Safety statistics

There is no simple answer to comparative safety of gliding and driving,
and few statistics that I am aware of to make a numerical comparison.
Among the bases of comparison one might try are fatalities per event
(launch vs car journey), per unit of time spent doing it, and/or per
person doing it, but data for any two equivalents are hard to come by.

One very crude measure is say 24 million drivers ( a guess - use your
own figure if you think that's wrong) in the UK kill about 4000 people a
year (which includes passengers and other road users) - say 1 per 6,000
drivers.

Gliding has less than 10,000 pilots (an overstatement because not all
are P1 each year) and we have about 5 fatalities (nearly all being
participants) each year - say 1 per 2,000. So this method of counting
gets at least 3 times the risk. Increasing driver/passenger numbers and
reducing the number of active pilots would worsen the ratio.

On the other hand, people exposed to gliding risk each year could
include all 30,000 temporary members (most having one or two air
experience trial lessons), just as car fatalities include passengers.
Redo the sums accordingly if that helps.

People at risk from gliding include those on the ground. Although such
fatalities are very rare, they are not unknown - I knew one person who
was killed by a cable snapping back when released from a tow truck, and
I know of one woman killed on a public footpath by a glider landing next
to it. One could add in the friends, families and hangers on at gliding
sites to increase the base and so reduce the incidence rate.

These latter refinements bring in more people "at risk" but at a much
lower real level of risk than somebody who is in the cockpit many times
in a year. But then, the car fatalities include people who are drivers,
and also those who are front seat passengers and rear seat passengers -
the latter generally being at much lower risk if they are strapped in.
Once you start trying to refine the risk levels, there is no end -
competition and aerobatic pilots are probably generally more at risk
than careful local-only pilots, but stupid local-only pilots who
mishandle cable breaks are very much at risk.

The two risks I know of where you cannot personally reduce the level to
zero by your own efforts - airframe integrity, and collision from the
blind spots - are among the lowest of all incident levels. So we are
left with most of the risk being in our own hands - the nut behind the
stick is the biggest risk factor.

Chris N.

How many of those people killed due to accidents in
cars are due to drunk drivers, drugged up drivers,
p1ssed off drivers etc etc etc.

There is NO COMPARISON between gliding and an everyday
chore.

If you are asking to determine whether gliding is safe
then yes. Gliding is safe. It is as safe as you would
like it to be. It can also be as dangerous as you would
like it to be. But it is a sport in which YOU DETERMINE
how risky it is.

Owain



At 15:00 29 August 2003, Jj Sinclair wrote:
Ephraim,
Soaring is not the safest sport around. If I were to
hazard a guess, it would
be on a par with skydiving. Most of us in the sport
enjoy the danger aspect up
to a point. That point for me is when my actions could
result in a landing in
anything other than a farmers field or a dry lake.
I draw the line there and
hold back to get more altitude before committing my
tender body and sturdy
craft to any situation that could result in me sitting
in a pile of fiberglass
ruble.

For the most part, the sport is just as safe as you
want to make it. Oh, there
is the rope brake on takeoff or the unseen mid-air,
but these are rare and part
of the reason we want a sport with a little unknown
factor to deal with every
time we *Slip the surly bonds of earth*

The best advice I can give you is; Don't do anything
that you are not
comfortable with. Having said that, you must press
the edges of your comfort
zone, or you will never grow in the sport. For the
new pilot, the edge of
comfort will usually be slope soaring. Ease into it
by staying out 200 feet
from the rocks, always turn away from the rocks. Always
keep your speed up,
until you have checked out the area for squirrely air.

Come join us, we are a band of brothers, doing something
that not every Tom,
Dick and Harry is doing and we like it that way.
JJ Sinclair

On 28 Aug 2003 16:53:36 -0700, (Ephraim)
wrote:

Can anyone tell me how safety statistics for soaring compares with
statistics for driving automobiles?

Thanks in advance,

--Ephraim


For the reasons given by other posters that may not be the best
comparison.
In Australia flying gliders is about as dangerous as crop dusting.
Towing gliders with power planes is 10 times as dangerous per flying
hour as cropdusting for the towplane pilot.

Mike Borgelt

(Ephraim) wrote in message . com...
Can anyone tell me how safety statistics for soaring compares with
statistics for driving automobiles?

Thanks in advance,

--Ephraim

When I got back into soaring in 1994 I had a similar concern and
concluded that, within about a factor of two, soaring and driving had
about the same risk of dying on an annual basis. That estimate is
consistent with the UK poster who came up with 6000:1 for driving and
2000:1 for soaring in the UK, since my estimate was rough. (It's hard
to know how many glider pilots are active.) Also, it could be that the
crowded skies in Europe produce a higher fatality rate.

On an hourly basis, that makes soaring much more dangerous for the
typical pilot who flies about 100 hours a year, vs drives about 500.
But, I suspect that if pilots flew 500 hours a year the fatality rate
might actually drop since infrequent flying is much more dangerous.

And, as noted by earlier replies, there are things one can do to
minimize the danger. I, for example, do not fly close in ridge or do
high-speed low passes. While I am passing up some of the thrills of
soaring by doing so, I believe I am reducing the danger factor as
well. A week ago, a thermal hit one wing so hard that it turned me
almost upside down. Fortunately, I was 2,000 feet AGL and had time to
recover. If I had been skimming the treetops on a ridge, I might now
be dead. (An article in Soaring about 20 years ago speculated that the
seemingly inexplicable deaths of some very experienced S Calif pilots
on ridge soaring may have been caused by such an event.)

