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Comment by brulez | Hacker News Reader

The problem with the current FAA rules is that even commercial pilots are banned from taking part in a service like this.

In fact, even pilots with the highest possible certification (Airline Transport Pilot) cannot provide transport unless operating under a company with a Part 119 Commercial Air Carrier license.

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I don't have a problem with that, either. Uber drivers put a lot more stress on their cars than ordinary drivers do, but ordinarily the worst consequence of that is that someone gets stuck at the side of the road waiting for a tow truck. If the same holds true for Uber-but-for-planes, the consequences of that are potentially a lot more severe. Requiring that commercial flights are held to a different standard as far as aircraft maintenance and such, not just pilot licensing, makes a lot of sense to me.

There's maintenance standards for a reason if you put X hours on a plane you have to do the required maintence for X hours. Commercial licenses are much more about making sure the maintenance is actually done because people might skip the maintenance.

It doesn't matter whether passengers are paying or not, similar to how in cars if you put X KMs on it requires the same amount of maintenance.

Have you seen a taxi? They are regular cars. Just like an Uber...

Flying is inherently dangerous. Only with huge amounts of effort has it been made safe. There's about one general aviation crash a day in the US.

Air taxi services come under FAR Part 135[1][2]. This sets standards for an air taxi service as a business. The standards are below those for an airline, but above those for recreational flight. A general basis of US aviation regulation is that you can kill yourself if you want to, but you can't kill other people. So there are low level licenses such as "Sport pilot" and "Private pilot", and low levels of inspection for private planes. There's an "experimental" category of aircraft, often owner-built from kits. These crash about one order of magnitude more than commercially built aircraft.

Once it's a business, the rules get much tougher. The pilot, plane, and business are all regulated. The pilot has to have 1200 hours and meet other criteria, the plane has to have some redundant equipment, and the business has to keep records of aircraft, flights, pilots, and inspections. Single engine aircraft can be used, but they must have some redundant equipment, such as dual alternators, plus the usual IFR instruments.

Here are Flytenow's terms:

"FLYTENOW OFFERS INFORMATION AND A METHOD TO CONNECT PILOTS WHO ARE FLYING TO A DESTINATION WITH ENTHUSIAST WHO HAVE A COMMON PURPOSE IN SUCH DESTINATION, BUT DOES NOT AND DOES NOT INTEND TO PROVIDE TRANSPORTATION SERVICES OR ACT IN ANY MANNER AS A TRANSPORTATION CARRIER, AND HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY FOR ANY TRANSPORTATION SERVICES VOLUNTARILY PROVIDED TO ANY ENTHUSIAST BY ANY PILOT USING THE FLYTENOW PLATFORM."

"As a Member, I agree that I am about to voluntarily participate in various activities, including flying activities as a passenger, pilot, student pilot, copilot, or instructor. In consideration of Pilot permitting me to participate in these activities, I, for myself, my heirs, administrators, executor, and assigns, hereby covenant and agree that I will never institute, prosecute, or in any way aid in the institution, prosecution of, any demand, claim, or suit against Pilot for any destruction, loss, damage, or injury (including death) to my person or property which may occur from any cause whatsoever as a result of my participation in the activities with Pilot. I know, understand, and agree that I am freely assuming the risk of my personal injury, death, property damage, or loss or destruction that may result while participating in the activities with Pilot."

This is no way to run a business.

[1] http://www.avweb.com/news/usedacft/184520-1.html [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-135

> Flying is inherently dangerous. Only with huge amounts of effort has it been made safe. There's about one general aviation crash a day in the US.

How does that compare to the rate of car crashes?

You can't really compare 'car crashes' to 'plane crashes'.

You'd have to take into account that if a plane malfunctions in mid-air a crash is a likely outcome, whereas if a car malfunctions whilst on the road a crash is an unlikely outcome (the likely outcome is you get to call the AA or the local equivalent and you waste some time).

That's what he meant with 'flying is inherently dangerous'. As in: if something goes wrong you find yourself in a spot that is not a natural position for a human being, you're very far above the planet and your plane likely does not have standard equipment to deal with that situation (and neither do you). This as contrasted with a car which will simply coast to a halt by the roadside. That's still not a 100% safe situation but much more safe than being a mile up in a small airplane that decides to stop working for some reason. If it is 'just' an engine issue you'll be making a forced landing and if you're unlucky the terrain may be rough enough to flip the plane, if it is anything besides an engine problem it may simply be 'game over' for anybody on board of the plane.

Inherent or not, surely what matters is the actual, empirical level of danger? If a plane taxi is more dangerous in practice than a car taxi then I can see an argument for regulating them more stringently, but if the risk is similar then surely the regulations should be too.

General aviation is about as dangerous as driving a car, it is an order of magnitude or more less safe than commercial flights.

Actual stats:

    General aviation: 11.2 fatal accidents and 19.7 fatalities per million hours

    Commercial aviation: 0.2 fatal accidents and 6.5 fatalities per million hours 

    Driving: .528 fatal accidents and .588 fatalities per million hours [1]

That's per hour. Accident rates per mile look much better for aviation, because planes are faster. Commercial aviation has more fatalities per accident because the planes are bigger. Note the 50x difference between fatal incidents in GA and commercial aviation.

[1] http://www.meretrix.com/~harry/flying/notes/safetyvsdriving....

Good find. Also worth nothing this bit:

" GA flying covers small training aircraft capable of cruising at 100mph, and business jets capable of cruising at several hundred miles per hour, so choosing an average cruise speed is difficult, but for the sake of argument, we'll choose 150mph. This gives us a comparison of:

    GA: 7.46 fatal accidents and 13.1 fatalities per 100M miles
    driving: 1.32 fatal accidents and 1.47 fatalities per 100M miles

So when compared on a mile to mile basis, flying has 5.6 times as many fatal accidents, and 8.9 times as many fatalities (these number would be even worse for flying if we took out motorcyle and pedestrian fatalities). "

Still quite a bit more dangerous per mile than for driving. (More than I would expect actually.)

Although I hesitate to recommend the article, Phillip Greenspun has numbers that sound right:

http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/safety

General aviation is somewhere between as dangerous as driving and ten times more dangerous. With current regulations.

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