Reason 28, 29, 30.... why I don't paraglide

When I earned my pilot's license a fellow pilot gave me a short but
serious talk about how dangerous soaring is, and how many friends had
been lost, etc. Later in the day he nearly took off with airbrakes
deployed. Fortunately I did not pick up the wing but instead pointed
at the air brakes.

My point is not to criticize the pilot, but to point out that we are
all human and sometimes make mistakes. To me this is what makes
soaring dangerous... falling into a routine and then falling out of it
without realizing you have done so.

On Mar 21, 6:00*pm, bildan wrote:
It's not hard to ascribe the other 5% to pilots as well since
the pilot is charged with insuring his (it's usually guys) aircraft is
airworthy.

An airworthy spar in a glider flown by a well trained pilot who knows
and follows the rules has a 0% chance of breaking.

Wait. If pilot n-1 overstresses said spar, then chances of it breaking
may be closer to 100% for pilot n. Yet, the damage may well be
invisible and impossible to detect during normal preflight. Are you
saying that if pilot n gets killed then it is his own fault for not
properly x-raying the wings before flying?

B.

Bill, My comment was in reaction to the last statement in his post.

"That seems different from our sailplane experience, where I'd say most
glider crashes involve an airworthy glider."

My point was simply that a glider with an improper hookup is not
airworthy. I know there are a lot of accidents because of this
phenomenon, but I don't know how significant this is statistically.

This does not take away from your argument.

Best,

Nyal



At 15:49 22 March 2011, bildan wrote:
On Mar 22, 9:20=A0am, Nyal Williams wrote:
Have you factored out the unairworthy gliders made so by faulty
assembly?


Why would anyone do that? Proper assembly is a pilot responsibility
whether he rigged the glider or not. Pilots have the final
responsibility to perform a pre-flight inspection which includes
checking for proper assembly. If a pilot crashes due to improper
assembly, he alone bears the blame. Again, training and experience is
critically important.

On Mar 22, 1:25*pm, toad wrote:
On Mar 22, 2:53*pm, bildan wrote:









On Mar 22, 11:36*am, toad wrote:

On Mar 22, 11:49*am, bildan wrote:

Again, training and experience is critically important.

billdan,

Are you missing the point on purpose, not understanding or just trying
to have a different discussion ?

Neither the referenced article nor my post disagree with the statement
"training and experience is critically important". *But we are making
the statement "there are some risks not mitigable by training".

If you are trying to emphasize the importance of training, please do
so without diminshing the posibility of other issues.

Thanks
Todd Smith
3S

I'm not missing the point - I'm going right at it.

Exactly what issues are not 'mitigable' by training? * I'm saying
there are no such issues. *All safety issues are addressable by
training. That's the fundamental premise of safety training.

My hot button is the prevalent but very wrong headed statement,
"Soaring is dangerous and there's nothing we can do about it".
Soaring isn't inherently dangerous of itself but human factors such as
lack of skill and knowledge can certainly make it so. *Training and
experience is how we address human factors.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Well, I guess you are missing the point. Which is:

"Aircraft design issues can not be addressed by pilot training."

Todd

What!? Of course design issues are addressed by pilot training. It's
called a type checkout. Certain designs do have idiosyncrasies and
they're thoroughly covered in the checkout.

If you referring to structural or handling deficiencies that somehow
made through the certification process without being detected - those
are incredibly rare to the point of being almost non-existent. If
they do make it through the certification process, they'll lead to an
AD which requires all affected aircraft to be modified. With those
systems in place, the odds any individual pilot will be the
unfortunate one to find them are vanishingly small.

On Mar 22, 1:54*pm, Bob Kuykendall wrote:
On Mar 22, 11:53*am, bildan wrote:

Soaring isn't inherently dangerous of itself but human factors such as
lack of skill and knowledge can certainly make it so. *Training and
experience is how we address human factors.

I see this in the opposite way: I firmly believe that soaring is
inherently unforgiving, and it is only through training and judgment
that we mitigate the risks. I think that no conscientious sailplane
developer or human factors specialist would say otherwise.

