Low pass

Very good article Dave!
Here in Australia we have a low level endorsement before low finishes are
allowed at contests [while keeping a 50' rule]
2km finish ring changes things as well, limiting the "need" for low level
over the airfield. After finishing a logical circuit onto the airfield is
needed, I was surprised at some "interesting" circuits at Uvalde by
experienced pilots! A growing average age and experience helps too.
Training for new comp pilots is the key.
Regards,
Tom

At 20:19 28 August 2011, John Cochrane wrote:
On Aug 27, 7:22=A0pm, Dave Nadler wrote:
John - While I agree with many of your points...
BOTH of the accidents you mentioned above we
- outside of competition
- by non competition pilots
- by pilots "emulating the big guys"
Points to training, not banning passes...
Thanks,
Best Regards, Dave

PS: Not a new problem. Discussed in my 1987
article:http://www.nadler.com=
/public/Nadler_On_Safety_Soaring_May_1987.pdf

Your article is still a classic.

Nobody's banning anything here. Just talking about a maneuver, where
the danger points are (mostly the turn after the pass), and responding
to a previous post that wanted to know whether there have been
documented crashes.

John Cochrane

Thanks Tom - Great to fly with you again in Uvalde.

I was surprised Oz isn't yet using a height-limited
finish cylinder (when I flew at Keepit in November).
Led to some interesting finish issues as this encourages
direct approach to landing...

Hope you guys adopt this approach as well !

Hope to fly with you again soon,
Best Regards, Dave "YO electric"

Very good article Dave!
Here in Australia we have a low level endorsement before low finishes are
allowed at contests [while keeping a 50' rule]
2km finish ring changes things as well, limiting the "need" for low level
over the airfield. After finishing a logical circuit onto the airfield is
needed, I was surprised at some "interesting" circuits at Uvalde by
experienced pilots! A growing average age and experience helps too.
Training for new comp pilots is the key.
Regards,
Tom

At 20:19 28 August 2011, John Cochrane wrote:
On Aug 27, 7:22=A0pm, Dave Nadler wrote:
John - While I agree with many of your points...
BOTH of the accidents you mentioned above we
- outside of competition
- by non competition pilots
- by pilots "emulating the big guys"
Points to training, not banning passes...
Thanks,
Best Regards, Dave

PS: Not a new problem. Discussed in my 1987
article:http://www.nadler.com=
/public/Nadler_On_Safety_Soaring_May_1987.pdf

Your article is still a classic.

Nobody's banning anything here. Just talking about a maneuver, where
the danger points are (mostly the turn after the pass), and responding
to a previous post that wanted to know whether there have been
documented crashes.

John Cochrane

On Sat, 27 Aug 2011 17:22:45 -0700 (PDT), Dave Nadler
wrote:


PS: Not a new problem. Discussed in my 1987 article:
http://www.nadler.com/public/Nadler_...g_May_1987.pdf

Hi Dave - scary lecture!

I have to admit I was horrified reading your description of all these
incidents and the nescience of the pilots - how have things progressed
since you wrote this article? Did it get better (and why?)...?


Regards from Germany
Andreas

On Aug 28, 6:03*pm, Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Sat, 27 Aug 2011 17:22:45 -0700 (PDT), Dave Nadler
wrote:

PS: Not a new problem. Discussed in my 1987 article:
http://www.nadler.com/public/Nadler_...g_May_1987.pdf

Hi Dave - scary lecture!

I have to admit I was horrified reading your description of all these
incidents and the nescience of the pilots - how have things progressed
since you wrote this article? Did it get better (and why?)...?

Regards from Germany
Andreas

I'll chime in because that article was published at a very
impressionable time in my soaring career and it made a substantial
impression at that time. That was the month I passed my PP glider
flight test. Also, I knew several pilots who were at the contest(s)
that article was written about and some of those guys were my
instructors.

First, no one disputes the facts, they are what they are, the friends
no longer with us, the busted ships, the memorial trophies. Some of
the other pilots had a huge issue with how Dave portrayed some of the
things he saw from his cockpit that didn't result in damage. I don't
have an opinion on that (but I have a friend that will still go angry
red in the face if this article is brought up!). However, 24 years
and 20-odd contests later, I do not find Dave's commentary far fetched
*at all*. I've seen all of this crap decision making (and lack of
decision making), first hand.

What's changed is: pilots are older & more experienced (average age
perhaps 10 yrs older now than 1987), ships are better (auto control
hookups, better handling, safety cockpits), procedures are better --
starts and finishes, critical assembly checks for instance, and
tasking is easier. A GPS navigated 2.5 hour AAT is about half the
workload of the camera documented task you were likely to get in the
mid 80s in similar weather. My opinion, anyway.

What hasn't changed (enough): lousy decision making leading to
seriously unsafe situations. Most disturbing is that the post
accident interviews often don't yield useful lessons learned (or at
least nothing new). Sometimes even the awareness of the pilot
involved seems to be lacking, he may persist in thinking he was simply
the victim of some outrageously bad luck. At least now if he's flying
a modern ship he's often around to interview. Those fatalities at
Sugarbush involved ships that had no cockpit protection to speak of.

