On 5/21/2012 2:20 PM, S. Murry wrote:
I don't want to hijack the thread about Walter Mueller's 75 gliding
anniversary (GO, Walter!) by talk about an early death...seems a bit morbid.
But I have to comment on Bob's statement:

snip
However...if any reader knows of a gliding participant who feels predestined
to die in a sailplane, perhaps you'd be doing said participant a real favor by
suggesting to them some serious re-examination of why that thought persists is
in order. Just sayin'...

Bob W.

end snip

I think I agree with your statement, Bob, insofar as if you have a belief that
you are predestined to die in any particular way (whether gliding or
otherwise), you are either suicidal (and have picked out your method of ending
it all), have some kind of strange religious belief (i.e. that you know that
God is going to kill you in some particular way), or are suffering from some
other psychosis and probably shouldn't be soaring.

On the other hand, if you are in this sport and don't realize that it may very
well be one of the most dangerous sports out there, I submit to you that you
are deceiving yourself. Obviously, you are still far from "predestined to die
in a sailplane" (statistically speaking, but of course your individual results
may vary), but if you don't recognize the risks involved you may be more
likely to avoid taking the necessary safety precautions to prevent these risks
from growing beyond those that are inherent in this sport. For this reason, I
think it is actually quite healthy to have a feeling that strapping on your
sailplane may very well be the most dangerous thing you do today...I think
about this pretty much every time I suit up, and I think it helps to keep me
focused on safety.


Thanks for giving the topic its own thread. I couldn't think of a semi-decent
way to segue into another philosophically-based safety topic, and certainly
didn't mean to take the spotlight away from Walter Mueller's awesome
achievement. Actually, I envy him his vitality!

What I was alluding to was if any reader knows any soaring pilot(s) with a
sufficiently fatalistic attitude about the risks inherent to the sport that
they choose to use those risks as justification for not working as hard as
they otherwise might be working to improve themselves (knowledge, judgment and
skills), then such an inert/fatalistic pilot is - in my view - doing
themselves a dis-service.

Maybe I've set up a straw man here...but maybe not. If any reader knows a
soaring pilot who believes - about any particular aspect of the sport -
something along the lines of "there's nothing I can do about (this or that)
risk in this sport, so therefore I'm not going to worry about trying to
mitigate them, that might be a person who could benefit from a change in
outlook/attitude. The sort of risks I have in mind are those which ARE
mitigatable by increased pilot awareness, knowledge, judgment and skill of
course (e.g. inadvertent departures from controlled flight, group thermalling,
final glides, etc.).

In any event, my sense is you and I are in general agreement that a healthy
sense of one's mortality is likely a good thing for helping create and
maintain "a safe soaring pilot."
- - - - - -

Not that anyone has yet asked, but what I imagine I'm really hoping to
accomplish by actively discussing these sorts of ideas and attitudes on RAS
might be two things:

1) actively encouraging a pilot or two to focus on upgrading some aspect of
their piloting that they might not otherwise be inclined to do. (I've known
many a pilot who seemed to actively open their minds to learning mostly when
they're "obviously" taking instruction [meaning, from a government-approved
instructor]. I think that's a shame, and in some cases it's actively worried
me for their futures.)

2) encourage a pilot or two who might not feel "sufficiently personally
empowered" to speak up at their club (or wherever) when they witness
difficult-to-comprehend, marginally safe, outright dangerous piloting antics,
etc., to actually SPEAK UP! (None of us has a monopoly on good judgment,
knowledge or skills, and all of us - good judgment/knowledge/skills-wise -
exist relative to the rest of our peers...meaning each of us individually has
a good chance of being able to engage in useful "peer discussions" when we
witness anything that puzzles or dismays or otherwise attracts our attention
in a way that vaguely triggers an internal safety alarm. Look for reasons to
have those discussions, rather than hope "someone else will fix it." In my
experience, you'll typically learn something useful, and occasionally feel
you've actually contributed something good to the sport we all love, even if
not "a government approved instructor.")

Bob W.