Just saw on the AOPA site that there was a glider fatality at the
contest in Uvalde TX yesterday, the 4th.. Anyone have any details?

On Aug 5, 8:48*am, 150flivver > wrote:
> Just saw on the AOPA site that there was a glider fatality at the
> contest in Uvalde TX yesterday, the 4th.. *Anyone have any details?

http://tinyurl.com/2347o3v

Very sad - my condolences.

Andy
9B

On 5 elo, 17:53, Andy > wrote:
> On Aug 5, 8:48*am, 150flivver > wrote:
>
> > Just saw on the AOPA site that there was a glider fatality at the
> > contest in Uvalde TX yesterday, the 4th.. *Anyone have any details?
>
> http://tinyurl.com/2347o3v
>
> Very sad - my condolences.
>
> Andy
> 9B

Not again :( My condolences for the family. Chirs was an absolute fun
guy and I cheris the memories of Tonopah, where we had such a great
time.

From the Uvalde newspaper:

http://www.uvaldeleadernews.com/articles/2010/08/05/news/news1.txt

This is extremely sad.
-GE

Chris O'Callaghan (OC). Good pilot. Good man. More than a soaring
buddy. I never saw him without a smile on his face. What a loss. My
condolences to Laura and all the friends who were fortunate to know
him better than I did.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
USA

I am very very sorry to hear about Chris....Chris was always a "Class Act" a
good person.
My condolences to his family
Tim


"Chip Bearden" > wrote in message
...
> Chris O'Callaghan (OC). Good pilot. Good man. More than a soaring
> buddy. I never saw him without a smile on his face. What a loss. My
> condolences to Laura and all the friends who were fortunate to know
> him better than I did.
>
> Chip Bearden
> ASW 24 "JB"
> USA

an awful loss. Here is a very nice obit from AOPA:
http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2010/100805chris_ocallaghan.html

> an awful loss. *Here is a very nice obit from AOPA:http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2010/100805chris_ocallaghan.html

A nice AOPA article that followed that orbit:

http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2010/100805chris_ocallaghan.html?WT.mc_id=100806epilot&WT.mc_sect=tts

When Chris started a new magazine (Soaring Pilot) a few years back,
he asked me to write a colum titled (In the Barn) where I would tell
the tale of the last flight of a ship that ended up in my spare parts
barn. Sadly, Chris's ship now has a tale to tell of its last flight.
This is a beautiful sport, but it can bite you.
Rest in peace old friend, I'll meet you under that distant Cu, some
day.
JJ

On Aug 6, 1:21*pm, JJ Sinclair > wrote:
> When Chris started a new magazine (Soaring Pilot) *a few years back,
> he asked me to write a colum titled (In the Barn) where I would tell
> the tale of the last flight of a ship that ended up in my spare parts
> barn. Sadly, Chris's ship now has a tale to tell of its last flight.
> This is a beautiful sport, but it can bite you.
> Rest in peace old friend, I'll meet you under that distant Cu, some
> day.
> JJ

That makes 4 fatal glider accidents in the US alone in 4 weeks.

On Aug 5, 10:48*am, 150flivver > wrote:
> Just saw on the AOPA site that there was a glider fatality at the
> contest in Uvalde TX yesterday, the 4th..

This is the second contest mid-air that I'm aware of this summer.

As I understand things, contestants are required to have parachutes,
spending $1-2000 for a parachute, mostly in case of a midair;
radios are only slight less expensive;
Everyone has at least one flight computer, usually at greater cost;
and of course everyone is required to have a GPS logger.
a FLARM unit is under $1000.

There is no defensible rationale for failing to require everyone
flying contests to be equipped with an operating FLARM device. It
contributes more to safety than all the other pieces combined.

On Aug 7, 5:27*pm, danlj > wrote:
> On Aug 5, 10:48*am, 150flivver > wrote:
>
> > Just saw on the AOPA site that there was a glider fatality at the
> > contest in Uvalde TX yesterday, the 4th..
>
> This is the second contest mid-air that I'm aware of this summer.
>
> As I understand things, contestants are required to have parachutes,
> spending $1-2000 for a parachute, mostly in case of a midair;
> radios are only slight less expensive;
> Everyone has at least one flight computer, usually at greater cost;
> and of course everyone is required to have a GPS logger.
> a FLARM unit is under $1000.
>
> There is no defensible rationale for failing to require everyone
> flying contests to be equipped with an operating FLARM device. It
> contributes more to safety than all the other pieces combined.

