Emergency Mindset(s)

About the only 'good' thing associated with having recent/multiple
sailplane-based fatalities involving premature releases from tow *might* be
that it tends to: 1) focus one's thought process(es), and 2) might also
*possibly* serve as a mental door opener to 'learning something new,' or
'opening one's mind,' or 'changing thought-processes (and by implication,
behavior) for the better/safer.' (In a nutshell, the latter is what learning
to fly a sailplane is all about...)

Some cogent points have been expressed in the "tow rope brake (sic) practice
crash, what can we learn..." thread, including:
- the 'Rule of primacy' in the learning process is real;
- radios can be a useful (if imperfect) tool;
- signal standardization is almost certainly a good thing;
- improved training deserves to be 'worked' before we abandon the rudder
wig-wag signal;
- tunnel-vision/-mentality is 'humanly natural' in moments of stress;
- humans screw up/perfection is not an option.

FWIW, early-on in my soaring career I concluded it made sense to/for me to
think about certain, immediately life-threatening flight scenarios in certain
ways explicitly intended and designed to 'keep my emergency reactions' on a
logically rational basis. I had NO illusions about my ability to 'think
clearly' when under stress. Stated another way, I had/have zero doubt I get
considerably stupider when under stress.

It quickly became obvious to me that being 'too stupid' when acting as Joe
Pilot could easily kill me.

Soaring is real safe, as long as you don't hit anything, and launching and
landing are the two times every practitioner WILL be unavoidably close to
something big, hard and capable of killing you. (For you 'skimmer' readers out
there, I'm referring to the earth in the preceding sentence. Duh!)

Earth corollary: If earth contact is unavoidable, *hit it horizontally!!!*;
vertical hits are near-guaranteed death sentences to Joe Pilot.

Pretty simple, really...and no amount of rationalization, hand-waving,
impassioned appeals to the frailty of human nature, etc., will change any of
the physical realities involved.

Equally simple is concluding *ONLY* two scenarios are unavoidably *and*
imminently life-threateningly-crucial to the continuance of human existence,
insofar as Joe Sailplane Pilot is concerned:
1) the 'passage' (hidden assumption: aerotow) through 'Never-Never-land'
surrounding many (most?) gliderports, which is to say airports surrounded by
mature trees/forests/swamps/houses/communities/killer
sagebrush/arroyos/vertical rocks/etc.;
2) 'the dreaded' inadvertent stall/spin (departure from controlled flight) on
the base-to-final turn.

Launch item 1) has very real potential to suddenly become stress-inducing
(premature release, anyone?), while landing item 2) is a self-induced death
sentence.

Reiterating, that's IT, folks! Every other glider-pilot-based (i.e.
'non-fate-based') scenario I can imagine involving immediate risk to life and
limb also involves factors under Joe Pilot's immediate control. Except for the
'necessity' of launching and - once launched - the inevitability of landing,
essentially all of the deadly risks involved with soaring are completely under
Joe Pilot's control.

No one ever forced me to go to oxygen-requiring heights; no one ever forced me
to fly near/along a ridge; no one ever forced me to fly at speeds near
redline; no one ever forced me to thermal with others; no one ever forced me
to pull up from high speed without clearing myself to the best of my ability;
no one ever forced me to do a worm-burning high speed pass; no one ever forced
me to remain aloft as weather deteriorated and convection began to run
rampant; no one ever forced me to pilot a glider I had not verified 100% of
the controls were connected.

Did others interrupt me at critical times? Only just about ever time I've
rigged. The lesson there seems immediately obvious, if J. Pilot believes
him/herself in control of their personal destiny. (If they don't they should
find some other hobby than piloting, IMHO.)

Hence, early on I put active, focused thought into deciding how I could
minimize my chances of dying from any situation reasonably-imaginably
presented me by the 2 scenarios beyond my direct control (given that my
*intention* was very definitely to go soaring!).

My Launch Conclusions:
1) Don't do anything which arguably worsens the existing situation. (Why risk
shooting myself in the foot?)
2) Think! (That means give myself the time/opportunity to allow my
stress-dumbed brain to begin function in some semi-logical manner. IMO 'pure
reactions' considerably increase one's risk of being 'IQ dumb,' incorrectly
hasty, and 'situationally worsening.')

My Landing Conclusions:
1) 'Always' and 'every time' have the thought actively in mind that if I don't
do *every*thing correctly, I could (easily, and soon) be permanently dead.
(Someone once noted that nothing so focuses the mind as the thought of known
and impending death!)
2) 'Don't *do* that!!!' when considering the dreaded stall/spin while turning
final. (I didn't have to look far to find examples of pilots far more
experienced than I then was, some of whom were 'paper heroes' of mine, who
died from this particular scenario. If really good pilots could kill
themselves, certainly so could I.)

Neither the launching nor landing conclusions above are rocket science, any
more than not playing on the freeway is rocket science. We laugh about 'the
freeway admonition' for all the obvious reasons, but way too many of us
sailplane pilots 'somehow or other' place the obviousness of 'the
launching/landing situations' in a different mental category. Why, when the
mortal results are similar?

Anyhow, the above fundamental and simple thought processes have worked for me
for over 30 years...and periodic re-examination of them has never revealed a
reason to find them wanting in any substantive manner. Meanwhile, I've many
times read, (and occasionally watched) others *fail* to implement similarly
focused thinking. I've also had numerous (exceeding 20?/30?/50?) conversations
with glider types who have survived various takeoff/landing-pattern
'situations' that easily could have killed them, who (in my view) had made
various contributory mistakes. Big surprise here (not!) - the scariest of
these conversations involved pilots whose thought processes invoked any manner
of tortured thinking, (evidently) designed to ignore/displace the unavoidable
physical realities of launching and landing sailplanes. What an eye opening
insight into human nature some of those conversations were! Perhaps they
contributed to the decision to never pursue a CFI-G rating.

In any event, how a person thinks about very real and unavoidable risks,
matters!!! Every pilot hoping to maximize their chances of dying peacefully in
bed of old age owes it to themselves (and their spouses, families and friends)
to not deny, deflect or otherwise obfuscate the physical realities (and
unavoidable risks) associated with taking off and landing sailplanes.

Having so focused their minds, the next step is to actively decide what
personal methodology is likely to work best to help them (i.e. individual J.
Pilot) minimize the risks. (Stated another way, how Joe Individual Pilot
chooses to cope with the unavoidable launching/landing risks is the *method*
of skinning the cat. I don't pretend to have identified the one human
condition happening to have ONLY one 'best method' of cat-skinning.)

That noted, I encourage anyone who seriously invokes as an exculpatory thought
process: resignation, inevitability, human imperfection, (here insert your
favorite rationale), to share them with the group...but ONLY if they also
share why they believe their approach is better/safer than an approach focused
unblinkingly on the unavoidability of the afore-mentioned takeoff and landing
risks. (Opinion without the reasoning behind it will be cheerfully ignored.)

Bob - remembers friends who 'stupidly/unnecessarily' died in sailplanes - W.