Wide-ranging Safety Discussion...?

On Jun 26, 4:05*pm, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 12:54:09 PM UTC-4, soartech wrote:
So the next issue of Soaring magazine will come off the press without
a single word about this horrible accident... like it never happened!!

The way it works over time is this: 1)you get hooked on the sport, 2)you become vaguely aware that it's dangerous and that you need to be careful, 3)you come to terms with the fact that it can kill you. *4)A friend or acquaintance gets killed or maimed.

Think about it. *If the first thing you learned about soaring was that it can kill you, what would happen? *You'd probably plow your thousands of dollars into some really nifty RC model gliders. *My copy of Soaring goes to my local library. *Maybe somebody will pick it up and take up soaring. *Don't list the departed souls.

Soaring Magazine has a lot in it every month about the hazards of soaring, but it's almost always hypothetical. *A simple tally sheet of crashes and injuries would drive the point home without anyone getting sued. *But the SSA chooses to not do that. *Why? It's a glaring omission. *THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES. *When you suggest that there is something wrong with this picture, you get a knee-jerk reaction. Wierd.

Someone tell me why there is never a tally of accidents in Soaring Magazine.

When we had 2 of our club members collided in a mid-air the result was
finger pointing at the pilots (non-CFIG) who mentored them. It was
intimated that they were not ready for this kind of activity and that
those of us that actively flew in the mountains were somehow
responsible for encouraging them to do something they were not "ready"
for. Ironically some of those who criticized the most were the ones
who never left the vicinity of the airport, unless they were flying a
motorglider.

Another club member spun his motorglider into an unfamiliar field. He
was a low time pilot in a brand new ship with less than 20 hours on
it............he felt the need to try flying a "new" site, took a
check ride in that clubs Blanik (a sailplane he was very familiar
with) and did a great job. After soaring his TST-Atlas for several
hours he came back, did a Blanik approach in a 40:1 ship, realized at
mid-field he was to high and tried to do either a 360 or a 180, we'll
never know because he spun it in and killed himself.

Last year one of our CFIG's died during the filming of the "Cadillac"
commercial. There was a "list" of incidents that took place that made
it out thru the gossip channels that raised some eyebrows. None of
that was shared publicly (as far as I know) and none was shared within
the clubs official channels.

I'm pretty sure that some open, honest and heartfelt discussions about
all these accidents could have really benefited our club. Instead all
that was mentioned was how great these pilots all were, how careful
they were and how they had tons of experience....................which
was seen as somewhat ironic by those of us that personally knew them.

This is the culture we need to change.

Brad