Put your money where the risk is

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 9:49:10 AM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Wednesday, November 27, 2019 at 6:07:47 PM UTC-8, 2G wrote:

I did - 20 years worth. Read every last one of the fatals and a lot of the major damage ones as part of an article I wrote for Soaring. I can give you a full statistical rundown as well - by phase of flight, type of glider, region of the country, contest/XC flight vs local, etc.

I think you mis-understood me. A pilot makes hundreds to thousands of in-flight maneuvers every flight hour. Almost all of them executed without incident. Many of them are made based on presumptions about what the airmass, pilot workload, traffic situation, aircraft response and physical/mental capabilities of the pilot are likely to be over the next N seconds. Most of the time the consequences of being a bit wrong on where you are in the probability distribution of all of the above doesn't matter, but sometimes it does. You can attempt to move where you are in the probability distribution of unexpected bad things by increasing your margins, but it's not a panacea.

I would speculate that many of the stall/spin accidents I've seen in the mountains had a fair amount to do with the airmass not doing what the pilot expected. You can say - well, don't fly in the mountains! I think that's not especially helpful. An awful lot of final glides gone bad are the result of persistent sink that exceeded the pilot expectation plus whatever buffer he had. I personally interviewed a number of midair-involved pilots and I can tell you that even with a very good scan your odds of picking up an aircraft on a collision course (particularly if it's head-to-head) is about 50/50. Your fovea just isn't big enough for the closing velocities of aircraft. The Air Force, NASA and various air safety bodies around the world have studied it to death and that's the rough number they come up with. That's one reason we have Flarm - you can't train yourself to have a bigger fovea.

You can call all of that poor airmanship if you want, but I think you're whistling past the graveyard a bit.

Andy

Andy,

I recommend that you do what I did: review ALL of the fatal glider accidents for the last two years and get back to me. Hint: those accidents did not fall into the 0.01% category.

Tom

The air in which we fly is not uniform, sometimes not even honest. Peter Masak, was a great pilot. He met fate flying in an area and conditions he was familiar with. While I did not view his GPS trace I did speak with a pilot whom did. Nothing unusual noted in the GPS. You can stall at any speed and any attitude. We have seen this in the Sierra's. Andy's right on about the stall/spin accidents, sometimes there are other factors. One of the things I worked with a XC student I had was noticing and calling out changes in airmass. Sailors are particularly attuned to this.

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 11:57:58 AM UTC-8, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
The air in which we fly is not uniform, sometimes not even honest. Peter Masak, was a great pilot. He met fate flying in an area and conditions he was familiar with. While I did not view his GPS trace I did speak with a pilot whom did. Nothing unusual noted in the GPS.

Yes, ridge/mountain flying presents increased risk compared to flying in the flat lands. I personally take the following precautions in order to minimize the additional risk associated with mountain flying:

I fly a short winged glider in the mountains (12.6m span).

I fly with an instrument that calculates wind speed and direction in near real time (LX 9000).

I apply good airmanship when ridge flying, by maintaining generous margins in airspeed and distance from the ridge.

I only fly competitions in flat lands.

Branko XYU

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 1:12:43 PM UTC-8, Branko Stojkovic wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 11:57:58 AM UTC-8, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
The air in which we fly is not uniform, sometimes not even honest. Peter Masak, was a great pilot. He met fate flying in an area and conditions he was familiar with. While I did not view his GPS trace I did speak with a pilot whom did. Nothing unusual noted in the GPS.

Yes, ridge/mountain flying presents increased risk compared to flying in the flat lands. I personally take the following precautions in order to minimize the additional risk associated with mountain flying:

I fly a short winged glider in the mountains (12.6m span).

I fly with an instrument that calculates wind speed and direction in near real time (LX 9000).

I apply good airmanship when ridge flying, by maintaining generous margins in airspeed and distance from the ridge.

I only fly competitions in flat lands.

Branko XYU

Flat lands would be more dangerous for me as 99.9 % of my flying has been in the mountains , much of that in a 26.5 meter glider. Therein lays one of the issues when trying to quantify how safe this sport is. To me it is safe enough to want to do it as often as the daily struggles of life permit.

At 21:12 28 November 2019, Branko Stojkovic wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 11:57:58 AM UTC-8,
Jonathan St. Cloud
wro=
te:
The air in which we fly is not uniform, sometimes not even
honest. Peter
=
Masak, was a great pilot. He met fate flying in an area and
conditions he
=
was familiar with. While I did not view his GPS trace I did
speak with a
p=
ilot whom did. Nothing unusual noted in the GPS.

Yes, ridge/mountain flying presents increased risk compared to
flying in
th=
e flat lands. I personally take the following precautions in order
to
minim=
ize the additional risk associated with mountain flying:

I fly a short winged glider in the mountains (12.6m span).

