Hard Deck

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 7:32:47 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Our gliders have evolved allot in the past 5 decades - I know as technology advanced in a bunch of high speed sports ( cars, bobsleds, skiing....) the playing field and/or the rules had to adapt.


Today's gliders are safer. They handle better with more benign stall/spin characteristics (though most will still spin if provoked). Gliders in general and Schleicher gliders specifically are safer in crashes due to stronger materials and newer impact-absorbing cockpits and landing gears (they won't save you if you go straight in, of course). DG has done some good work on safety and I think all the glider manufacturers are paying much more attention to it.

We're carrying more safety equipment: e.g., ELTs, FLARMs. We're more aware of the hazards of dehydration, medications, etc. We're flying fewer hours (shorter tasks) and with more sleep (fewer, often no long retrieves).

I'd say that audio variometers have contributed to safety because they help keep our heads out of the cockpits but the proliferation of electronics in our panels has pushed us in the wrong direction, even allowing for the benefit of not having to study a Sectional chart closely.

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???).

It's a tiny sample but here are the stats for pilots I have been able to recall I knew who were killed in glider crashes, by year:

1979
1980 (2)
1981
1984
1986
1992 (2)
1994
1999 (3 pilots, in two incidents)
2004
2010
2012

I wouldn't want to draw any real conclusions, not least because these are just pilots I knew/met. And in my early years, I simply hadn't met as many. Plus I don't know how many total pilots and contest days are involved, and not all of these deaths occurred during contest flights. But my sense is that it's not getting worse, and perhaps a bit better.

Chip Bearden

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.

I retract all of my previous suggestion about how to do an equivalent of hard deck more simply. I want none of it now after thinking more on the subject. At the same time, I commend BB for bringing forward this thoughtful ideas to keep us safer while I remain skeptical that a hard deck could have more than a miniscule impact on our dismal accident statistics. It's been an interesting discussion.

BB has said: What's the big deal? A hard deck is no different than the 17,500 ceiling that we all have agreed to live with. Well; I, for one, never would have chosen to agree to that. I'm sure I'm not the only racing pilot that routinely gets ****ed off every time I get to 17,400 in a strong thermal and have to break off 500 feet early to accommodate the rules. I don't want another airspace constraint to be ****ed off about. I especially don't want to have to deal with contest airspace issues when I'm at pattern altitude.

There are people here in Arizona that will advocate for red light cameras, for banning cell phone use in cars and for banning citizens from carrying guns. All those safety things get routinely voted down around here. It seems a lot of us humans value liberty over personal safety. It's a DNA thing.

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

At 00:13 04 February 2018, Andy Blackburn wrote:
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=1sbx5LHrvryYyYRU0UnapIOscTfzuk5aY



I've received reports of an inoperative link:

Try this one if you have an interest:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...yYyYRU0UnapIOs
cTfzuk5aY?usp=sharing

Andy Blackburn
9B

Andy, The 4/1/2004 midair at Oso, WA. The Libelle pilot was not
killed. He walked out after a parachute deployment.

On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 6:15:06 PM UTC-8, 3j wrote:
At 00:13 04 February 2018, Andy Blackburn wrote:
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=1sbx5LHrvryYyYRU0UnapIOscTfzuk5aY



I've received reports of an inoperative link:

Try this one if you have an interest:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...yYyYRU0UnapIOs
cTfzuk5aY?usp=sharing

Andy Blackburn
9B

Andy, The 4/1/2004 midair at Oso, WA. The Libelle pilot was not
killed. He walked out after a parachute deployment.

Thanks - I'm sure he'll be glad to hear that.

I'll go back and check why that came out that way.

Andy