How safe is the sport of soaring today

JJ Sinclair wrote:

Second, I make absolutely sure my signature never appears in their logbook
meaning I will never pass them on a flight review.


Shouldn't we be telling these guys exactly what we think? I know of 2 pilots
that were killed in sailplanes where their instructor later said, "I knew it
was going to happen". Aren't we doing everyone a disservice by sighing them off
when we really don't think they are safe? I'm not talking about you Bill, But
someone is sighing these marginal people off every 2 years. If an instructor
were to tell them the truth, as he sees it, they might just get the message.
JJ Sinclair
We recently had to face something like this. A dedicated student, out at the
club twice a month. Flies pretty competently, as well he should after nearly 200
dual launches. Only one problem, he tends to startle, and do irrational things
when he does. None of our instructors were happy to send him solo, not because
he could not fly safely 99% of the time, but because none of them wanted to
discuss how he killed himself with his family.

A little diplomacy from the CFI and an agreement reached. He still flies, and is
no longer formally under instruction. One of the basic instructors goes along as
a safety pilot, and every one is happy. If he ever settles down enough that the
instructors are very sure of him, he may even get to fly solo. Nobody -
including him - expects this, but the option is open.

Everyone wins, he gets to fly without pressure, the club is not exposed to
unneccessary risk, and we retain a friend in the club. There are very few
people who actually want to kill themselves, and you have little chance of
catching or preventing them.

Bill Daniels wrote:

"Michel Talon" wrote in message
...

Asbjorn Hojmark wrote:

On 14 May 2004 00:25:39 GMT, (JJ Sinclair)
wrote:


Shouldn't we be telling these guys exactly what we think?

Absolutely.

Failing to do so, and later seeing those pilots killed, really
ought to make those instructors reconsider whether they should be
instructing at all.


This sort of people, notoriously dangerous people, are very well
warned by instructors and other fellows that they should stop flying.
They decide themselves that they don't want to hear such advice,
and eventually kill themselves. As long as they are not involved in a
mid air and don't kill other pilots (this is rare), it is their life,
after all. Do you have any consideration for the notion of liberty?
Do you beleive you are obliged to protect people against themselves?

Michel TALON


Yes, for three reasons.

1. Accidents provide justification for more regulation.
2. Accidents increase insurance premiums for all of us.
3. Accidents create bad press which reduces our opportunity to grow the
sport.

I would turn it around and suggest that the individual pilot has an
obligation to protect the soaring community at large from the consequences
of his unsafe actions.

Bill Daniels

As a safety officer I will add a fourth reason.

4. Accidents create a lot of work for other people.

Why should the organisation have to sort out the aftermath of an avoidable fatal
crash?
It is a lot of time and work, and certainly not a pleasant excercise.

So far (13 years 15,000+ launches) we have had no fatal crashes at the club I
fly from, the worst injury has been some facial cuts from a pilot who put his
Austria through a fence on an outlanding. He was lucky.
For the last three years, every time someone in my club screws up, I have to do
a lot of paperwork and review our operating procedures to check that they are
valid. I would much rather be up there in my glider...

Bruce Greeff bgpub wrote:

As a safety officer I will add a fourth reason.
4. Accidents create a lot of work for other people.
[snip]
For the last three years, every time someone in
my club screws up, I have to do a lot of paperwork
and review our operating procedures to check that
they are valid. I would much rather be up there in
my glider...

That's incentive if I ever heard it!... sure wouldn't want anyone to have to do
any paperwork or spend time looking at operating procedures! I would hope a
safety officer would gladly give up time that could be spent on a flight or two
reviewing the vallidity of operating procedures at least a couple of times/year
whether it was prompted by someone screwing up or not. Isn't *anyone* screwing
up, even if it doesn't result in an accident and even if it's the LAST person
you'd expect to screw up, always an opportunity for *everyone* to stop and
re-evaluate?

--Shirley

Tom Seim wrote
Soaring requires a higher degree of pilot proficiency than powered
flight does. Nothing is going to change that, although technology
might help to a small degree, i.e. collision avoidance devices. Most
accidents, however, don't involve this (like the fatality at Air
Sailing).

Where did you get your information about the accident at Air sailing, Tom?

My understanding is it involved the first flight of the year in a fairly new
bird (ASW-20) and a fairly low time pilot (500hrs). Rope broke because he was
all over the sky, trying to stay in position. Then he was unable to execute a
180
without-------------------------------------------------------------------
---------we all know the rest of this scenario.
JJ Sinclair

(JJ Sinclair) wrote:

My understanding is it involved the first
flight of the year in a fairly new bird (ASW-20)
and a fairly low time pilot (500hrs).

