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Hey there - was a lurker of this thread for a while; used it to get a kickstart on my aviation education and have been dutifully flying since April w/over 70 hours. I just needed to do my solo cross country, night training and some under the hood work and I'd be ready for my check ride. I was ecstatic on Friday as I had my first solo into a tower-controlled Class C airport on Friday. The euphoria of having completed a tower controlled solo landing into a moderately sized airport was awesome. I was proud of myself...only to have those positive emotions turned upside down the next day. On Saturday morning, tragedy struck and I'm still shaken by it and unsure of whether I want to continue with this hobby. Ironically, I was at my local regional airport for an FAA safety meeting (part of WINGS) and the EAA was organizing the Eagle Scouts program and there were probably about 30-50 planes giving free rides to kids at the same time. Long story short, there was a mid-air collision for one of the Eagles flights and one of the pilots and mechanic for my flying club was killed along with his passenger (the other pilot was able to crash land with no injuries). The fatal accident happened in the same plane 172 trainer I have over 65+ hours in and just solo'd to BUF the morning before. The mom was there and it was a chilling site to hear her get the news and tragically ironic to be at a safety meeting while all this was occurring (the main FAA gentleman got a phone call and ran out through the meeting). Search lancaster crash if you want to see some news stories about the accident. I'm just shaken by all this. My flight instructor called me and is encouraging me to continue w/my training and see it through. He says when he was about to go for his CFI check ride his friend got in a deadly accident and he was in a situation where he wasn't sure he wanted to continue, but was happy that he did because of the 35+ years of flying he's done since then and the adventures that he's had. It's only been two days so I plan to give it a little more time before I make any decisions on whether to continue or not, but just wondering if he anyone's been in similar situations. What would you do if you were a student in my situation? I love flying, but recognize general aviation is a bit risky and have now experienced it first hand. tenaciousvigilance fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Sep 29, 2014 |
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Sep 29, 2014 16:22
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Tide posted:That's a tough situation. I can somewhat relate in that in my youth, I rode motorcycles in amateur racing. The day a friend of mine died in an accident at track day caused me to immediately park the bike and call my dad to bring the trailer. It was a while before I rode again and I never raced again. Thanks for relating your story. I love aviation in the same way -- you're always going to be learning and staying humble is an important part of the process for me. I also agree that you can't stop doing what you love because of fear -- taken to the extreme, you'll see your life go by very quickly without living much of it. I love being up in the air, but I'm not entirely comfortable with it. Mid air collisions are actually what I fear most and I've had a few close calls myself with my CFI. One instance was when we were departing downwind and a pilot radio'd in that he was going "straight in," I didn't spot him and all of a sudden I hear that he's base (and we're just at the downwind portion where you would turn base). My CFI took some evasive action by right right and increasing rate of climb, but that was a little too close. Obviously, should have made visual contact and been in better communication. Another close call was when I was doing the circuit over Niagara Falls and there was another pilot in the pattern and we didn't see each other for the longest time. We did eventually see the other plane and got out of the circuit fairly quickly. I'm much more mentally comfortable flying with ATC simply because I like the extra set of eyes on radar, but definitely learned a lesson to not rely on the radio for position then. As far as "safety records speaking for itself," I'm not so sold on that. Simply because while commercial aviation is statistically safe, general aviation doesn't seem to be so much. I read once (and I didn't check the math on this), but given the 1 fatality per 100,000 hours statistic that if you fly an average of 4 hours a week, by the time you're 30 you'd have a 3.9% (or something like that) chance of incurring a fatal accident. That's a pretty drat high percentage. I also eventually planned on getting my IFR training, but it doesn't seem like IFR pilots are statistically safer than VFR (at least according to one study: http://www.swaviator.com/html/issueSO02/Hangar91002.html). Anyway -- obviously I need to sort this out. I love flying and the adventures it can open up. Renting a plane every weekend, flying to a small town and exploring it, finding new hiking spots and making day trips out of places that would normally have to be weekend trips is very exciting to me. We'll see. Thanks everyone for your responses.
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Sep 29, 2014 17:51
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What do you guys think about buying something like this? http://www.sportys.com/pilotshop/product/9194 Anyone use it? Does it help/work well?
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Sep 30, 2014 02:16
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I flew in a friend's Cessna 210 the other day and he put me under the hood and had me fly IFR (while he had an IFR flight plan). It was a lot of fun! He's not a CFI and I'm still in the process of getting my PPL, but he suggested I get a complex endorsement and then I can begin logging hours with him in a 210. I'm a little confused -- since he's not a CFI, how can I log hours with him? I can't do that toward my instrument unless I'm with a CFII, right? Can anyone explain what he meant? tenaciousvigilance fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 22:24
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This may have been posted before, but I'm shopping for a new headset. The $100 ASA headset I began with is giving me some problems and is useless in a 210. Anyone have any recommendations for a comfortable headset that cancels noise very well in a higher performance aircraft? Budget is $400-500.
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Dec 14, 2014 18:01
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Kind of a long shot, but anyone in this thread live near KBUF and interested in selling part of their airplane or finding a partner to buy one? I'm looking for something similar to a Mooney M20C/E/J mainly used for cross countries.
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Oct 18, 2015 21:32
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AWSEFT posted:Visit the different FBOs and check their boards. I usually see that kind of stuff on those boards. Thanks for the suggestion!
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Oct 19, 2015 16:28
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sleepy gary posted:Are you on Ron Ciura's mailing list? If not, get on it and have him send an email for you. Hey there, fellow WNYer! I am actually; great idea. Where do you fly out of? I'm at BQR with the flying club.
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Oct 21, 2015 01:36
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