Does How a (Sailplane) Pilot Thinks, Matter?

Apologies for not cutting this down to size, but I happen to think some of the
thoughts expressed in it are important, perhaps even crucial to some
RASidents' continuing existence?

"This reply" will be found at the bottom of the post...

On 4/6/2016 11:59 PM, 2G wrote:
On Sunday, April 3, 2016 at 8:31:04 PM UTC-7, BobW wrote:
On 4/3/2016 7:12 PM, 2G wrote:
On Sunday, April 3, 2016 at 5:32:27 PM UTC-7, BobW wrote:
On 4/3/2016 7:07 AM, N97MT wrote:
I think that it is ironic that we as CFI's are tasked with turning
the "fear and anxiety" bit into what I would call "healthy respect"
so that real learning can take place. But in the process of beating
the fear out of (or shall I say, selling safety to?) the student
we abstract out a real and potentially life-saving emotion which
may be the only thing keeping an otherwise competent pilot from his
own demise.

Maybe this aspect of flight training is where's Mr. Spock's
mind-meld abilities would prove really useful! (For kids too young to
remember the original TV program "Star Trek," presumably somewhere on
YouTube can be found links to the "Mr. Spock" mind meld reference
above...)

Might not a worthy goal for instruction be transitioning from the
"fear and anxiety" stage to the "healthy respect" stage withOUT
heading down the emotionally-numbing abstraction road? How would Joe
CFIG be able to gauge success? Your abstraction point above had not
before occurred to (non-instructor) me even as a possibility.
Definitely food for thought, though. Thanks!

I raised this at a seminar once when someone was describing a
pre-flight student simulating a spin/crash on Condor. In a hall
full of 150 people and many CFI's in attendance I asked "but did
the student realize that at this point he is dead?" I only got
silence and blank stares in response.

Oh, for group mind-meld capability! Wouldn't you've liked to have
known with certainty the thoughts inside the heads of your fellow
seminarians at that moment?

Bob W.

Your original question was if low saves was a necessary XC skill. A
"low save" is technically the same as a high save; the only difference
is lowering your personal minimums. I have seen pilots die from
attempting this, so I MUST ask the question: what is the perceived
benefit from putting your life at risk?

In a contest it might mean placing a few positions higher, a
meaningless benefit for all but a very few. Or it might mean saving you
and your crew from a long and tiring retrieve, maybe even a overnight
experience. Are you willing to trade 20-50 years of lifetime for this
inconvenience? I would hope that most pilots - and their crew whom are
usually their loved ones - would say, emphatically, NO!


No offense intended, but I disagree with the paraphrase of my initial
post as stated in your first sentence, and for those who may not have
been following this thread from the beginning, immediately below is a
cut-n-paste from that initial post (the quoted paragraphs were separated
by intervening paragraphs):

"In one corner of the thought ring we have "Sensible Caution," while in
the other corner we have "Dangerously (some will say, "Irresponsibly"!)
Encouraging Personal Limits Expansion." The topic itself is LOW SAVES -
are they Killers or are they a Usefully Necessary XC Skill?...

"Let's keep the discussion focused by considering ONLY the topic of "low
altitude saves," sooner or later something every XC-considering
sailplane pilot - having the slightest of imaginations - will consider,
and (by definition) will soon actually have to DO, once undertaking XC,
whether such XC occurs pre-planned or not."

Also, for the record, nowhere throughout the thread have I - or anyone
else that I can recall - attempted to numerically define "low save" (e.g.
via an agl number). In my case the omission was intentional. Why? Because
one person's "low save" may well be another's "routinely necessary XC
skill," as is easily seen when considering (say) Joe Average Sailplane
Pilot's first XC-to-undesired-outlanding vs. (say) his 20th. The mindsets
on these flights will be significantly different. The relative stress
levels as J.A.S. Pilot descends relentlessly - even though maybe not
continuously - down, away from his previously exulting "high on course"
mindset present earlier in the flight, will be significantly different. I
seriously doubt a sailplane pilot exists who will claim to be as
"systemically stressed" on his 20th XC OFL (or even his 20th XC *flight*)
as on his first. Certainly,not me! On my very first (unintentional)
XC-to-landing, by the time I was down to ~2,000' agl I was SERIOUSLY
stressed, for beaucoup reasons, the only weather-related one being that
the boisterous climbs experienced in thermal #1 off tow, #2 used to go
to #3 one (1-26) thermal away from the field, and #3, seemed to exist now
only as memory. In other words, #4, the sole stepping stone I figured to
need to get back, simply didn't seem to be in the cards. (Yeah, I learned
that day something about differing airmasses!)

