Hard Deck

At 19:55 02 February 2018, Steve Koerner wrote:
Chip's great stories reminded me of one of my most magnificent
experiences in a glider. This was coming back to Crystaire after a
long flight decades ago. The sun had set and the gliderport was
closed and completely vacated.. I did a long low pass westbound
down the length of the runway then pulled up for a right downwind.
As I pulled up, right there, were two eagles circling together to the
right in a 1 knot end-of-day thermal. I joined the two eagles
across that thermal for a few hundred feet of climb before continuing
my landing. Obviously I was quite low when I made those
thermalling turns yet I am as sure now as I was then that making
those turns was perfectly safe for me and for all other human
beings. The air was still -- there was essentially no chance of
encountering any degree of sink or turbulence at that particular
occasion.

Exactly that will never happen again. But something similar might.
I choose liberty please. Pretty please.

Steve, I had a similar experience. It was on October 24, 1998. One
of our club pilots had passed away due to cancer, and his wife Linda
(who is still a pilot in our club) decided to hold his memorial service
on our airport. She requested that I tow out at the end of the
service and do a low contest style flying finish dumping water ballast
as a tribute to Louis, her husband. I was only too happy to oblige.
It was a beautiful Fall day in New England with calm winds and
pretty stable air. I towed out near the end of the service and came
back dumping my water. As I neared the top of my pull-up, I saw a
hawk circling just ahead and to the right. I joined his thermal and
found that he had a nice steady and smooth 2 knots all the way
around. I climbed with the hawk for a few turns gaining altitude
while giving myself enough time to ensure that I had been able to
dump all of my water in case one wing was dumping slower than
the other. I could have stayed with the hawk and climbed away,
but I pulled the plug to join the rest of our club down below. It
was as if Louis had been there giving me a lift...... The airport was
closed except to me. The wx was perfect, and I was right off the
end of our runway. It was perfectly safe as far as I was concerned.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/40eVcQ9t3lXF3mSk2

RO

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 9:54:53 AM UTC-8, wrote:

I don't have data on earlier accident and fatality rates but it would be great if someone smart who's inclined that way could analyze it (9B???).

Chip Bearden

You correctly identified my inclination at least.

Yes, I have a comprehensive database of all US glider accidents - fatal and non-fatal - for about 20 years. I did it a few years back, so it's not 100% current and doesn't include all the commentary It also won't include anything not reported to the feds or capture any scary moments that people got away with with only emotional scars.

Obviously we are talking about relatively small probabilities of catastrophic events, under a very specific set of circumstances - and a further subset within that based on particular human motives (where points at stake materially mattered but disinclination to landing out didn't). You'd need a pretty deliberate analytical and research approach to try to try to quantify that.

Ultimately what I think you will end up with is a conversation with a small number of dead pilots and/or broken gliders on one side, a notion of freedom on the other and in the middle some sort of view about whether the behavior in question makes a difference competitively or would respond favorably to a change in how we keep score. I think the answers to these last two questions ought to be looked at before we devolve further into a discussion about the acceptable ratio of carnage to freedom.

I remain skeptical that the proposed solution has a material influence over this sort of behavior or even if it did (assuming that we don't care about the body count aspect for the moment) that people are winning contests with a "below 500' thermalling" strategy. A SeeYou script could probably pull out all the low thermalling and the finish order would give you a sense of the competitive correlation (I bet it's negative). A "what were you thinking" survey of offenders might reveal something about whether the behavior responds to points - I think mostly not, but that's a survey of one (me).

IMO the view is probably not worth the climb, but I'm always open to looking at data.

Andy Blackburn
9B

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 6:44:56 PM UTC-7, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 9:54:53 AM UTC-8, wrote:

I don't have data on earlier accident and fatality rates but it would be great if someone smart who's inclined that way could analyze it (9B???).

Chip Bearden

You correctly identified my inclination at least.

