In business and life, any prudent person would begin with the big picture first. If you are really interested in safety, put your efforts into reducing the number of takeoff and landing accidents.



Craig R.

Actually,I've put together the numbers. Takeoff and landing accidents in US contests are essentially zero. Clem Bowman was the unfortunate exception that proves the rule. Otherwise, zero -- zero -- PTT accidents. Read Tom Knauff in the latest soaring for how that compares with soaring in general.

Landings, back at the airport, following a finish with reasonable energy, have also produced no accidents that I can find from searching NTSB or contest reports. (A few gear up landing sorts of things, but that's it.)

There have been quite a few accidents resulting from approaching the airport with insufficient energy, "low passes" that start at 60 knots and 50 feet, or crashes in fields very close to the home airport.

In contests, the really big accident categories are running in to mountains, and running in to things during off field landings. The latter often started way too low, with far too much thermaling attempt at very low altitude. Midair collisions follow all of these categories, and a long way back.

That's the big picture. If you want safer contests, the main areas to work on are low altitude thermaling, off field landings, running in to mountains, marginal final glides blown just before or just after reaching the home airport, and mid-air collisions.

I'm surprised you think top pilots are lacking in stick and rudder skills that a checkride would notice. Every contest pilot I know is fully aware of these dangers, and would easily pass a checkride. All the pilots I have known who crashed would have passed even more easily. It has happened that a pilot gave the safety talk warning of danger X, and then went and crashed in that exact scenario at the end of the day.

If you want to make contests safer, I think you have to look at dangers other than takeoff and landing accidents -- common in regular soaring, I admit -- and more stringent checkrides.

John Cochrane