General Aviation suffers a “dangerous little planes” reputation.  Organizations that promote General Aviation routinely battle the reputation with “Be A Pilot” campaigns, or “Intro Flight” promotions.

The Federal Aviation Administration battles it as well, with programs designed to further pilot education and pilot training.  The purpose is to underscore safe practices and methods so pilots make better decisions about circumstances a particular flight might face.

Pilots promote aviation to non-pilots with a campaign of conversations with family, friends and co-workers.

Wreckage of a Piper 180 due to fuel exhaustion

The only flights that make it into the news (and public opinion) are flights that crash or make off-airport landings.  This is the public face of General Aviation.  So let’s just forgive the public for having that “dangerous little planes” opinion.  It’s what they see.

In 1998 the Journal of the American Medical Association published a report that has some significant data.  While the data may be old, the overall statistics are still accurate enough to make observations.  In the report “Risk Factors for Pilot Fatalities in General Aviation Airplane Crash Landings”, there were 39.6 million flight departures and 2075 crashes in 1992.  That’s one crash out of every 19,084 flights.  Twenty-two percent of those crashes had fatalities and 32% had injuries.  That works out to one crash with fatalities for every 85,070 flights, and one crash with injuries for every 59,638 flights.

Simply put, the odds of a small airplane flight crashing is about .005%.  The chance of being killed on any particular flight is roughly .001%, or one thousandth of one percent.

Joseph T. Nall Report published by AOPA Safety Foundation

The Joseph T. Nall Report is published every year using the previous year’s aviation accident data.  According to the 2010 Nall Report, there were 1418 accidents in 2009 with 255 of those resulting in 452 fatalities.

The Nall Report calculates accident rates differently than the JAMA report.  The Nall Report uses accident rates per 100,000 hours of flying.  The 2009 accident rate, according to Nall, was 6.60 accidents per 100,000 hours, and 1.30 fatalities per 100,000 hours. The comparative automobile rate in 2003 was 1.48 deaths per 100 million miles travelled (NHTSA 35-04). If an average small aircraft covers 150 miles each hour, the GA gross figure works out to 8.8 fatalities per 100 million miles travelled, about six times higher.

Either way you calculate it, the proof is in the numbers.  General Aviation flying is not statistically dangerous, but is relatively riskier than driving a car.

Nearly 80% of Airplane Crashes are Avoidable

According to the 2010 Nall Report, 829 fixed-wing non-commercial accidents in 2009 were due to “pilot related” causes.  One hundred forty seven of those accidents had fatalities.

Let’s consider these.

Of those 829 accidents, it’s clear that we continue to do the several things that kill and maim the most: poor pre-flights, fuel mismanagement, flight into IMC, and loss of control of aircraft during takeoffs, climbs, maneuvering flight, descent, approach and landing.

If we eliminate all the accidents which are under the pilot’s control (~80%), the overall fatality rate is about the SAME, per mile, as in an automobile.  So this begs the question, “If we can reduce fatalities by 80%, why don’t we?”

Some flights have more inherent risk than others and a conscientious pilot will consider those risks and find ways to mitigate them.  Headwinds stronger than forecast? Make an unplanned fuel stop.  Weather deteriorates? Find a place to land.

JAMA Finds That Shoulder Harnesses Save Lives

But let’s think about the most confounding of accidents – crashes that happen on flights that should never have been attempted, or those in which the circumstances are blatantly indicative of a stupid go/no-go or continued flight decision.

There, I’ve said it. I used the S-word.

General Aviation as a whole suffers from those individual stupid decisions. Pilots, as a group, excel at news-making accidents because pilots, individually, excel at killing themselves and passengers as a result of stupid decisions.

A pilot who posted on an internet forum said it very well.  Most of the dead and maimed sealed their fate “when they trusted their lives to a pilot they believed to be competent”, but who proved to have more ego than sense and more arrogance than respect for the trust his passengers placed in him.

For those pilots who don’t believe they can ever be defined by the previous sentence, please read it again: Most of the dead and maimed sealed their fate when they trusted their lives to a pilot they believed to be competent, but who proved to have more ego than sense and more arrogance than respect for the trust his passengers placed in him.

Don’t we owe it to our friends and loved ones to put their safety ahead of our egos?

We are not superhuman, immune to weather or better than our flight planning.  Year after year, the Nall report proves that we pilots are the weak link in the chain.

