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![]() (Apologies for the truncated earlier post...the 'draft' and 'send' buttons are adjacent...) Most U.S. glider pilots know of Tom Knauff, creator and long-time proprietor of the well-known Ridge Soaring Gliderport in Pennsylvania. Probably fewer are aware he has an intermittent electronic newsletter, which has as its most persistent theme the utterly boring, sometimes irritating, theme of 'safety.' Now I don't know Tom (have seen him once [maybe twice]), so please don't misread any of what follows as something, somehow, having some nefarious commercial relationship to his 'sideline' of creating safety-based books, presentations, and general opinionating, because it doesn't. What follows *does* represent my own thinking on the utterly boring, sometimes irritating, 'safety theme' as it applies to glider pilots. True, it's a U.S.-centric view, but it wouldn't surprise me if much of it applies worldwide, simply because it's based upon one man's perception of human nature. - - - - - - Background: Knauff has recently published a 'Young Driver Safety' book, targeted (he says) at the kids' parents and guardians, and not limited in its applicability to driving, but encompassing 'the dreaded safety mindset.' I've used quotations because I've not yet read the book - someone else may characterize it differently - but I'm guessing it's a generally accurate representation. The book came out no more than several months ago, memory says. Since then, Knauff's newsletter has more than once expressed (serious!) frustration at pilots' resistance to doing the few things he deems necessary to fundamentally improve the sorry (especially this season), persistent, little changing, U.S. glider safety record. (His frustration includes an apparent resistance to buying the - inexpensive - book!) A day or two ago, almost in passing, he ended one short newsletter with a comment to the effect that he suspected there was one sure way to motivate (complacent? resistant? otherwise disinterested?) glider pilots into have a more genuinely serious outlook on their own, individual, piloting safety, specifically the improving of, in the future. The beautifully simple little idea was: self-insurance of gliders. (Think about it!) Having been a private owner who has (though not always) self-insured for hull, and, a member of a club who also was 'forced' to do so for a number of years not too long ago, the idea made me smile for its pertinent cogency and power. Now, this very morning in his newsletter, Knauff expanded a bit on the idea, and I quote... Begin quotation I recently received a note from a subscriber in Europe as follows: Many years ago, a large glider club in Europe found itself confronted with a steep increase in insurance premiums after a series of glider accidents. The proposed insurance premiums would have exceeded the total club subscription revenues, so the club was at risk of folding. The chairman of the club read the Riot Act (much needed today) to the members and said they were no longer going to rely on the insurance company, but were going to self-insure. (The statement is recorded in the club newsletter.) Anyway, that dramatic response to the crisis worked. Accidents were dramatically reduced, and with further changes to practices and procedures, the club survives to this day. As have a lot of people who might otherwise have been killed! The message is clear: If the current accident rate is going to be reduced, it will take the attention and cooperation of all glider pilots, who will develop a new approach to being involved and watching out for their fellow pilots. Tom Knauff End quotation "What Tom says." Let the hand-waving begin... Bob W. |
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