Seniors Contest

Kilo Charlie wrote:
Final line is this Marc...you cannot legislate good judgement....period. If
you don't believe it then just go drive around in your car for awhile where
there have already been put into place many laws in an attempt to do so.

It is not the pilots that are conscientious and cautious that are the
problem....no matter what the rules are they will do the right thing. There
will always be those that are poor decision makers in a pinch. I wish that
an instructor somewhere would have pointed this out to them but now that
they have their license they can demonstrate to the world their
inadequacies.

Casey


Even the good ones among us occasionally screw up- sometimes they survive to
tell us about it. No point in name calling - I certainly never want to share
airspace with the guy who has never landed and said something along the lines of
"I did something really unwise there". The person who has never realised he
makes mistakes / exercises poor judgment is the most dangerous person you will
meet. No matter how well he/she flies.

Good judgment often comes from experience brought on by poor judgment -
legislation only guides those who want to listen.

Here a top pilot has effectively told us how he got into a very dangerous
situation - partly because of a rule designed to ensure his safety. We should
learn from it. Bottom line is to keep the pint of blue muck between your ears
on-line. I try to continuously evaluate my decisions to see if they are
deteriorating. If so - why am I getting tired or dehydrated, or not
concentrating. I don't fly contests but I can see how a hard race could get you
into a bad decision making mode - irrespecive of the rules to protect you.

Bruce wrote:
Here a top pilot has effectively told us how he got into a very
dangerous situation - partly because of a rule designed to ensure his
safety. We should learn from it. Bottom line is to keep the pint of blue
muck between your ears on-line. I try to continuously evaluate my
decisions to see if they are deteriorating. If so - why am I getting
tired or dehydrated, or not concentrating. I don't fly contests but I
can see how a hard race could get you into a bad decision making mode -
irrespecive of the rules to protect you.

No, this isn't really an argument about rules or safety, it is an
argument about philosophy and ego. I agree fully with Casey and
everyone else that you can't "legislate good judgment". What we have
here, however, is the last vestiges of procedures that made some sense
when there was actual gate crews sitting on the ground and timing the
gliders as they finish. Well, we've been doing GPS finishes for several
years, yet some folks still need the rush of making that final red line
dive through the finish gate, despite the fact that it serves no
function that I can see other than stroking some egos. It's sort of
like when I was a kid, and thought it was cool to drive my Alfa at 120
MPH on empty highways in the middle of the night. It was a rush, but it
was also a pointless, stupid thing to do, even if I never managed to
kill myself or anyone else.

I've flown in enough contests to know that those few minutes after the
finish are when I'm going to be the least attentive to what is going on
around me, and I suspect there are quite a few other pilots in the same
state. Throw in a little dehydration, plus some bad luck, and the scene
ain't going to be pretty. I, for one, would rather blunder around for
the last few minutes of the flight at 60 knots and 500 feet, than 120
knots and 100 feet...

Marc

Marc Ramsey wrote:
Bruce wrote:

Here a top pilot has effectively told us how he got into a very
dangerous situation - partly because of a rule designed to ensure his
safety. We should learn from it. Bottom line is to keep the pint of
blue muck between your ears on-line. I try to continuously evaluate my
decisions to see if they are deteriorating. If so - why am I getting
tired or dehydrated, or not concentrating. I don't fly contests but I
can see how a hard race could get you into a bad decision making mode
- irrespecive of the rules to protect you.


No, this isn't really an argument about rules or safety, it is an
argument about philosophy and ego. I agree fully with Casey and
everyone else that you can't "legislate good judgment". What we have
here, however, is the last vestiges of procedures that made some sense
when there was actual gate crews sitting on the ground and timing the
gliders as they finish. Well, we've been doing GPS finishes for several
years, yet some folks still need the rush of making that final red line
dive through the finish gate, despite the fact that it serves no
function that I can see other than stroking some egos. It's sort of
like when I was a kid, and thought it was cool to drive my Alfa at 120
MPH on empty highways in the middle of the night. It was a rush, but it
was also a pointless, stupid thing to do, even if I never managed to
kill myself or anyone else.

I've flown in enough contests to know that those few minutes after the
finish are when I'm going to be the least attentive to what is going on
around me, and I suspect there are quite a few other pilots in the same
state. Throw in a little dehydration, plus some bad luck, and the scene
ain't going to be pretty. I, for one, would rather blunder around for
the last few minutes of the flight at 60 knots and 500 feet, than 120
knots and 100 feet...

