Re: Tom Knauff's newsletter

As Andy noted, the FAA does not systematically collect glider pilot related

flight data.  This is also true for Ultra-light, balloon, and the rapidly 
growing S****t Pilot communities.

Without knowing the number of flights and flight hours, it is very
difficult 
to develop meaningful statistical based risk analysis.

There is even a problem using the FAA database to identify the number of 
pilots with a specific rating.  It appears from doing a couple "spot
check" 
that pilots who have died are not being removed.  So, currently the only
way 
to identify active pilots is to identify those with active medicals. The 
only solution that I can think of is for the FAA to start recording
biannual 
flight review dates. A pilot's flight history could be part of the
biannual 
re****t.

Wayne
HP-14 "Six Foxtrot"
http://www.soaridaho.com/



"Andy" <a.durbin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:ac54e481-3cbc-4b9e-bbb0-4f59ab356e26@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Jul 4, 4:56 pm, Jim Logajan <Jam...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

I think that for a meaningful risk analysis the number of fatalities
should be compared to either the hours of risk exposure, or the number
of risk exposure events.  This means either the number of flights, or
the number of flight hours, should be used rather than the number of
people qualified to participate.

FAA atempts to gather data on power pilots flight hours at every
medical exam.  That data is not collected for pilots with only a
glider rating.


Andy