I’d be interested in buying a Lancair, because they seem to be of the mind set that getting killed is ok as long as you do it going 200 knots.
Birge, I missed that in their literature. Did they tell you that at Sun and Fun?
Wow…
Sarcasm. I figured the joke would go over well here. It was a poke at the idea that their not having a chute is a serious safety omission. (Though for the record, the Lancair IV is a ludicrous aircraft. I do honestly think they sometimes put sexiness and speed before safety over there.)
In reply to:
Haven’t seen the article referred to, so I’m not sure what the source of the “90%” figure is, but can I
respectfully suggest that it might be “90% of all spins that result in an accident” occur below 300 AGL? We could add “unintentional” there as well, but I’m willing to bet that all spins below 300AGL are unintentional!
Clyde: I have the article right here, and I quoted it earlier in this thread. It says “Out of curiosity, I plotted the altitudes cited in the spin accidents. More than 90 percent of them started at such a low altitude that the spin was unrecoverable. The best spin pilot in the world couldn’t have recovered…” In another part of the article the author says “Nearly all of these accidents occurred at less than about 300 feet agl, so any spin recovery technique would have been useless.” The author doesn’t say both facts together so can’t say for sure if 90 percent were below 300 feet! Bottom line the author says it’s pilot judgement. See my earlier post…Aviation Safety
Sorry about that. To clarify, the article suggests that 90% of all spin related accidents occur at very low altitude such that a recovery is not possible.
In reply to:
The reality is that after seatbelts were added to cars, the fatality rate stayed about the same. The accident rate went up because people become more confident and took more risks. It’s a well documented phenomenon.
Jeez louise, Birge, was it only this morning that you were saying you’d be more careful about sweeping overstatement? What you say here is flatly untrue, and you could have found that out in about ten seconds with a glance at historical charts on the Internet, as I’ve done just now.
- Total deaths from car accidents are significantly lower, in absolute terms, than they were before the seat-belt-and-air-bag era. In 1975, 53,000 people died in car accidents. In 2000 , 41,800 did.
- Since the population is much higher now than 25 years ago, the per capita rate has fallen even more. The death rate per 100,000 people was 23.5 in 1975, 16.1 in 1998 (the latest I can find right now).
- Since miles-driven-per-person has also risen, the death rate per mile has gone down even more than that.
In short, the reality is 180 degrees opposite from your “well documented” phenomenon. And the fall in death rates would be even more dramatic if the series started in the mid-1960s, before the wave of seats belts, crash resistent interiors, etc. (Why would I know this? Because I once did a long article on it.)
Now, there have been moments of rising fatalities, contrary to the longer trend. One was a two-year stretch in the late 1970s, for reasons I don’t know at the moment. The other was in the early 1990s when the 55 mph speed limit went away. But the long term trend is unambiguous and known to anyone who has ever looked into this question.
In short, things that made people “feel” safer, from seat belts to airbags to lower speed limits, actually made them safer. This is not an argument about Cirrus, but if it were, it would suggest that built-in safety measures would in the end make people safer.
Why do you say things like this?
Actually, before you went off on a rant, you should’ve just read what I said. The imformation I got was from an editorial in the WSJ a while back (I’m pretty sure this is where I read it). It was showing how sometimes regulations can backfire. It stated that in the few years after seatbelts were mandated, the total accident rate went up but the fatality rate per accident went down. However, the total number of fatalities stayed about the same. The assumption was that since the accident rate went up, it was because people were taking more risks. Maybe this is in the part of teh data you’re not looking at. At any rate, I’m quoting an article from memory, so if it’s wrong, then I am. But I’m certain I’m accurately quoting the jist of it.
I never stated the long term trend was negative or flat. That would be incredibly depressing. I was just trying to give an example of where a safety improvement can change people’s behavior. I have no illusions that it’s impossible to improve safety through technology. I just wanted to point out that sometimes you backslide a little because people’s attitude changes.
Look, the bigger issue is why you care so much about proving me wrong. I’m not sure I’m right about anything I’ve said here. If I were, I wouldn’t feel the need to bring it up in a DISCUSSION forum, would I?
Steve,
Care to elaborate on “Mr. Birge’s” comments about Lancair, in the post below? Just curious what some one from the Church of Lancair has to say about it. And did you read Mr. Birge’s comments below on safety belts?
Forget the Cirrus discussion for a minute, just look at his comments about the Lancair and automobile seatbelts, and you’ll see there is not much interest in logical discussion by him, just troll-like behavior.
My comment about the Lancair was an obvious joke. My goodness! And the comment about the seatbelts you might disagree with, but then you will also disagree with a lot of other people. Please read my direct response to your response to my seatbelt post.