Gliding risk....

Tom,
You certainly gave me a big scare during a contest, when you flew
your DG-400 across the nose of the Pawnee that I was using to tow a
Ventus

On 11/8/2019 3:18 PM, wrote:
...I heard a really useful axiom awhile back. It was in an interview of
one of the founding engineers of the X-plane/X15 program. When questioned
about the differences between the approach they took during those
heated-space/aviation race days of the cold war and the more cerebral go
slow pace of later test flying. This guy called what they did earlier as
“Educated Courage�, meaning, yes they were involved in risky business but
they entered those risks thoughtfully with preparation and built in
contingencies.

It does take a level of courage needed in the pursuit of certain goals, in
our case that being xc or contest flying. Without courage and just
operating from “thoughtfulness� and a guy could consider venturing off
anywhere beyond gliding distance of home as foolhardy. Or flying in a
gaggle with 10 other guys all flying within a few hundred feet of each
other sounds like a recipe for trouble. But when thoughtful preparation,
common sense precautions and contingencies are joined up with a measure of
courage, great things, enjoyment, and accomplishment can result.

I have gone thru my big dollar high performance phase of soaring, but have
jumped into a different pond of challenge, namely, trying to do great
things in low performance machines. In order to do this, I have to ask
things of my bird and my own abilities way beyond the norm, not having the
L/D to get me free of trouble areas etc. As a result, it takes gobbs of
courage, just ask Daniel Sazhin or Ron Schwartz who ran the ridges in
their 1-26’s to put up some of the first few 1000k 1-26 flights. Without
courage they could never have even gotten started. But given the need for
courage, what comes along with it is the need for a whole bunch of
Thoughtfulness. Read study, knowledge gained from numerous failed attempts,
having well defined and adhered-to personal minimums. I spend way more
energy and flight time working on the skills needed to safely stretch into
this challenging low performance flying than I do one the record attempts.
In my case it involves lots and lots of low level and weak wx flying, and
very short small off field landing simulation. This is all done to perfect
and sharpen my skills, skills that are essential for reaching my goals. In
three years of pursuing low performance records, I have made over 20 off
field landings. Not airports or grass strips, but actual farm fields,
roads, unoccupied parking lots etc. Have I learned things? Absolutely. Was
I ever scared, absolutely not. Concerned? Yes, but never fearing for life
or limb. In it all I have not hurt my bird in any way, a few scraps on the
fusalage bottom is all.

Put the package together and you can have success without falling either
into the “chicken little� syndrome or the other end of the spectrum, namely
foolhardy confidence.

FWIW Dan

"I'm with Dan, here" (and, e.g., his reference to Daniel Sazhin and *his*
similarly nuanced posts and "Soaring" mag articles).

Never met "FWIW Dan", but the mental (and practical/physical) approaches he
tries to convey in his posts "work for me." Like him, I've only scared myself
once while indulging in this wonderul sport - it had zero to do with an
imminent landing - though there *were* (rare, entirely self-inflicted) times
when the possibility of an imminent outlanding had all my focusable senses at
what-then-seemed-to-me highest-possible-alert. That noted, I never actually
had to make a "100%-on-my-/ship-limits" off-field landing...though that one
time I seriously thought I might have to surely burned itself into my mind.

Some posters seem eager to disagree with Dan's posted words, and there
unquestionably are certain things associated with the sport 100% of us should
*never* do. Experience an uncommanded departure from controlled flight in the
landing pattern immediately springs to mind, here.

That noted, much, if not most, of the sport screams for nuanced thought, and
not rarely, nuanced practices. Seems to me that this is what Dan is attempting
to convey in many of his posts. If his posts don't "work for you," by all
means ignore his advice. But if you're able to "get a glimmer" (relating to
what I imagine he's trying to convey), keep noodling on it. It might one day
begin to make shining sense to you...at which moment you'll have attained a
new mental height which may seriously add to your enjoyment of the sport...and
personal flight skills, too. Skilled-enjoyment is what instruction and stick
time are all about.

My .02-cents.

Bob W.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com

“Skilled Enjoyment� I like that one Bob, and thanks for the post. At least I know someone is tracking with what I am always trying to communicate.

