SSA to Safety Group at Convention: "Clear Off!" ?

The outcry over U.S.A comps safety which preoccupied
rec.aviation.soaring last year assumed an uglier tone at the SSA's
yearly convention in Georgia last week. There, an emerging
group--Safe, Law-Abiding Comps Racers (SLACR)--were said to have been
rebuffed when SSA's board of directors refused to consider the group's
"Ten Commandments of Safety" manifesto.

Observed one Slacker (as they refer to themselves): "American gliding
authorities have long turned a blind eye to dodgy but crowd-pleasing
antics at comps that are unsafe for all pilots, in particular for
those lacking experience or, for that matter, self restraint."

The end result, according to SLACR, is a small, insular competitive
world that is essentially closed to less experienced pilots.
Eliminating this inequity was last week's goal, which SSA is rumoured
to have summarily quashed.

Said one aspiring young comps pilot: "Our instructors waffle on about
what's safe for Andy Davis or Karl Striedieck should never be
attempted by the average pilot. But where is the fairness in that, I
say? Why should the Rules allow them to do something the rest of us
are incapable of?"

Said another: "It's blatantly discriminatory, I tell you. I barely
have any funds to spare, what with joining the local gliding club, my
ab-initio training, and buying into the local Std. Jantar syndicate.
Last summer I learnt how to fly. This year I want to have some fun at
comps. I hardly expect to win immediately, of course. But my licence
says I'm safe. In the interest of fairness, then, the Rules should
insure I'm not at a disadvantage to more experienced types insofar as
safety is concerned."

To even the playing field whilst addressing documented hazards, SLACR
are said to have delivered to the SSA their "Ten Commandments of
Safety" demands:

1. Mandatory 1 mile radius finish cylinder with 500 foot floor. The
perils of the traditional finish line scarcely need further
elaboration. The spectacle of thrill-seeking adrenaline junkies
whizzing by at redline velocity a few meters above the grass whilst
spectators and small animals cower should be relegated to the dustbin
of the barnstorming age. In particular, expecting novice pilots to
remain situationally aware during the stress imposed by a beat up and
low circuit in close proximity to other traffic is preposterous. Their
attention should be focused on successfully concluding a landing, not
on evading ego-guided missiles transiting the circuit from random
directions.

2. Mandatory 1 mile horizontal or 500 feet vertical separation in the
turn point area (TPA). Last year's expansion of the TPA from 1/4 mile
to 1 mile radius did not go far enough by half. Given the prevalence
of heads-down GPS navigation, the only way to prevent further
collisions in these high-traffic areas is to mandate adequate
separation. Pending implementation of SSA's transponder-based CATSCAN
system (Competition Air Traffic Sailplane Control And Notification),
separation can best be ensured by means of procedures employed in the
U.K. for cloud flying; viz., pilots will be required to radio their
altitude and location prior to entering the TPA and every two minutes
thereafter. Each must manoeuvre to remain clear of the others by the
required minimums whilst inside the TPA.

3. Mandatory 500 feet vertical separation in thermal gaggles. The
sight of myriad gliders staggering about at marginal control speeds
only a few meters apart is chilling. This practise--i.e., formation
flying whilst banked up near stalling speed in turbulent air--is
another appalling relic of gliding's bygone days. With entry lists
down substantially from past years, certainly there should be plenty
of room for pilots to share thermals without flying dangerously close.
First pilot into the thermal has priority.

4. Permanent ban on water ballast. It is irrefutable that ballast
raises speeds for stalling, launching, thermaling, and landing (in the
event of an aborted launch) and requires stronger towing aerocraft. It
follows, then, that ballast is inherently less safe--most especially
for inexperienced pilots--and should therefore be prohibited outright.

5. Mandatory constructive land out (for scoring purposes) triggered
when the glider's "point of lowest progress" passes below 1,000 feet
QFE (i.e., above ground). This will eliminate hazardous low
thermaling, slope soaring, and marginal final glides, all of which
penalize the admirably cautious low-time pilot at the expense of
experts. The technology needed to compare a glider's actual altitude
to the terrain elevation using a GPS receiver and topographic mapping
data exists today (as any user of SeeYou's flight analysis software
can attest). It should be simple, indeed, to add this feature to the
moving map navigation systems used by every comps pilot.