Left Wing Separated Upon Contact With Trees

In the aftermath of an accident the media quotes friends and family members attesting that the accident pilot “was a careful, excellent pilot”.

We pilots aren’t so generous.  And we shouldn’t be.  After an accident involving a pilot we know, we say things to each other like, “He was an accident waiting to happen,” or “I never would have flown with him.”

Within hours of an accident, internet aviation forums are replete with opinions from pilots, like “Four now dead because the pilot was scud-running below a 700’ overcast??! What was he thinking, flying in weather like that?” Sometimes we don’t need to wait for an NTSB report to tell us what really happened.  Though we don’t know the details, we can assume the mindset.

Despite the fact that many of us know pilots we would never fly with, the community’s silence with regards to these pilots is costing lives.  What is it about some pilots’ attitudes that they ignore factors that make a particular flight dangerous at best, downright stupid at worst, yet they make the flight anyway?

Why do most of us remain silent when we could take a pilot aside and point out instances of poor aeronautical decision making? If we confronted pilots we know are trouble, could we change the public perception that the sky is full of “dangerous little airplanes”?

It’s not the little airplanes that are dangerous.  The problem is pilots.  We are unwilling or unable to admit that we are our own worst enemy.  Let’s face it – we pilots have a public relations problem, and it’s killing us and our passengers.

Dr. Bruce Chien, CFIA-I-MEI-ATP/Senior AME contributed to this op-ed. He can be contacted at www.aeromedicaldoc.com.

Copyright 2011 All Rights Reserved

AvMap EKP-V Portable Aeronautical GPS

AvMap presents EKP V the next step in the evolution of aeronautical GPS, redefining the role of the GPS inside the cockpit.

Fully Portable
A brilliant 7” display, with built-in battery and GPS, only 0.8” thick . EKP V is slim and light, yet very powerful: with built in u-blox 5 GPS receiver, built-in battery and speakers.

Offering full Connectivity
Thanks to the special Docking Station, you can connect EKP V to several on-board devices at the same time (autopilot, XM WX, CAS, EIS, EFIS etc.) so that the large 7” LCD becomes multifunctional and capable to display different flight info.

Fully Customizable
Easily change the layout choosing what to see and where to display it: maps, taws, weather, vertical profile on map, nav data, HSI, EFIS. Set different PROFILES for different aircrafts with different settings for taws, selective display and even different hard keys configurations.

User Friendly
The new practical keyboard includes a configurable key, a progressive jostick and a smart wheel selector. Ease of use is ensured by the new graphic interface and the full qwerty virtual keyboard.

Flight Plan View on EKP-V

Complete Info
EKP V maps are highly detailed and complete with Jeppesen Data, Low airways, private airports, the Seattle Avionics’ ChartData with 32,000 geo-referenced approach charts and airport diagrams for USA and Europe, Vertical obstructions, VFR Reporting points and detailed Terrestrial Coverage.

Technical Specifications

The EKP-V is the perfect size for the cabin.  It’s 4.3” x 6.8” x 0.8” thick and weighs less than a pound.  The color LCD TFT display provides a 7″ diagonal screen size in 64,000 colors with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels.  Automatic brightness control adjusts the display for all lighting conditions.

The 2D view shows Land Elevation (color coded topographic map showing the altitude of the terrain).  It can be operated in horizontal or vertical mode and the display is fully customizable.

There are ten hard keys, including a configurable key, and a joystick and smart wheel selector.  There is a soft QUERTY keyboard feature.

The GPS Receiver is a u-blox 5 high sensitivity with WAAS position accuracy and the processor is an 800MHz Freescale IMX515, along with 256 MB of RAM.  The memory device is a standard Micro SD card that comes preloaded with software and maps

The battery is a removable, rechargeable lithium-Ion, and it includes a charger that can be used in the airplane to connect directly to a power outlet.   The unit adjusts to power, from 10 to 35 v DC.  It has a built-in speaker and docking station for panel mount. The EKP-V has 2 serial ports and 1 USB OTG, audio video input and audio output

Choose what to see and where! TAWS, weather, vertical profile, nav data, HIS, EFIS (GPS based).

Full flight planning capability with up to 15 flight plans of up to 100 legs each, with a vertical profile of your route shown.  You can import and export flight plans, waypoints and routes from the EKP-V to PC with any of several third party software including FliteStar and Flightplanner.