We fling ourselves through the air in lightweight plastic shells that
have only modest crash protection at speeds up to 150 MPH. We do not
always have full control over the conditions under which we land, or
where we land. Our machines have myriad idiosyncrasies that give rise
to sometimes awkward handling. We often operate these machines in
close proximity to one another, despite the fact that even the
slightest collision can result in structural failure. We often operate
them at altitudes conducive to hypoxia, which causes disorientation.
We fly in contests that place incentive on calibrated risk-taking.

Against all that we have training, skill, judgment, discretion,
engineering, a handful of electronics, some compressed gasses,
statistical probability, and a few books full of rules. And so far,
that stuff has kept the danger down to a dull roar, down to where
soaring is about as dangerous as you make it. It obviously cannot be
exactly as dangerous as you make it; in addition to the subjective
risks there are objective risks such as getting run down by the
occasional airplane that comes from behind. But for the most part
subjective risks reign, and training and experience hold the field.

Thanks, Bob K.

Well said.

On Mar 22, 2:46*pm, tstock wrote:
When I earned my pilot's license a fellow pilot gave me a short but
serious talk about how dangerous soaring is, and how many friends had
been lost, etc. *Later in the day he nearly took off with airbrakes
deployed. Fortunately I did not pick up the wing but instead pointed
at the air brakes.

My point is not to criticize the pilot, but to point out that we are
all human and sometimes make mistakes. *To me this is what makes
soaring dangerous... falling into a routine and then falling out of it
without realizing you have done so.

My point exactly. Gliders don't kill pilots - pilots wreck gliders.

On Mar 22, 5:45*pm, bildan wrote:
On Mar 22, 1:25*pm, toad wrote:





On Mar 22, 2:53*pm, bildan wrote:

On Mar 22, 11:36*am, toad wrote:

On Mar 22, 11:49*am, bildan wrote:

Again, training and experience is critically important.

billdan,

Are you missing the point on purpose, not understanding or just trying
to have a different discussion ?

Neither the referenced article nor my post disagree with the statement
"training and experience is critically important". *But we are making
the statement "there are some risks not mitigable by training".

If you are trying to emphasize the importance of training, please do
so without diminshing the posibility of other issues.

Thanks
Todd Smith
3S

I'm not missing the point - I'm going right at it.

Exactly what issues are not 'mitigable' by training? * I'm saying
there are no such issues. *All safety issues are addressable by
training. That's the fundamental premise of safety training.

My hot button is the prevalent but very wrong headed statement,
"Soaring is dangerous and there's nothing we can do about it".
Soaring isn't inherently dangerous of itself but human factors such as
lack of skill and knowledge can certainly make it so. *Training and
experience is how we address human factors.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Well, I guess you are missing the point. Which is:

"Aircraft design issues can not be addressed by pilot training."

Todd

What!? *Of course design issues are addressed by pilot training. *It's
called a type checkout. *Certain designs do have idiosyncrasies and
they're thoroughly covered in the checkout.

If you referring to structural or handling deficiencies that somehow
made through the certification process without being detected - those
are incredibly rare to the point of being almost non-existent. *If
they do make it through the certification process, they'll lead to an
AD which requires all affected aircraft to be modified. *With those
systems in place, the odds any individual pilot will be the
unfortunate one to find them are vanishingly small.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I am very specifically referring to "structural or handling
deficiencies" inherent in a paraglider's basic design. Because that
is what the linked article was discussing.

If you want to discuss certified sailplanes, we won't have much to
argue about, because I think Bob K said it very well.


Todd

On 3/22/2011 8:20 AM, Nyal Williams wrote:


worthyAt 01:29 22 March 2011, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 3/21/2011 6:00 PM, bildan wrote:


An airworthy spar in a glider flown by a well trained pilot who knows
and follows the rules has a 0% chance of breaking.

Wasn't that the point of the website? That the paraglider has a
relatively large, non-zero chance of "breaking", even though you are
well trained and follow the rules? I don't know if he's right, but
seemed to be reasonable argument, that many/most accidents began when
the paraglider became unairworthy. That seems different from our
sailplane experience, where I'd say most glider crashes involve an
airworthy glider.

Have you factored out the unairworthy gliders made so by faulty assembly?

Yes, I was thinking of gliders that were airworthy at the beginning of
the flight. I would also exclude all paragliders that were not airworthy
at the beginning of the flight.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)