On the other hand, the guys that mentored me starting a quarter
century ago are almost all still flying & still flying contests and
they don't break a lot of stuff. I guess I picked good role models.
Whatever. It's possible to fly competition (and do well) with a sane
safety record.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

On 8/29/2011 12:08 PM, Evan Ludeman wrote:
On Aug 28, 6:03 pm, Andreas wrote:
On Sat, 27 Aug 2011 17:22:45 -0700 (PDT), Dave
wrote:

PS: Not a new problem. Discussed in my 1987 article:
http://www.nadler.com/public/Nadler_...g_May_1987.pdf

Hi Dave - scary lecture!

I have to admit I was horrified reading your description of all these
incidents and the nescience of the pilots - how have things progressed
since you wrote this article? Did it get better (and why?)...?

Regards from Germany
Andreas

I'll chime in because that article was published at a very
impressionable time in my soaring career and it made a substantial
impression at that time. That was the month I passed my PP glider
flight test. Also, I knew several pilots who were at the contest(s)
that article was written about and some of those guys were my
instructors.

I'd been soaring ~13 years when Dave's article appeared, and though in my own
mind considered myself still a newbie/beginner - had ~850 hours and doubt if
any of my club peers considered me a newbie - it also made a favorable,
lasting, helluvan impression on me. IIRC I was sufficiently favorably
impressed I wrote him a snail mail letter thanking him for it; it was/remains
a classic IMHO, and I hope one or two RAS readers may be motivated from
reading it, to improve their own thought processes...because that's what it's
all about. Mere mechanical skill means little without some brains to leaven it.

First, no one disputes the facts, they are what they are, the friends
no longer with us, the busted ships, the memorial trophies. Some of
the other pilots had a huge issue with how Dave portrayed some of the
things he saw from his cockpit that didn't result in damage. I don't
have an opinion on that (but I have a friend that will still go angry
red in the face if this article is brought up!).

Wow...

However, 24 years
and 20-odd contests later, I do not find Dave's commentary far fetched
*at all*. I've seen all of this crap decision making (and lack of
decision making), first hand.

And certainly not limited to contests, though I realize we all like to imagine
contest pilots involve a select (better-thinking) subset of the soaring
population. Paying judgmental attention to the antics routinely displayed at
any gliderport on a soaring weekend can be not only entertaining, but
personally *useful*.


What's changed is: pilots are older& more experienced (average age
perhaps 10 yrs older now than 1987), ships are better (auto control
hookups, better handling, safety cockpits), procedures are better --
starts and finishes, critical assembly checks for instance, and
tasking is easier. A GPS navigated 2.5 hour AAT is about half the
workload of the camera documented task you were likely to get in the
mid 80s in similar weather. My opinion, anyway.

What hasn't changed (enough): lousy decision making leading to
seriously unsafe situations. Most disturbing is that the post
accident interviews often don't yield useful lessons learned (or at
least nothing new). Sometimes even the awareness of the pilot
involved seems to be lacking, he may persist in thinking he was simply
the victim of some outrageously bad luck.

Just out of curiosity, are there any readers who have NOT experienced what
Evan writes about (presuming you've poked into the thought processes of
others, of course)? "What Evan said," about that being 'disturbing'...and (to
me anyway - here comes the judgmental part) really scary/worrisome.

At least now if he's flying
a modern ship he's often around to interview. Those fatalities at
Sugarbush involved ships that had no cockpit protection to speak of.

On the other hand, the guys that mentored me starting a quarter
century ago are almost all still flying& still flying contests and
they don't break a lot of stuff. I guess I picked good role models.
Whatever. It's possible to fly competition (and do well) with a sane
safety record.

Just to be a bit anal, that last sentence covers a LOT of 'thought ground.'

What makes consistent soaring contest placers and winners isn't willingness to
take more risks than the other guys combined with consistently good luck, but
something far more complex, combining knowledge (of weather, of themselves, of
their ship, of the local geography, of the day's possibilities, etc.) skill,
and good judgment. A good argument can be made 'unintelligent risk-taking'
actually *slows* - and potentially limits - one's gaining of knowledge,
building of skill, and learning good judgment. Anyone taking risks as a means
of 'expanding their knowledge base' without also having in-hand - and being
prepared to immediately implement once certain self-defined limits are reached
- a *good* (safety-increasing) Plan B, a nearly fully-developed good Plan C
and some nascent other good possibilities is, I'd suggest, definitionally
taking 'unintelligent risks.'

FWIW...
Bob W.

Final comment on low passes, then I'll shut up: *How many documented
accidents, in the US, can be directly blamed on low passes in recent
years (say, since the end of their use in contest finishes)? *OTOH,

Kirk
66

Kirt, I can remember 2 right off the top of my head, not counting the
recent one in Idaho.
Uvalde '86 and Cal City ? date.
Type in "finish line accidents" or "low pass accidents" in "search
this group" above and you'll get an afternoons worth of reading.
BTW, the 50 foot line finish is still in the US Rules.
Cheers,
JJ

On Aug 25, 2:53*pm, jsbrake wrote:
Kirk, I think Cookie was being rather tongue-in-cheek... reference his
line: "Especially if you don't mind the occasional fatality..........
"

One of my club's members, Manfred Radius, is an airshow aerobatic
glider pilot who ends his show with an inverted pass to cut a ribbon
with his V-tail (Salto).http://www.radiusairshows.com/

Here in Arlington Washington our club regularly provides free tows to
an aerobatic sailplane pilot that for the last 2 years has given a
great performance that ends with a gear up landing. The idea behind
the free tows is that it's good for soaring..............sorta like
landing gear up in front of hundreds of spectators.

Brad