Boy Who Flew With Condors - Dick Johnson? Other Comments

On Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 7:00:22 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 2:19:58 AM UTC-5, wrote:
I have had numerous climb-outs from 200' in a Woodstock 11.9m. I used to practice them daily around 8:00 am at Zapata, TX.

However, in the prototype Carbon Dragon I once had a 63' agl climb-out at Hobbs at the beginning of a World Record attempt. This was witnessed by an FAI Official Observer who was appointed out of Geneva (pre-Paris) and who rigorously analyzed the barogram after the fact, being rather amazed at the time. This was utillizing mid morning, "soft" thermals which derived more than 50% of their bouyancy from latent heat in the humidity. There was some wind, and the only challenging moment was when I had to narrow my bank angle to make sure my inside wing lifted over a telephone wire while drifting by.

Gary Osoba

Gary, let's be careful with anecdotes such as yours. What you are doing in a small, very light wing-load glider is not applicable to the kind of soaring we normally do. In fact it might lead to others trying that kind of flying in a Discus or '27. My club had just yesterday a safety meeting around the topic of "Normalization of Deviance". Thermaling lower and lower and getting away with it fits that definition and has lead to numerous fatalities in our sport. Your stories are the opposite of what we need. The fact that I can throw my Discus-launch RC glider in the air and soar for long times does not mean that's the future of soaring. Please modify your post.
Herb

I never liked the phrase "normalization of deviance" - it is just too clinical. A better understood phrase that means exactly the same thing, and is understood by all, is "pushing the limits."

On Monday, April 27, 2020 at 9:47:01 PM UTC-5, 2G wrote:
On Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 7:00:22 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 2:19:58 AM UTC-5, wrote:
I have had numerous climb-outs from 200' in a Woodstock 11.9m. I used to practice them daily around 8:00 am at Zapata, TX.

However, in the prototype Carbon Dragon I once had a 63' agl climb-out at Hobbs at the beginning of a World Record attempt. This was witnessed by an FAI Official Observer who was appointed out of Geneva (pre-Paris) and who rigorously analyzed the barogram after the fact, being rather amazed at the time. This was utillizing mid morning, "soft" thermals which derived more than 50% of their bouyancy from latent heat in the humidity. There was some wind, and the only challenging moment was when I had to narrow my bank angle to make sure my inside wing lifted over a telephone wire while drifting by.

Gary Osoba

Gary, let's be careful with anecdotes such as yours. What you are doing in a small, very light wing-load glider is not applicable to the kind of soaring we normally do. In fact it might lead to others trying that kind of flying in a Discus or '27. My club had just yesterday a safety meeting around the topic of "Normalization of Deviance". Thermaling lower and lower and getting away with it fits that definition and has lead to numerous fatalities in our sport. Your stories are the opposite of what we need. The fact that I can throw my Discus-launch RC glider in the air and soar for long times does not mean that's the future of soaring. Please modify your post.
Herb

I never liked the phrase "normalization of deviance" - it is just too clinical. A better understood phrase that means exactly the same thing, and is understood by all, is "pushing the limits."

2G,
I Think a good case can be made that "normalization of deviance" is not the same as "pushing limits" Generally, I think pushing limits has a factor of knowing what the limits are and intentionally exceeding them. Example, performing aerobatics when not trained for them, or flying over vne or overgross.

Both U.S. space shuttles were lost due to "normalization of deviance" first was
a cold weather launch, second was external tank foam shedding and damaging shuttle wing. I do not think anybody was knowingly "pushing limits"

If a pilot has an incident during pushing limits, they might think "crap!"
If a pilot has an incident resulting from "N.O.D." they will probably think
"what is happening"
Normalization of deviance is much more subtle and gradual.

Respect,
Scott