OT: VE day warplanes

In message , anon writes

It's not a lot of working out that one person can watch eight that means three for each 24 hours not including holidays, someone, somewhere, is being a bit paranoid to think we'd be speaking German etc. Perhaps just been watching to many was stories?

In message , Cynic writes

Funny that, I understood you owned from a point at the centre of the earth, all the way up, if your land was freehold and free.

I flew back from the Masai Mara to Nairobi in one a few years ago. I was surprised at just how small it was. And how steep the gangway was when it was on the ground. And how slow and low it flew. And that they had no sick bags, 'cos the inbound flight had used them all up.

Nope. You don't even own all rights to the land under your topsoil.

Nasa does *not* have to pay a toll to everybody whose land is overflown by their satellites!

In message , Mike writes

Living in the lake district I have to agree, but to know they can catch any bastard after Sellafield outweighs the noise.

In message , Dave Liquorice writes

The first one wakes you up from night shift, the second doesn't, what does it take to get all the training done after 3.00pm or compensate the firms for the staff not coming in owing to a broken/ruined sleep?

In message , Brimstone writes

Are they? I thought the war over Suez pointed out firmly that they weren't.

In message , Cynic writes

Back that up, or shut up.

In message , Clive Coleman writes

No. The government owns the Oil and Mineral rights, IIRC.

Mike

But you always pay for anything the government does...

Its called taxes...

Nope. the queen does that, you just rent (for free = FREEHOLD) SOME of the rights to use some of it.

The number of car accidents per 10000 miles far outstrips the number of aircraft accidents per 10000 miles, even if you include only aircraft flying in formation (acts of war excluded).

How about fatal accidents per million journeys, rather than a rather meaningless mileage figure aimed at making planes look better?

In message , Cynic writes

It all depends on statistics, a plane carrying 500 people 3000 miles clocks up 1,500,000 passenger miles each trip. No wonder aircraft seem so safe, but when compared to trip against trip for any other vehicle their safety record plummets.

to a mere 50 or 60 times cars...

Aircraft still come out safer.

IIRC, whatever like-for-like criterion is used, air travel is statistically safer than car travel. Trips, miles, passenger-miles, hours, % cause of death.

Train travel works out as being even safer.

I do not recall the shipping statistics given.

Space travel has the worst safety record as a percentage of total journies, but is the safest in terms of passenger-mile and deaths caused to bystanders.

So, got some numbers for cars? According to figures I've seen, most commercial aircraft come in around 2 fatalities per million journeys, Airbus & 737 is around 0.8, 747 about 2.3 and one of the Russian planes running at almost 5. Private planes are an order of magnitude worse.

No, I don't have the figures. My information comes from an article I read a year or two ago which compared the relative safety of various forms of transport based on various ways of presenting the statistics. It is not a point that I'm bothered enough about to verify.

IIRC trains came out overall on top and aircraft second regardless of the method of presentation. Spacecraft were either first or last depending on the way the statistics were presented. I don't recall where ships featured.

Feel free to look up the statistics and post URLs if it turns out that my information is wrong.

As a fairly solid guess based on my reading of the AAIB site, private aircraft fatilities runs at an average of about 5 a year in the UK, which is a pretty small percentage of journies.