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throwaway859876 | 10 years ago

It's an interesting link, and very interesting that these regulations are being litigated after decades of acceptance.

The big picture is that the FAA doesn't want the public to confuse the safety record of an airline with somebody flying a puddle-jumper (daily crashes in USA). The flying public just expects to get there without doing a risk evaluation, and puddle-jumpers are far riskier than airlines.

When you rideshare with Uber, there is a question of insurance.

When you rideshare a single-engine piston plane, there is a question of your life.

discuss

order

SomeCallMeTim|10 years ago

> (daily crashes in USA)

I'm sorry, but a quick Google finds less than a dozen in the US this year. I couldn't find a definitive list, but searching "small plane crash 2015" found mostly the same events.

A puddle-jumper being flown by a certified commercial pilot shouldn't be a whole lot more dangerous than a commercial flight.

But yes, a small aircraft flown by someone who just got their license? You're taking your life into your hands, especially if there's a chance of poor weather.

Tuxer|10 years ago

Pilot here, I can assure you that a "puddle jumper" being flown by a certified commercial pilot is way more dangerous than a commercial flight. The certification necessary for an airliner is miles above (no pun intended) the certification for a GA (general aviation aircraft).

An airliner's resistance to weather, its ability to out-climb (it's pressurized) turbulence and ice, its ability to still fly with half of its engines destroyed, is something that doesn't exist in general aviation aircraft. An airliner can only be flown with 2 crew members, pilot and copilot, so that one being incapacitated doesn't end the flight right there. Such measures don't exist in general aviation.

Even airports are different. Big airports have control towers and radars to avoid midair collisions, excellent weather reports. The places I go to sometimes don't have either, I have to overfly the runway at 500 feet to look at the windsock and make an informed guess.

mikeyouse|10 years ago

The NTSB maintains a database of all airline accidents that are recorded every year.. I did a basic search with the following parameters:

USA, 2014, Airplanes only, Fatal accidents only -- This returned 147 results of fatal accidents, the majority of which were Pipers / Cessnas / Beechcraft..

Expanding the list to include non-fatal accidents returns 310 results.. So not quite 1 per day, but still a lot of plane crashes.

http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/index.aspx

gcb0|10 years ago

to take that commercial license you have to fly hundreds of hours. with and without instructors.

guess how much those hours cost.

i lost count of how many times I've flown just for the hell of it with friends getting those hours for a few hundred bucks.

fnordfnordfnord|10 years ago

The FAA has a lot of power to wield against private pilots and they don't want to lose it. They don't particularly care how much it stifles General Aviation.

>When you rideshare a single-engine piston plane, there is a question of your life.

And that's pretty obvious. People are adults they can make decisions for themselves.

The only legitimate (IMO) concern that the FAA has in this is that there will be some people who will try to operate their own little mini-illegal charter service. The path of least effort for the FAA is simply to prevent anything that has even the slightest whiff of commerce.

tim333|10 years ago

Which is a shame. In Belize I was able to get a kind of taxi service to an island for like $90, in a single engine plane, which was great fun. Obviously there is some danger but I'd much rather be able to make the choice than have the government ban such things.

ksherlock|10 years ago

> The only legitimate (IMO) concern that the FAA has in this is that there will be some people who will try to operate their own little mini-illegal charter service.

You just described flytenow.

bro-stick|10 years ago

A single engine plane, I'd want to get to know the mechanic that last overhauled it and watch them work.

The pilot, has to in near-constant disaster-drilling mode and flying regularly.

Without those, which is most cases, I'm not stepping foot in said bug-smasher, because you're gambling with your life with someone whom may not be both experienced and competent enough to survive failure, no matter how well-intentioned or seemingly confident.

voska|10 years ago

We ask verified pilots on Flytenow how often they have been flying, you can see their total hours and previous 30 & 90 day hours as well. We don't let pilots post who haven't flown regularly, recently.

userbinator|10 years ago

On the other hand, nearly 100 people in the US die in car accidents every day... GA is definitely far riskier than commercial airlines, but driving also is.

notahacker|10 years ago

If you look at the numbers of people that drive per day versus the number of people that fly in GA aircraft per day your perceptions of which option is riskiest might shift...

Either way, it's orders of magnitude more dangerous than commercial aviation (not something you can say for Uber vs buses) and one thing guaranteed to increase that risk is GA pilots trying to reach specific destinations at specific times to satisfy their paying customers.

Which reminds me, I've got a GA "flight experience" to pick a date for ;-)

alistairSH|10 years ago

Even after adjusting for miles (or hours) traveled?