Oh yeah, and you will find very quickly that most people are a bunch of flaming hypocrites when it comes to flying. Lots of wannabe aerospace engineers in tech. Half the people I have met who put aviation on a pedestal hate flying but love to trumpet the statistics of how safe commercial aviation is. Try asking them to get into a Cessna and all of a sudden the excuses come out. It's oh noes I have a fear of heights, oh noes general aviation is less safe and only slightly safer than a motorcycle, oh noes the FAA is corrupt and allowed the helicopter crash in DC to happen, oh noes I have a family etc.
Aviation safety discussions on hacker news have barely more more depth than biotech and healthcare discussions here. It's extremely ironic because a tremendous number of pilots are engineers, and especially software engineers. It's not exactly a cheap hobby. But you don't see massive numbers of English majors come crawling out of the woodwork to join a discussion on the safety of C++ vs Rust, but tech bros flock to worshipping aviation as a platonic safety idol like moths to a flame.
Err...have you actually asked someone to get into a Cessna?
Also, "fear of heights" is a totally valid excuse. Fear is a gut reaction and may have nothing to do with one's justified true beliefs. Eg., I know spiders on probability won't harm me but there simply won't be any amicable co-existence between me and any arachnid.
> Err...have you actually asked someone to get into a Cessna?
Yes? In practice once you convince them to get into the plane the only real issue in the air for those new to flying is air sickness.
Also fun fact a good number of pilots claim to have a fear of heights (never met one irl except online in aviation forums).
If you are in aviation/aerospace, don't be afraid to share the joy of flying. There's nothing quite like cruising at 90-100 knots @ 3000-4000ft AGL on a nice clear day.
Not aware of the concerns you have, but they seem just as valid about other similar concerns across industries.
Any books you'd recommend or journalists to follow that cover this beat?
Half of aviation safety (especially for commercial aviation) is done on the ground and has nothing to do with aerospace engineering. Stuff like shift times for pilots and ATC, mandated rest periods, proper ground equipment in zero visibility conditions etc. Many developing countries cut corners on maintenance and spare parts. Mandated use of safety technologies (the DC helicopter incident was entirely preventable). Airports that are designed with safety in mind. If you have a dual engine failure immediately after take-off on an airliner in the middle of a built-up city you are generally fucked. Midwestern airports are the best if you have to do a forced approach. Transport category aircraft (basically anything bigger than a 12 seater plane) don't really have many options, they can't easily land on the runway like smaller planes. That's why the Hudson was a miracle. Your airliners stay safe through constant maintenance and inspections. Dual engine failures are very rare (unless through deliberate pilot action like the recent case in India).
On the engineering side you can look up ETOPS and the various ICAO and FAA and EASA standards for airliner class aerospace engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS
Trust me, y'all think airplanes are "safe" because of some sort of magical protocol. No single protocol actually works. It's mostly lots of layers that are stacked on top of each. It's why in aviation, catastrophic failure modeling uses something called the Swiss Cheese model; you need every single hole (error or failure) to line up to generally trigger a complete breakdown in safety. It may sound counter intuitive, but by aviation safety philosophy, a canvas and wooden frame plane operated under commercial standards and kept to a strict inspection schedule is "safer" than e.g. a privately operated 737 that doesn't follow manufacturer maintenance standards.
NASA has plenty of guidelines for writing "safe" aviation software. I doubt any software engineer will be willing to entertain the level of effort and certification needed to comply with those for e.g. their Django side project.
hmm I'm now curious if you saw the second season of The Rehearsal on HBO. The second season why about pilots and in particular how copilots can be disempowered to speak up when things go wrong. It sounds serious, and it is at times, but also a comedy.
I don't understand the perceived hypocrisy. The chance of death in a 1hr Cessna ride is something like 100x a domestic commercial jet flight, so it's reasonable to have different views of them? Maybe I'm missing your point.
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