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**Walt Connelly** · #53 August 23rd 11, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andreas Maurer

On Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:36:36 +0000, Walt Connelly
wrote:

Where I fly there are a couple of guys who frequently do low passes and
thankfully thus far without incident. They are high time pilots flying
high performance glass and I must admit that I enjoy and admire what
they do. I also have some nice videos of their exploits. My major
concern is for a situation where someone else might be in the pattern
and suddenly confronted by another glider joining then in close
proximity, hopefully not TOO close.

Hi Walt,

I'd suggest to widen your concerns to those high-time pilots, too.

However controlled a low pass might look like, one doesn't have it
completely under control.

Among a couple of really impressive things done by top pilots at low
altitudes (which amazingly all ended without an accident), I once had
the doubtful pleasure to see a current German champion do a perfectly
controlled, beautiful low pass on his (and my) home airfield... a
thing that he's done dozens of times before.

Unfortunately this time he managed to overlook a complete 35ft-high
club house (that's been standing there since 1960) and its surrounding
50ft tall trees, missing it by a couple (much less than ten) of feet.
He simply didn't think that he was THAT close........................
Amazing example of tunnel vision.

Best regards from Germany
Andreas

Andreas,

I agree, high time pilots can make mistakes too, I've seen it happen. The one crash that happened at my glider port since I started flying was by a 67 year old retired airline captain. A real eye opener because one would think a pilot of such experience would be less apt to err than someone such as myself. I am really surprised at the number of accidents recently and even more amazed that these were frequently with high time pilots, in one case a designated examiner and a CFI-G recertification ride. Another in Europe with an instructor and student and so on. It humbles someone such as myself with a commercial rating and 120 hours in gliders.

Walt