Microlighters

I was quite surprised to see that the average NTCA pilot flies an average of 34 hours per year according to RAASA stats: http://www.raasa.co.za/pdf/RAASA%20Repo ... ridged.pdf

It would be fascinating to see a breakdown of the flown hours by aircraft type though - and I can't help wondering if gyro pilots fly a lot more often than the NTCA average?

Some other interesting gyro stats emerging from the RAASA reports:

In the past 2 years there was a 45% increase in the issuing of gyro ratings. But....
Last year the issue of gyro ratings issued slowed to just 13% and the issue of gyro ATF's declined by -11% (compared to the 33% gyro ATF growth during 2010)
The economic situation is obviously negatively impacting gyro training schools, agents and owners alike.

And from a safety perspective:

With RAASA now collecting hours flown by pilot license / category data, it will finally be possible to get an indication of comparative actual number flying hours versus number of accidents across the different categories e.g Gyro / CCM / WCM / LSA.

I've always held the view that to try and make assumptions about accident occurrence numbers is absolutely meaningless unless the number of accidents per X flying hours can be determined - and RAASA's data can now help shed some light into this.
Having a background in strategic planning I get off on this sort of analytics so if anyone has a contact at RAASA who would be willing to share the data I think it could make for some very insightful analysis?

Hi Learjet.

You are correct, the data does give an interesting insight into what is happening in the environment. There is the GASI (General Aviation Safety Initiative) workshop between the Industry and CAA, where RAASA, Aeroclub, CAASA, MISASA etc, etc, are involved. This is held on a bi-monthly basis. Genl Des Barker is involved at the CSIR and he does the analysis on various accidents, both local and international. This is then used to plan preventitive measures and campaigns. (The Aeroclub will be launching a safety campaign with the planned inception date 1 June 2012).

Genl Barker was also presented with a trophy for the work carried out, at the International Airshow Council last month.

The information gathered previously showed a shortage in some vital aspects, such as hours flown per type, per year, per pilot, aircraft sold, new aircraft imported, hours flown at schools, etc. RAASA is trying to accumulate the required data and to populate a database. The current challenge is to populate the database to have a historical perspective and a basis to work from. When visiting RAASA the other day, it was just interesting to see the reluctance of people to submit the requested information.

You can pm me with information required and i will try to see if it is available. It is most probably not, because the information submitted to the CAA previously was not structured / requested to do these kind of analysis.

Greetings to all and please continue to be fastidious in you operations.

Braam