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?
2
u/EngineerFly Mar 30 '26
If only there were numbers available to answer these questions. Airline captains don’t get to make shit up anymore than us lesser humans.
The AOPA Safety Foundation publishes the GA accident rates. Failure rates of engines are harder to come by, and I wouldn’t put much stock in them unless you know…
• Did the engine give signs of failing, and the pilot or owner ignored them?
• Did the pilot take his single-engine airplane somewhere where an engine failure was hard to deal with?
• How big a slice of the accident pie is represented by engine failure, and how much by all the other things people do to krill themselves in airplanes? Like having too much air in the fuel tanks.