(Ephraim) wrote in message . com...
Can anyone tell me how safety statistics for soaring compares with
statistics for driving automobiles?

Thanks in advance,

--Ephraim

When I got back into soaring in 1994 I had a similar concern and
concluded that, within about a factor of two, soaring and driving had
about the same risk of dying on an annual basis. That estimate is
consistent with the UK poster who came up with 6000:1 for driving and
2000:1 for soaring in the UK, since my estimate was rough. (It's hard
to know how many glider pilots are active.) Also, it could be that the
crowded skies in Europe produce a higher fatality rate.

On an hourly basis, that makes soaring much more dangerous for the
typical pilot who flies about 100 hours a year, vs drives about 500.
But, I suspect that if pilots flew 500 hours a year the fatality rate
might actually drop since infrequent flying is much more dangerous.

And, as noted by earlier replies, there are things one can do to
minimize the danger. I, for example, do not fly close in ridge or do
high-speed low passes. While I am passing up some of the thrills of
soaring by doing so, I believe I am reducing the danger factor as
well. A week ago, a thermal hit one wing so hard that it turned me
almost upside down. Fortunately, I was 2,000 feet AGL and had time to
recover. If I had been skimming the treetops on a ridge, I might now
be dead. (An article in Soaring about 20 years ago speculated that the
seemingly inexplicable deaths of some very experienced S Calif pilots
on ridge soaring may have been caused by such an event.)

The above are my personal decisions and I do not wish to impose them
on anyone else. So, if you ridge soar or do low passes, that's fine.
I'm just trying to lay out for Ephriam (who asked) some of the
possibilities for him to consider.

Martin