Unpressurized high performance single engines are basically the number one private pilot killer. Dentists and business men with a few hundred IFR hours will go up solo in their new million dollar TBM, lose oxygen, descend into icing, and that's a wrap. Don't be one of those guys.
...are there stats on that? It's my impression that poor pre-departure decision making - especially regarding WX and w & b - are the very, very simple things which tend to kill private pilots.
Arguably, taking off along a route where one could potentially be stuck in icing for an extended period, in an aircraft not capable of that, is the definition of poor pre-departure decision making. Commercial airliners have relief to dispatch with malfunctioning anti-ice gear. The procedures almost always dictate that flight in known or forecast icing conditions is prohibited. Basically, if it’s not summer and there’s a cloud in the sky you’re not going. Icing is not something to mess around with in an aircraft not properly equipped for it.
A TBM is pressurized. Article is about unpressurised planes. TBMs also have quick-don masks as standard equipment and very loud alarms warning you if cabin depressurizes
>A TBM is pressurized. Article is about unpressurised planes. TBMs also have quick-don masks as standard equipment and very loud alarms warning you if cabin depressurizes
The problem is they lose pressure all the time. And when that happens, the average pilot has no ability to figure out what's happening or fix the problem until it's too late. They market these planes to people that really shouldn't be flying them, no different than high end sports cars.
Checklist for depressurization alarm says to put on quick-don mask. That is all you need to do to prevent a fatal outcome, after that, you have plenty of time to diagnose the issue or safely descend. Not sure what you are talking about, but a pilot unable to execute the first item on a checklist has other problems clearly.
TUC at 30,000 feet is 1 to 2 minutes if slow decompression, 30-60 seconds if rapid. If you lack cöordination and movement ability to reach two feet, grab a mask and apply it to your face in that time, you have no business flying a plane (or for that matter doing anything else like driving or operating a basic dinner cutlery set like a fork and a knife)
Rapid depreciation is a highly stressful situation. You need reolize the single most import thing to do not ‘just fly the plane’ or check the dammage, but rather to start putting on a mask in a few seconds or you will die. Waiting wasting even 20 seconds may not give you enough time to finish putting the mask on properly.
The US Air Force has a long list of people who failed to do the correct thing in similar situations. On top of that even assume you would get it right 99/100 times that’s still more danger than most people experience over a full year.
It makes me think of jumping out of a plane. Pulling the cord to open your parachute sounds like a really simple thing, but doing a really simple thing correctly and quickly when you are otherwise about to die is harder than you might think. And when skydiving, even for the first time, you get to prepare for the event, rather than having it sprung on you.
This is precisely why people train for sudden depressurization. That way when the unexpected thing happens, you're ready for it anyways. If you're not, nobody should have given you your license. I know friends who have had real emergencies and handled them gracefully. I have had my engine suddenly quit on me while I was over downtown Dallas, and I've had my oxygen system fail up in the flight levels. Handled both just fine. If you were well-trained, training just kicks in.
If something bad going suddenly scares you, if you're not comfortable with your ability to handle sudden spikes in stress, you're just not cut out to be a pilot.
"If something bad going suddenly scares you, if you're not comfortable with your ability to handle sudden spikes in stress, you're just not cut out to be a pilot."
Perhaps, but if you think it is possible to be certain of your ability to handle stress before actually experiencing it, then you have never been tested.
Something clicked when you mentioned being ‘given a license.’
Realistic and regular training can make a huge difference and is really important. But, it only goes so far. Some people simply react poorly in stressful situations so organizations tend to simply resort to filtering people out. That does not happen nearly as much in general aviation.
Sometimes people go unaturally calm, other times they flip out and it’s not always predictable how someone is going to react. So, this might not be an issue for you, but plenty of evidence suggests it is a widespread issue.
Latest Nall Report [1]: 73.8% due to pilot-related (action or inaction).
A TBM is pressurized, and would "lose oxygen" only if the cabin had already depressurized, either due to a rare malfunction (like the TBM 930 a year or two ago) or a pilot not knowing how to work the pressurization controller and climbing up into hypoxic altitudes, and then ALSO not having his emergency oxygen supply stocked, or not attempting to use it at all.
I'm surprised at your comment, to be honest, and the only motive for it I can guess is envy. Dentists and Businessmen in million dollar planes are a thin thin sliver of the General Aviation population.
I think you're misinterpreting hangar talk for aviation safety advice. The "dentist crashing his expensive plane" has been a trope in the aviation community for a long, long time. (Perhaps at some point it matched up with the stats? I don't know) By now, it's apocryphal, the point being that focusing on the gear or the money involved instead of actually managing risk is a good way to get killed.
I used to read the safety stats a lot. One of my favorites was "running out of gas". It always amazed me how many really good pilots and really good airplanes ended up in a bad way because of simply running out of gas.
Descend into icing-you don’t pickup ice in clear air. You don’t pickup ice below about -20C generally. You can be in a situation where you climbed through an icing or possible icing layer and above it are not in danger of picking up ice. If you have to descend back into it and linger, you may need to.
IFR hours-Instrument Flight Rules; controlling and navigating without visual references.
