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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
I'm glad for you that you've had good experiences so far! "Diagnosed me in 5 minutes" doesn't sound like anywhere near a complex medical issue though.
I certainly keep trying to obtain good results from the system, ie extend trust, but situations routinely run aground. Can you really say it's a "trust issue" when the problem is that I dig into details of situations and repeatedly discover how so-called professionals abjectly drop key issues on the floor?
Latest example: I need a new dishwasher. I should be able to read some reviews, spend $1k, and get the problem solved, right? Guess again - first delivery, a dent (crease) in the tub from the thing being slammed so hard that its plastic frame deformed and pushed up into the metal tub. Second delivery - loud noise from wash motor. I try to engage with warranty service figuring I'd be fine with them swapping the whole pump assembly. Nope, the guy that comes can't even be assed to do his job either! "Oh that's normal so there is nothing to fix, this is a good model, you should keep it". Third try, wash motor sounds a little better but still has a problem. The third set of delivery guys didn't even take away unit #2 for the exchange (even though I even pushed back when they said someone else was going to come later). I had wanted to simply pay money to solve the problem, but instead I'm left with two noisy dishwashers and a big ole project in my court. (do I keep pushing this exchange button? do I just order a new pump assembly and fix it myself, considering the bonus dishwasher compensation for that? do I say fuck it to the whole brand and rethink the purchase decision?)
Sure, I could drop my standards here, check out, and stop caring about the details. The dented tub probably wouldn't leak a decade down the line, the loud motor isn't really that big of a deal if I only run it overnight, and if the motor needs replacing in a few years it's only a $200 repair. But should not giving in to this "best effort" service (after paying $1k) really be considered a "me" problem? It seems more like an economy problem, with me only being exceptional for noticing, having some expertise on how these things should function, and having the willingness to push back.
(although I am thankful that the thing in the front of my mind that I'm frustrated with is an appliance rather than dealing with the medical system again)
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.
I would still trust a cessna way more than any plane built or modified by a single person.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm glad for you that you've had good experiences so far! "Diagnosed me in 5 minutes" doesn't sound like anywhere near a complex medical issue though.
I certainly keep trying to obtain good results from the system, ie extend trust, but situations routinely run aground. Can you really say it's a "trust issue" when the problem is that I dig into details of situations and repeatedly discover how so-called professionals abjectly drop key issues on the floor?
Latest example: I need a new dishwasher. I should be able to read some reviews, spend $1k, and get the problem solved, right? Guess again - first delivery, a dent (crease) in the tub from the thing being slammed so hard that its plastic frame deformed and pushed up into the metal tub. Second delivery - loud noise from wash motor. I try to engage with warranty service figuring I'd be fine with them swapping the whole pump assembly. Nope, the guy that comes can't even be assed to do his job either! "Oh that's normal so there is nothing to fix, this is a good model, you should keep it". Third try, wash motor sounds a little better but still has a problem. The third set of delivery guys didn't even take away unit #2 for the exchange (even though I even pushed back when they said someone else was going to come later). I had wanted to simply pay money to solve the problem, but instead I'm left with two noisy dishwashers and a big ole project in my court. (do I keep pushing this exchange button? do I just order a new pump assembly and fix it myself, considering the bonus dishwasher compensation for that? do I say fuck it to the whole brand and rethink the purchase decision?)
Sure, I could drop my standards here, check out, and stop caring about the details. The dented tub probably wouldn't leak a decade down the line, the loud motor isn't really that big of a deal if I only run it overnight, and if the motor needs replacing in a few years it's only a $200 repair. But should not giving in to this "best effort" service (after paying $1k) really be considered a "me" problem? It seems more like an economy problem, with me only being exceptional for noticing, having some expertise on how these things should function, and having the willingness to push back.
(although I am thankful that the thing in the front of my mind that I'm frustrated with is an appliance rather than dealing with the medical system again)
>You can’t believe that you’re better than everyone else and everyone else is incompetent and still function in society.
Welcome to HN.
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.