500 foot rule and pilot opinion poll

Well put Chip.

9B

At 22:06 29 September 2003, Chip Bearden wrote:
I agree with Dale (below). I was waiting for someone
to voice the
'hey, it's fun' rationale for traditional high-speed
finishes and it's
amazing that it took nearly 50 postings:

1. On a purely emotional level, I miss (and I'm sure
the spectators
do too) the 50 foot speed pass finish line.

Dale Kramer
K1

I also agree with Kirk Stant that part of the appeal
(and challenge)
of soaring is that it allows us to incur whatever level
of risk we
intelligently elect. 'Adrenaline junky' is a harsh
term but I'll be
honest in admitting that the part of the 'thrill' (another
harsh term
used in this context) of soaring is the element of
risk and how we as
pilots manage it.

There was a provocative article in (I believe) Gliding
Kiwi about ten
years ago that said, in effect, let's quit trying to
convince everyone
that soaring is 100% safe. It's not, and therein lies
some of the
appeal. Certainly competition soaring involves an element
of that.

Those who know me also know that, at age 52 with a
wife and 9-year-old
twin daughters, and with a father and a best friend
who were both
killed in soaring accidents, I certainly don't have
a death wish. Far
from it. I WANT to be as safe a pilot as I can be.
But I also want to
enjoy this sport the way I always have, and contest
finishes still
have the same appeal they did when I first starting
flying contests in
1968.

As for the less emotional arguments for/against, they've
been made.
The most persuasive, to me, is that whatever penalty
is imposed for
busting the floor of the finish donut will, perversely,
act as an
incentive to thermal at low altitudes trying to 'save'
a flight, even
a flight that, ironically, could be concluded quite
safely be simply
gliding to the finish line sedately from one or two
miles out and 499
feet. Yeah, it might make some pilots or flights 'safer'
but I can see
how it will make certain other situations 'less safe.'
A lot depends
on what the meaning of the word 'safe' is.

Based on my experience with the donut, I also agree
with Dale that you
tend to spend more time heads down to make sure you
don't bust the
hard deck at the last minute. After all, you can't
actually SEE it,
unlike the traditional finish line. My biggest fear
is learning after
the flight that my flight recorder shows I missed the
donut by, say,
20 feet even though my altimeter indicated I was 50
feet above when
the GPS said 1.0 mile. Given the number of turnpoints
that pilots have
missed by a few meters, do we really need another way
of screwing up a
flight?

I'm from the old school. I check out fields under the
glide path from
likely finish directions BEFORE final glide. I keep
500 feet dialed in
as a final glide margin and often take more than that.
And when I'm
not sure I can make it back safely, I land. I may make
that decision
10 miles out at 2000 feet (or even higher) or one mile
out at 200 feet
depending on the fields, the weather, etc.

But it's MY decision, not someone writing rules that
attempt to level
the playing field for pilots with vastly different
amounts of skill
and experience. No matter how noble the rationale,
that's a
troublesome way of thinking to me, even in the name
of 'safety.'

The low finish isn't something an inexperienced pilot
should try
without proper preparation. And it isn't something
anyone should try
under improper conditions. But, as for many other things
we do in
sailplanes that the uninitiated think are dangerous,
the cure for this
'problem' seems to be better training, better qualification
of
contestants, and better judgment rather than blanket
prohibitions. The
increasingly popular regional competition clinics are
great places to
address this.

Chip Bearden