On 8/6/2011 11:41 AM, Scott Alexander wrote:

All, what are we doing in this sport to prevent this from happening
again? It really makes me sick to my stomach to see contestants
demolish their gliders only to have it hushed up by contest
management.

"Indeed!" as to your question. As Tom Knauff has bluntly pointed out on this
group a number of times - and a point with which I generally agree ==IF==
the 'finger of blame' pointed at pilots choosing, as Tom has put it, not to
'upgrade their proficiency' ALSO includes their underlying attitudes (which
need to be examined by pilots, and, adjusted or acted upon as sober reflection
concludes) - the vast majority of sailplane accidents are not 'surprises'
thrown at pilots by the Fickle Finger of Fate, but weaker and weaker links of
chains that eventually break. To conclude pilots - skills and attitudes - are
not an active part of the chain is 'comfortingly delusional' ('comfortingly'
so until the 'inevitable' accident, that is).

And, "I agree completely," with the 'hushed up' sentiment, though I don't
limit my dissatisfaction to only contest management. Writing as a person who
(decades ago) had an accident that ended up in "Soaring" magazine (very
inaccurately, due in part to my youthful diffidence/reluctance to contribute
my own narrative of a still-painful-in-mind situation), I contributed that
time to the silence. Effectively, as a non-contributor, I 'hushed up' an
accident I know would have been of intense interest to a number of fellow SSA
members. Shame on me.

Using Logan as today's current example, Serious Kudos go to Andy Blackburn for
sharing sufficient of the circumstances of his, glider-breaking, off-field
groundloop on RAS, for any mildly savvy (even wannabe) XC pilot to sensibly
conclude how his decision(s) led to a busted glider.

For those who happened to miss his post, I took away that he'd left himself a
the off-field choice of landing in a tallish barley field. Definitely a
smooth, reasonably level surface, but also definitely one with 'known glider
busting' obstacles, i.e. 'the tallish crop.' FWIW, I concluded decades ago
that landing in ANY field that had a high probability of snagging a wingtip
with 'something' (e.g. barley, weeds, grass, etc.) was rolling the dice
insofar as being able to fly the same T-tailed, glass glider tomorrow. (Anyone
interested in learning more about *why* I concluded that, feel free to start
another thread...)

Silence is definitely not golden, when it comes to learning from others'
sailplane mistakes.

We need to hear about the accidents in order to
learn a lesson!! I personally know two pilots who quit flying in
contests when they watched a glider cartwheel end over end landing in
an unlandable field. Yet, the contest report for that day said
nothing regarding the accident and just showed a W, F for Withdrew
from contest and Flight log.

Not to belabor the point, but imagine yourself in the position of 'contest
management'. How and when would you go about 'learning the details' of such a
crunch? (And let's not even consider the U.S.-centric phobia of being sued...)
Whose responsibility is it...not only the creating of the crunch, but the
disseminating of first-hand information (always the best, if it's available)?
Using your example, if no first-hand information was 'reasonably obtainable,'
who was in the better position to begin disseminating second-hand information,
the two eyewitnesses or contest management? Sure the latter had a handy
'pulpit,' but in today's world, the former are far from bereft of their own
pulpits. The point I'm hoping to emphasize is that SOMEone needs to step up,
bite the bullet, and 'be brave' about trying to disseminate 'possibly
actionable data' about accidents to the interested folks in the soaring
community. We know the NTSB is neither interested, staffed, nor capable of
doing it, 'contest management' has some obvious obstacles, so I conclude it's
really up to the soaring community at large. That might just mean you or me,
depending on circumstances. (Arm twisting by 'you or me' of pilots who've
broken their gliders is permitted, of course...)

The GOOD news is that - IMHO - the vast majority of soaring accidents (80+%?)
are repetitive 'poor judgment based'. Obviously, that's not good for the
parties involved, but it's 'good' to the rest of us who are interested in NOT
making similar mistakes, if we're honest with ourselves about 'a likely chain
of events' that might have led up to 'the bad judgment.' For example, how many
readers are as ready to land their T-tailed glass glider in a field with
'tallish growth' now as before reading this post? Why? (Again, this might be a
topic worth batting about under another thread, because - I will argue - XC
pilots who ARE 'comfortable/OK-with' doing so are also significantly more
likely to one day break their own glider than those who are not. In any event,
it's a pilot's *choice* to use those sort of fields, not an inevitability.)

It's the relatively smaller percentage of non 'stupid-pilot trick' accidents
that remain of intense personal interest, simply because, with today's
knowledge, in those are the accident categories I consider myself most likely
to futurely participate. However, somewhere and somewhen along the line, I had
to *learn* this conclusion. I did it only by scouring "Soaring," aviation
magazines, and the NTSB reports (and, in online days, their database). Hence
the very real value of pilots sharing their mistakes...through whatever venue
available to them. I thank them all, alive or not.


If someone says a task was called over 80 miles of unlandable terrain,
yet another pilot claims there's always a suitable field within 8
miles of the course line, then why aren't these suitable fields being
entered into the turnpoint database? Situational awareness would
greatly improve if you got low and could see the distance, direction
and altituded needed to find this suitable field.

"What Eric Greenwell said." Whose responsibility is it to 'properly assess'
fields over which contest (really, any) sailplane pilots are flying? (Correct
answer: Joe Pilot.)

To conjure up an extreme example hoping to better illustrate 'where I'm coming
from' on this, imagine me as CD calling tasks over completely unlandable
terrain at some contest (whether unbroken forests, virgin Arizona desert,
whatever...). Sure, I'd be advertising myself as (choose what applies: an
idiot, a jerk, a power-mad autocrat, an ***hole, etc., etc. etc.), but: 1) I
can't *force* competing pilots to go out on course; 2) any pilot could
individually 'vote with his feet' and choose to not participate; 3) pilots
could band together and do the same/tar-and-feather me/demand their money back
from the organizers/etc.; 4) (here, be imaginative!). Years ago, I remember
seeing in "Soaring" magazine a statement attributed to CD Karl Striedieck to
the effect: I should be able to call a task anywhere in the (eastern, in this
case) contest area and expect you folks to be able to safely fly it,
regardless of weather. Reportedly, this was by way of cutting off at the knees
'pilot whining' at his task calling. True or not, and ignoring the 'fairness'
of a contest called with that philosophy in mind, I agreed than and now with
the reported philosophy.


Looking at the turnpoint database for Logan, it shows lots of mountain
peaks for turnpoints. Nobody needs glide navigation into mountain
peaks. Pilots need glide navigation into suitable fields. How about
using actual suitable landing areas for turnpoints? We're not taking
pictures of easily identifiable turnpoints with Kodak cameras
anymore!! Maybe our accident ratio of 2 out of 60, would be much much
lower if people had these suitable fields marked on their GPS.

I love this sport and hate to hear of accidents happening.

We're in 100% agreement on that last sentence!!!


Respectfully,
Bob - mindset matters! - W.