>
> I am a professional flight instructor and teach almost every day. It was
> interesting when I applied for my airplane insurance. The company wanted
> me to have - - - - -- ---
I am very grateful for this message (of which I quote only the beginning),
although its content is of course quite sad. It makes me understand better
why so many of these loss-of-control-in-the-air accidents happen. I can
identify with the builder-wants-to-be-the test-pilot syndrome (for lack of a
better word) - I had the same desire. I was fortunate in that I had the
possibility to attend an excellent upset recovery training course in
Phoenix, where the emphasis was as much on how to avoid loss of control as
how to regain it. We went through many silly things we all have done as
pilots, and just exaggerated them a little to provoke the stall-spin entry.
In the Extra 300 recovery was easy, but the experience was still in many
cases FRIGHTENING!
While you have over 20,000 homebuilt aircraft in the US, we only have 50
airworthy ones here in Norway (3 of which are Europas). Statistics
therefore cannot be used sensibly, it would take about 50 years to reach
100,000 accumulated flight hours, which is the normal accident rate basis
used. The number of accidents is low, and too low (and with too few
aircraft in the fleet) to make sensible statistical comparisons with
certified private aircraft in our country (abt 310 aircraft only, and they
take abt 3 years to reach 100,000 flight hours total).
EAA - and also our national chapter - are rightly advocating a fair degree
of freedom in the technical aspects of our homebuilt aircraft. When it
comes to flying them, however, I am glad that our EAA chapter has not pushed
for easing the Norwegian CAA's requirement for aircraft-specific training.
Our own life is one thing, our families' loss is quite another - not to
speak of the innocent passenger's health or life. Interestingly, our CAA
now require that one pre-departure checklist item is to brief any passenger
on the principle differences between a homebuilt and a certified aircraft,
and then asking the passenger if she/he still wants to take the flight.
Regards,
Svein
LN-SKJ
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