I fly with an instrument that calculates wind speed and
direction in near
r=
eal time (LX 9000).

I apply good airmanship when ridge flying, by maintaining
generous margins
=
in airspeed and distance from the ridge.

I only fly competitions in flat lands.

Branko XYU

Yes, interesting approach to mountain flying. However a 12.6m
wingspan (low performance) is going to mean you spend a LOT
more time down near the rocks than if you were in an 18m ship?
It's been suggested that European Alpine statistics show that
15m ships have a worse accident rate than 25m ships? I don't
know how these figures were generated: there are a lot more
15/18m ships flying than 25+m ships; is the analysis based on
Alpine hours flown? For sure it's dangerous; just look at where
most French glider pilots die: the Alps.
Dave Walsh

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 11:57:58 AM UTC-8, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 9:49:10 AM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Wednesday, November 27, 2019 at 6:07:47 PM UTC-8, 2G wrote:

I did - 20 years worth. Read every last one of the fatals and a lot of the major damage ones as part of an article I wrote for Soaring. I can give you a full statistical rundown as well - by phase of flight, type of glider, region of the country, contest/XC flight vs local, etc.

I think you mis-understood me. A pilot makes hundreds to thousands of in-flight maneuvers every flight hour. Almost all of them executed without incident. Many of them are made based on presumptions about what the airmass, pilot workload, traffic situation, aircraft response and physical/mental capabilities of the pilot are likely to be over the next N seconds. Most of the time the consequences of being a bit wrong on where you are in the probability distribution of all of the above doesn't matter, but sometimes it does. You can attempt to move where you are in the probability distribution of unexpected bad things by increasing your margins, but it's not a panacea.

I would speculate that many of the stall/spin accidents I've seen in the mountains had a fair amount to do with the airmass not doing what the pilot expected. You can say - well, don't fly in the mountains! I think that's not especially helpful. An awful lot of final glides gone bad are the result of persistent sink that exceeded the pilot expectation plus whatever buffer he had. I personally interviewed a number of midair-involved pilots and I can tell you that even with a very good scan your odds of picking up an aircraft on a collision course (particularly if it's head-to-head) is about 50/50. Your fovea just isn't big enough for the closing velocities of aircraft. The Air Force, NASA and various air safety bodies around the world have studied it to death and that's the rough number they come up with. That's one reason we have Flarm - you can't train yourself to have a bigger fovea.

You can call all of that poor airmanship if you want, but I think you're whistling past the graveyard a bit.

Andy

Andy,

I recommend that you do what I did: review ALL of the fatal glider accidents for the last two years and get back to me. Hint: those accidents did not fall into the 0.01% category.

Tom

The air in which we fly is not uniform, sometimes not even honest. Peter Masak, was a great pilot. He met fate flying in an area and conditions he was familiar with. While I did not view his GPS trace I did speak with a pilot whom did. Nothing unusual noted in the GPS. You can stall at any speed and any attitude. We have seen this in the Sierra's. Andy's right on about the stall/spin accidents, sometimes there are other factors. One of the things I worked with a XC student I had was noticing and calling out changes in airmass. Sailors are particularly attuned to this.

Masak's accident was a CFIT, the most avoidable of all accidents. This occurred in a contest when he was trying to clear a ridge with a suitable landing field within reach. Every other pilot in the contest did not attempt this. Bottom line: there IS NO contest worth dying over; after all, we are not at war.
https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/Re...Final&IType=LA

Tom

“I make my own luck�. I like that, I think I will use that line on my wife the next time a friend dies in a glider accident.

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 6:51:36 PM UTC-8, wrote:
“I make my own luck�. I like that, I think I will use that line on my wife the next time a friend dies in a glider accident.

You better credit me if you do.

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 5:31:30 PM UTC-8, 2G wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 11:57:58 AM UTC-8, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 9:49:10 AM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Wednesday, November 27, 2019 at 6:07:47 PM UTC-8, 2G wrote:

I did - 20 years worth. Read every last one of the fatals and a lot of the major damage ones as part of an article I wrote for Soaring. I can give you a full statistical rundown as well - by phase of flight, type of glider, region of the country, contest/XC flight vs local, etc.

I think you mis-understood me. A pilot makes hundreds to thousands of in-flight maneuvers every flight hour. Almost all of them executed without incident. Many of them are made based on presumptions about what the airmass, pilot workload, traffic situation, aircraft response and physical/mental capabilities of the pilot are likely to be over the next N seconds. Most of the time the consequences of being a bit wrong on where you are in the probability distribution of all of the above doesn't matter, but sometimes it does. You can attempt to move where you are in the probability distribution of unexpected bad things by increasing your margins, but it's not a panacea.