From the blog www.soaring.eu is this perfect example of how we are to
respond to these events:

“keep gliding, keep smiling” was the message on the last briefing!
And ..they are right. Of course we all do ……..maybe not Alexanders
wife and family.
Mixed feelings…….Sad and good ones. First of all there was the
accident with Alexander, who leaves a wife and children. Though I
know the organization was strong and good, they must be feeling a bit
disappointed as well, it is NOT their fault that a pilots dies and it
is not the first time either during a competition, it is not their
fault that pilots sometimes fly aggressive to win and cause mid airs
and nearly mid-airs, it is not their fault that a pilot ”jumps” over a
fence and injures his back, but in the future history this 31 WGC will
be remembered as well by what has happened. And now I think of it we
had in both those comps a fatal accident as well. An AKA-flieg pilot
from Germany during the practise in Bayreuth, I was there and Anssi
Passila the nice young fellow from Finland, in Uvalde, I was there as
well.
BUT…with a great day as today is it nice to finish a competition ”on a
high”, with a big party.


Also on that blog is the rumors that the truck driver is in his early
30's with a young family and was permanently blinded. "BUT…with a
great day as today is it nice to finish a competition ”on a high”,
with a big party. "

;736923']On Aug 6, 1:21*pm, JJ Sinclair wrote:
When Chris started a new magazine (Soaring Pilot) *a few years back,
he asked me to write a colum titled (In the Barn) where I would tell
the tale of the last flight of a ship that ended up in my spare parts
barn. Sadly, Chris's ship now has a tale to tell of its last flight.
This is a beautiful sport, but it can bite you.
Rest in peace old friend, I'll meet you under that distant Cu, some
day.
JJ

That makes 4 fatal glider accidents in the US alone in 4 weeks.

Is there somewhere where one can identify these accidents and their potential causes? I follow gliding quite closely and I would presume that unless the accident was at a national meet such as O'C's or local to you, it would not get much national coverage. Please advise if you can as the location and nature of the other three accidents within the last four weeks.

Walt

On Aug 9, 9:09*am, Walt Connelly <Walt.Connelly.
> wrote:
> 'brianDG303[_2_ Wrote:
>
> > ;736923']On Aug 6, 1:21*pm, JJ Sinclair wrote:-
> > When Chris started a new magazine (Soaring Pilot) *a few years back,
> > he asked me to write a colum titled (In the Barn) where I would tell
> > the tale of the last flight of a ship that ended up in my spare parts
> > barn. Sadly, Chris's ship now has a tale to tell of its last flight.
> > This is a beautiful sport, but it can bite you.
> > Rest in peace old friend, I'll meet you under that distant Cu, some
> > day.
> > JJ-
>
> > That makes 4 fatal glider accidents in the US alone in 4 weeks.
>
> Is there somewhere where one can identify these accidents and their
> potential causes? *I follow gliding quite closely and I would presume
> that unless the accident was at a national meet such as O'C's or local
> to you, it would not get much national coverage. *Please advise if you
> can as the location and nature of the other three accidents within the
> last four weeks.
>
> Walt
>
> --
> Walt Connelly

Google NTSB
then hit Aviation
then hit Accident Database & Synopses

this will give you a lot of information in it's database but does not
usually mention CONTEST which seems to be a big factor in accidents.

