Wide-ranging Safety Discussion...?

At 20:18 27 June 2012, 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.


A lot is down to personal commitment if you see something that is dangerous

,either stop them doing it or if it you just don't fly.To elaborate ,I once

refused to launch a far better qualified instructor than me because he had
a
child on his wife's knee ,it did not make me popular but he wasn't doing
that
on my watch.I have ,and am sure so have many other,refused
launches,because I thought the child was to young,or they had a drink first
or
there was a storm too close lots of reasons but just say NO if you think
it's
not safe.It won't make you popular but that's not what safety is about.
You asked for it and that's my 2 pence worth