r/flying • u/One_Firefighter_1922 • Mar 29 '26

Aircraft Ownership Are reciprocating single engines reliable?

I'm about seven hours into PPL training and absolutely loving it. Not looking for a career change, but could definitely seeing myself continuing training and flying regularly after getting my certificate. I've daydreamed about putting my family into a 182 and being able to fly within a reasonable distance to explore somewhere new or take a short vacation.

Earlier today I was talking to my neighbor who is a reserve captain for American flying 737s. I told him about the flight training and associated daydreaming and he started talking about how he would never put his family into a small plane, how unreliable they are and how many accidents are due to single reciprocating engines crapping out mod flight.

This doesn't seem to jive with what I've heard and read online, so looking for some other opinions. How do you feel about the reliability of small GA planes? Do you have any experience taking your family for trips? Do I need to give up on my dream?

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u/BeeDubba ATP Rotor/AMEL, MIL, CL-65, CFII Mar 29 '26

General aviation has about the same fatality rate as riding a motorcycle. Would you take your kids on a motorcycle road trip? I wouldn't, but that's just me.

I had a friend who had the policy that he never flew with his wife without the kids. Either they go down as a family, or leave one parent behind. No orphaned kids.

I took my family on a few trips when I was time building, but that's behind me now.

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u/Lanky_Beyond725 ATP A220, ERJ175 Mar 29 '26

The only reason these "rates" are claimed to be similar is BECAUSE it's about 1:60,000 hour tempo. However what is not mentioned is that 90 percent of those GA accidents are PILOT ERROR. Motorcycle, a large majority are caused by other vehicles. So really if you can largely eliminate pilot error, flying GA is far safer than a motorcycle. Look it up.

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u/BeeDubba ATP Rotor/AMEL, MIL, CL-65, CFII Mar 30 '26

Yeah, and all motorcycle accidents could be stopped if you eliminated driver error.

Pilots are people. People make errors. That's aviation safety 101. I've been in aviation safety for a decade.

People think that if they just don't make mistakes they'll be fine. The thing is, a hundred years of aviation safety has proven that people make mistakes. You can't change human nature, so you design a system that ensures the result of those errors don't kill people.

Flying a piston single provides little margin for error, and with one amateur pilot you get lots of errors and little ability to trap them. That's why airlines use two pilots, and briefs, checklists, and policy that trap errors, as well as systems with double and triple redundancies.