Timeline for Are the first solo flights by a student pilot more dangerous?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
4 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 30, 2016 at 3:58 | comment | added | reirab | @Pondlife "and it would take a huge difference in flight hours to even that out" There almost certainly is a huge difference in flight hours between commercial pilots (who are frequently professional pilots) vs. people who hold a student pilot certificate. Student pilot certificates remain 'active' for several years even if the student stops flying, so many of those student licenses likely belong to people who haven't flown at all recently. Frankly, I'd be surprised if the number of hours/pilot/year for students is more than 10% of that for CPLs, likely it's much less. | |
| Sep 29, 2016 at 16:05 | comment | added | Pondlife | @pericynthion Great point, and I'm the first to admit that my statistical logic isn't always sound :-) Those figures are indeed the number of accidents, not the accident rate. But to take one comparison, the FAA stats say there were 20% more active student pilots in 2015 than commercial ones, and the numbers above say there was 1 student accident per 4 commercial pilot ones. So fewer commercial pilots had significantly more accidents, and it would take a huge difference in flight hours to even that out.I think the numbers are at least indicative of a lower student accident rate. | |
| Sep 29, 2016 at 14:27 | comment | added | pericynthion | Some of the statistical logic in this answer is unsound. e.g. "In 2015, student pilots accounted for only 6.5% of non-commercial fixed-wing GA accidents. [thus showing that student flights are safer than nonstudent]" - but you didn't normalize to account for the fact that many more flight hours are flown by nonstudent than student pilots. | |
| Sep 29, 2016 at 13:11 | history | answered | Pondlife | CC BY-SA 3.0 |