Yes, I have a comprehensive database of all US glider accidents - fatal and non-fatal - for about 20 years. I did it a few years back, so it's not 100% current and doesn't include all the commentary It also won't include anything not reported to the feds or capture any scary moments that people got away with with only emotional scars.

Obviously we are talking about relatively small probabilities of catastrophic events, under a very specific set of circumstances - and a further subset within that based on particular human motives (where points at stake materially mattered but disinclination to landing out didn't). You'd need a pretty deliberate analytical and research approach to try to try to quantify that.

Ultimately what I think you will end up with is a conversation with a small number of dead pilots and/or broken gliders on one side, a notion of freedom on the other and in the middle some sort of view about whether the behavior in question makes a difference competitively or would respond favorably to a change in how we keep score. I think the answers to these last two questions ought to be looked at before we devolve further into a discussion about the acceptable ratio of carnage to freedom.

I remain skeptical that the proposed solution has a material influence over this sort of behavior or even if it did (assuming that we don't care about the body count aspect for the moment) that people are winning contests with a "below 500' thermalling" strategy. A SeeYou script could probably pull out all the low thermalling and the finish order would give you a sense of the competitive correlation (I bet it's negative). A "what were you thinking" survey of offenders might reveal something about whether the behavior responds to points - I think mostly not, but that's a survey of one (me).

IMO the view is probably not worth the climb, but I'm always open to looking at data.

Andy Blackburn
9B

Andy, late 60's to early 70's had falling fiberglass from close to/excessive Vne starts, maybe @ El Mirage contests from flutter....Diamants?

From P3's penalty post, seriously, you just don't "bite and tear" that wing tape? Dang!

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 5:44:56 PM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 9:54:53 AM UTC-8, wrote:

I don't have data on earlier accident and fatality rates but it would be great if someone smart who's inclined that way could analyze it (9B???).


Here's a link to some files summarizing Glider Fatal and Non-Fatal Accidents over a 20 year period between 1994 and 2013.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sb...apIOscTfzuk5aY

For the fatal accidents I went to the trouble to read the accident reports as categorize the accident by phase of flight (TO, LDG and FLT - in-flight) as well as probable cause (my categories) as follows - with percent of accidents:

Stall/Spin - 39%
Flight Into Terrain - 17%
Loss of Control - 14%
Midair - 8%
Incapacitation - 7%
Assembly/Config - 7%
Structural - 7%

I also extracted Stall/Spin Accidents as the the most likely way to kill yourself thermalling low and highlighted the three that were during a contest.. (Trigger warning - not fun to read this stuff when you know the people). I can't see that any were thermalling low to avoid an outlanding, except perhaps the Ventus 2 crash at Lea County airport at Hobbs in 1997 where it was reported the pilot made a low approach though no mention of circling and one could easily imagine the attraction of wanting to land on a runway.

If someone wants to sort through the 551 non-fatal accidents - 131 are on approach and 151 are during landing. Please have at it. I'm sure the accident report will mention if it was at a contest and at the home airport or a landout. Since they most likely interviewed the pilot there will probably be enough to read to get a sense of things - though accuracy of reporting may be questionable.

Andy Blackburn
9B

Andy - thanks for the data. Backs up the trends we see everywhere, not just racing.

As non racer but a long time professional pilot and instructor I have found this entire thread very revealing about the sport of soaring. Like a "truth window".

No matter if it is power or gliders - the decline of new pilots and the overall health and status of GA is getting exponentially worse.

We are in a state of crisis and have to all work together to solve it. I don't know all the answers but we are trying to make headway where we can.

I do know that large egos, disregard of best safe practices, hubris, risk taking without cognizance, degradation of basic skills, poor decision making, not learning from the past, ignorance and selfishness are all working against us.

The world has changed, like it or not and we are down to the "adapt or perish" stage of our sport and GA as well.

