Martin,

This makes no sense. I believe that the more you do
something the more in practice you become and the inherent
result is that you are safer. Complacency is not an
argument against doing something!

Owain

I am glad all involved are going to be OK.


At 05:30 08 June 2004, Martin Hellman wrote:
Stewart Kissel wrote in message news:...

'A terrible day at Val Air today... not for me, but
Joe Dulin... a recently transplanted Turf pilot. Joe
has been flying tourists for ValAir and today stalled?spun?
in in the L-13 with a passenger on the end of the
runway
after a low pass and steep pull-up.

Low passes with steep pull-ups are a blast, but as
this accident
shows, entail risk. Since he was doing rides, the pilot
involved was
probably highly experienced and done these many times
before with no
problems.

When I was doing my motor glider transition at Livermore,
the guy who
then owned the operation told me that there are certain
maneuvers he
loves doing (high speed low passes among them), but
doesn't do
frequently because of their danger.

One of the biggest problems with actions like low passes
and tree-top
ridge flying is that you might be able to do them safely
9,999 times
out of 10,000 (or something on that order), creating
a feeling of
complacency. But if you do them 1,000 times during
your flying career,
you'll have roughly a 10% of an accident -- possibly
fatal.

Peter Masak's recent accident that Tom Knauff wrote
about in his email
newsletter sounds like it occurred during close in
ridge flying. And,
when I did a Google search to try and learn more about
that accident
(no luck there), what I did come up with was a 1994
post in which
Peter commented on Klaus Holighaus' fatal crash --
which also sounded
like a ridge accident.

All this is making my Livermore friend's decision sound
very
reasonable. It's OK to take a chance -- but not too
often.

Martin