I hypothesise that as we get older we are more knowledgeable about the risks we are taking rather than being more risk averse. We assess the risk we perceive, which is not the same as the actual risk.
Speaking of risk perception, does anyone have data/stats to show the risk of death or injury resulting from engine failure over water rather than engine failure over land? How about engine failure over mountains vs. water? My completely subjective and uninformed gut feel is I’d rather ditch in the channel than try to land in Snowdonia.
Looking up the USA social security mortality table am already at 2% which probably dominates GA :)
I do think SOPs which are adhered to go a long way to risk control and mitigation.
Peter wrote:
You start flying when the “stars” line up (time + money) which tends to be about 40 years of age, and then at 60 you don’t like the risks very much.
In my experience it’s not so much age, actually some folks are coming BACK to flying at 60, once the kids have flown and the wife might not be caring so much anymore if you snuff it or not, rather than disappear then. I think the period of life where people disappear from any form of leisure activity for 20 years is from the 1st kid to that point.
Same goes for motorcycle driving, flying and other similar stuff. The moment you got kids, time becomes a commodity or none existant and quite often family will use any pressure point available to stop you doing things. Risk being one of them which they know trigger most pilots, as I would think we are one community with a VERY high risk awareness, e.g. due to the way we are trained to read accident reports and learn from them, and 2ndly most pilots have a much higher sense of responsibility that other people.
With age, you may learn more and do your risky things a bit more cautiously, but on the opposite, many will come back once they are older and go for those bucket list items they could not afford before. Once the responsibility of rising kids is no longer at the forefront, why not. I know several older folks who do post retirement what they wanted all their lives. @Dan is also one example with his epic flight, I also have a friend who post retirement from the airlines builds and flies helicopters and kit planes. Why not.
Clearly, the more you learn about risk the more adverse one tends to become, yet most of the time once you realize what caused accidents which may have dampened your spirits, this goes away. E.g. I was massively shocked about the accident jgmusic had with his family, enough that I almost gave up flying over it, but once I learnt what has happened, I could safely scratch it out of my personal risk box “stuff that could happen to me”. Some others do not. Still we have to remember that people in general are very bad risk assessors. For instance, we are going over engine failures all over the time but how many deadly accidents really are the consequence of that? In comparison to CFIT and other pilot induced errors? Last time I looked quite few.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In my experience it’s not so much age, actually some folks are coming BACK to flying at 60, once the kids have flown and the wife might not be caring so much anymore if you snuff it or not, rather than disappear then. I think the period of life where people disappear from any form of leisure activity for 20 years is from the 1st kid to that point.
That was true for me – thus my forum alias. (Well not the details – I was 53 and my wife would care.)
My family challenge in my late 50s is working my wife through airsickness issues she’s had since she was a child…. because both of us want to fly and do more, not less in the future especially when I don’t have to work regularly some day.
(We did the above successfully with motorcycles first (relatively easy, she now loves it), then cars (it took more time, now gone) and now the plane. She’s now made about 6 flights in a row without issues, a couple in the last week)
Otherwise as I’ve grown older I’ve learned from experience and gained understanding, as one does if you use your head. It allows me to manage physical risk more effectively, which sometimes means doing more than before, sometimes less. Financial risk is a slightly different situation as one doesn’t have the time to make up for errors.
Do you carry a raft on such flights and have you done any training in using it in anger?
I carry a raft, but also a second engine. After flying MEP for a few years I had to ferry an SEP across mountains and water. It felt very uncomfortable. Before I flew MEP I never thought twice about it. Same with flights in IMC and at night. I doubt I shall ever feel comfortable again doing anything other than flying over easy terrain in daylight in an SEP. Even though I know the risks haven’t changed.
