How dangerous is soaring?

Well Patrick, I think you need to research ( along with HF) why those
aircraft failed. You still have a 98.7% chance of killing yourself ,
1.2% someone will slice thru you , and I'll give you .1% your aircraft
will fail at no fault to yourself. All this of course if anything
happens at all.
I think you should quit and collect stamps because your mind is on
death and not the business at hand.You think some kind of roulette
wheel is spinning with everyones name on it and you're next. With that
kind of confidence, you're a magnet for an accident.
Enjoy your snow, but I bet you'll shake this nonsense.
And as old Gus said, the best way to treat death is to ride off from
it.
R

Anybody want to talk about head-on collisions on a two lane highway?

On Oct 30, 5:56 am, wrote:
When I started soaring on mid 80's, everybody said that soaring is the
safest aviation sport, almost safer than most 'real' sports. You can't
brake your leg while flying Only when you hit the ground

Though on a first year 4 pilots that I knew got killed with glider.
Not a good start. And during the years I have counted over 20
fatalities where I can say they either they were my friends or I knew
them well. Plus all the other fatalities. Almost every week on this
group, we get another sad message informing yet another fatality. And
most of the cases, pilots has been extremely experiensed. We know that
they haven't done any stupid moves, they just lost the control of the
plane on wrong situation or the plane has failed on them. I personally
feel that I am on the edge to quit this sport because of that. I don't
want to see not even one more friend passing away. I want to push that
off my mind.

Soaring is the greatest sport I can imagine. No other sport can give
me the feeling, same view, same fellowship etc etc. But is it worth
it???

PS

If your not living on the edge...your taking up to much space!

Is it worth it? It is the best thing you can do with your clothes on!

Is it safe? You are in command of that and only you.
If you do not respect the forces you are dealing with eventually you
will pay.

Regards
Jim
LS-1f (1J)

How dangerous is rock climbing.. trained people fall every year and die..
How dangerous is hiking.. experienced people are attacked every year and die
How dangerous is.... white water rafting.. canoeing.. sailing.. swimming..
water skiing.. snow skiing (trees jump in front of skiers)..
How dangerous are motorcycles.. the best instructor in the state just got
killed because a car lost control swerving to miss a ladder on the highway
and jumped the median..
How dangerous is racing, dragstrip, professionals.. get hurt or killed every
year..
How dangerous are quads.. people are maimed every year..

Don't give up your life because you think you might get hurt.. train..
study.. PRACTICE..
The most dangerous pilot is one who thinks he can fly himself out of a
jam... but you only see him at the airport once every 3 months.
BT

wrote in message
ups.com...
When I started soaring on mid 80's, everybody said that soaring is the
safest aviation sport, almost safer than most 'real' sports. You can't
brake your leg while flying Only when you hit the ground

Though on a first year 4 pilots that I knew got killed with glider.
Not a good start. And during the years I have counted over 20
fatalities where I can say they either they were my friends or I knew
them well. Plus all the other fatalities. Almost every week on this
group, we get another sad message informing yet another fatality. And
most of the cases, pilots has been extremely experiensed. We know that
they haven't done any stupid moves, they just lost the control of the
plane on wrong situation or the plane has failed on them. I personally
feel that I am on the edge to quit this sport because of that. I don't
want to see not even one more friend passing away. I want to push that
off my mind.

Soaring is the greatest sport I can imagine. No other sport can give
me the feeling, same view, same fellowship etc etc. But is it worth
it???

PS

On 10/30/07 7:50 PM, in article , "BT"
wrote:

How dangerous is rock climbing.. trained people fall every year and die..
How dangerous is hiking.. experienced people are attacked every year and die
How dangerous is.... white water rafting.. canoeing.. sailing.. swimming..
water skiing.. snow skiing (trees jump in front of skiers)..
How dangerous are motorcycles.. the best instructor in the state just got
killed because a car lost control swerving to miss a ladder on the highway
and jumped the median..
How dangerous is racing, dragstrip, professionals.. get hurt or killed every
year..
How dangerous are quads.. people are maimed every year..

Don't give up your life because you think you might get hurt.. train..
study.. PRACTICE..
The most dangerous pilot is one who thinks he can fly himself out of a
jam... but you only see him at the airport once every 3 months.
BT

wrote in message
ups.com...
When I started soaring on mid 80's, everybody said that soaring is the
safest aviation sport, almost safer than most 'real' sports. You can't
brake your leg while flying Only when you hit the ground

Though on a first year 4 pilots that I knew got killed with glider.
Not a good start. And during the years I have counted over 20
fatalities where I can say they either they were my friends or I knew
them well. Plus all the other fatalities. Almost every week on this
group, we get another sad message informing yet another fatality. And
most of the cases, pilots has been extremely experiensed. We know that
they haven't done any stupid moves, they just lost the control of the
plane on wrong situation or the plane has failed on them. I personally
feel that I am on the edge to quit this sport because of that. I don't
want to see not even one more friend passing away. I want to push that
off my mind.

Soaring is the greatest sport I can imagine. No other sport can give
me the feeling, same view, same fellowship etc etc. But is it worth
it???

PS



The question is a fair one for someone to ask.

The answers I've seen so far are either not helpful or simply emotional.