One of the caviats that I probably ought to restate here is that I fly low level for a living, being a duster pilot, and engage in low level turning all day long with very heavy loads and ridiculously high wing loading. So in regards to dealing with low level soaring saves, I do have a pretty big cash of experience with the nuances of low level flying. But that being said, I still very much need to keep highly sharp in my sailplane and that takes lots of “directed� practice. I never fly my 1-26 just to fly, I always have a mission in mind on every flight. Without that, a guy just ends up picking up bad habits, sloppy airmanship, and never progresses. Moffat had it right 50 years ago.
Dan

On Fri, 08 Nov 2019 16:12:28 -0800, uneekcowgirl wrote:

I never fly
my 1-26 just to fly, I always have a mission in mind on every flight.
Without that, a guy just ends up picking up bad habits, sloppy
airmanship, and never progresses. Moffat had it right 50 years ago.

Roger that. Always have something in mind, even if its a mini-triangle:
50-100 km with the field at its centre and have that dialled into your nav
system both to check that out and to keep sharp at hitting turnpoints.

At least, thats what I do. Our field's close proximity to Class D
airspace (5500 overhead our field) and NOTAMed airspace are both good
reasons to always fly with the navsystem freshly updated. About the only
time I fly without these preparations is if its the first flight in the
season or, during winter, to stay current and knowing that even a good
winch launch is very unlikely to get me more than a 15 minute flight.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

On Friday, November 8, 2019 at 10:52:42 AM UTC-8, Dan Marotta wrote:
Not always Harleys.Â* I'd say crotch rockets are a bigger threat from my
observation.Â* I recall a young guy at work who told me he'd ridden his
super bike at 180 mph on I-81 south of Syracuse.Â* I wonder if he's still
alive...

Starting to ride motorcycles in middle age is definitely risky. So is starting to ride motorcycles on public roads at *any* age without first getting a good bit of experience off road and gaining muscle memory in how to handle skids and slides and maximum braking in questionable traction and how to fall off when it's inevitable. All of which is best done while you are young and pliable, but is in any event necessary at any age if you want to survive your first on-road "situation".

180 mph is pretty quick. I've never done that. I've driven a car and ridden a motorcycle at 160 mph on a public road. Not as a matter of habit -- just once each. There's no reason for it to be particularly risky if you pick the right place (straight bit of motorway without exits), time (4 AM midweek), and vehicle. And of course be sober. If it all goes wrong then 80 mph kills you just as dead.

"The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise."
-Publius Tacitus, Book XV

Some things are worth doing. Soaring is one of them.

:-D!!

On 11/10/2019 6:51 AM, wrote:
"The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise."
-Publius Tacitus, Book XV

Some things are worth doing. Soaring is one of them.

--
Dan, 5J

“Oi Vey!�

On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 5:49:22 PM UTC-7, wrote:
For those who haven’t seen it....

https://chessintheair.com/the-risk-o...-what-we-love/

Something that no one addressed is how safe aviation can be. Commercial flight operations, operate under constraints of economics and time schedules, yet the carriers have an outstanding safety record. I never feel safer than when I am flying a helicopter, they don't glide well and every part has to work. Responsibility for safety in soaring and general aviation, largely lays with the pilot and even the choices made before driving to the airport. Every once in a while the breath of a zephyr will take it's fare, but that was always destined to be. After watching many shows of "Air Disaster", "Why Planes Crash"... where the ATP pilots made basic pilotage errors, I will continue to both feel and be safe, flying a glider by merely being a current engaged pilot.

On 11/19/2019 9:24 AM, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 5:49:22 PM UTC-7, wrote:
For those who haven’t seen it....

https://chessintheair.com/the-risk-o...-what-we-love/
Something that no one addressed is how safe aviation can be. Commercial flight operations, operate under constraints of economics and time schedules, yet the carriers have an outstanding safety record. I never feel safer than when I am flying a helicopter, they don't glide well and every part has to work. Responsibility for safety in soaring and general aviation, largely lays with the pilot and even the choices made before driving to the airport. Every once in a while the breath of a zephyr will take it's fare, but that was always destined to be. After watching many shows of "Air Disaster", "Why Planes Crash"... where the ATP pilots made basic pilotage errors, I will continue to both feel and be safe, flying a glider by merely being a current engaged pilot.


....And continuing to exercise good airmanship.Â* It seems to me that
most, if not all, of the fatal accidents are the result of poor
airmanship.Â* There is usually a series of poor decisions leading up to
the accident and, when the accident is survived, the pilot usually makes
excuses for what happened rather than accepting the blame for his
decisions.Â* I salute the gent who admitted to bad decisions leading to
his crash in the Nevada desert after passing many safe options.Â* There's
only so many times you can poke the bear before you get bit.Â* (Bad
grammar intended).
--
Dan, 5J