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#11
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On Mar 21, 5:51*pm, toad wrote:
On Mar 21, 11:26*am, bildan wrote: On Mar 21, 6:45*am, " wrote: Anything that dangerous must be fun ![]() have a terrible safety record, training and experience doesn't seem to help either. I would rephrase... Pilots who think training and experience doesn't matter tend to have terrible safety records. Just to make the counter argument, that the original article is making. "There are risks that training do not seem to be able to mitigate." If your wing spar has an X % of breaking on every flight, no amount of pilot training will reduce that percentage. *You can not mitigate that risk with pilot training, you must re-design the spar. *The same is with paragliders, there are inherent risks of collapse in the design. Somehow there's a thought process that's found its way into aviation. It's, "Gliding must be dangerous 'cause it sure ain't me that's dangerous". Well, it is the pilot who's dangerous. Humans are ALWAYS the weakest link. Training and experience strengthen that link. Training and experience absolutely reduce risk. Otherwise, why would anyone bother to train and test aviators? For a long time now 95% of all GA accidents have been caused by pilot error. 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. |
#12
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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. -- Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me) |
#13
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![]() I don't think that bringing people to soaring is done by trashing other aviation sports. One could come up just as easily with morbid "reasons 23, 24, 25.... why gliding is not a good idea". As a glider and paraglider pilot, my reasons to practice both sports have so far exceed the list of reasons not to. They both have some level of danger and failure to ignore this when I go fly would be an added source of danger. |
#14
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Most all of my sports starting with second generation HG's to diving
have been relatively high risk and I have survived so far in spite of myself but there is no way I would fly a wing that can easily be collapsed by air turbulence. Statistics will not be required to tell me that is not a good idea but it’s your life so enjoy it while you can. |
#15
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Have you factored out the unairworthy gliders made so by faulty assembly?
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. -- Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me) |
#16
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On Mar 22, 9:20*am, 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. |
#17
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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 |
#18
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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. |
#19
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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 |
#20
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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. |
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