[mindslight]

Flying in a plane you built yourself is likely safer than flying in the same model of plane built by a company that assembled it for you using lowest-bid labor while making you sign a twenty page lawyer barf disclaiming liability.

[TylerE]

We have decades of data saying that isn’t true. Homebuilt aircraft have much worse accident rates than factory built aircraft.

[habinero]

Are you really comparing an amateur skillset to designs from paid engineers made on a company assembly line with QC?

Why on earth would you think an experimental aircraft made by a hobbyist would be safer?

[mindslight]

See my other follow up comment ("same model"). Medical device software development feels much closer to homegrown (or worse) than aeronautical engineering.

[f1shy]

Why do you think a random person, who is VERY passionate about something, as to invest all the free hours in life to do something, is less skilled that one who just does it because is needed to survive?

Sorry. I would be much more inclined to have something made by somebody passionate about it, as done by some guy that received hopefully some kind of instruction on how to do things and was then left alone.

In this context (GA) we are not comparing Airbus/Boeing with a garage build. We are comparing some small company making 2 seaters with your hangar and maybe 10 certified aircraft mechanics that will help you a lot on the process.

[AdelaideSimone]

And why do you think pathos arguments are logical? Granted, they didn't cite them, but assuming it is true, empirical studies showing the accident rates are the logical point from which to draw conclusions. What you would like, how you and others feel about it, and what you would expect are meaningless.

You're also equivocating. They made it extremely clear they are referring to hobbyist and other such groups with vague or unknown qualifications; whereas, you go in and make stipulated claims about small businesses with certified mechanics, etc. These two are clearly not the same category, making your argument non-responsive. It's also contradictory in terms of discussed liabilities and such, as the small company, and its mechanics, that whoever worked with, would have liability as well, as opposed to the "random git repo".

[jacquesm]

You write that as if you have ample experience with codebases of medical devices and I'm going to take a stab at this and say that you don't. Prove me wrong.

[amrocha]

You can’t honestly believe that or you wouldn’t be able to function in society.

[mindslight]

My comment rests on the fact that the types of planes you can build yourself are completely different models than the fully assembled models from the likes of Boeing etc. I do agree that a kit 737, if such a thing existed, would be less safe than one off the line.

[amrocha]

I would still trust a cessna way more than any plane built or modified by a single person.

[jacquesm]

I think the Beechcraft Bonanza deserves special mention here. I'm sure all the people that worked on it were experts too!

The big problem with this analogy is that it conflates three very important things:

- GA is more dangerous, period. Doesn't matter whether you build the plane yourself or if you bought it ready made (hopefully new, hopefully very well maintained if second hand)

- GA craft tend to have less experienced pilots than airliners, but even airliner pilots tend to do worse as GA pilots than when they're at work. The reason for that is simple: the processes are what keeps commercial aviation (mostly) safe.

- GA craft tend to kill the pilots, because they are more often than not the only person on the plane.

- GA craft have malfunctions like larger aircraft, there is nothing special about them in that sense. But there is something that they don't have that larger aircraft do have: redundancy. In electronics systems, in the design of the mechanical bits, and finally in the people.

- GA craft that are designed and built by their operators are experimental class for a reason: they are untested and so more likely to fail than the ones that are certified. The design processes for commercial aircraft are nothing compared to the design processes employed by what we'll call hobbyists to distinguish them.

- And finally, even though it is a fun analogy I only meant it from a skin-in-the-game point of view, a GA hobbyist is still going to do his level best to make sure that he's not going to get killed. Boeing executives only care about the bottom line, safety is a distant second. And based on my experience with the difference between the guts of various bits and pieces of avionics and the software that they run on compared to my experience looking at medical devices, their guts and the software that they run on I would be more than happy to bet that the loop hackers know as much more more about the failure modes of these devices as the manufacturers do.

Cleanroom manufacturing under sterile conditions is the main differentiator here, and that just applies to the hardware, and it is an art that the medical industry understands very well. Electronics is already at a lower level of competence and their software knowledge tends to be terrible, not to mention the QA processes on said software.

Programmers working for corporations don't necessarily suddenly grow an extra quality brain when they do their work.

[TylerE]

Now look at something like the Bede BD-5 and see how many of it's amatuer builders IT killed. Death rate on the first flight alone was something like 10%.

PS: AIrcraft aren't assembled in cleanrooms.

Frankly, you don't have a damn clue on and are getting basically everything wrong in the process

[array_key_first]

You can believe it and simultaneously function in society.

We aren't all building our own planes because it's worse, but because it's time consuming. I don't have 20,000 hours to burn learning about how planes work to make my own.

If we magically beamed the knowledge straight into people's heads and also had a matter fabricator, I'd imagine yes - everyone would build their own plane. And it might be safer, I don't know.

Point is, the ideas are not mutually exclusive. You can believe both and still resolve it internally and with the world

[habinero]

Not the original poster, but that was snark and not meant literally.

Also, building your own plane is absolutely worse, even if you do have expert-level knowledge. That's true for any complex design. Aircraft design, material sourcing, fabrication, assembly and quality control are all very different skill sets, but the real kicker is experience.

The reason why commercial aircraft are so safe is a lot of work goes into investigating and understanding the root causes of accidents, and even more work goes into implementing design fixes and crew training.

[amrocha]

Nope, not snark. You can’t believe that you’re better than everyone else and everyone else is incompetent and still function in society.

If you do then you probably have an undiagnosed mental illness.

[mindslight]

The problem is that the system incentivizes incompetence. The mechanics who are paid a skilled wage, take their time, and double check to make sure they are not missing anything show up as big red problems on the beancounters' spreadsheets and get optimized away.

The system can make up for this in other ways like repeatability of processes, redundancy, etc. Which is why commercial aviation is safer than general aviation, and also why I specifically worded my comment as being about the same model of plane - ie if instead of building your own experimental-class kit plane, you hired it out to a liability-limiting company hiring minimum-wage workers to follow the directions. I'm guessing such a thing is illegal per FAA regs, but that kind of proves my point.

For another example, have you experienced the medical system lately? Doctors are generally smart people, but that intelligence is squandered by having their attention smashed into 10 minute chunks, with the entire rest of the system revolving around blame passing - the end result is a lot of smart and well-meaning people ending up grossly incompetent through emergent effects. I would much rather be able to go to a doctor and trust whatever answers they gave me rather than having to do my own independent research and advocacy to drive the process. But that is not how the system we have works.

[amrocha]

I don’t even disagree with you about the system incentives. I hate capitalism just as much as you!

But I still trust the institutions around me to keep me safe. Obviously that depends on where you live, I wouldn’t feel the same way if I still lived in Brazil.

Last time I went to a doctor was about 3 years ago. They diagnosed me in 5 minutes, and took another 10 to treat me and write me a prescription. It was great, I loved it.

Sounds like you have this trust issue with lots of different areas of your life, it might be worth reexamining your own perspective. Or maybe you just have to move to somewhere that you do trust.

[schmuckonwheels]

>You can’t believe that you’re better than everyone else and everyone else is incompetent and still function in society.

Welcome to HN.

[amrocha]

This post has been a wake up call. I need to be more careful who I bother responding to.

This reminds me of the time I found out there’s a ton of libertarians here that think drivers licenses are oppression.