Wide-ranging Safety Discussion...?

Why do high time pilots have accidents?

Some would say this proves the sport itself is dangerous. Some might
say it's arrogance.

I would disagree with both. I think it's a subtle, unconscious
reduction in safety margins as experience is gained. If it were a
conscious decision to cut margins, it could be addressed with
counseling and additional training. If the pilot doesn't realize his
safety margins are thinning, it can be hard to deal with.

The key starting point for all of us is to realize experience itself
is not a safety margin. Safety margins are things like speed,
altitude and options in hand - in other words, they're quantifiable.

An example might be consistent low and slow approaches perhaps because
the pilot wants to stop in front of his trailer. Having been
successful for a season or two, this has become the new normal
approach. As long as he doesn't encounter unexpected severe sink, it
will continue to work - but there's no safety margin, no Plan B, no
self-questioning, "What if this doesn't work?"

If you always fly with generous safety margins, you control your own
destiny. The thinner the safety margins get, the more you gamble.
"It's like playing Russian Roulette" a friend said over lunch, "Note
there are no world class Russian Roulette players."


On Jun 27, 2:18*pm, Bob Whelan wrote:
On 6/26/2012 5:39 PM, Brad wrote:









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

"What Brad said!!!" Certain micro-cultures are "obviously sub-optimum."

I've been a member of the same soaring club for 20+ years, and varyingly
intimately familiar with it for over 36 years. In that time I've watched its
"personality" (culture, if you will) evolve. Historically, my club's
personality change has occurred slowly over time...except when
(safety-related) issues arose which simply could not be ignored. I can recall
at least twice when (poor/ugly) safety-related issues "forced
introspection/change". Actually, all it "forced" was "cheap talk", but a
topical part of the cheap talk quickly became the need (or not) for cultural
change.

In neither case was the club seriously at risk of folding...but in both cases
it was a painful, protracted (in the pain sense) yet brief (in the objective
passage of time sense), process that resulted in years' long "cultural change"
that benefited the club and arguably prevented it from continuing to add
incidents/accidents to national stats. In any event, the club's stats clearly
reflected a before-change/after-change effect, when measured over multi-year
periods.

The second instance's effects still appear to be part of the club's normal
culture more than a decade after the need for change became unignorable....and
(IMHO) that's a good thing!

Perfection? Not a chance. Improvement (stats and culture)? Darn tootin'!
- - - - - -

While making no claims for having a guaranteed recipe for "change success,"
the analytical part of me thinks it saw in both instances some things that may
have been crucial in overcoming varied and obvious obstacles to change, e..g.:
personalities; hurt feelings; inertia; denial; personality-based cliques; etc.

These include: persistence; discussionally remaining (as in relentlessly
returning to being) "on topic"; patience (letting people speak, willingness to
not settle everything in a single meeting or night or session); mutual respect
(agreeing to disagree; calling out/cutting off ad-hominem arguments the
instant they appeared).

But perhaps THE crucial element in both instances was having at least one
"club leader" (officer, board member, etc.) sufficiently motivated to
"oversee"/push the process forward until the consensus was a consensus had
been reached. None of this "fizzling out" nonsense allowed.

I've also some first hand experience with a club which could benefit itself,
the sport of soaring, and probably its safety record if "it effected some sort
of internal cultural change(s?)" but which has been "board resistant" to such
change over decades. Terribly unfortunate. IMO.

Bob W.