RIP Tomas Reich - SGP Chile

Place as many "disincentives" to unsafe flying as you like in the rules and
guys will still be running into ridges, stall/spinning and acting crazy in
a gaggle. Once again, it is personal decision making and personal limits
that create safety. It is an INTERNAL issue (mindset), not an external
(rules) one.
A big "Thank you!" to everyone participating in this sadly "necessary" thread
drift conversation. I hope none ever lose sight of why and the circumstances
under which it began. I'll add a couple more thoughts...

- Specific thanks to RO & UH for sharing their world-level-soaring-competition
experiences. I hadn't previously known of RO's while I'd only been able to
internally speculate upon UH's (got it essentially right!). Neither's
experiences and shared-to-date conclusions surprise me.

- Of the (sadly, WAY too many [double figures?]) soaring acquaintances I used
to know who've died while participating, so far, none have died in a
competition. I consider that an important statistic for anyone inclined to
personal insightfulness.

- While I expect someone to either infer or outright claim that the sentiment
expressed in the two excerpted sentences above is "direct support for aerial
anarchy," I don't take it that way at all. Rules (e.g. in the USA, FARs/CFRs),
training, and experience are fundamentally necessary - sort of in the "We hold
these truths to be self evident..." vein - but they're far from "the last
word" when it comes to exercising in-flight safety. Because it's important to
me and my (soaring) worldview, I've banged the safety drum a fair amount over
the years on RAS, and elsewhere, going so far as to accurately - as distinct
from rhetorically - claim I never do things containing the energy to kill or
inflict serious injury to my frail pink bod without spending mental time
beforehand refreshing those realities in my brain cells. So far I've not
injured myself while driving or soaring, and still retain all my fingers, toes
and eyeballs. Which is not to say I've never rushed, "done stupid things,"
gotten lucky, remembered "just in time," etc...

That said, I've also been (accused of? imputed to?) being some flavor of
"fearful, inhibited safety freak," which is laughably off-target. I simply
believe that ideas, and the actions they lead to, have very real consequences,
up to and including self-inflicted, accidental, death. I genuinely believe
that if more people piloted sailplanes with their own flavor of such thoughts
"actively in mind," we would be mourning fewer lost companions. Please note
I'm in no way meaning to imply anything at all about the circumstances of Mr.
Tomas Reich's life, thought processes and sad passing, all of which I'm 100%
ignorant. My judgments merely reflect my assessments of human nature in
general, my late friends in particular (whose deadly accidents range from
"pattern innocuous," to "he lost a 'showing off' risk" to ???), and
generalized speculation...all "merely" intended to help maximize the time
granted me to enjoy life's active gifts.

Rules and mindsets, mindsets and rules...which more impactfully "create
safety"...where "safety" is defined as the absence of accidents (fatal and
otherwise)? Does it really matter? Both have very real effects, even if we
can't really measure many of them. Paraphrasing the oft-pithy, former
two-time world soaring champion, George Moffat, just because we can't measure
something (see another competitor beating us) doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Having worked in the early 1990s for a company run by
criminally-expediency-driven management that managerially extended all the way
down to "we line grunts" (a few subsequently went to prison!), and that went
bankrupt during my time under their regime, during production/planning
meetings I'd claimed more than once that just because something can't be
directly assigned to numbers on the bottom line doesn't mean activities
associated with (bad) decisions and orders were not (adversely) affecting
those numbers.

Rules for soaring competitions aren't immune from similar effects. And as has
already been noted by others in this thread, failure to implement existing
rules has its own consequences. Rules and mindsets...it's something of a
Gordian Knot truly severable only by the sword of flight physics.

Bob W.

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Thanks Bob, very nicely put, rules and mindset, there is the duality that I think has merit. I just see the trend always pushing the "rules" aspect while ignoring or assuming the unchangability of the mindset portion.

And no, your not a safety curmudgeon, your just an old guy like me who has flown alot, taking a handfull of questionable risks and are still here to tell the tale.
Dan

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 9:13:31 AM UTC-8, Clay wrote:
I think the idea that contests reward risk taking is way overblown. Spend some time analyzing Sebastian Kawa's flight logs (ok, maybe not those in Chile), and I think you will see a pilot that minimizes risk to the maximum extent possible. I don't think we need to give budding competition pilots the idea that they will need to be taking risks to do well. I think the opposite is more likely true.

And where would one find the flight logs from this SGP race?