Marc


Hi Marc

No disagreement - just the observation that rules are not going to stop you, or
me or anyone else occasionally doing something stupid. Humans do that - we find
all sorts of reasons after the fact, but the fact remains.

I am unaware of there ever being a mishap with the gate finish Marc. Your
basic premise is that the gate finish is unsafe. I disagree and feel that
it is safer than the alternatives presented to date.

Re your "testosterone" idea....yup you're correct.....I do enjoy watching
the ground rush by and my crew enjoys it too along with the spectators that
show up. We have made an already poor spectator sport into a truly horrible
one with some of these changes. I'm not looking to make it a Red Bull death
defying race but honestly think that it is the one single time in the race
that is nice to watch. Now if it were less safe than the other finishes I
would not argue to use it but as I said it is at least as safe. I challenge
you to present hard facts to counter that. If I'm wrong about that being
liked by the spectators then maybe you can explain why they can't keep
enough copies of UK Smokin' in production to satisfy all the orders.

Like you said.....you guys that are worried about the safety issues with the
current rules can by all means have your own races with each competitor
having their own separate start cylinder and the finish being a 2 mile 2000'
AGL minimum. Now THAT would be safe....but I won't be participating.

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix

Kilo Charlie wrote:
I am unaware of there ever being a mishap with the gate finish Marc. Your
basic premise is that the gate finish is unsafe. I disagree and feel that
it is safer than the alternatives presented to date.

We can argue about whether the recent Seniors accident was or was not a
gate mishap, I could go either way. But, the notion that cylinder
finishes are less safe than gate finishes seems to be unique to you and
some of your friends...

Marc

"Kilo Charlie" wrote in message
news:WBNXd.22088$FM3.15711@fed1read02...
I am unaware of there ever being a mishap with the gate finish Marc. Your
basic premise is that the gate finish is unsafe. I disagree and feel that
it is safer than the alternatives presented to date.

Re your "testosterone" idea....yup you're correct.....I do enjoy watching
the ground rush by and my crew enjoys it too along with the spectators
that show up. We have made an already poor spectator sport into a truly
horrible one with some of these changes. Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix


Casey,

I'm in complete agreement. I don't fly contests, likely never will, but I
sure *used* to enjoy the contest finishes. What a shame they destroyed the
best part of contests for the spectators.

bumper
ZZ
Minden

Kilo Charlie wrote:

I am unaware of there ever being a mishap with the gate finish Marc.

How long have you been in the sport? At least one person has died
finishing with the conventional gate (Cal City), and there have been
many other accidents and very close calls.


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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

I've been flying for 34 years Eric and racing for 12. I see that you are
ranked 232 and I am 121....does that make me better able to judge racing
rules?! Let's talk about the facts and not get into a ****ing match about
experience.

I'd appreciate the details of any and all mishaps that you or others know
about that you feel are a result of finish gates.

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix

Kilo Charlie wrote:
I've been flying for 34 years Eric and racing for 12. I see that you are
ranked 232 and I am 121....does that make me better able to judge racing
rules?! Let's talk about the facts and not get into a ****ing match about
experience.

I'm ranked 44, does that mean I win the ****ing match? 8^)

I'd appreciate the details of any and all mishaps that you or others know
about that you feel are a result of finish gates.

Do you think the recent Seniors accident was gate related, and if not,
why not?

Marc

Kilo Charlie wrote:
I've been flying for 34 years Eric and racing for 12. I see that you are
ranked 232 and I am 121....does that make me better able to judge racing
rules?! Let's talk about the facts and not get into a ****ing match about
experience.

My experience was not mentioned in the post - I was wondering about
yours. I still make no claim about my experience. I was responding to
your comment:

I am unaware of there ever being a mishap with the gate finish Marc.

I first assumed you had been racing for a while, but it then seemed
unlikely, since you weren't aware of finish gate problems. I'm surprised
you've raced for 12 years without witnessing or at least hearing about
accidents and close calls.

I'd appreciate the details of any and all mishaps that you or others know
about that you feel are a result of finish gates.

I've seen several gear up landings, at least once with pilots going
head-on at each other because one finished backwards, some slow speed
pullups leading to a scary low turn to final a whisker away from
cartwheeling, a pilot landing short in a rock-filled field because the
"rolling finish" didn't make it to the pavement. There's more that will
come to me after a bit, but those are some that I've witnessed.
Thankfully, no bad injuries or fatalities.

I'm with Marc - I think I'm safer with the new high finish cylinders
than the traditional ground-based gate. It was a thrill bombing through
it at 50 feet off the ground, but I'm over that now.

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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA