There are two points about what is thought to have happened to Peter Masak
and to others.

1./ Don't get caught out crossing a ridge (or by any of the many other
mistakes open to us).

2./ If you do get caught out and a crash of some sort becomes unavoidable,
DON'T STALL/SPIN.

W.J. (Bill) Dean (U.K.).
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wrote in message
ups.com...

Doug Haluza wrote:

The Wikipedia article on Peter Masak is scheduled to be featured in
tomorrow's update of the "Did you know" section of the Wikipedia main
page as follows:
You can read (and update) the article he
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Masak


Thanks for the link. A very interesting article. The following
paragraph caught my attention:

He flew a later version of this glider, with factory built Ventus 2
wings, in the 2004 U.S. 15 Meter Nationals gliding competition being
held at Mifflin County Airport, the same contest he won 11 years
earlier. While flying a competition task, he crashed in a syncline fold
in the Tussey Mountain ridge, a few miles south of the village of
Alexandria, Pennsylvania at 40°29.94'N 78°08.49'W. He was
attempting to cross the ridge line upwind, and encountered sinking air
and turbulence in the lee of the mountain crest, resulting in an
inadvertent stall/spin.[7] The crash was not survivable, and he was
killed on impact. [8]

Having recently lost a friend in a similar accident, it emphasizes that
crossing a ridge, especially against the wind, can be a very dangerous
maneuver. You might do it many times without incident, but if you allow
yourself to get at all close to the ground, there's the danger that
some time the various factors will converge to get you just a bit
closer. There's a probability distribution on how low you'll go, and
you don't want to test the tail of the distribution.

The conclusion is obvious, but also obviously overlooked too often:
Large ground clearances are good; small ones are more dangerous than we
think.

I'd say the same applies to ridge soaring, but I know many will
disagree with me, so I won't.

Martin.