Near 100% personal responsibility (“trust us”) in high traffic areas? Come on! Apparently, this was not the case in Chicago (see the near miss just last weekend), and I would immediately put a bet down to challenge that figure as “highly inaccurate” and, more importantly, utterly meaningless strategical (if a major accident was to occur). Bottom line: soaring has a significant safety culture problem. The outsider would see our recent political maneuvering (fighting the ADSB mandate under the SSA organization) as an aviation community that is trying to avoid safety in the name of a relatively small amount of money. Much of the gliding community appears motivated by a culture which prides itself on keeping all aspects of the sport as absolutely cheap as possible. Some even enjoy trying to shame those with modern gliders as “the Rich,” etc. Most old-timers seem too furiously hate any new technology, and many of them have banded together in the SSA good old boys ranks. All of this is systemic and easily demonstrated. See Flarm. See ADSB. See contest trackers and safety trackers. See, for example, how long it takes to find pilots who have crashed in the trees at ridge contests (no Satelite tracker, poorly functioning ELTs, or no safety device at all). Etc.

If you listen to some of the attitudes expressed on this thread alone, and especially similar opinions over the years, your “100%” premise is disproven almost immediately. It’s those general “cheap before safety” attitudes that are the fundamental problem. And, that is why, in my opinion, the FAA ADS-B mandate was a good thing. The sport of soaring desperately needs some technology "catch up" and some minimum new standards. Small alterations or changes to the FAA ADS-B mandate would have made sense, but entirely dropping the mandate will eventually prove to be a disaster, I fear. Again see Chicago last weekend.

I have not flown much this summer but have seen large airliners nearby several times (including SE of Reno airspace last week, well outside of class C, at around 12,000 MSL). It’s amazing how close we fly to them, and how often. We all know the truth here. The risk in having non-ADSB (or even Transponder) equipped gliders in such constant proximity to airline traffic is unacceptably high to our sport. Furthermore, we do not need a major airline accident to have the same PR catastrophe. A fatal collision with a family flying along in their light private airplane will also do just fine for the politicians who will react swiftly to such an accident.

I’m happy to be on the record here and remain highly concerned at the safety attitudes displayed here and elsewhere from the gliding community, rules committee, etc. I find it sad. I hope it changes.

On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 10:33:09 AM UTC-4, Tango Eight wrote:
On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 8:19:04 PM UTC-4, Richard Wilkening wrote:
Look at the resistance to Flarm.

In the contest community (i.e. where Flarm makes sense), the equipage rate seems to be North of 80%, DESPITE the fact that Flarm is expensive, hard to set up & test, has customer service that is pretty much non-existent.

In high traffic corridors (NYC, Reno...) transponder installations are nearly universal among XC guys.

So... your premise that safety doesn't sell appears to be incorrect.

Going forward, the obvious thing to do is send a bottle of smart pills to the guys at the FAA that can pave the way to approval for a low cost VFR only TABS system for low cost VFR only aircraft. Safety is a much easier sell when the cost is reasonable and if the FAA were concerned with VFR **safety** they'd act on this obvious fact.

Oh and btw: the airliners can see me at 6 miles RIGHT NOW by adding flarm.. Quit laughing, I'm serious. Send the serial output data to TCAS or whatever. I don't expect them to do this. The airlines, like the FAA, are more interested in having some powerless victim to blame when the **** hits the fact than they are in prevention.

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8