Accident at Szeged WGC

On Jul 31, 12:48*am, Z1 wrote:
On Jul 31, 8:47*am, JJ Sinclair wrote:



Boring cylinder finishes anyone?
UH

Boring *(but safe) cylinder finishes!
I was rolling on the runway when another competitor did a low finish
right over me, even though the cylinder finish was in use at Parowan.
I thought he was trying to land in front of me for a second or two and
was ready to ground-loop out of his way, if
necessary................nope, just another hot-shot showing his
ignorance as he did his little macho-crotcho low pass and then pulled
up into a crowded pattern without a word over the radio!

Radio contact is no longer needed to get a good start or finish and
the most important use of the radio is to let each other know where we
are in relation to finishing and landing. Recommend the rules call for
a 4 mile call, finish and down-wind to XX radio calls.

I CD'd Air Sailing Sports Class last week and instructed all to call 4
miles, finish and down-wind to whatever and anyone below 500 feet
better be in the pattern or doing a rolling finish!

Hank, it is high time we get the unnecessary and unsafe line finish
out of US rules and instruct CD's to not allow any low finishes.
JJ (the outspoken trouble-maker)

You yanks crack me up...

The fact that he may have had his wheel and flaps down when he hit the
truck has nothing to do with it, lets not actually wait until the
whole fact are known, nah let's jump in and make lots of assumptions,
don't you think if he was in fact completing a high speed comp finish
the pilot would be dead???

No, you guys would rather have multiple gliders coming from different
directions at high speed with all the pilots focussing on looking at
there GPS's screens.

It seems to me that when you guys were all flying comps when you were
younger there seemed to be no problem with low level finish but now
your are all over 65 it's all to dangerous.

So lets ban comp finish, but make it perfectly alright to complete a
task after you have had a midair.

This very sad event was an accident waiting to happen. It is
unfortunate that the organizers did not adequately recognize this
going in. We can have vigorous debate about rules intended to increase
safety for the participants, but anything that needlessly puts others
at risk just can't be accommodated. This is not about being girly men,
it is about conducting our sport with responsibility towards
outsiders.

John Godfrey (QT) wrote:
This is not about being girly men, it is about conducting
our sport with responsibility towards outsiders.

Exactly. It is always sad when a pilot kills himself, but then, after
all, it was him who decided to take the risk. But when an innocent
outsider gets involved, then it's a completely different story.

I don't know what the pilot did wrong or right. But the primary
responsability for this accident lies at the organisers, who decided to
set the task so that the final glide led over a populated road.

No, you guys would rather have multiple gliders coming from different
directions at high speed with all the pilots focussing on looking at
there GPS's screens.

We use our radio to tell each other direction and altitude as we enter
the finish cylinder and head-on trafic is 2 miles from each other at
the finish.

It seems to me that when you guys were all flying comps when you were
younger there seemed to be no problem with low level finish but now
your are all over 65 it's all to dangerous.

May be, but the line finish was the only way to finish the race in the
distant past. Now days we have GPS and flying low and fast over
people, places and things is no longer necessary. Don't the FAR's have
something to say about flying below 500 feet while not in the act of
landing? Please don't tell me the low finisher is, "in the act of
landing". Has he slowed down? Has he lowered the landing gear? Has he
lowered the flaps? Has he made a down-wind call? No, No, No and No!
The Federallies could rip us a new one over this.

So lets ban comp finish, but make it perfectly alright to complete a
task after you have had a midair.

By the time both pilots sorted out what had happened, they were miles
apart and escorting the damaged ship to a safe landing was no longer
an option. He struck the other ship with his nose and knew that
portion of his ship was OK. He had another competitor look him over.
Why shouldn't the un-damaged ship continue?

JJ (old and sincerely trying to get older)

On Jul 30, 6:50*pm, Andy wrote:
On Jul 30, 2:47*pm, JJ Sinclair wrote:

Low energy becomes evident at the end of your finish. The guy who
can't make the 500'/1mile cylinder calls for a straight-in landing.
The guy that finds himself with low energy while trying to make a 50'
finish line eats the fence/ hits a truck!
JJ

A low energy final glide should be evident long before reaching either
the finish cylinder or one mile from a finish line. *If there is no
lift and a marginal glide to the airport the choice is to either land
out or try to get over the fence. *The pilot who passed through the
finish cylinder at best L/D and 200 ft is in exactly the same
situation as the guy at best L/D and 200ft *and a mile out going for a
line finish or a rolling finish. *The finish type makes no difference
when there is insufficient energy to make the airport but the pilot
continues to try for the airport.

The argument that the finish cylinder would increase safety in this
scenario may be valid if the pilot has the option to stop and work
lift to get up to minimum finish altitude. *It may also be true that
there is an increase in safety if pilot choses to landout after making
the cylinder finish. *That requires landable areas between the
cylinder circumference and the airport.