The above are my personal decisions and I do not wish to impose them
on anyone else. So, if you ridge soar or do low passes, that's fine.
I'm just trying to lay out for Ephriam (who asked) some of the
possibilities for him to consider.

Martin

Can anyone tell me how safety statistics for soaring compares with
statistics for driving automobiles?

If you are wondering if flying is more dangerous than driving the
answer is an unequivicable yes. How much more dangerous is hard to
determine (do you drive drunk?). Most of us have to drive, whereas
flying for most is recreational. If you want to reduce your requests
find the toughest, most demanding instructor you can (I assume you are
a student). Demand extra instruction, not just the minimum required
for the ticket.

It is informative to read the accident reports at the NTSB web site.
Most glider accidents are pilot error, and most fatal accidents are
stall-spin. You can train for this (see above). It is absolutely
imperative that you take the correct action for each and every
emergency. I recommend getting some power instruction even if you have
no intention on getting a power license. You can get alot of landing
practice this way and you will appreciate the issues faced by your tow
pilot.

I have had people I know ask me about the "soaring thing"....What do you do
when the wind stops?......etc. I tell them that glider flying is something like
crossing a stream jumping from stone to stone. Then I ask them if they have
ever done that...you know, jumped from stone to stone as they crossed a
stream. Certainly, most people say "yes". Then I ask them if they ever just
jumped up in the air and then looked to see if there was a stone to land upon.
Naturally, everyone looks at me with a strange look and says..."Of course
not!!" Then I explain that in soaring we go "from stone to stone" only the
"stones" are safe landing places...in other words, you never jump off from one
safe landing place without the altitude in hand to either make it back or then
proceed on to the next safe landing place ( the next "stone").

Most people, when they see that glider flying (soaring, as I prefer to call it)
is not some sort on unreasoning, suicidal passtime, understand that it CAN be
safe. And, like many things from mowing your lawn to skydiving, your personal
judgement is quite important in determining the risk level involved.

So, I guess that is my point....develop good judgement and the risk level is
manageable....fail to develop good judgement in any endeavor and the risk lever
goes way up.

Don Johnson, Reno,. NV

"DonDLHMN" wrote in message
...
I have had people I know ask me about the "soaring thing"....What do you
do
when the wind stops?......etc. I tell them that glider flying is something
like
crossing a stream jumping from stone to stone. Then I ask them if they
have
ever done that...you know, jumped from stone to stone as they crossed a
stream. Certainly, most people say "yes". Then I ask them if they ever
just
jumped up in the air and then looked to see if there was a stone to land
upon.
Naturally, everyone looks at me with a strange look and says..."Of course
not!!" Then I explain that in soaring we go "from stone to stone" only the
"stones" are safe landing places...in other words, you never jump off from
one
safe landing place without the altitude in hand to either make it back or
then
proceed on to the next safe landing place ( the next "stone").

Most people, when they see that glider flying (soaring, as I prefer to
call it)
is not some sort on unreasoning, suicidal passtime, understand that it CAN
be
safe. And, like many things from mowing your lawn to skydiving, your
personal
judgement is quite important in determining the risk level involved.

So, I guess that is my point....develop good judgement and the risk level
is
manageable....fail to develop good judgement in any endeavor and the risk
lever
goes way up.

Don Johnson, Reno,. NV
Don,

Very good analogy.

Frank Whiteley
Colorado

Average speed 80kmh? (50mph) I wish!
I drive about 12000 miles a year and much of it is
70-80mph motorway, but when you look at the overall
average mph (my car computer tells me) it's about 35mph.
It's the bits around home (trips to the shops, the
office etc) that kill the average speed and, statistically,
are most likely to kill the driver too.
I live in a village 30 miles outside London, BTW
The average speed against distance suggests I spend
about an hour a day in the car - sounds about right
and probably typical for a highish mileage driver.

At 09:36 02 September 2003, Bruce Hoult wrote:
In article ,
(Martin Hellman) wrote:

When I got back into soaring in 1994 I had a similar
concern and
concluded that, within about a factor of two, soaring
and driving had
about the same risk of dying on an annual basis. That
estimate is
consistent with the UK poster who came up with 6000:1
for driving and
2000:1 for soaring in the UK, since my estimate was
rough. (It's hard
to know how many glider pilots are active.) Also,
it could be that the
crowded skies in Europe produce a higher fatality
rate.

On an hourly basis, that makes soaring much more dangerous
for the
typical pilot who flies about 100 hours a year, vs
drives about 500.

Who the heck (other than a professional driver) drives
500 hours a year??

The average car here in New Zealand does around 15,000
km/year, and we
drive a *lot*. If you assume an average speed of 80
km/h (which is
probably a bit low) then you're talking about something
like 200 hours.

I suppose there may be a lot of people in other parts
of the world who
spend a lot of time waiting at traffic lights, or in
traffic jams. But
that's not *driving*, and it's surely less likely to
kill you than is
driving at 100+ km/h. If you're going to count that
time towards
'driving' then I think to be fair you've got to also
count the whole day
I spend at the glider field, not just the hour of that
I spend flying.

-- Bruce

I'd be interested in your reasons for saying that "the bits around home"
are more likely to kill the driver.

Did you hear the one about the Blonde that heard most accidents happen within
three miles of home? She moved.
Jim Vincent
CFIG
N483SZ