JWilsonphoto
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Dear JBear,
On the one hand I'm not going to pull any punches on the rigors and experience required in air to air work, I'll have to swing the other way on your hereditary impressions of general aviation. I think you can glean from our thread that I am a fairly gentle spirit and not generally given to undue criticism. That being said, your Cessna 210 pilot was an idiot and you're fortunate that his stupidity didn't kill you and your wife. I've been flying for 36 years, with time in everything from WWII, antiques, business jets, and helicopters, never, not once, have I poked my (or anyone else's) in anything approaching what you described. Those kinds of weather phenominon don't just pop up out of nowhere and it's a pilots job to know where the potential for them lies and to not be anywhere near there.
Flying is a funny thing. I am not a daredevil and I have lots of wonderful blessings in my life that cause me to do all I can not to hasten it's conclusion. I try to keep any ego, (some hutzpah is necessary to cause you to think you can propel yourself down a concrete ribbon in an aluminum creation and launch into the air) at the airport boundary. Some pilots look at weather, mechanical challenges, stretching fuel reserves and the like as contests between themselves and the aircraft, those are the ones you eventually read about, and the ones that help form the impressions of general aviatiion your Dad held.
GA pilots tell people all the time that flying is safer than driving. There are a number of caveats to that clichet. It is if you're on a scheduled air carrier on a main route (not commuter) and not in a third world country. If you are speaking about general aviation the truth is flight in that context is 8 to 10 times more dangerous than driving. If you dissect that statistic you can readily see that it still can be a very safe activity because the number one cause of GA aircraft coming out of the sky before their intended destination is one that is easily preventable, that would be running out of gas! The next big category is the one you experienced, pilots flying from good conditions into bad ones with either themselves or their aircraft being ill prepared or equipped for the conditions. JFK, Jr. is a prime example of that syndrome. While no violent weather was involved, he was not instrument rated nor qualified (though his aircraft was very much capable of safely navigating the conditions), he lost visual reference and as the FAA statistics prove, lost control of his aircraft minutes later. Then there's events like the NY Yankee's pitcher and INSTRUCTOR! Who made GA look so dangerous by doing just about everything dumb they possibly could. The next category of causes is mechanically related and the stats are relatively small there and can be reduced greatly by responsible maintainance procedures.
So, if you take flight seriously and avoid the pitfalls described above, it's really an amazingly safe activity. I was reared by a mother who had agorophobia and about every other phobia, many days a trip to the mailbox might as well have been a trip to the moon for her. It's difficult to be reared in an environment like that and not absorb some of the irrational perspectives that you heard and witnessed. Don't let things like that limit what you personally can experience and accomplish in your own life. The things I have learned about myself, the beauty I have been blessed and privileged to witness, the experiences I have been able to share with others over the past three decades makes any minimal risks inherent in aviation seem very, very small.
If you think you'd like to sample the experience again, pick someone conservative and responsible, go in a well maintained aircraft and begin, at least, on a pristine morning or evening with moderate temps and light winds, it'll be a whole new experience.
All the best!
JW
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