On Wednesday, 24 January 2018 19:13:31 UTC+2, Clay wrote:
I think the idea that contests reward risk taking is way overblown. Spend some time analyzing Sebastian Kawa's flight logs (ok, maybe not those in Chile), and I think you will see a pilot that minimizes risk to the maximum extent possible. I don't think we need to give budding competition pilots the idea that they will need to be taking risks to do well. I think the opposite is more likely true.

Really good pilots, Kawas or others who end up winning days and whole competitions are not necessarily the risk takers. Taking risk means you have already made a mistake and try to win some seconds back. If you look at any day winners' flights, they are the ones who never get low or in bad situation, they have no reason to take risks.

SGP Race Coverage page: http://www.sgp.aero/finals2017/race-...ontestID=28606

And where would one find the flight logs from this SGP race?

I was talking about earlier World Championships, not the SGP.

Not sure if logs are still the
https://www.soaringspot.com/en_gb/32...sults/15-meter
https://www.soaringspot.com/en_gb/32...ionships-2013/

Like 9B, I've known more people who have been killed in glider accidents than by any other cause: 14, of which 8 were at contests and another 4 who were active competition pilots arguably on training flights. Those numbers include my father and my best friend, so risks and safety are hardly academic concepts for me.

I've seen unsafe flying at regional and U.S. national contests. Often someone simply makes a mistake. Occasionally it's the result of consistent unsafe practices and I've expressed my concern to the pilot and/or the CD. I've seen an unsafe flying penalty assessed and at least one pilot ejected from a contest. I don't know how often the CD pulls someone aside for a private chat based on credible complaints but I know it's happened.

Since I began flying contests almost 50 years ago, I've heard it said that top pilots win in part because they take more risks. I'm sure that happens occasionally on specific days. But more commonly I truly believe they're just better pilots who can fly more aggressively without being unsafe. I agree with UH that many of us tend to fly more aggressively at contests but I don't think we often transgress into the danger zone. Typically I've had more concern about less qualified pilots overextending themselves trying to emulate the experts.

Safety is a big issue at contests. Most of us enjoy flying them in part because of the thrill it gives us. But no one wants to die doing it. These days, we don't really even want to land out and take a chance on damaging our expensive gliders, not to mention incur the inconvenience of a retrieve! Hahaha.

Pilots traveling to the U.S. to compete in our national contests have occasionally reported favorably on the safety briefing that is given each morning here by a different pilot. Some are better than others, of course. But I have learned a lot from these over the years.

I've also given a few, in some cases citing experiences that involved avoidable danger. GPS log files are a wonderful tool that allows us to analyze how a dangerous situation developed, in particular involving multiple aircraft getting too close to each other. I replayed one sequence on SeeYou for a pilots' meeting at a nationals (after anonymizing the gliders involved) and listened to the intake of breath as two blips merged on the screen (fortunately not in the air, but by less than one meter). And I've privately forwarded several similar analyses to pilots that have made me take evasive action.

The common thread, IMHO: most of us sit through these briefings very aware of the risks but saying: "it can't happen to me." Or "he/she made a really foolish mistake [which I would never make]."

To that point, one of the most effective safety briefings I've ever had the privilege to see was given by world-class Australian pilot Bruce Taylor at our Nephi nationals in 2016. Bruce got low over unlandable terrain on the first day in a borrowed glider and gave a talk the next morning about how he had gotten himself into a bad situation. It was sobering to hear a pilot of his stature and experience say he always thought he could fly his way out of any situation he got himself into...and then admit he had been wrong. Then he detailed the mistakes he made without self-deprecating jokes or attempting to mitigate the risks or rationalize his behavior. Not a soul in the room made a sound as he was speaking. As one of this country's all-time-best pilots observed afterward, it was a talk that might have been more appropriately targeted at the experienced pilots there than at the neophytes.

Would a "hard deck" prevent us from making certain mistakes? Possibly, although I personally think it's impractical without severely constraining the flying we do. As Bruce detailed (and 9B discussed), the mistakes he made started many miles earlier. By the time he was in trouble, he was just trying to stay airborne. Not long after he dug out, he put in and landed at an airport (before, two days later, winning the Open Class task in an 18M glider).

Most of us don't want to think we could make fundamental mistakes. We all think we fly within our capabilities. In fact, I think it's more common--and applauded--now than it was many years ago for pilots to say "I [turned back/landed/gave up] because I reached the end of my [comfort zone/competency/skill level]".