Tom
Sugarbush Soaring

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 9:52:17 PM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:

Here's a link to some files summarizing Glider Fatal and Non-Fatal Accidents over a 20 year period between 1994 and 2013.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sb...apIOscTfzuk5aY



I've received reports of an inoperative link:

Try this one if you have an interest:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...aY?usp=sharing

Andy Blackburn
9B

Second, historically, races are not only won by those flying the perfect flight, with decisions made that minimized risk and maximized speed, but ALSO days are won by those same pilots who chose or had to take a major calculated risk to win the day.

Still not much of a racing pilot here, so take with grain of salt.

I wonder if this mixes two kinds of risk.

Strategic risk like 'I think there's lift in that blue hole. If it works I'm way ahead. If it doesn't I have a save my butt plan so I still get to try tomorrow'.

versus
Safety risk is like the above except if it doesn't work hopefully I'll only break the ship.

As a newbee, I am surrounded by really good pilots that do amazing things.
My goal is just to finish safely, learn, and enjoy. For me, it would be neat to hear a safety debrief on what sort of 'get to fly tomorrow plan' the person who just did one of those amazing things had.

I think that says no new rule, just a little peer pressure and maybe a learning experience.

No another note, the SUA's use the existing airspace feature in the panel. It is my understanding that this only supports vertical sides for airspace sections. If so, then I suspect to do much more that a few special cases, the feature would have to be modified to support sloping sides to better follow terrain with a reasonable number of airspace volumes?

At 10:32 02 February 2018, wrote:
This has been an interesting and pretty civil discussion involving
primaril=
y two polar opposites, personal freedoms and restrictive
structures.
Thanks=
to everyone who has posted here without flares that normally
result when
d=
ealing with such a flammable topic lol.

One aspect I would like to introduce to the discussion is one of the
elemen=
tal nature of racing or record setting. Racing/record setting are by
nature=
games of managing risk for maximum achievement. The very fact
that there
a=
re those who want to attempt to "manage" the risk of others flies
in the
fa=
ce of the very nature of the sport. Are some
"guidlines/disincentives"
need=
ed? Yes, but I feel we are trending into the realm of trying to
micromanage=
the sport.

Second, historically, races are not only won by those flying the
perfect
fl=
ight, with decisions made that minimized risk and maximized
speed, but
ALSO=
days are won by those same pilots who chose or had to take a
major
calcula=
ted risk to win the day. Those who are trying to eliminate that side
of
the=
contest also eliminate a whole grouping of pilots who have
developed the
s=
kill set for that method of fast flying. This new rule schema/trend
that
is=
developing, in essence, penalizes guys like moffat, reichman scott
and
str=
eideck who knew how to fly very aggressively. Karl has commented
on this
th=
read saying basically the same thing. Do all of you "new
generation"
fliers=
who want a more regulated form of racing think his opinion is
unqualified
=
or out of touch with what sailplane racing is all about? I think
many of
yo=
u actually do and think that form of flying has no place in todays
game.

I think much of this argument has been caused by the
charactoristics of
mod=
ern sailplanes themselves. Low saves, landing out, higher risk
decisions
we=
re normative for racing in the older generation of competition. If
you
coul=
dn't fly that way, at times, then you could not be competative.
Today,
perf=
ormance is such that the game is more a game of micro decisions,
not macro
=
ones. When guys today are forced into macro decisions like a low
save or
ev=
en a land out for that matter, they are ill equiped to handle them.
That's
=
the true problem underlying a majority of the racing accidents
today.
Expan=
ded rules implimentation does'nt really address the that
fundamental
proble=
m but it definitely does redefine the nature of the race.

I think that's a pretty good summary of the issue. You can add
Ray Gimmey to the above list. He won the 1988 STD Nats in
Minden (actually, Klaus Holighaus won, but he was a guest) due
to a very low save on a difficult day. Ray told me that he had
already rolled out on final to land on a dirt road when he hit an
8 Kt thermal and wrapped into it to get home. Ray told me that
he was down around ~100' IIRC.

