Poll...Should Radios Be Required At Non-Towered Airports?

[timwinters]

Not to derail the other thread but to satisfy my curiosity.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Why you would not take advantage of something so simple and affordable if you could to avoid something so potentially devastating is beyond me.

All depends on the traffic and therefore risk level. I find it mildly annoying to constantly listen to radio chatter when flying cross country and prefer silence or music of my choice.

So when flying up between 10-14k, where there is very little traffic, I will often tune them to an unused frequency. I enjoy the flight much more that way.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I agree, one cannot make things perfectly safe. We pilots all know that, more than anyone. Flying is a hazardous activity. Don't need to make it more hazardous than it already is. But the good pilots work at making it safer each flight. The good pilots do preflights. The good pilots visually check the fuel level. The good pilots perform a run-up. The good pilots practice emergency procedures. The good pilots communicate with the other pilots in the pattern. Good pilots know that making accurate position reports in the pattern, that we all share, is not an unreasonable expectation. The bad pilots say "I don't have to". I will call out every SOB that says that.

I get making mistakes, we all have. But NORDO is a deliberate act.

@SixPapaCharlie is absolutely correct. There is no defensible argument for not using all available means.

All safety measures have some cost, in dollars, time, loss of other enjoyment etc.

The safest thing to do is never fly at all. We all choose to trade some risk to ourselves and others against our enjoyment when flying GA.

It is simply incorrect to pretend that is not what is going on in GA flying. Everyone will make somewhat different choices based on their values.

The only reason it concerns others is when there is risk to others. And there is always some risk to others in most GA flying. In our society, we ignore those type of risks when they are de minimus by some standard. That is hard to judge exactly, but these de minimus risks are not zero.

So there really is no exact answer here, other than trying to quantify what is a de minimus risk that can be ignored and then comparing the risks posed by an activity against that standard. I strongly suspect the additional risks of mid air collisions due to NORDO aircraft falls well below the de minimus standard of everyday life.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

This is binary. All else aside, either the use of radios improves safety of flight or it does not. If they do, use them. If not then turn them off. Yes or no, good or bad. There is no grey area.

Everything is fine , until it is not.

In terms of the choices though, that ignores the cost of using the radios. In a long cross country, for example, the loss of quiet.