Even though I was a raw beginner, and even though I'd cleared the flight
with my (former) instructor, me now a 1/3 partner with him in the 1-26
he'd built from a kit, I was already fighting "I can't believe this is
happening!" thoughts as I "ratty-teasers" descended down to 2,000' agl.
And though I suspect I'd've been able to climb away from (say) 1200' agl
had I actually encountered "usable lift" (like those first three
thermals) at that altitude, I'll never know. I had, well before then,
picked out where I was likely going to end up setting the ship down, but
I *really* didn't want to have to. Eventually, from my instructed pattern
height, I did, successfully, and that was that. By landout #20, my
mindset was *any* landout ought to be no more mentally stressful than a
routine landing at my home field...if anything less so, because I had
only to "do the field selection thing" and not have to deal with "the
multiple runways at a busy GA airport" thing (far more potential gotchas,
IMO).

By landout #20 I'd also experienced plenty of opportunities to -
gradually and "acceptably-personally-stressfully" - lower my "comfortable
thermalling minimums" to my by then routine pattern entry height agl.
Point being, "low thermalling stress" is a hugely relative concept. Sure
the ground clearance margins are higher for "an equivalent stress level"
for Joe Newbie XC pilot compared to Joe Cool-w.-XC pilot, even if Joe
Cool never performs a "low save by Joe Reader's "even lower definition."
Point being, that I'll dispute any claim that "some definitional safety
altitude" will always prove life-saving. Pilots continue to kill
themselves through unintended departures from controlled flight even
during benign-weather, flying "what should be routine" landing patterns.
Ignoring practical considerations mitigating against it, would
universally raising landing pattern altitudes end such departures from
controlled flight? I think not.

I'm not trying to weasel out of what may have been (an understandable)
difference in perception between "low save" as I had in mind in my
initial post, and "low save" as you interpreted it. I was - and am - more
interested in the mindsets that pilots who indulge in what *they*
consider to be low saves may have, and how those mindsets may - or may
not - affect how they mentally approach flight in conditions of
intentionally-thinned margins. Because, to my way of thinking, thin
margins are an absolute. They respect no one and no level of experience.
Physics doesn't care; physics just is (am?). It's up to Joe Pilot to deal
with physics.

For the record, I've had "pretty well known to me friendly soaring
acquaintances" die from "unintentionally thinned to zero" margins,
ranging from "a (probably) stressed-like-me-newbie" trying to return from
the local ridge (benign day; hit a tree), to someone who somehow or other
managed to spin to the ground from an estimated 2,000' above a
knife-edged ridge (3500+' agl above the adjoining plains) in utterly
benign conditions in a within-CG-range glider, which one of his partners
(a good friend of mine) said flew like a pussycat. Fuzzy memory says the
latter pilot had landed off-field, but in any case how he encountered the
original departure from controlled flight must remain a mystery. Both
pilots were in their later twenties. There have been more...

But to explicitly address the question you've posed, i.e.: "I have seen
pilots die from attempting this ["a low save"], so I MUST ask the
question: what is the perceived benefit from putting your life at risk?"

That, to me, is the million dollar question. I wouldn't bet against
someone replying to the effect that even to indulge in soaring is
"putting your life at risk," but should they, I'd respond along the lines
that life itself is a risk, and that to not indulge in personally
rewarding, voluntary activities (which is just about everything beyond
working to earn one's food/clothing/shelter keep) would be a gray life
indeed, arguably, one hardly worth living.