Bottom line: here in the US (can't speak to other countries, which may be
better organized) no one can tell you if soaring is more dangerous than any
other activity because we have no rates with which to compare them.

Example, is there one fatality per 100,000 tows, or 100,000 flight hours, or
what? No one knows because there is no denominator (exposure data). We can
tell how many people died, and how many reportable accidents there were
(NTSB database), but absolutely no idea how many tows were made last year,
or how many flying hours were flown in the US last year.

In my own club, we could count tows, but have no system for totaling flight
hours among the private owners.

All that said, do I intend to continue soaring? Of course. There's simply
nothing like it. But I'm making that decision with my heart, not my head.

Bullwinkle

I still like my statement from
http://home.comcast.net/~verhulst/GBSC/student/faq.htm

"Most soaring accidents are the result of a series of judgment errors so
to a large extent, soaring is as safe as you make it."

Tony V.

On Oct 30, 6:50 pm, "BT" wrote:
How dangerous is rock climbing.. trained people fall every year and die..

Woot! Stand by for a "wear ur helmet" post from Majid...

If we say YES,
lets ask ourselves , what we did to improve our luck factor recently ?
-We constantly change the rules (in US) for safety
-Europans developed Flarm
But nothing was changed with the plane.
Everybody seems to be happy with disillusioned idea of safety cockpit.
We don't have airbags, balllistic chutes, tail mounted bungee
arresting harpoons,
second chance ex katiusha miniature rocket engines to get us out of
trouble,
power traffic avoidance low energy systems ,etc.

..Ryszard Krolikowski (RW)

How Dangerous is soaring?

Short answer is no one really knows and even if they did it would be
meaningless number.

No one knows because we really don't know how much soaring is done. As
stated in another post we know how many fatal accidents (127 since
1985) But we have no denominator.

It is a meaningless number because even if we knew it, it wouldn't
apply to you. The real question you want to know is "How dangerous
are you?" Soaring more than just about any other sport puts your
individual safety squarely upon your shoulders.

If you really want to know how dangerous Soaring is to you. Go to the
NTSB Site and review those 127 Accidents. How many of those pilots
were doing something you might be doing when they died?

IF you don't fly in the mountains, remove those accidents.
If you don't do Low passes, Remove those Accidents.
IF you don't fly motorgliders, selectively remove those accidents.
IF you don't thermal Low, remove those accidents.
If you don't put yourself in positions where you can't land at
airports, remove those accidents
If you don't put yourself in postions where you don't have good
landing options, remove those accidents.

After doing this every pilot will have a percentage of these Fatal
accidents that could have been them. Maybe they will alter the way the
fly to improve there numbers. The lower the number the Safer Soaring
is for you. If you don't fly obviously this number will be Zero. But
you will still die doing something.

Another way of saying what I said above. Soaring probably is one of
the safest sports around in that if you are hurt it will probably be
your own fault in all but a very few cases.

Brian

On Oct 30, 2:56 am, wrote:
When I started soaring on mid 80's, everybody said that soaring is the
safest aviation sport, almost safer than most 'real' sports. You can't
brake your leg while flying Only when you hit the ground

Though on a first year 4 pilots that I knew got killed with glider.
Not a good start. And during the years I have counted over 20
fatalities where I can say they either they were my friends or I knew
them well. Plus all the other fatalities. Almost every week on this
group, we get another sad message informing yet another fatality. And
most of the cases, pilots has been extremely experiensed. We know that
they haven't done any stupid moves, they just lost the control of the
plane on wrong situation or the plane has failed on them. I personally
feel that I am on the edge to quit this sport because of that. I don't
want to see not even one more friend passing away. I want to push that
off my mind.

Soaring is the greatest sport I can imagine. No other sport can give
me the feeling, same view, same fellowship etc etc. But is it worth
it???

PS

Excuse me here, but what exactly is your f**king point?

If you want to quit, then quit. Nothing that I, or anyone else, can
say is going to change your mind. Really, just post a "For Sale" sign
on your glider and get on with it. BTW, I have permanent knee damage
from playing tenis, but I don't whine about it.

Tom

Earlier, Tom Seim wrote:

Excuse me here, but what exactly is your f**king point?...

...Nothing that I, or anyone else, can say is going to change
your mind...


That seems a bit contradictory to me. If nothing said will change his
mind, that kind of takes the point out of saying it. It certainly adds
a bit of a question mark to the f-bomb. Tragedies like the one at hand
often shake people along fault lines they didn't even know existed.

Wandering off-topic, I have to see this most recent accident from the
parental perspective. I've flown with Emil Kissel, and I know that he
has been passionately devoted to soaring, and devoted to promoting and
furthering it. My heart goes out to him. As a parent, I have to look
at soaring through the perspective of, is this something I'd sign the
consent form for? That might sound like an element of triviata, but it
is not. It is, in fact, crucial to the development of soaring as a
sport and crucial to the maintenace of the critical mass that keeps it
viable. We totally need to keep drawing in the kidlings, keep forging
them into safe, conscientious pilots who temper their caution with a
touch of boldness. And we can talk ourselves blue in the face about
how safe soaring can be, how safe the training regime is, how safe
training makes for safe pilots. But that's maybe a tough sell when you
see a lot of what's behind the gelcoat.

Bob K.