Does How a (Sailplane) Pilot Thinks, Matter?

It's a good thing that we have finally defined "low save" for the sake of argument, but I think it is equally important to define "risk," as the original question was "what is Safe Enough" for the community.

Risk as the Air Force defines it at least, is the intersection of probability of an event occurring and the consequences of that action. One side of this debate is arguing that flying faster when thermalling low or proper training reduces the probability of an accident occurring, while the other is arguing that the consequences of doing that are dire...both of these statements are entirely true, and are not mutually exclusive. This conversation is just debating the two different axes of a risk matrix.

So if we are trying to actually answer Bob's initial question, the real question is how much total risk is the soaring community willing to accept?

Chart below for those who are unfamiliar with risk matrices:
http://herdingcats.typepad.com/my_we...sk-matrix.html

On 4/8/2016 5:40 AM, Giaco wrote:
It's a good thing that we have finally defined "low save" for the sake of
argument, but I think it is equally important to define "risk," as the
original question was "what is Safe Enough" for the community.

Risk as the Air Force defines it at least, is the intersection of
probability of an event occurring and the consequences of that action. One
side of this debate is arguing that flying faster when thermalling low or
proper training reduces the probability of an accident occurring, while the
other is arguing that the consequences of doing that are dire...both of
these statements are entirely true, and are not mutually exclusive. This
conversation is just debating the two different axes of a risk matrix.

So if we are trying to actually answer Bob's initial question, the real
question is how much total risk is the soaring community willing to
accept?

Chart below for those who are unfamiliar with risk matrices:
http://herdingcats.typepad.com/my_we...sk-matrix.html


Yeah - that's it! Accepting (avoidable, with
foreknowledge/self-education/"proper-mindset"/etc.) risk ignorantly or
unthinkingly or "merely hopefully" is (IMO) practically encouraging a bad
outcome. True whether we're talking about soaring or (say) investing in
stocks. Pre-licensing flight training is all about learning the basics of (to
cite just one of many topics) handling controls and not killing yourself due
to ignorance/improper-understanding, while post-licensing,
unencumbered-by-the-presence-of-a-licensed-instructor, solo, flight is (in one
way or another, i.e. actively vs. "unthinkingly") all about continuing that
process of self-education...while always remaining aware of where we are in
that Great Margins Bucket.

Bob W.

Slightly off topic, but I can't help but think that this is another part
of the larger issue of why we haven't won a war since 1945. When I was a
young Air Force pilot in the early 70s I thought then that the flight
regulations were written for the lowest common denominator. I guess
things have not improved since then.

On 4/8/2016 5:40 AM, Giaco wrote:
It's a good thing that we have finally defined "low save" for the sake of argument, but I think it is equally important to define "risk," as the original question was "what is Safe Enough" for the community.

Risk as the Air Force defines it at least, is the intersection of probability of an event occurring and the consequences of that action. One side of this debate is arguing that flying faster when thermalling low or proper training reduces the probability of an accident occurring, while the other is arguing that the consequences of doing that are dire...both of these statements are entirely true, and are not mutually exclusive. This conversation is just debating the two different axes of a risk matrix.

So if we are trying to actually answer Bob's initial question, the real question is how much total risk is the soaring community willing to accept?

Chart below for those who are unfamiliar with risk matrices:
http://herdingcats.typepad.com/my_we...sk-matrix.html

--
Dan, 5J

On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 12:53:58 PM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Slightly off topic, but I can't help but think that this is another
part of the larger issue of why we haven't won a war since 1945.*
When I was a young Air Force pilot in the early 70s I thought then
that the flight regulations were written for the lowest common
denominator.* I guess things have not improved since then.

I don't think they have, regulations are just the minimum standards, would you prefer you have average speed limits? If you raise the standard, then you have just set a new lowest common denominator, and are eternally in a snake eating itself kind of intelligent thought.

We haven't won a war since 1945 because we haven't declared one since 1941....

On 4/8/2016 11:42 AM, Giaco wrote:
I don't think they have, regulations are just the minimum standards, would you prefer you have average speed limits? If you raise the standard, then you have just set a new lowest common denominator, and are eternally in a snake eating itself kind of intelligent thought.

We haven't won a war since 1945 because we haven't declared one since 1941...
True, neither have we had a successful conclusion. Think Korea,
Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan... You gotta go in it to win or else you're
just wasting blood. My point wasn't about geopolitics, it was about
wimpy flight regulations, chintzy training, and the exaltation of
"accident free" days above all else. How many missions did we cancel
because the field was IFR? Jeez...

As to standards, the point I was attempting to make is that you can talk
all day about risk matrices, yadda, yadda... but that does not do
anything about accidents, it only addresses risk tolerance/acceptance.
You either have to quit flying or accept that there will be accidents.
Some people can handle a particular situation while others can not.
Some of the people who /_can_/ handle the situation one day will screw
it up (and possibly die) the next day. I accept this risk in trade for
the pleasure I derive from flying. You want to institute a "hard
deck"? Someone will spin in from above that altitude. Then what?
Raise the limit again?

