport is that of moving transplant organs.  Recently AirNet, a transport company known formerly mostly for shipping cancelled checks and other banking material made it’s first transplant kidney delivery from a donor in San Diego to a hospital in Miami.   

These are just a few of the ways the general aviation community continues to make the world a better and safer place for all of us.

General Aviation – Not Just a Bunch of Rich Guys in Private Jets

These days with high gas prices, the economy in the tank and global warming, flying a small plane might seem unwise, extravigant, or even downright unpatriotic to some.  But not so.

Some of the traditionally most patriotic, hardworking and thrifty folks in America are using small planes in record numbers to keep the economy moving and food on our tables.  That’s right, the American farmer uses general aviation aircraft to support many of their most basic day-to-day operations on the farm and ranch.

It is estimated that without agricultural use of small planes, America’s crop yield would drop up to 50%.  Remember the rice shortage last summer? 

To compensate for lost yield, farmers would have to put millions of acres of grassland and forests into production.  Nothing “Green” about that.

So what are these guys doing in the air anyhow?  Well, they are replanting fields and forests from the air.  For example, rice and rye grass can be planted this way.

Of course, fertilizer can be applied from the air, allowing huge areas to be teated in response to changing soil and weather conditions.

We’re all familiar with the old fashioned “crop duster”,  sometimes dusting our cars as we drive down the highway, in addition to the roadside fields.  Today, farmers use satellite navigation with specialized “Ag Sprayers”  to place precisely measured amounts of pesticides literally within inches of intended start-stop points.  This minimizes over-spray and the amount of chemical needed to optimize crop production.

Speaking of land and water management, small aircraft are used to survey cropland to identify areas which may be over-watered and to spot the earliest signs of insect damage or erosion, even in the toughest terrain.

We’ve all heard of the lifesaving food drops for cattle stranded in frozen fields in the mid-west.  In addition, sick or injured animals can be located and even evacuated for comprehensive treatment if necessary.

The next time you visit the grocery store, remember the general aviation pilots who make the variety and abundance of food we sometimes take for granted, possible.

Palo Alto Airport Connection with Mission Aviation Fellowship

A special mission of mercy originated from Palo Alto Airport in August this year.  A modified Cessna Grand Caravan took off on a 40 hour 5,500 mile flight to Sentani, Papua in Indonesia.  This single-engine aircraft will be handed off to Mission Aviation Fellowship, an organization which flies missionaries, medevacs and material to some of the hardest to reach places on earth.  

Redwood City resident Bill Leahy has been modifying and transporting planes for Mission Aviation Fellowship for nearly 10 years.  To prepare the Grand Caravan for the trip, Leahy designed and installed a pair of 250 gallon fuel cells, which combined with the plane’s twin 160 gallon tanks will keep it in the air for 18 hours.  Palo Alto Airport serves as a primary staging point for supplying the organization new aircraft. 

The Grand Caravan is capable of carrying 3,000 pounds of cargo plus a pair of pilots and 11 passengers.  This is an improvement on capacity over the Cessna 206s the organization has relied on for years.  In addition, the new fleet runs on “Jet A” fuel, a type of kerosene that is more affordable and available than “avgas” required by the smaller planes.  A gallon of avgas in Indonesia was selling for about $15 in August, nearly four times the price of Jet A fuel.  This is up from $2 per gallon just five years ago.

Mission Aviation Fellowship is headquartered in Nampa, Idaho.  The new plane will ultimately operate out of Tarakan, Kalimantan, transporting locals and cargo in the Krayan and Apokayan areas.  The air fleet is a critical lifeline for locals in an area where roads are scarce and few rivers are navigable.  Several medevac flights will take place every week, providing many their only way to medical treatment if they get sick.  For some it will be the difference between life and death.

This is one more example of the general aviation community, contributing to make the world a better place.  Those who want to close down our regional airports need to know there is more is going on here than just weekend jaunts for $100 hamburgers.

Mission Aviation Fellowship is a Christian organization and is always looking for aviation professionals who want to help.  You can find out more at www.maf.org/nampa.

Palo Alto Airport Links Trio of Recent Fatal Crashes

According to the Federal Aviation Administration there was no common denominator between three recent fatal airplane crashes.  A 41 year old neurosurgeon and new pilot flew a rented Cessna 172 at night and crashed in the hazardous Lake Tahoe region.  An experienced 38 year old pilot with his own airline transport business flew his Piper Navajo Chieftain into the garage of a two story home in Las Vegas.  A retired programmer, 60 years old, crashed his 1977 Socata Rallye into the California Highway Patrol building on Highway 101 in Gilroy.

There is no common denominator in age of pilot, level of experience, type of plane or location of the accident.  There is an unusual connection, however.  All three were among those piloting the aproximately 500 small aircraft that take off and land at the Palo Alto Airport each day.  One pilot was headed to Palo Alto, one took off from there and one lived nearby.

