Safety Behaviors (survey results part 2)

(For part one of this review of the 2008 COPA membership survey look here.)

SAFETY BEHAVIORS

We made some investigation of safety issues and behaviors. 

42% have attended one or more CPPP’s, with a well-intentioned further 39% ‘planning’ to.  Similarly, 28% have attended a CDM and 35% ‘plan’ to.  Which reminds me of a tale: 5 frogs are sitting on log.  4 decide to jump off.  How many frogs are left on the log?  5 of course.  They only ‘decided’ to jump off.  They never actually did it.  Just do it, folks - bookings are open!

On risk behaviors, we saw about 40% have never picked up ice in an non-FIKI airplane (like our Cirrus).  Good for them, that shows good judgement!  That means 60% have, but only 6% report a ‘major scare’ involving ice.  Folks, if you pick up ice in our planes, be scared.  Get out.

We queried people about the average ‘fence crossing speed’ on landing.  23% reported a number above 80kts.  That suggests a major training issue in the fleet.  Unless you regularly land at gross weight with winds gusting down the runway, there is no reason to be coming over the fence above 80kts.  We have seen a number of major incidents this year around landing loss of control, and landing too fast is the major suspect.  One key message on landing; don’t let your wheels touch the runway until the ‘ready-to-land’ horn (aka stall horn) is sounding.  If that isn’t your regular practice, get some dual and nail it.

Around 15% of members will not fly in IMC, and the same percentage won’t fly at night.  Fully 54% of members will not fly night IMC, and that is a good thing; night IMC flight is 3 times riskier than either alone.  If you do fly night IMC, consider carefully your personal currency minimums.

The COPA fleet is moving past adolescence.  Only about 25% of the planes have over 1000 hours, but 69% have between 500 and 1000.  As the planes move out of warranty we are seeing increasing interest from members in managing maintenance costs, and that will be an area for COPA to increase emphasis in the future.

COPA members have shpilkis (Yiddish for ‘ants in the pants’).  Only 25% report they have no interest in upgrading to newer planes.  40% report the apple-of-their-eye would be another piston single, a similar percentage say a turboprop single, and 35% the Vision SJ50.  In a tribute to customer satisfaction, 56% would absolutely buy another Cirrus, 48% might look around first, and only 1% say absolutely not.  Put another way, 75% say their satisfaction with Cirrus either ‘couldn’t be better’ or ‘exceeded expectations.

We asked about a number of possible new features on our existing planes.  As you might expect, responses were all over the board, but known ice capability and more useful load stood above the rest.  We dug deeper into the satisfaction factors, and way the highest satisfaction with the initial delivery and purchase experience.  A step lower but still good were warranty services, reliability, parts availability, and interior/exterior finish.    Moving below average we say relationships with Cirrus partners such as TCM and Avidyne, and by far the lowest score came for parts pricing.  At Migration Cirrus announced they were publishing their parts pricing on “My Cirrus” on their website, and a program to address any parts prices that were out of line.

Finally, how is COPA doing.  Only 23% reported not using the website at all, with 66% using it 1-5 hours a week.  Of the active members, 38% reported they only read what’s there and don’t post at all, and on the other end of the spectrum 4% reported they were ‘active’ posters.  48% reported they ‘reply to posts and occasionally start new threads’.  In terms of physical participation 76% have never attended a regional fly-in, and a similar percentage have never attended a Migration (though 50% ‘plan to’; see frogs above!).  Overall 65% said COPA exceed or better expectations, not quite as good as Cirrus did.

Well, that’s a whole lot of numbers.  What do we do with this?  The survey has given the COPA Board a good insight into what is happening in our community and the emerging needs.  With our growth and the growth of the Cirrus product line diversity is the necessary name of the game.  We now have multiple avionics platforms (Avidyne, Garmin, L3?), airframes (SR2x, SRS, SJ) and new and used aircraft.  Our community is not just a group of new airplane buyers but has many new owners of used aircraft looking at the care&feeding of older planes.  One of the big initiatives of 2008 has been the development of the new website, which has tools to allow us to create more topical content to address many of these subcommunities while still providing a cohesive environment for those who enjoy the full sweep of the association.  We look forward to building on this to keep COPA moving forward.