Quote:
Originally Posted by Albany
A good friend in Albany here, Dr. Doug Lonnstrom, wrote a book about the crash that killed JFK Jr. A terrifying read, and yes he managed to kill himself, his wife and sister-in-law. Every decision JFK Jr. made that day was bad and one step after another to death.
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That's what makes learning to fly so "interesting". It seems so easy once you master the art of being able to reuse the aircraft after landing it. But you don't know what you don't know, yet. Most of the crashes come around the 100 hour mark, and then there is another grouping around the 1,000 mark, when you start to feel like an old hand.
It's not an especially dangerous hobby, but the penalty for dumb mistakes is high, and you might not even realize you're making a dumb mistake at the time. It had never occurred to me before that incident that the flaps were useful beyond landing. And I'd been warned that VFR on top was dangerous, but I just assumed it was because you might get stuck there. Nobody ever mentioned that getting back under the clouds might be dangerous even when there's a great big opening, or that the conditions under the clouds when I got there might be nearly un-flyable.
I hope my story didn't scare people off from flying. It's the most rewarding thing I ever learned to do. But big rewards usually come with risks.