Yes, Evan, there were no recorders back then, so it is a story, but
I have known Ray to be a pretty "straight shooter" so I have no
reason to doubt his version of this. He told me right after we
landed at Minden.

Here is another story. My father told me how they did it in German
glider contests before WWII. If they got low, they picked a good
plowed field to land in which might also be a thermal generator.
Then, they would dive down and make a high speed low pass over
the field in order to try and break loose/trigger a building thermal
bubble. After the low pass, they would pull up (similar to one of
our high speed flying finishes) and make a circle or two. If the
maneuver was successful, the bubble would have been broken
loose and they would climb away. If not successful, they would
land, as they had already given the field a "close" inspection. I
have not yet tried this method myself, and I don't know if I ever
will, but it is/was a skill set that pilots have used in the past, so
it is probably relevant to this discussion because if one dives
down from above 300', one would violate the proposed "hard
deck" even if one were to zoom back up above it....

RO

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 9:45:06 AM UTC-5, Michael Opitz wrote:

I think that's a pretty good summary of the issue. You can add
Ray Gimmey to the above list. He won the 1988 STD Nats in
Minden (actually, Klaus Holighaus won, but he was a guest) due
to a very low save on a difficult day. Ray told me that he had
already rolled out on final to land on a dirt road when he hit an
8 Kt thermal and wrapped into it to get home. Ray told me that
he was down around ~100' IIRC.

Yes, Evan, there were no recorders back then, so it is a story, but
I have known Ray to be a pretty "straight shooter" so I have no
reason to doubt his version of this. He told me right after we
landed at Minden.

Here is another story. My father told me how they did it in German
glider contests before WWII. If they got low, they picked a good
plowed field to land in which might also be a thermal generator.
Then, they would dive down and make a high speed low pass over
the field in order to try and break loose/trigger a building thermal
bubble. After the low pass, they would pull up (similar to one of
our high speed flying finishes) and make a circle or two. If the
maneuver was successful, the bubble would have been broken
loose and they would climb away. If not successful, they would
land, as they had already given the field a "close" inspection. I
have not yet tried this method myself, and I don't know if I ever
will, but it is/was a skill set that pilots have used in the past, so
it is probably relevant to this discussion because if one dives
down from above 300', one would violate the proposed "hard
deck" even if one were to zoom back up above it....

RO

Awesome stories! Thanks Mike.

Those are obviously very different scenarios from the ones John has given as examples. Both could easily lead to fatal results even in skilled hands with just a smidge of bad luck. Was Ray's save a reasonable thing to do in the circumstances (it's easiest just to say "NO!")? What I know for sure is that your odds absolutely suck if you fly into sink at 100 agl in a 45 degree bank and 50 kts.

I can see this issue both ways... which is why I'm asking for data. Absent tangible evidence of people doing really dangerous stuff motivated by point

When I see spaghetti traces like the ones in John's report, I don't think "this guy's trying to stay in the contest", I think "this guy is desperately afraid to land for some reason", e.g. bad field, inexperience, borrowed or shared glider, whatever. Helpful to ask the pilot (thanks WH).

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8

I looked at all of the 15M podium finishers flight traces (day or overall contest depending on which was made available), going back to 2006. The only really low save I found was Rick Walters on Day 2 at Montague in 2006. His low point appeared to be 567 ft AGL near town over the low ground. Garner came very close at Mifflin in 2012, but his low point of 470 ft AGL was over a 1000 ft MSL ridge. BB got down to 1050 AGL at Hobbs in 2013. P7 down to 958 AGL in Elmira 2015. Retting down to 1213 in Cordele last year. That's the extent of the heroics I could find in 15M and Standard when co-located with 15M. There was a fair amount of rock polishing in the mountain contests. Enough to have me thinking twice about ever doing one! But I think the message is clear: you can do very, very well in soaring without ever having to thermal at 500 ft. Not sure what anyone was doing many decades ago in gliders with ? wing loading is relevant today, but now I'm talking over my pay grade.