As a result of the accident WGC has changed from a line finish to a
cylinder finish. The Friday task sheet defines the finish as cylinder
R=3.0 km with a 140M QNH min finish altitude. *According to the
turnpoints database Szeged is at 80M. *Unless my calculations are
wrong the required L/D from a valid finish to the airport is 50:1.

The same choce remains - try to clear the fence or landout. *The
points penalty for landing out is gone though, and maybe that's enough
to make it safer. Let's hope so.

Andy

It's actually pretty straightforward. The accident happened 20km or
30km out. The impact with the truck was just the final act.

Here's the deal. If you have 500 feet dialed in for your final glide
because that's the competition finish floor with a point penalty for
coming in low,, what are you gonna do when you take that last climb
30km out? If you're a smart racer, you're gonna put 500 feet plus
maybe another 200 feet of cushion in your arrival height and climb
accordingly. Then, you'll monitor your glide against that 500 foot
floor, not against a 0 foot arrival. If you're losing against that
500 foot floor, you might even stop to pick up an extra 100ft if you
hit a bump. Worst case, you blow the glide by 100ft and get a 40pt
penalty. You've still got 300 feet over the road and can easily make
the airport.

Worst case if you're aiming for 0 ft arrival, you take out an innocent
bystander and/or yourself.

Hey, it can still go all pear-shaped, and you end up with a very
marginal glide. But, by moving the floor to 500, you're simply re-
defining the combat arena and giving pilots an incentive to take risks
for points, not their lives.

Erik Mann
LS8-18 (P3)

On Jul 31, 7:14*am, John Smith wrote:
But the primary
responsability for this accident lies at the organisers, who decided to
set the task so that the final glide led over a populated road.

You're an accident looking for a place to happen with that attitude.

-T8

"John Smith" wrote in message
. ..
But the primary responsability for this accident lies at the organisers,

No way! The primary responsibility for the safety of every flight lies with the
PIC. The organizers have no authority to make any pilot do anything dangerous.

Vaughn

At szeged there are beautiful fields for the last few miles short of
the road and barbed wire fence. The only thing separating a landing
just shy of the road in a field and a landing 1 cm over the barbed
wire fence and road is the substantial number of points offered by the
rules for trying to pop over the fence.

We say "pilots will act safely and throw away the contest when safety
intrudes" but time and again experience proves us wrong. Put 400
points 1 cm above a barbed wire fence and pilots go for it.

This is a solved problem. A substantial minimum height for finish,
coupled with very strong penalties for coming in low, means that for
pilots like the one in this accident, racing is over when you're
making the life or death safety decision of stopping in the last field
or popping over the fence.

Alas, IGC rules do not even allow the safe finish. Yes, they allow a
cylinder with minimum altitude, but the penalty for finishing low is a
warning the first time, and 25 points the following times. Compared to
the loss of all speed points for stopping in the last field, this will
do nothing. The US has gradually moved ot a cylinder finish with
substantial penalties for low arrival, which is helping.

To those who have "never heard" of this type of accident, go read the
accident reports. European accident reports are littered with crashed
gliders in the last few km of contest flights, driving into the ground
in the hope of squeaking over the fence. (Kudos to Sailplane and
Gliding for printing them.)

All this is explained in great detail in an article I wrote for
Soaring magazine nearly 10 years ago. Here is a link.

http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john...20finishes.doc

I apologize for the harsh tone, but it's sad to see utterly
preventible accidents continue, and sadder still that international
rules do not even allow organizers to take the obvious corrective
action. This is not rocket science.

John Cochrane BB

So, we are all focusing on finish rules, etc. Would you still be
focusing on that if the pilot had made a safe, cylinder or line
finish, but flew a low approach to land at the edge of the field to
stop right by his trailer? This accident could have just as easily
been a safe finish followed by a low pattern.

I enjoyed the finish line, and I also like the finish cylinder. Heck,
I like the previous time of the flight too! It is up to us pilots to
be safe in all phases of our flights. You cannot make a rule that
will force this. Any rule that is made will have an edge that will
get tested in a way you never imagined. The new rule for this contest
can still permit the same thing to happen, if Andy's analysis is
correct. Finish at the bottom edge of the cylinder and have just
enough altitude to get to the field. All that happened is the
"finish the task bonus" moved out away from the airfield boundary.

This was a terrible accident that could have been avoided. It didn't
look like the sailplane came through a small gap in any trees, and
from the descriptions, there are lots of fields as you get close to
the airport, so he should have been able to see the truck coming.
Unless he had tunnel vision to the fence and airfield. Ever had
someone cut in front of you for landing, you change your plans, get a
bit low, and get focused only on one thing? You get pretty focused on
your landing area, and other things can go un-noticed. I suspect the
pilot was in this same "focused" mode, and never even saw the vehicles
that were crossing in front of him as he got closer to the airport.

