How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

(Title intended to add a bit of levity to serious post.)

Soaring can kill you, but how do we put that risk into perspective?

A statistics based Mortality Calculator helped me do that.

Snip...

...Worrying about a
glider accident is completely irrational (until I disregard the inherent
dangers and start flying like an idiot.) Sure it could happen, but it is
much more likely to die from something else. And as I get older, the odds
of dying in a glider continue to drop.

Here's how *I* put soaring risk into perspective...more accurately, here's how
I put *any* activity's risk into a perspective that works for me, whether
using a sawzall, driving, washing dishes while standing on a skateboard or
whatever...

Risk assessment begins with recognizing risk exists (duh), then defining the
amount of risk (life threatening, limb threatening, get the crap beat out of
me threatening, legal, etc.).

My next step is deciding how I'm going to "inoculate myself" against the risk.
In broadest brush terms, my self-inoculation consists of two elements: 1)
skills education (e.g. flight training, practice, etc.); & 2) awareness
education (e.g. statistical assessment attempts, reading accident reports,
mental assessment, etc.).

One without the other is pretty hopeless...think (say) boxing with one hand
tied behind your back...or entering a gunfight with only a knife in hand.

Most of us have seen pilots who seem to think being a good/safe pilot is
almost entirely a matter of racking up documentable skills (ratings, etc.).
IMO, skills w/o tempering judgment is scary. Gaining mechanical skills before
or without also gaining a sense that those skills now provide new chances to
kill or injure yourself is equivalent to NOT being smart enough to know you're
dangerous. Think 3-year-old.

So skills without judgment is a non-starter IMO.

As for judgement w/o skills, think trying to teach welding solely on the basis
of book knowledge...perhaps theoretically possible, but definitely a much
tougher task than teaching it after also getting some hands-on practice.
Personally, I'd rather learn welding from an "ivory-tower book master" than a
partially ignorant self-taught dude with UV-induced cataracts and perpetual
sunburn, but that's just me...point being, that risk awareness and
amelioration matters (very much!) to me. That's another way of saying I
probably weight it as MORE important than "mere" skills.

Eventually my thought process evolved to: a) soaring contains sufficient
energy to kill me...every single time I engage in the activity, therefore; b)
it is NOT irrational for me to worry about having a glider accident (even if I
choose to ignore money and embarrassment as additional risk factors); c) most
every general aviation accident report I've read, most every airport incident
and accident I've seen, most every "Oh ****!" moment I've had as a pilot and
motor vehicle operator, have had operator stupidity (e.g. inattention to the
primary task at hand, improper assessment of my own
skills/risks/energies-operating when I step across the "in-control boundary,"
etc.) as a (often, THE) major contributor; and d) the human condition rules
out perfection as an option.

So what to do?

For a long time now (decades), my "self-inoculation" has been a serious
attempt to never - and I mean NEVER - have out of my mind that what I'm doing
as a pilot (or driver, or sawzall operator or whatever) can permanently,
"instantly," and easily fatally change my life for the seriously,
irremedially, worse. (I don't fear death, I simply don't wish it to happen
prematurely in a forestallable-via-education-and-skills sense...because life
is so much fun!) That ever-present awareness of my mortality and the
activity's risks I hope (and expect) will combine to greatly weight the odds
*toward* dying a natural, biological death rather than a physically traumatic,
self-inflicted one, because from the continual awareness should - I hope -
flow unremitting skills-based efforts to properly and safely deal with the
physical risks.

In soaring, lack of skills alone can kill. Inattention alone can kill. In
combination, I believe they're exponentially deadly. Ignorance can kill.
Margin-thinning greatly raises risks, or at least the statistically probable
effects of said risks in the event of something undesired entering the
picture. There are LOTS of life-threatening soaring risks, and a great many
more scenario-based ones all capable of ending my life. That's not intended to
be hand-wavingly dramatic; it's merely a factual statement.

FWIW, I think that attempting to gain solace or an actionable sense of
soaring's risks from " a purely statistically-based assessment" of risks is
some combination of: ostrichian, potentially self-defeating, blinkered,
misguided, wrong-headed thought, etc., etc. That said, the simple fact that a
person is even *considering* such things, is a Great Thing in my book! I
believe that ultimately, such self-directed interest is much more likely to
lead that individual toward "the promised land of self-inoculation" than NOT
considering such things would be. But statistics alone is - I believe - a
woefully limited measure and assessment of soaring risk. (Hence, the
popularity of the statement that one's chances of dying on the next soaring
flight is 50%? Bring that up in your next statistics class and see what the
instructor has to say about it as a statistical measure, dry chuckle.)

Ultimately, one unarguable statistical measure of one's success (or not) will
be future NTSB reports. In any event...

Rotsa ruck (and have obscene amounts of fun along the way)!!!

Bob W.