To be a bit scared of DH's hobby?

[TurkeyDinosaurs2]

My DH has a pilot's licence, and he flies around for fun. He did originally want to go commercial but changed his mind. It's expensive but he pays for it out of his own spending money, so fine.

I can't help but worry when he goes though. I'm always hearing about light aircraft accidents in the locality, and the fact that he's thousands of feet up, often on his own, in a 1970s plane. We have a young DS and I'm constantly thinking what if he has an accident? He's got 300+ hours apparently and nothing has ever gone seriously wrong, but still.

I don't really know how to deal with it. Someone suggested I go up with him. No thanks.

Any advice?

My teen daughter is half way through her pilots licence! She's only just turned 17. I try not to think about it too much......

I agree @FictionalCharacter and I’d much rather my children were out making the most of life than glued to a screen at home.

@EddieVeddersfoxymop We’ve both got adventurous DD’s!

Thanks for the reassurance @notimagain.

Unpopular opinion no doubt but I had a similar hobby in terms of risk and I stopped as soon as I was pregnant. I'll probably pick it up once my child is an adult but in the meantime I'm not willing to put myself at additional risk when my family need me, and especially pay a small fortune to do so. I understand your worries completely. If he's not willing to stop the hobby for a while maybe agree on a compromise in terms of not taking any chances with the weather, avoid night flying, not taking your children up with him etc. I also second the life insurance if you don't have it already, but expect a big premium. Amateur aviation is risky. I know numerous private pilots and many have had crashes, most walk away from them but others sadly not. Your concern is justified, and I would just try to mitigate the risk as much as possible.

I understand the worry but his hobby could equally be horse riding or motorbikes or something else dangerous. Just get all paperwork up to date in case anything ever did happen, and then do your best to forget about it. He could be knocked down in the morning. You can’t worry about everything!

Your DH should be very aware of the terms of his insurance. My dad was a VFR pilot who pushed on through deteriorating weather conditions to find a safe landing spot and sadly crashed. The decision to push on voided the insurance (for him it was only the plane insurance as he no longer kept life insurance) but we needed to fund the cost of the burial of the plane. He was a very cautious man who made a poor risk decision in the moment, but insurance won’t usually cover pilot judgment error. Not helpful for anxiety and I don’t mean to make it worse but many people don’t actually know what they have to do/not do to ensure the insurance is valid when they need it.

I do, I'm a terrible worrier!

Thank you everyone. I feel a lot better about it now ☺️