I know there are people with many more, but ... 500 hours *in a glider* is
considered "low time"?

I know there are people with many more, but ... 500 hours *in a glider* is
considered "low time"?

When I had 500 hours in gliders, I understood just how much I didn't know.
JJ Sinclair

How is it that a 500hrs. pilot is all over the sky on aerotow?
Presumably his experience was mainly aerotow, not ground launch.

W.J. (Bill) Dean (U.K.).
Remove "ic" to reply.


"JJ Sinclair" wrote in message
...

Tom Seim wrote
Soaring requires a higher degree of pilot proficiency than powered
flight does. Nothing is going to change that, although technology
might help to a small degree, i.e. collision avoidance devices. Most
accidents, however, don't involve this (like the fatality at Air
Sailing).

Where did you get your information about the accident at Air sailing, Tom?

My understanding is it involved the first flight of the year in a fairly
new bird (ASW-20) and a fairly low time pilot (500hrs). Rope broke
because he was all over the sky, trying to stay in position. Then he was
unable to execute a 180
without-------------------------------------------------------------------
---------we all know the rest of this scenario.

JJ Sinclair.

wrote:
When I had 500 hours in gliders, I understood
just how much I didn't know.

shrug I wasn't suggesting it means one would know all there is to know ... no
matter what number you're at, there's always a huge element of unknown, isn't
there? Still, at 500 hours, unless you were asleep, how much *did* you know?
With some flights being only 10 or 15 minutes (or even less), 500 hours isn't a
fair chunk of experience? And of at least some importance would be how that
time was spaced over x-number of years, wouldn it? Isn't the danger in the
complacent attitude that having reached ANY arbitrary number, that you suddenly
you know more than you don't?

(Tom Seim) wrote in message . com...


Clearly, the
sport would be better off if some of the pilots did this. Cheer up,
Lennie the Lurker did!

Yes, Lennie did. but, just so you know who didn't, the one that the
most commom comment I heard was "that guy has no business in a
cockpit" has his license and is still in the air with everyone else.

Lennie also witnessed his first two airplane crashes at age 16, the
third one while soaring, and has no appetite to witness any more.
Lennie was also standing on the ground watching all three of them.
(Just to stop the word twisters before they open their mouths.)

I didn't reach retirement age by taking chances, otherwise called
pushing the edges. When I sold my plane, there were no patches on it.
Now that More Experienced People are flying it, the right wing has
patches on it.

Shirley wrote:

Bruce Greeff bgpub wrote:


As a safety officer I will add a fourth reason.
4. Accidents create a lot of work for other people.
[snip]
For the last three years, every time someone in
my club screws up, I have to do a lot of paperwork
and review our operating procedures to check that
they are valid. I would much rather be up there in
my glider...


That's incentive if I ever heard it!... sure wouldn't want anyone to have to do
any paperwork or spend time looking at operating procedures! I would hope a
safety officer would gladly give up time that could be spent on a flight or two
reviewing the vallidity of operating procedures at least a couple of times/year
whether it was prompted by someone screwing up or not. Isn't *anyone* screwing
up, even if it doesn't result in an accident and even if it's the LAST person
you'd expect to screw up, always an opportunity for *everyone* to stop and
re-evaluate?

--Shirley

Hi Shirly

I spend a lot of time on operating procedures and safety audits and education
about safety to try to influence attitude in a safety direction. My predecessors
and I have been quite successful. One moderate injury in 13 years is not bad.

My objection is not to doing constructive work - but a whole lot of paperwork
and checking that the procedures did address whatever incident happened, and
placating the burocrats is a waste of time. I think my time is better spent at
the field - including being there when people do things that are unsafe and get
away with it, so I can do something constructive to lower the chance of a
recurrence.

I have no issue with real accidents, this sport can be dangerous. But when
someone causes damage or injury to themselves or others through hubris or
overconfidence or negligence or any other variation of bad attitude; it is an
avoidable accident, and inconsiderate of others.

Why should a whole team of volunteer people have to do a whole lot of work to
sort out the aftermath because one person felt it their right to endanger
themselves. Anyone with the attitude of 'it's my problem if what I am doing is
dangerous, because I will only harm myself', is failing to consider the
community they operate in, and in our case would be shown the clubhouse door. No
hard feelings but we can get by without them.

Maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon...