On 10/30/07 7:50 PM, in article , "BT"
wrote:

How dangerous is rock climbing.. trained people fall every year and die..
How dangerous is hiking.. experienced people are attacked every year and die
How dangerous is.... white water rafting.. canoeing.. sailing.. swimming..
water skiing.. snow skiing (trees jump in front of skiers)..
How dangerous are motorcycles.. the best instructor in the state just got
killed because a car lost control swerving to miss a ladder on the highway
and jumped the median..
How dangerous is racing, dragstrip, professionals.. get hurt or killed every
year..
How dangerous are quads.. people are maimed every year..

Don't give up your life because you think you might get hurt.. train..
study.. PRACTICE..
The most dangerous pilot is one who thinks he can fly himself out of a
jam... but you only see him at the airport once every 3 months.
BT

wrote in message
ups.com...
When I started soaring on mid 80's, everybody said that soaring is the
safest aviation sport, almost safer than most 'real' sports. You can't
brake your leg while flying Only when you hit the ground

Though on a first year 4 pilots that I knew got killed with glider.
Not a good start. And during the years I have counted over 20
fatalities where I can say they either they were my friends or I knew
them well. Plus all the other fatalities. Almost every week on this
group, we get another sad message informing yet another fatality. And
most of the cases, pilots has been extremely experiensed. We know that
they haven't done any stupid moves, they just lost the control of the
plane on wrong situation or the plane has failed on them. I personally
feel that I am on the edge to quit this sport because of that. I don't
want to see not even one more friend passing away. I want to push that
off my mind.

Soaring is the greatest sport I can imagine. No other sport can give
me the feeling, same view, same fellowship etc etc. But is it worth
it???

PS



The question is a fair one for someone to ask.

The answers I've seen so far are either not helpful or simply emotional.

Bottom line: here in the US (can't speak to other countries, which may be
better organized) no one can tell you if soaring is more dangerous than any
other activity because we have no rates with which to compare them.

Example, is there one fatality per 100,000 tows, or 100,000 flight hours, or
what? No one knows because there is no denominator (exposure data). We can
tell how many people died, and how many reportable accidents there were
(NTSB database), but absolutely no idea how many tows were made last year,
or how many flying hours were flown in the US last year.

In my own club, we could count tows, but have no system for totaling flight
hours among the private owners.

All that said, do I intend to continue soaring? Of course. There's simply
nothing like it. But I'm making that decision with my heart, not my head.

Bullwinkle