How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

On Monday, January 13, 2014 6:55:05 AM UTC-6, son_of_flubber wrote:

Soaring can kill you, but how do we put that risk into perspective?

A statistics based Mortality Calculator helped me do that. I answered a few questions about my medical profile and age and it told me that statistically I have a 19% chance of dieing in the next ten years from natural causes or from an accident of any kind. Say a 1 in 5 chance. (Sucks of course..) The calculator does not properly weight the fact that I'm a glider pilot, so how do I adjust for that?

It's obvious to me that my chances of dying in a glider are much much better than 1 in 5. So it is much much more likely that I will die of some other cause before I live long enough to die in a glider. Worrying about a glider accident is completely irrational (until I disregard the inherent dangers and start flying like an idiot.) Sure it could happen, but it is much more likely to die from something else. And as I get older, the odds of dying in a glider continue to drop.

An article about the mortality calculator. http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-on-death.html

Bah. Your risk is exactly 50%. Either you die, or you don't.

And as others will surely point out - gliding is dangerous, way more so than the proverbial "drive to the airport".

So you better worry about dying in a glider accident - dude, it happens! A lot! And as you get older, you become even more dangerous.

Not trying to be alarmist, but there it is. I've had many friends die in glider accidents, mostly (all?) self-inflicted. All old, experienced pilots. Nobody dies in car accidents any more!

I suggest you stop trying to justify your risk via statistical mumbo-jumbo and concentrate on learning what the actual threat is and training yourself to recognize and defeat it.

It's a lot more fun, anyway...

(by the way...do you have a real name or did your parents really hate you?)

Cheers,

Kirk
66

So - who cares? We're all gonna die some day so why not just enjoy life
along the way?


"kirk.stant" wrote in message
...
On Monday, January 13, 2014 6:55:05 AM UTC-6, son_of_flubber wrote:

Soaring can kill you, but how do we put that risk into perspective?

A statistics based Mortality Calculator helped me do that. I answered a
few questions about my medical profile and age and it told me that
statistically I have a 19% chance of dieing in the next ten years from
natural causes or from an accident of any kind. Say a 1 in 5 chance.
(Sucks of course.) The calculator does not properly weight the fact that
I'm a glider pilot, so how do I adjust for that?

It's obvious to me that my chances of dying in a glider are much much
better than 1 in 5. So it is much much more likely that I will die of
some other cause before I live long enough to die in a glider. Worrying
about a glider accident is completely irrational (until I disregard the
inherent dangers and start flying like an idiot.) Sure it could happen,
but it is much more likely to die from something else. And as I get
older, the odds of dying in a glider continue to drop.

An article about the mortality calculator.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-on-death.html

Bah. Your risk is exactly 50%. Either you die, or you don't.

And as others will surely point out - gliding is dangerous, way more so than
the proverbial "drive to the airport".

So you better worry about dying in a glider accident - dude, it happens! A
lot! And as you get older, you become even more dangerous.

Not trying to be alarmist, but there it is. I've had many friends die in
glider accidents, mostly (all?) self-inflicted. All old, experienced pilots.
Nobody dies in car accidents any more!

I suggest you stop trying to justify your risk via statistical mumbo-jumbo
and concentrate on learning what the actual threat is and training yourself
to recognize and defeat it.

It's a lot more fun, anyway...

(by the way...do you have a real name or did your parents really hate you?)

Cheers,

Kirk
66

On Monday, January 13, 2014 9:58:06 AM UTC-5, kirk.stant wrote:

So you better worry about dying in a glider accident - dude, it happens!

I know that flying is dangerous and I'm actually a "squeaky wheel" about safety issues in pretty much every situation, not just flying. I just think that it is better to do something about a safety issue, than to worry about it. Worry/anxiety clouds the mind. I guess that worry/anxiety is the only thing that motivates some people wrt safety, but that is not me.


And as you get older, you become even more dangerous.

You missed my point. I agree that it's obvious that as piloting capacities deteriorate with age, that we are more likely to do something dumb or make a mistake. But (also obvious) as you get older, your chances of dieing from natural causes in the next few years increase as well.

We don't have the numbers to say whether an 80 year pilot is more likely to die in a glider than a 70 year old pilot. It is probably fair to say that in the last year (or few months) of natural life (assuming a rapid drop-off of mental and physical capabilities), a pilot who continues to fly has a much higher chance of dieing in a glider accident than he did for his entire flying career. I saw that happen once and I plan to stop flying before I become that dangerous to innocent bystanders.

Thank you Debbie Downer.