Predestined to Die?

On May 21, 3:45*pm, "S. Murry" wrote:
On Mon, 21 May 2012 16:13:26 -0500, Bill D wrote:
On May 21, 2:20 pm, "S. Murry" wrote:
I don't want to hijack the thread about Walter Mueller's 75 gliding
anniversary (GO, Walter!) by talk about an early death...seems a bit
morbid. *But I have to comment on Bob's statement:

snip
However...if any reader knows of a gliding participant who feels
predestined to die in a sailplane, perhaps you'd be doing said
participant
a real favor by suggesting to them some serious re-examination of why
that
thought persists is in order. Just sayin'...

Bob W.

end snip

I think I agree with your statement, Bob, insofar as if you have a
belief
that you are predestined to die in any particular way (whether gliding
or
otherwise), you are either suicidal (and have picked out your method of
ending it all), have some kind of strange religious belief (i.e. that
you
know that God is going to kill you in some particular way), or are
suffering from some other psychosis and probably shouldn't be soaring.

On the other hand, if you are in this sport and don't realize that it
may
very well be one of the most dangerous sports out there, I submit to you
that you are deceiving yourself. *Obviously, you are still far from
"predestined to die in a sailplane" (statistically speaking, but of
course
your *individual results may vary), but if you don't recognize the risks
involved you may be more likely to avoid taking the necessary safety
precautions to prevent these risks from growing beyond those that are
inherent in this sport. *For this reason, I think it is actually quite
healthy to have a feeling that strapping on your sailplane may very well
be the most dangerous thing you do today...I think about this pretty
much
every time I suit up, and I think it helps to keep me focused on safety.

--
Stefan Murry

I feel uncomfortable blackening the sport of soaring with the label
"dangerous" without some caveats. *It is certainly dangerous for some
pilots and not so much for others - the variable part is the pilot not
the sport. *If the statement is, "Since I have no intention of
becoming a skilled pilot, this sport is dangerous for me", then I
would agree.

The essential part of being a pilot is making something inherently
dangerous into something inherently safe through the application of
knowledge and skill acquired through training and diligence. *I happen
to know many, many pilots who have made the effort to become highly
skilled. *This has resulted in a long lifetime of safe flying. *I try
not to get to know the other kind.

Bill,

I think we're almost in agreement here. *But I disagree that the sport can
ever be made "inherently safe". *It's just not. *Even highly skilled
pilots sometimes come to grief (Helmut Reichmann comes immediately to
mind, and Chris O’Callaghan at the nationals in 2010). *It's not by
mistake that I picked two pilots killed in midairs, since this seems to me
to be about as far away from anything that is within the control of the
pilot as any accident cause short of catastrophic mechanical failure. *Of
course, by not taking all appropriate precautions (including training and
proficiency enhancement), it can be downright UNSAFE, so I agree with you
there.

The nit that I pick with your line of reasoning is that most pilots THINK
that they're safe and proficient (regardless of whether they actually
are), and if you subscribe to the belief that this somehow inoculates you
against dying in a glider then it is very easy to become cavalier. *The
way I look at it, the sport is inherently unsafe. *Everything we do (or
should be doing) as pilots is in an attempt to make this inherently unsafe
activity safer.

In the end, "safe" and "unsafe" are all relative terms, as you
acknowledge. *Certainly, soaring is probably safer than, say, skydiving
(at least that's my guess, I don't know it for sure), but it's probably
less safe than, say, tennis (at least if you define safety as the
probability of not causing death). *At least I don't know many people that
died playing tennis, but do know several that have died flying gliders.

I fly a lot (in an attempt to maintain proficiency), read all I can about
soaring, attend and present FAA Safety seminars, try to maintain my glider
in good mechanical condition, etc. *In more than 25 years of flying, I've
never had an accident. *But I don't have any illusion that this makes
gliding safe (in comparison to many other activities that I might choose
to pursue), only that it makes it SAFER than if I didn't do these things.

Let's be honest. *We fly gliders because it's a thrill, a challenge and
because it touches on some primal desire within us. *We believe that the
benefits that we obtain by partaking in this activity outweigh the chances
of dying while participating. *But I think we'll all agree that if the
only factor in choosing a leisure activity were the avoidance of danger,
gliding wouldn't be our choice. *We'd all be playing croquet or
shuffleboard. *Gliding is inherently unsafe, but we can mitigate this to a
great extent with caution and training.

--Stefan

--
Stefan Murry

Stefan, you paint with too broad a brush. All accidents are
regrettable but 99% of them can be traced to pilot error. We need to
keep our focus on the real problem - the pilots. Saying "Soaring is
dangerous" because "pilots THINK they're good" is mis-direction at
best.

Bad pilots who think they're good are idiots. Those who just don't
care are worse. Good pilots know they will make mistakes. They plan
for those mistakes with safety margins so they don't get hurt. They
fly for a lifetime without accidents.

The sport can be made safer than it is using technology like FLARM but
fix the pilot and fix the real problem.

BTW, I have known a couple of people who died playing tennis.