Only flown once in a small plane. About an hour flight same day back and forth. 10 seater with 2 pilots Wasn’t completely full 8 passengers. We were seated to balance the plane. No problems and the weather was good. Going back was at night. I wasn’t too nervous but I did feel a bit more vulnerable than I would in a larger commercial plane. The pilots weren’t 80 that’s for sure.
I’ve flown as a passenger in 4 seat planes a couple times. One time was a round trip, a few hours each way. “To” ended in a night landing at a medium-small airport, and “from” involved dodging some pretty impressive scattered thunderstorms on the way back. Kerry Livgren’s “mountains in the sky” for sure!
The other flight was shorter = probably around 1-1/2 hours, mostly above the Shawnee National Forest. The pilot, my Dad’s boss to be, was a very experienced ex-fighter pilot. He didn’t do anything really extreme, but, we did do some “interesting” (sharp) banking so my Dad could better see some of the stuff on the ground, in the hills, and so on. I was seated behind my Dad, so I got those good views too. I was 10 y/o, so, it was great stuff! ;-)
RIP to the victims in this crash. Proportionately, I’ll bet 80 year old pilots turn out to be somewhat less safe to fly with... :-(