This loose connection to the airport in Palo Alto serves to highlight what most pilots take for granted.  Accidents do happen;  pilots make mistakes and machines break down.  Although three fatalities in one month with a connection to a single airport is unusual, it happens.  For most pilots flying is still far safer than driving.  You wouldn’t give up driving because thousands die every year on America’s highways.  No one is likely to park their plane because of a run of fatal crashes.  The price of fuel?  Now that’s another story.

Vanishing California Airports

                                                                                             Return to www.planesgalore.com

This list is from the California Pilot’s Association website, dated Jan. 14, 2008.  It shows an alarming trend of airport closures throughout California.  Since 1990, we have lost 25 airports.  This represents an irreparable loss to the state’s aviation infrastructure.  If there was any doubt about the threat to general aviation in our State, this list put’s that doubt to rest.

Airport                                              County                            Year Closed

Alta Airport                                       Tulare                                   1994

Antioch Airport                                 Contra Costa                        1990

Atwater Airport                                 Merced                                 1994

Bear Creek Airport                             Riverside                              1998

Borges-Clarksburg                            Yolo                                     1998

Calistoga  Airpark                              Napa                                    1990

Carmel Valley Vintage Airport           Monterey                              2002

Eagleville                                           Modoc                                  2002

Enterprise Skypark                             Shasta                                  1994

Gallaher Airport                                 Tulare                                   1994

Green Acres Airport                           Tulare                                   1992

Holtville Airport                                 Imperial                                 2002

Meadowlark Airport                            Orange                                  1990

Natomas Airport                                 Sacramento                           2002

Pearce Field Airport                            Lake                                      1994

Pixley                                                 Tulare                                    1998

Rancho California                               Riverside                               1990

Redding Sky Ranch Airport                 Shasta                                   1994

Rio Bravo Airport                                Kern                                       2002

San Ardo Airport                                 Monterey                               1994

Santa Rosa Air Center                         Sonoma                                 1992

Shannon Airport                                 Trinity                                    1990

Shingletown                                        Shasta                                    2002

Sun Hill Ranch Airport                       San Bernardino                      2002

Vacaville Gliderport                            Solano                                    1990        

This information is attributed to Caltrans, the department of aeronautics. 

I wonder…. if it was 25 highways closed since 1990, would we be so complacent?  Would there be more than the local pilot’s outcry against the pending closure of Rialto  by 2010?  Our airports are vanishing and bit-by-bit the ability of the average person to fly is being eroded away.

 

return to http://www.planesgalore.com

Airplanes that can repair themselves?

A recent article in the Science Daily details a 3-year research project ‘Bleeding Composites; Damage Detection and Repair Using a Biomimetic Approach’.  Incredibly, within 5 years aircraft may be able to mend themselves, even in flight.

It works something like this.  If a tiny hole or crack appears in the airplane (maybe due to wear or fatigue), epoxy resin would ‘bleed’  from embedded vessels near the damage and seal it up, sort of like a scab.  Dye added to the resin would mark the ‘self repairs’ for future ground inspections so more permanent repairs could be made. 

Hollow glass fibres contained in the FRP composite material would be filled with resin and hardener.  When the fibres break, the resin and hardener would ooze out creating the “scab”.  The repairs are expected to result in  recovery of 80%-90% of the original strength of the material and would occur automatically as the damage ocurred, even in flight.

According to Dr. Ian Bond, who has led the project, “this approach can deal with small scale damage that’s not obvious to the naked eye but which might lead to serious failures in structural integrity if it escapes attention.  It’s intended to complement rather than replace conventional inspection and maintenance routines, which can readily pick up larger scale damage, caused by a bird strike, for example.”

This technique which mimics the natural bruising/bleeding/healing processes of our own bodies has been developed by aerospace engineers at Bristol University.  This new technique can be used  wherever fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are used.  These materials are increasingly popular for use in aircraft, automobiles and even spacecraft.

One important benefit may be aircraft designs using more composite materials in place of aluminum.  The resulting reduction in weight could lead to substantial fuel savings over the coarse of an airplanes lifetime.  In aircraft FRP composites can be used in any part of the fuselage, nose, wings, and tailfins.

This new self-repair technique may be availble for commercial use within 4-5 years.

Call for Support and Donations to Help Watsonville Airport

The Coalition for Responsible Airport Management and Policy (CRAMP) is calling for donations to a legal fund in support of the Watsonville Pilot’s Association to fight the City of Watsonville’s appeal.  This comes in the wake of the Santa Clara County’s rejection of Reid-Hillview Airport closure.

Contributions should be sent to the Watsonville Pilots Association at PO Box 2074, Freedom, CA 95019-2074.  Checks should be made payable to “WPA” and mark the memo section “legal fund”.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!