Earlier, Tom Seim wrote:

Excuse me here, but what exactly is your f**king point?...

...Nothing that I, or anyone else, can say is going to change
your mind...


That seems a bit contradictory to me. If nothing said will change his
mind, that kind of takes the point out of saying it. It certainly adds
a bit of a question mark to the f-bomb. Tragedies like the one at hand
often shake people along fault lines they didn't even know existed.

Wandering off-topic, I have to see this most recent accident from the
parental perspective. I've flown with Emil Kissel, and I know that he
has been passionately devoted to soaring, and devoted to promoting and
furthering it. My heart goes out to him. As a parent, I have to look
at soaring through the perspective of, is this something I'd sign the
consent form for? That might sound like an element of triviata, but it
is not. It is, in fact, crucial to the development of soaring as a
sport and crucial to the maintenace of the critical mass that keeps it
viable. We totally need to keep drawing in the kidlings, keep forging
them into safe, conscientious pilots who temper their caution with a
touch of boldness. And we can talk ourselves blue in the face about
how safe soaring can be, how safe the training regime is, how safe
training makes for safe pilots. But that's maybe a tough sell when you
see a lot of what's behind the gelcoat.

Bob K.