To my way of thinking, how one chooses to go about approaching soaring
flight with voluntarily thinning/thin margins is an intensely personal
thing, with potentially "friends-n-family-affecting" negative
consequences. I doubt anyone really needs to have that aspect pointed out
to them, when premature death is on the talking table...but I could be
wrong. It's how we - J.A.S. pilot; the sailplane piloting community at
large; CFIGs - mentally approach those higher danger zones that is of
genuine interest to me. I just don't see "hard limits defined by someone
else" as an unarguably, universally, always-safety-enhancing, good thing.
The individual ALWAYS has a say (and a vote) in how they approach flight.
As I gained soaring flight experience, my own thinking tended to evolve
toward thinking it "CERtainly better for me, and probably better for Joe
Every Other Pilot" to embrace the outlook that sensibly expanding one's
flight skills is a good thing...key word being "sensibly."

In an earlier post in this thread I mentioned I'd recently looked at
every U.S. sailplane fatality this century in the NTSB's database.
Ignoring those presently lacking an NTSB-considered "Probable Cause" and
some 20+ I tossed out as too easily rationalizable as "geezer-related" or
"out-of-hand stupid," of the roughly 55 remaining deaths "only" 4 *might*
be attributable to "low thermalling," in the "low save" sense of things,
with "low" being defined as "obviously/apparently below routine ground
clearances for a normal pattern." And to obtain 4, I had to infer one
Sierra fatality. That's 4 too many, and at least one of those deaths
happened in a setting with many witnesses (and families), undoubtedly
searing its way into many minds which would prefer not to be so burdened.
There were 17 (!) "routine pattern" unintended departures from controlled
flight resulting in fatalities, including two with instructors on board
in G-103s. (IMO, perhaps only the 2-33 is a more benign,
routinely-used-in-the-U.S., training ship.) There were additional "should
have been routinely executable" landing patterns (with "departure from
controlled flight deaths") downstream of premature terminations of tows
for various reasons. (I haven't attempted to "hard categorize" every
fatality with a fine brush, broad-brushing satisfying my curiosity. I'm
uninterested in "debating about trees" regarding "category buckets."
However, for anyone seriously interested in discussing things with me on
this front, feel free to do so offline, but understand you'll first need
to go through the NTSB records for yourself...tedious, it is.)

If I'm limited to a single point from the preceding paragraph, it'd be
simply that this century's statistical risk from "low saves" is way out
on one tail, probably regardless of how one chooses to categorize all the
fatalities. By far, many more "average sailplane pilots" die from
"routine flight conditions" than while "obviously pushing this particular
limit."

Bob W.

A "low save" is one where spin recovery is not likely.

If you want to think that the statistical probability of dying while
executing low saves is diminishingly small, so be it. When you know the
pilot who died, as I do, it becomes more personal and real.

I don't particularly care what risks you are willing to take; my intended
audience are those other low time pilots who might be reading this and
acting on the advice.

Tom


For clarity in this particular post, "We can agree," on the above definition
of "low save" (with the caveat noted in the first "bullet" below).

I understand - and can relate to - the sentiment expressed in your middle
paragraph. In a perfect world, neither of us would have to feel as we do. It
is, in fact, "needless deaths" which have long-sparked my interest in flight
safety.

And hoping I'm not whipping a downed horse, perhaps in my attempts to convey
nuance in writing I've been less clear than I'd wish, so allow me an attempt
to be succinct:

- Nowhere throughout this thread have I advised glider pilots to practice low
saves (let's assume above flatlands, simply to avoid the very real
geographical complexities associated with mountain/ridge flying). I simply
chose to use the topic of low saves as a focused topic by way of opening a
larger discussion/"thought experiment".

- In another thread (and link) I admit to (once) having thermalled away from
650' (flatland) agl, and once having entered the landing pattern at 400'
(flatland) agl. I well remember both instances because both pushed my "those
days' sensible" personal limits, not because both were fraught with imminent
(non-margin-related) peril. Under other circumstances, both may easily have
been "stupidly foolish".

- I *have* (and do) encourage every glider pilot to *sensibly* expand their
personal limits, throughout their flying "careers" whether or not they choose
to use "hard safety limits."

- Thin margins are thin margins, regardless of geography or PIC experience.

- Pilots need to *always* be aware when they are thinning their margins
(whether intentionally or otherwise), and fly accordingly, lest lack of such
awareness leads to (say - by way of but one example) attempting a "low save"
in the same manner as they might routinely thermal at (say) 2,000' agl.

- I'm of the opinion that how a sailplane pilot thinks *does* matter, even
though I can't prove it.

Respectfully,
Bob W.