On Aug 9, 12:09*pm, Walt Connelly <Walt.Connelly.
> wrote:
> 'brianDG303[_2_ Wrote:
>
> > ;736923']On Aug 6, 1:21*pm, JJ Sinclair wrote:-
> > When Chris started a new magazine (Soaring Pilot) *a few years back,
> > he asked me to write a colum titled (In the Barn) where I would tell
> > the tale of the last flight of a ship that ended up in my spare parts
> > barn. Sadly, Chris's ship now has a tale to tell of its last flight.
> > This is a beautiful sport, but it can bite you.
> > Rest in peace old friend, I'll meet you under that distant Cu, some
> > day.
> > JJ-
>
> > That makes 4 fatal glider accidents in the US alone in 4 weeks.
>
> Is there somewhere where one can identify these accidents and their
> potential causes? *I follow gliding quite closely and I would presume
> that unless the accident was at a national meet such as O'C's or local
> to you, it would not get much national coverage. *Please advise if you
> can as the location and nature of the other three accidents within the
> last four weeks.
>
> Walt
>
> --
> Walt Connelly

Tom Knauff did an article on the subject that was published in the
last couple months in Soaring magazine which looked back about 10
years on accident causes.
Worth reading.
UH

On Aug 9, 12:51*pm, brianDG303 > wrote:
> On Aug 9, 9:09*am, Walt Connelly <Walt.Connelly.
>
>
>
> > wrote:
> > 'brianDG303[_2_ Wrote:
>
> > > ;736923']On Aug 6, 1:21*pm, JJ Sinclair wrote:-
> > > When Chris started a new magazine (Soaring Pilot) *a few years back,
> > > he asked me to write a colum titled (In the Barn) where I would tell
> > > the tale of the last flight of a ship that ended up in my spare parts
> > > barn. Sadly, Chris's ship now has a tale to tell of its last flight.
> > > This is a beautiful sport, but it can bite you.
> > > Rest in peace old friend, I'll meet you under that distant Cu, some
> > > day.
> > > JJ-
>
> > > That makes 4 fatal glider accidents in the US alone in 4 weeks.
>
> > Is there somewhere where one can identify these accidents and their
> > potential causes? *I follow gliding quite closely and I would presume
> > that unless the accident was at a national meet such as O'C's or local
> > to you, it would not get much national coverage. *Please advise if you
> > can as the location and nature of the other three accidents within the
> > last four weeks.
>
> > Walt
>
> > --
> > Walt Connelly
>
> Google NTSB
> then hit Aviation
> then hit Accident Database & Synopses
>
> this will give you a lot of information in it's database but does not
> usually mention CONTEST which seems to be a big factor in accidents.

Look at the dates of the accidents and see how many you can correlate
to contest dates and draw your own conclusions. Cindy B had a
convention talk on what the reports don't tell you. I can tell you
that the true facts of some accidents don't emerge until years later
and never make it to the database.

Preliminary reports appear on the FAA web site for ten days before
they move to the NTSB site. Not all incidents and accidents appear, a
point a friend and I were musing over recently. Could be there's a
public/private switch on a record so it's suppressed from public view
in some cases.

If you look at today's prelims on the FAA site, you will see the HK36
Dimona fatal in Oregon and a group looped L-33 on a lake bed in
California. If you check daily you will be astonished.

Frank Whiteley

Since the NTSB database is searchable, you can look for "contest" or
"race" to get accidents in contests.

I did this a while back for a SSA convention talk, and put together
the numbers up to 2002,

http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/contest_safety.ppt

The numbers need an update. Many non-injury crashes don't get
reported, so this is an undercount of course

John Cochrane

On 8/7/2010 5:27 PM, danlj wrote:
> On Aug 5, 10:48 am, > wrote:
>
>> Just saw on the AOPA site that there was a glider fatality at the
>> contest in Uvalde TX yesterday, the 4th..
>>
> This is the second contest mid-air that I'm aware of this summer.
>
> As I understand things, contestants are required to have parachutes,
> spending $1-2000 for a parachute, mostly in case of a midair;
> radios are only slight less expensive;
> Everyone has at least one flight computer, usually at greater cost;
> and of course everyone is required to have a GPS logger.
> a FLARM unit is under $1000.
>
> There is no defensible rationale for failing to require everyone
> flying contests to be equipped with an operating FLARM device. It
> contributes more to safety than all the other pieces combined.
>
The rationale is it is not available in the USA now or in the past. The
PowerFlarm will be available in time for next year's contests, but at
$1600, not $1000; still, that is close enough the idea should be pursued.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (netto to net to email me)

- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl

- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz