Experimenter is a magazine created by EAA for people who build airplanes. We will report on amateur-built aircraft as well as ultralights and other light aircraft.
Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/96284
a lot like asking which team at the Super Bowl is more talented. In the case of an aircraft, it really depends on how you define safety and how the aircraft is designed, built, maintained, and operated. The safest aircraft is the hangar queen or museum showpiece that never leaves the ground. However, we must not concern ourselves so much with safety that we become fearful of leaving the ground and thereby deprive ourselves of the beauty and wonder of flight. Agricultural aircraft spend much of their time low to the ground, often closer to obstructions such as trees, power lines, and antennae than many non-ag pilots would be comfortable with, but in terms of crash survivability they are at the forefront. The mentality that the agricultural aviation community embraced long ago is one of, "If you are going to expose yourself to the risk of a crash, why not give yourself the best possible chance of being able to walk away from it?" This is an approach that homebuilders can easily and should readily embrace. We are one of the only groups in aviation given the needed leeway to do so by the FAA. The idea of openly and frankly discussing crash survivability among pilots is a somewhat controversial one. This is due in part to the desire not to worry our families and friends, and discourage public support for our chosen hobby and general aviation as a whole. My response to this is that the best way to counter the concern about the safety of flying is not to sweep any mention of it under the rug but to drag the specter of crashes out into the harsh light of inspection and crush it under our collective heels. Other resistance to the idea of using our collective creative, engineering, and construction talents to make experimental aviation the safest form of aviation comes from within. Pilots as a group tend to self-select for people who are confident in themselves and their abilities. Homebuilders are probably even more apt to have these sorts of traits because it takes a fair amount of ego to build and then fly an aircraft. The same traits that lead one to want the freedom to build and fly can prove to be a double-edged sword. No one likes to admit his own fallibility, and when you bring up the subject of crashes, you often encounter the attitude—either directly stated or subtly implied—that "it won't happen to me." Graveyards are filled with aviators who thought that same thing. Human beings—no matter how well educated, or experienced—are fallible. The best argument against the myth that most people involved in crashes die is to get more people involved in aviation and at the same time reduce the number of persons killed annually. These are not contrary motives but rather the only way we can remove the albatross that hangs around our necks with regard to the mistaken beliefs about aviation safety. The first step to this is to banish the word "accident" from our lexicon. The loss of an aircraft or those persons on board it is not an "accident"; it's a crash. Accident implies that it is unavoidable or simply the bad luck of our number coming up. Crashes are avoidable; they are never the luck of the draw, and we must stop allowing ourselves to slide into thinking otherwise for it undermines the necessary collective will and drive to improve these statistics. Second, let us get into the details of how people are hurt and killed in aircraft crashes. We must understand not only ourselves but also our enemy in order to have reasonable assuredness of success in battle. The biggest problems in aircraft crashes are head injuries, chest injuries, and the factors in the post-crash environment that kill those who would have otherwise survived. This latter group includes an aircraft that is on fire or sinking in water. We will get into this in greater detail in the second part of this series. Many of those whom I talk with who think of safety as a secondary consideration or an afterthought also tend to be the most vocal opponents of greater federal regulatory oversight of general aviation and especially experimental aviation. They fear having their ability to build and fly taken away. When this comes up, I ask them what they are doing to help keep the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) off our backs. Support of advocacy groups such as the EAA and AOPA are great starts, but there is something more that every homebuilder and pilot can do. If we make ourselves as safe as possible, then we have the best argument against further restrictions and can help to erode the misconceptions of general aviation as unsafe. Improving crash survivability through improved design is one step toward this goal. We are the only GA community able to effect this change and prove that this can work. The FAA has given us some rope to work within the current regulations. The choice of whether we use it to bind ourselves together as we climb higher on the mountain of aviation achievement or fashion it into a noose around the neck of our hobby is our own. Stephen Richey is an aviation safety researcher who has been involved with flying starting with his time as a "junior hangar bum" with a local EAA chapter as a child in Indiana in 1988. He has logged about 700 hours thus far including times in ultralights and as a student pilot in light singles. His current project is the design of a new composite homebuilt known as the Praetorian. EAA EXPERIM ENTER 37