Let's all plan our final glides and approaches with a bit more pad and
all be safe in doing what we love to do. Whether it be entering the
finish cylinder through the side, or just flying a safe pattern to a
safe landing.

Steve Leonard

What about this?

Keep the distance and timing finish line at the airfield (with a
minimum altitude of, say 30 feet in the UK, for go-arounds). Many
contests have a control TP close to the finish to line finishers up.
Just give that control waypoint a suitable minimum altitude below
which the glider increasingly penalised by points, and an absolute
minumum below which it is considered unsafe to try to stretch the
glide to the finish and the glider is scored as uncontrolled for that
point and so gets distance points only for the flight. Gliders that
reach the final control point below the lower minumum will have an
extra disincentive to carry on to the airfield as they will lose (not
gain) distance points by their scoring distance being radiused back
along the last leg from the uncontrolled final waypoint as per normal
scoring practice.

A suitable choice of control point position (as regards distance,
finishing direction and, crucially, a safe landing field) and minimum
turning height (for energy surplus for a safe finish) would ensure
that the fun for the pilot and spectacle for helpers and spectators of
airfield finishes is maintained. The control point position and
minimum height can easily be chosen so as to encourage either go-
around or straight in finishes as desired by the contest organisers.

[My preference would be to encourage fast finishes to a safe low
minimum height and crossing a line and not a cylinder at the
airfield. The logic being that, with the above regime, successfully
finishing gliders will flying at similar (and adequate) speeds and
glide slopes and the dangerous conflicts between gliders final gliding
at different speeds and heights and flying over and under each other
is minimised. Using a line they can spread out laterally without
penalty - with a cylinder everyone aims for the same closest point.
Having a low but sensible minimum altitude is safer than high fast
finishes which tend to lead to gliders flying over and under each
other because of different eyeball judgements about their height.
Most people can make a reasonable estimate of 30 or 50 feet.]

John Galloway

On Aug 1, 10:24*am, johngalloway wrote:
What about this?

Keep the distance and timing finish line at the airfield (with a
minimum altitude of, say 30 feet in the UK, for go-arounds). * *Many
contests have a control TP close to the finish to line finishers up.
Just give that control waypoint a suitable minimum altitude below
which the glider increasingly penalised by points, and an absolute
minumum below which it is considered unsafe to try to stretch the
glide to the finish and the glider is scored as uncontrolled for that
point and so gets distance points only for the flight. *Gliders that
reach the final control point below the lower minumum will have an
extra disincentive to carry on to the airfield as they will lose (not
gain) distance points by their scoring distance being radiused back
along the last leg from the uncontrolled final waypoint as per normal
scoring practice.

A suitable choice of control point position (as regards distance,
finishing direction and, crucially, a safe landing field) and minimum
turning height (for energy surplus for a safe finish) would ensure
that the fun for the pilot and spectacle for helpers and spectators of
airfield finishes is maintained. * *The control point position and
minimum height can easily be chosen so as to encourage either go-
around or straight in finishes as desired by the contest organisers.

[My preference would be to encourage fast finishes to a safe low
minimum height and crossing a line and not a cylinder at the
airfield. *The logic being that, with the above regime, successfully
finishing gliders will flying at similar (and adequate) speeds and
glide slopes and the dangerous conflicts between gliders final gliding
at different speeds and heights and flying over and under each other
is minimised. *Using a line they can spread out laterally without
penalty - with a cylinder everyone aims for the same closest point.
Having a low but sensible minimum altitude is safer than high fast
finishes which tend to lead to gliders flying over and under each
other because of different eyeball judgements about their height.
Most people can make a reasonable estimate of 30 or 50 feet.]

John Galloway


The previous discussions fall into one of two camps. One to implement
a higher finish to improve the chance of a safe pattern/landing and
the other is for maintaining the low (exciting) finish. Race results
are unaffected either way. We all understand both sides of the coin.
To me, however, risk versus reward comes into play here. The reward is
excitement at the end of a mentally and physically challenging day.
But who is at risk?

If all this talk was just about the inbound pilot, I’d say without
reservation to keep the low finish going. If a pilot is foolish enough
to push the boundaries and gets himself hurt or killed, that is his
problem. I have zero sympathy for that person. I’ll reserve that for
his family. However, when my hide is on the line with incoming pilots
who skill level or physical condition at the end of the day (read
dehydrated, mentally upset, tired, etc.) is suspect, then I want
options and the low finish minimizes that. Then, of course, we have
the innocent bystanders that this thread started with.

Perhaps compassion for what may happen to the other guy should
outweigh the excitement that the low finish provides the pilot?

Craig Reinholt