PS - I'm not implying that you actually want to institute a hard deck.
--
Dan, 5J

On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 4:40:05 AM UTC-7, Giaco wrote:
So if we are trying to actually answer Bob's initial question, the real question is how much total risk is the soaring community willing to accept?

The thing is, though, the soaring community tends to focus on risks which are real, but don't occur very often. In 25 years of flying in California and Nevada I've known about 10 pilots on a first name basis who died in accidents. Almost all were due to mundane things like missing a control connection, stall/spins in gusty/turbulent conditions on landing or PTT, hitting the rocks while trying to climb up high enough to clear that last ridge before home late in the day, etc. It's the mid and high time pilots that these things tend to happen to, low time pilots seem to mostly avoid getting into these sorts of scenarios. Statistically, off-airport landing fatalities are towards the bottom of the list of fatality causes (although destroyed gliders and injuries do happen more frequently), as are mid-air fatalities.

I think we tend to ignore risks which we think can't happen to us (because we are, of course, more skilled than those who screwed up), and focus on things that other, less skilled pilots can do to us, like hit us in a blind spot (hence strong community pressure for FLARM). The real killers here are likely things like dehydration, hypoxia, and plain old complacency about ones current skill level. I've stopped flying a number of times, when I come to the realization that complacency and infrequent flying was leading to silly mistakes that easily could have resulted in a fatal accident chain.

I've brought this up before, but I think one big factor causing that complacency is the ubiquity of high quality online soaring forecasts. Years ago most pilots would go flying just about every weekend, as we often had no good idea whether we were going to miss a good day. We'd fly whether it looked promising or not, because we were already there. Now, nobody heads to the airport unless the forecasts show conditions will be great, many pilots may only make 10 or so flights in an entire season. I suspect this is killing pilots, as well as soaring operations...

Marc

On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 2:27:26 PM UTC-4, wrote:

...many pilots may only make 10 or so flights in an entire season. I suspect
this is killing pilots

I think I would fall into this trap if I did not have my glider sitting assembled in a hangar ready to fly for an hour on a weak and challenging day. Those days are easy to make happen and sometimes they seem to be the most fun... and I enjoying hanging out at the airport. I might do something else in the morning.

Epic XC is fine, notable, to be lauded, admired and sought after... but there are so many other ways to enjoy soaring that are treated like the poor cousins of the king.

I see that our under-20 pilots find great pleasure in flying on weak days for an hour. That tells me that I'm on the right track. Don't lose 'Beginner's Mind'.

On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 12:23:01 PM UTC-7, son_of_flubber wrote:
I see that our under-20 pilots find great pleasure in flying on weak days for an hour. That tells me that I'm on the right track. Don't lose 'Beginner's Mind'.

That's one of the reasons I wasted so much time and money trying to get a winch going, to allow some cheap fun (plus practice takeoff and landings) closer to home when an epic XC wasn't necessarily in the cards. It seems like we don't have enough pilots left around our area who enjoy flying for the sake of flying, rather than racking up OLC points.

Marc

On 4/8/2016 2:06 PM, wrote:
On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 12:23:01 PM UTC-7, son_of_flubber wrote:
I see that our under-20 pilots find great pleasure in flying on weak days
for an hour. That tells me that I'm on the right track. Don't lose
'Beginner's Mind'.

That's one of the reasons I wasted so much time and money trying to get a
winch going, to allow some cheap fun (plus practice takeoff and landings)
closer to home when an epic XC wasn't necessarily in the cards. It seems
like we don't have enough pilots left around our area who enjoy flying for
the sake of flying, rather than racking up OLC points.

Marc


I dunno/have-no-opinion about how OLC has-affected/is-affecting pilot
motivation, but the "selective day tendency" was something that became
apparent to me within a year or two of bumbling into the sport in the early
1970s, as "fairly common". And I agree with you both that it's (arguably)
something of a force mitigating against continuing participation. (It's a
pretty small mental step from "This day isn't worth going to the airport
over," to "ANY day isn't good enough.") Those times on "looked dodgy/dead"
days I was able to convince others to join me by taking a tow were always
pretty rare, even if anyone showed up at the field at all. Many were the times
I'd be aloft for "from well beyond dead-air times" to hours, and no one else
took tows...bizarro, to me. And yet - having learned in the east, where "good
days" were far from "visually common" - I felt ANY stick time was worth it,
and by springing for at least one tow pretty much every day I went to the
field, I learned buckets'-worth about how dynamic the atmosphere actually is.
(Useful on XC, too! )

As to targeting pilots for winching, I imagine I'd pretty much write off just
about every "experienced glider pilot I know" as a target-winchee,
concentrating instead on the steady stream of newbies filtering into local
clubs; they pretty much lack preconceptions about it. IMO/observation most
people simply aren't mentally into "new experiences like that" once they've
ascended whatever learning curve(s) they're comfortable with. (Aerotow was
good enough for my old man & it's good enough for me!)

Bob W.