I would speculate that many of the stall/spin accidents I've seen in the mountains had a fair amount to do with the airmass not doing what the pilot expected. You can say - well, don't fly in the mountains! I think that's not especially helpful. An awful lot of final glides gone bad are the result of persistent sink that exceeded the pilot expectation plus whatever buffer he had. I personally interviewed a number of midair-involved pilots and I can tell you that even with a very good scan your odds of picking up an aircraft on a collision course (particularly if it's head-to-head) is about 50/50. Your fovea just isn't big enough for the closing velocities of aircraft. The Air Force, NASA and various air safety bodies around the world have studied it to death and that's the rough number they come up with. That's one reason we have Flarm - you can't train yourself to have a bigger fovea.

You can call all of that poor airmanship if you want, but I think you're whistling past the graveyard a bit.

Andy

Andy,

I recommend that you do what I did: review ALL of the fatal glider accidents for the last two years and get back to me. Hint: those accidents did not fall into the 0.01% category.

Tom

The air in which we fly is not uniform, sometimes not even honest. Peter Masak, was a great pilot. He met fate flying in an area and conditions he was familiar with. While I did not view his GPS trace I did speak with a pilot whom did. Nothing unusual noted in the GPS. You can stall at any speed and any attitude. We have seen this in the Sierra's. Andy's right on about the stall/spin accidents, sometimes there are other factors. One of the things I worked with a XC student I had was noticing and calling out changes in airmass. Sailors are particularly attuned to this.

Masak's accident was a CFIT, the most avoidable of all accidents. This occurred in a contest when he was trying to clear a ridge with a suitable landing field within reach. Every other pilot in the contest did not attempt this. Bottom line: there IS NO contest worth dying over; after all, we are not at war.
https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/Re...Final&IType=LA

Tom

I beg to differ. Peter's mishap was a stall spin, just after a sharp turn away from a ridge.

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 9:35:45 PM UTC-8, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 5:31:30 PM UTC-8, 2G wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 11:57:58 AM UTC-8, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 9:49:10 AM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Wednesday, November 27, 2019 at 6:07:47 PM UTC-8, 2G wrote:

I did - 20 years worth. Read every last one of the fatals and a lot of the major damage ones as part of an article I wrote for Soaring. I can give you a full statistical rundown as well - by phase of flight, type of glider, region of the country, contest/XC flight vs local, etc.

I think you mis-understood me. A pilot makes hundreds to thousands of in-flight maneuvers every flight hour. Almost all of them executed without incident. Many of them are made based on presumptions about what the airmass, pilot workload, traffic situation, aircraft response and physical/mental capabilities of the pilot are likely to be over the next N seconds. Most of the time the consequences of being a bit wrong on where you are in the probability distribution of all of the above doesn't matter, but sometimes it does. You can attempt to move where you are in the probability distribution of unexpected bad things by increasing your margins, but it's not a panacea.

I would speculate that many of the stall/spin accidents I've seen in the mountains had a fair amount to do with the airmass not doing what the pilot expected. You can say - well, don't fly in the mountains! I think that's not especially helpful. An awful lot of final glides gone bad are the result of persistent sink that exceeded the pilot expectation plus whatever buffer he had. I personally interviewed a number of midair-involved pilots and I can tell you that even with a very good scan your odds of picking up an aircraft on a collision course (particularly if it's head-to-head) is about 50/50. Your fovea just isn't big enough for the closing velocities of aircraft. The Air Force, NASA and various air safety bodies around the world have studied it to death and that's the rough number they come up with. That's one reason we have Flarm - you can't train yourself to have a bigger fovea.

You can call all of that poor airmanship if you want, but I think you're whistling past the graveyard a bit.

Andy

Andy,

I recommend that you do what I did: review ALL of the fatal glider accidents for the last two years and get back to me. Hint: those accidents did not fall into the 0.01% category.

Tom

The air in which we fly is not uniform, sometimes not even honest. Peter Masak, was a great pilot. He met fate flying in an area and conditions he was familiar with. While I did not view his GPS trace I did speak with a pilot whom did. Nothing unusual noted in the GPS. You can stall at any speed and any attitude. We have seen this in the Sierra's. Andy's right on about the stall/spin accidents, sometimes there are other factors. One of the things I worked with a XC student I had was noticing and calling out changes in airmass. Sailors are particularly attuned to this.

Masak's accident was a CFIT, the most avoidable of all accidents. This occurred in a contest when he was trying to clear a ridge with a suitable landing field within reach. Every other pilot in the contest did not attempt this. Bottom line: there IS NO contest worth dying over; after all, we are not at war.
https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/Re...Final&IType=LA

Tom

I beg to differ. Peter's mishap was a stall spin, just after a sharp turn away from a ridge.

Only after he realized he wasn't going to make it and made the decision to turn back far too late, so I call it a CFIT.

Tom