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 currently 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 is 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 to 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 attitudes over the years, you’re “100%” premise is disproven almost immediately. It’s those general “cheap before safety” attitudes that are the key problem. And, that is why, in my opinion, the FAA ADSB 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 ADSB mandate would have made sense but dropping it entirely 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 Reno last week). 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 (for now, very old and outgoing tech)) equipped gliders in such constant proximity to airline traffic is unacceptably high. 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 due just fine for the politicians who will react swiftly to such an accident.

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