On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 1:01:37 AM UTC-7, kirk.stant wrote:
It's true that Powerflarm will only help prevent a very unlikely situation - but unlike most causes of gliding accidents that can be largely handled by training and procedures, that situation (midair) is pretty much out of the pilots control and likely to be catastrophic - if you are lucky you land with a broken glider or under your chute, if you are unlucky you die. And unlike stall-spins, low final glides, or assembly errors, you can do everything perfectly and still get hit by someone you could not see. So while it is an (relatively) expensive solution to a low-probability event, it is (IMO) a damn good one. Ditto the expensive seat cushion most of us wear every-time we fly - how many chute saves have there been in the last 10 years? Does that mean we really don't need to wear chutes? We have been training and flying 2-33s and 1-26s for years without wearing chutes, so why the hysteria about wearing them in glass?



So I will continue to wear my chute whenever I can, fly with a PowerFLARM whenever I can, use checklists and positive control checks, and practice stall/spins and final glides whenever I can.



And hope a meteorite doesn't hit me.



But I aint wearing no stinkin' helmet! It messes up my hair...



Cheers,



Kirk

S.O.F:

That you were speaking to one particular pilot did not occur to me until you said so about 15 posts in. There are always a couple of pilots you learn to avoid. Most often this is due to weak skills rather than weak vision. However I will grant you that Flarm is a great tool for avoiding them!

Kirk:

Actually parachutes save many more people than die in mid air collisions. Even in mid air collisions. The two fatalities in the database each have one death and one save (by parachute). Mid airs do seem to be bipolar: either you die or you fly home and land (or in a few cases bail and land). In fact there are in the database many more survived glider-to-glider mid airs than fatal ones.

In my area the parachute would come first, followed by a transponder due to the many non-Flarm equipped commercial airliners, followed by Flarm.