6. A "hard ceiling" set each day at 500 feet below measured cloudbase.
Given the penchant of aggressive comps types to extract every foot of
altitude from a stonking thermal even if that entails climbing right
up into the vapour, it is incumbent upon the Rules Committee to
abolish such temptations by establishing a maximum height using the
sniffer aerocraft deployed at most comps. As cloudbase normally rises
throughout the day, setting this maximum immediately before the task
commences should ensure that the margin will meet or exceed the
FAR-mandated 500 feet. It is true that cloud heights may vary widely
owing to terrain and micrometeorology. But no system is perfect and
this proposal has the virtue that it applies equally to all pilots,
thus ensuring fairness. As for pilots' ability to self police
themselves, one has only to examine the voting on the 2003 comps
pilots survey to see that the majority don't know what's good for
them.

7. A minimum overflight "floor" for all areas of high-risk
landability, including mountainous, forested, and desert terrain plus
urban, suburban, congested, irrigated, cultivated, and
commercial/industrial/populated areas. This floor will be based on a
20:1 glide ratio to a 1,000 foot circuit entry altitude for the
nearest landing site; i.e., neighbouring public and private aerofields
plus other organiser-certified emergency landing sites as needed to
create a contiguous comps arena. This requirement complements
Commandment #5, above, and further ensures that experienced-based
skill plays no part in safe competitive flight. Enforcement and
penalties as per earlier requirements, with the further proviso that
landing away from an approved landing site will result in forfeiture
of all daily points.

8. Minimum qualifying standards for comps pilots--comprising testing
and recurrent training programmes--in categories such as GPS
navigation, flight computer database management, compliance with
statutory regulations, comps rules, SSA history, glider
rigging/derigging, checklist preparation, Rules Committee member CVs,
etc. Today's comps pilots should be focusing on these areas, not on
"pushing the envelope" with low scrapes, marginal slope soaring, or
minimum-energy landings.

9. Daily bonus points for pilots who inform the organisers of
suspected safety violations by other pilots (e.g., the punter who
carries 80 litres of drinking water to circumvent the "no ballast"
rule).

10. Mandatory political and social re-education to eliminate
anochronistic "macho-crocho" attitudes and to dispel the potential
stigma of pilots "informing" on each other to earn bonus points
(though the latter is unlikely given comps pilots' acknowledged
willingness to stop at nothing to win). Gliding hazards correlate
highly with pilot attitudes; e.g., a willingness to venture cross
country even in difficult conditions or to land in a random paddock in
oblivious disregard for the inherent danger. Whilst rules can target
specific unsafe practises, the surest way to effect fundamental change
is to alter this "cowboy" mindset with intensive behavioural
modification therapies. Plans for group re-education comprise
mandatory pre-season seminars as well as allocating 25% of all
scheduled comps days for this purpose (rain days may be applied to
minimize the loss of good gliding weather).


A Slacker spokesperson elaborated at the Convention on today's
marvelous GPS technology continues to reshape gliding: "No longer does
the outcome of our sport turn on the arcane ability to navigate the
heavens using bits of coloured paper and the magnetic compass, a
device first employed when the whole of the civilized world fervently
believed that the earth was flat and navigational charts were bordered
with the caution, 'Here be dragons.'"

"Furthermore, GPS data loggers promise nearly limitless opportunities
to monitor comps flights for unsafe behaviour, including most of our
Ten Commandments of Safety. We require but the will to take decisive
action!"

A senior Slacker concluded: "The Rules should never sanction conduct
that would permit any pilot to trade off safety against points in the
slightest, intentionally or otherwise, irrespective of skill or
training. Adopting these Ten Commandments of Safety will make comps
nearly risk free for all pilots--experts and tyros alike. This will
open up comps to a far larger population of gliding enthusiasts
whilst, in one stroke, eliminating the most flagrant abuses of safety.
Not to do so would constitute a reckless disregard of common sense."

SSA officials did not comment at the Convention.

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