Utilities include an editable aircraft checklist, a trip computer, full simulator functions and TAWS – Terrain Awareness and Warning System. The unit can be integrated with onboard navigation systems such as autopilot, GPS. An external antenna can be used as well.
It boasts a full or split HSI / RMI screen with data fields, including vertical navigation.

Get a preview of the airspaces that you will cross along your flight, and real time warnings on airspaces being crossed with the Crossed Airspace predictor and advisor.

XM Weather shown, requires XM Module Option

Weather data: (Function available ONLY in North America) with the optional WxWorx receiver.  This function requires a subscription to XM weather.

In addition to weather, the EKP-V will provide traffic information when used in conjunction with the Zaon XRX collision avoidance system.

Many other features are available on the EKP-V.  You can exchange waypoints, flightPlans and tracks data between the navigator and Google Earth™.  With the Photo Database Creator, you can load your pictures up to fullscreen size on the navigator and assign them to an airport – giving you the ability to pre-visualize your approach.

Using the customizable Aircraft Profiles feature, you can set a profile for each aircraft with different TAWS settings, selective displays etc.  It will integrate with other on-board devices including EFIS, autopilots, external antennas, WXXM, CAS and is compatible with AvMap INCAS collision avoidance system.

Maps provided include a worldwide background.  The navigation data is Jeppesen, and updates can be purchased directly from AvMAP, and easily downloaded to the Micro SD card.  The terrestrial background is from NAVTEQ, as well as the Street Maps, for when you use the GPS for car navigation.

It features Low Airways (Victor Airways), Obstacle data, the AOPA Directory and includes airfields and helipads and more than 1300 unlicensed airfields and 1000 helipads for all Europe

Airport Diagrams are included for taxi navigation, and approach plates can be displayed as well.

This list price of the AvMap EKP-V is $1,999.  PilotJunk.com features the EKP-V at $150 off the retail price.  For a short time, AvMap is offering an end-user rebate of $400.  Simply send in any old Aviation GPS and your proof of purchase and they’ll send you $400.  That’s a final cost of $1,449 after rebate for a device that compares almost feature-for-feature to the Garmin 696 ($2,449) and stands up quite favorably to the Garmin 796 ($2,749).

The rebate ends December 31, 2011.

Well, here’s the answer directly from Ross at Brightline Bags:

Order your Brightline Bags Pilot Flight Bag from us before December 31 and get free ground shipping! We also do custom embroidery – get the 2nd line free!

2011 Air Race Classic Route - Provided by www.airraceclassic.org

The Air Race Classic, a nonprofit organization, is dedicated to encouraging and educating current and future women pilots, increasing public awareness of general aviation, demonstrating women’s roles in aviation and presenting and promoting the tradition of pioneering women in aviation. Hosted by the Iowa 99s Chapter of the North Central Section 99s, the annual event this year begins in Iowa City, Iowa and after 2300+ miles ends in Mobile Alabama.

After stops in both Dakotas, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, the participants get to enjoy the stimulating and eclectic Mobile, Alabama as their final race destination.

Linda Keller (left seat) & Mimi Reiheld

PilotJunk.com customers and friends Amelia Reiheld will co-pilot and Linda Keller will be flying left seat as they fly the 2300+ miles for this year’s race.  From Mobile, Alabama, their blog is http://azaleacityavgals.blogspot.com/

We are proud to provide them modest support for their trip.  In addition to FAA Charts, we’ve donated a SPOT-2 GPS Messenger unit and service to allow them to provide anyone who wants to track them with the ability to do so!

How do you do that? Simply go here and you will be able to follow them on their route.

A recent trip putting the SPOT to the test

Check back frequently for updates!  A recent trip taken shows a successful test of the SPOT Messenger!

We are thrilled to be able to support Amelia and Linda on this exciting journey!  We hope that we are able to let them begin this adventure with peace of mind!

SPOT-2 Messenger. Smaller than a hockey puck, yet gives peace of mind.

SPOT-2 and Charts are available from Pilotjunk.com at our Pilot Shop.  Look for summer specials on SPOT-2, SPOT Connect and Activation.

We sincerely appreciate your visit to our online store.  Your business helps us support pilots like Amelia and Linda, and future young ladies in their aviation endeavors.