Yeah, sometimes we shake our heads in admiration when a top pilot pulls off an amazing feat that would have scared us to death. More often the discussion that ensues when someone takes a big risk and gets away with it is quite disparaging behind that pilot's back. I can think of one example where it wasn't so much a matter of "if" the risks would catch up with a highly successful pilot as "when" (and the answer turned out to be: not long).

Let's be honest. If soaring were a zero-risk activity, like video games, it wouldn't have the same appeal. That's the glaring dichotomy to me: how to manage the risks of gliding without legislating away every activity that involves the tiniest bit of danger.

I don't want rules that encourage risky behavior. I have no objection to rules that allow pilots with more skill than mine to fly closer to the edge. But I don't want "nanny state" rules that seek to preclude every single activity that involves risk or potential negative consequences. They eliminate some of the attraction of the sport: i.e., the ability to manage risks as I see fit.

Sometimes it's not so clear what constitutes an unsafe decision at the time.. There's the concept of good vs. bad decisions and good vs. bad outcomes. I've headed out on tasks that I was convinced were gross overcalls--certain that every one of the 60+ contestants would land out--and returned with nearly 100% completions. From the rules and task setter's perspective, was that a good decision/good outcome? Or bad decision/good outcome?

The reverse has been true, as some might view the day at Nephi that nearly caught Bruce: an ambitious task over dodgy terrain for which the forecasted weather didn't quite measure up: good decision/bad outcome? Or bad decision/bad outcome? Or, since the completion rate was fairly high and no one got hurt, bad decision/good outcome?

I have no idea if the task on the last day at the Chilean SGP was ill advised. Or if a new rule would have prevented that task without also eliminating other tasks on weak days that are safe, valid tests of piloting skill.

As with everything else in life, to some extent we must leave the final decision up to the judgment of both task setters and pilots while trying hard to make sure there is nothing in the rules that encourages unwise risk taking (it's possible that the placing-based SGP scoring system might fall into this category) OR discourages flying in demanding but safe conditions.

So, yes, the safety record at this SGP seems questionable. But let's be careful about saying "there ought to be a rule" without analyzing what might be wrong and what steps are needed to address that. The rules are complicated enough already just for task setting and scoring. There's no reason to believe it's any easier to legislate safety, at least without legislating away much of the appeal of soaring.

Just my [typically long-winded] opinion on a thorny subject. I'm glad to see it discussed and very interested in reading the many insightful postings.

Chip Bearden

On Sunday, January 21, 2018 at 5:59:41 AM UTC-8, Paul Agnew wrote:
From Facebook:

Sad news from the last race day;
Local Chile pilot Tomas Reich had an accident on the ridges south of Santiago. The Chile SAR recovered Tomas and took him by helicopter to the hospital in Santiago. Unfortunately Tomas died during the evening from the injuries he sustained during the accident. Our thoughts and prayers are for his family and friends during this tragic time.

"Let's be honest. If soaring were a zero-risk activity, like video games, it wouldn't have the same appeal." I do not agree with that statement. In fact the risk in it is exactly what makes it unappealing to many pilots.

There are two kinds of terrain impact hazards. One is flying too close to a ridge and impacting it, where a safe glide away from it to an airport exists. That hazard is greatly mitigated by the skill of the pilot. The other is flying too low over unlandable terrain. That hazard is slightly mitigated by skill, and greatly mitigated by luck. The former is a necessary component of mountain flying, the latter is not.

The pilots who object to the risk of competition, cite two things: mid air collisions, and having to get too low over unlandable terrain. No one I know cites having to fly too close to a ridge as a risk they are unwilling to take - that is part of soaring.

On Sunday, 21 January 2018 08:59:41 UTC-5, Paul Agnew wrote:
From Facebook:

Sad news from the last race day;
Local Chile pilot Tomas Reich had an accident on the ridges south of Santiago. The Chile SAR recovered Tomas and took him by helicopter to the hospital in Santiago. Unfortunately Tomas died during the evening from the injuries he sustained during the accident. Our thoughts and prayers are for his family and friends during this tragic time.


Great discussion.

For those interested in a little history, see the account of the 1956 World Championships in St. Yan. Soaring Sept/Oct 1956. Especially pp 6-7, which is the account of the 11 July task from St. Yan to St. Auban....

Plus ça change....

Originally Posted by

Like 9B, I've known more people who have been.. (SNIP
SNIP)...Just my [typically long-winded] opinion on a thorny subject. I'm glad to see it discussed and very interested in reading the many insightful postings.

Chip Bearden

A well written post Chip. You nailed it.

Brett Hunter