Another "Expert" Opinion on an Experimental Crash

[gbrasch]

Commenting to the press on a fatal RV-6 crash: Ross Aimer, a retired United Airlines pilot and CEO of Aero Consulting Experts, an aviation consulting firm.
The planes’ performance capabilities and their relatively low price point have made them popular with aviation enthusiasts, Aimer said.“A lot of them are built and flying safely, so you can’t say they’re unsafe,” he said. But he added that flying any do-it-yourself airplane carries risk.“Usually there’s not much control over these home-built type of airplanes,” Aimer said. “The FAA hopes you do a good job, but how many people know how to build an airplane in their garage?”

What say you?

[Kyle Boatright]

Commenting to the press on a fatal RV-6 crash: Ross Aimer, a retired United Airlines pilot and CEO of Aero Consulting Experts, an aviation consulting firm.
The planes’ performance capabilities and their relatively low price point have made them popular with aviation enthusiasts, Aimer said.“A lot of them are built and flying safely, so you can’t say they’re unsafe,” he said. But he added that flying any do-it-yourself airplane carries risk.“Usually there’s not much control over these home-built type of airplanes,” Aimer said. “The FAA hopes you do a good job, but how many people know how to build an airplane in their garage?”

What say you?

Dude needs to know when to end his interview. Anything remotely sensational you say will be included in the story.

[DaleB]

“The FAA hopes you do a good job, but how many people know how to build an airplane in their garage?”

From a retired airline guy and now "consultant"... I'd say it's typical.

[martymayes]

Well, obviously nobody knows how to build an airplane in their garage anymore than he woke up one day and knew how to fly an airliner.

That's why the call it "education"

[FlyingRon]

Yep, nothing wrong until he got to the part after "but" in the last statement. In practice, there isn't much control and the FAA trusts you to do a good job.

[Mike M]

"CEO of Aero Consulting Experts, an aviation consulting firm."

Experts? What happened to truth in labeling?

[Frank Giger]

We all say things that are just damned stupid from time to time. His misfortune was to say them to the press.

[CHICAGORANDY]

"

What happened to truth in labeling? "

No kidding - case in point, my cousin went to the US Virgin Islands..... he said there was nary a one to be found.

[Marc Zeitlin]

The planes’ performance capabilities and their relatively low price point have made them popular with aviation enthusiasts, Aimer said.“A lot of them are built and flying safely, so you can’t say they’re unsafe,” he said. But he added that flying any do-it-yourself airplane carries risk.“Usually there’s not much control over these home-built type of airplanes,” Aimer said. “The FAA hopes you do a good job, but how many people know how to build an airplane in their garage?”

What say you?

Everyone is beating up this 33000 hour pilot who's also an aeronautical engineer and A&P. What, exactly, did he say that's false or misleading? I'm not arguing that he should have said what he did in this particular manner to the press - there's no real utility in it, but what's WRONG?

He said "you can't say they're unsafe". That's good.

He said that "flying a do-it-yourself airplane carries risk". That's a fact - EAB aircraft are somewhere around 4X as dangerous as the average GA aircraft, which is somewhere around 10X as dangerous as driving a car (hand-wavy #'s, but relatively close, depending upon how you want to measure it).

He said “Usually there’s not much control over these home-built type of airplanes,” which is true, and how we hope it will stay, right? People are allowed to, and IMO should be allowed to, do whatever they want within some range of reason.

He said "The FAA hopes you do a good job, but how many people know how to build an airplane in their garage?”. The first part is demonstrably true, and the second part is a rhetorical question that can, in fact, be answered. The # of people that know how to build an airplane in their garage is vanishingly small - since there are 330M people in the USA, and maybe what (Ron W., speak up here) 30K EAB aircraft flying, the answer (if you assume that everyone that built an EAB aircraft knew what they were doing) is about 0.01% of the population, if you also assume that no one ever built more than one plane (which clearly isn't true - I've built two). Now, if you believe that his statement should only apply to those folks that have ATTEMPTED the build of an EAB aircraft, rather than to the population as a whole, then I'd say (given my experience in inspecting/evaluating about 90 aircraft over the past 4 years) that about 10% of people know how to build an airplane in their garage when they start, and about 90% of them know how to do it when they finish.

So I'm missing what folks are annoyed about with what Mr. Aimer said...

[Bill Berson]

Was the RV-6 crash even builder error? Or was it the more typical pilot error. We had a fatal RV-6 crash here with two airline pilots.