Hard Deck

On Fri, 02 Feb 2018 11:11:24 -0800, Papa3 wrote:

So the question is - what exactly would a hard deck solve? More
importantly, what other unintended behaviors will it drive, and at what
cost in complexity of administration etc. My take is that it's a
solution looking for the wrong problem to solve.

After reading those accounts of poorly executed field landings I got
curious about what is covered in all phases of the US Bronze badge
curriculum and found that its very similar to what we're taught in the UK
apart from one group of skills which are not included in your Bronze:

- navigation using a 1:500,000 chart (that is similar to a US sectional)
- field selection
- field landing

These are all discussed and then flown with an instructor. You need them
signed off to get the Bronze XC Endorsement but they aren't pass/fail
checks: you fly them until both student and instructor are satisfied with
the student's performance in a TMG: I, like many UK XC pilots, did them
in an SF-25 Scheibe, which has reasonably good airbrakes and, with a bit
of power added, can simulate a 32:1 glider. Here's a summary of what's
involved:

http://www.motorglide.co.uk/cross-country-endorsement/

... and a video of it being done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAOCd18Bv8Y

Would something like this be helpful and/or possible in US clubs? It
should certainly help the confidence of a new XC pilot facing his first
one or two field landings.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

Dude, this is RAS......logic is hard to find at times......

/sarcasm......

Says the guy that has done stupid stuff at times and tries to make sure others/students don't do the same........

Thanks for the numbers.

One logical conclusion: Therefore, not giving contest points for racing under 500-1000 feet will have negligible effects on the sporting outcome of the contest.

John Cochrane

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 4:59:31 PM UTC-5, John Cochrane wrote:
Thanks for the numbers.

One logical conclusion: Therefore, not giving contest points for racing under 500-1000 feet will have negligible effects on the sporting outcome of the contest.

John Cochrane

That's what I was thinking. If it basically never happens (more data would be nice), there's little to no cost in terms of contest results. Would be interesting to look at some of those mass landout hopeless WGC days (I'm sure BB remembers Szeged!) to see if those with lower minimums really benefited. After I recover maybe I'll give that a shot. I hope no one has lowered their minimum to 100 ft based on this thread, then this was all for nothing!

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 7:12:53 AM UTC-5, wrote:
If we can control the usable airspace, let's make racing extremely fair so everyone uses the same air. We can have the CD create airspace "hallways" a few miles wide which connect each TP. Since we can detect where everyone is we can legislate the direction of travel within each hallway to avoid the mayhem of two way traffic.

Just because we have the ability to do something doesn't mean we have to do it. Safety rules should not be put into place to keep someone from killing themselves. Safety rules should prevent someone from taking others with them.

Someone augurs in because of "x" it really sucks. If the same "x" takes an innocent pilot or someone on the ground with them it is tragic.

Absolutely right!

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 2:44:27 PM UTC-8, Clay wrote:
On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 4:59:31 PM UTC-5, John Cochrane wrote:
Thanks for the numbers.

One logical conclusion: Therefore, not giving contest points for racing under 500-1000 feet will have negligible effects on the sporting outcome of the contest.

John Cochrane

That's what I was thinking. If it basically never happens (more data would be nice), there's little to no cost in terms of contest results. Would be interesting to look at some of those mass landout hopeless WGC days (I'm sure BB remembers Szeged!) to see if those with lower minimums really benefited. After I recover maybe I'll give that a shot. I hope no one has lowered their minimum to 100 ft based on this thread, then this was all for nothing!

It would be interesting to see that analysis done over a wider group. To keep from doing too much work, I'd think that all pilots, on slow days (particularly when there were a high percentage landouts) would be enough. Faster days when everyone made it back are unlikely to have low saves, or if there were, the problem was more specific to the pilot than the contest.

I didn't get the whole part of this thread on winners. We pretty much know who the top 5 of any contest are going in to it. And accidents seem spread pretty evenly across the scoresheet.

The amazing thing to me as a constant safety guy is just how many risks I see guys in 26th place taking for a few more points. Ballistic trajectory over the last trees to make the airport and get a rolling finish. Flying through thunderstorms. Flying low over totally unlandable terrain. Last minute landouts often coming to grief. Flying 200 feet in to the clouds in start gaggles. Past VNE starts, back in those good old days. Aggressive gaggling. The land-out "patterns" described in the safety reports. Endless very low energy scary finishes back when we had the line (50 feet, 50 knots, middle of the airport is not a great place to be). Flying after all night retrieves and 2 hours sleep. Flying gliders with home-brew repairs after contest damage. None of these pilots does anything nearly so nuts in weekend xc flying..

Yes you say, give them a lecture to stop it, it's not worth it, you're not going to climb out of 26th place this way. And we have been giving that lecture for 50 years, with no discernible result. What do they say about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

Meanwhile, when we put in a low speed start system and higher finishes, those crashes ended.

John Cochrane

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 6:11:23 PM UTC-5, John Cochrane wrote:
Meanwhile, when we put in a low speed start system and higher finishes, those crashes ended.

We can debate the finish gate (actually, let's not!). But I've gotta question what data you have on high-speed start crashes. I didn't see any in your PPT (I'm not sure when we ditched the start gate but it was still around for at least part of your study period).

I only recall two. One in Minden in the 1970s caused (IIRC) by not locking the main pins so they ratcheted out and departed the fuselage (pilot bailed out successfully). The other was a PIO at Fairfield in the late 90s (?) when a handheld radio got loose in the cockpit and the pilot reached for it, losing control of the glider and departing the cockpit through the hole in the canopy created by the errant radio (also a successful bailout).

Oh, and I'm told there was a pilot who fluttered an early ASW 20 elevator in the 1980s and landed uneventfully to discover some internal damage in the control system.

High-speed starts always sounded lethal whenever CAI and the then Rules Committee were trying to justify mandating GPS flight recorders. Everyone just KNEW high-speed starts were dangerous! To me that's analogous to your average bystander thinking it simply must be dangerous to fly an aircraft without an engine.

I've actually been a lot more uncomfortable on the edge of start cylinders winding around in a gaggle faster and faster with half a dozen gliders all trying to stay a few feet below the top, watching the clock, looking out for at least half a dozen more orbiting in a different part of thermal plus another half dozen bumping the thermal on their way out of the cylinder. A few feet too high? No problem with the gate: just push over on your start run a little sooner. With the cylinder, get the brakes out and ease back down through the gaggle, but not too low, while watching the clock again. I'm not sure that's progress in terms of safety. Nothing comes for free. At least with the start gate, we knew precisely where the start traffic would be.

It's those unintended consequences again.

Chip Bearden

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 4:59:31 PM UTC-5, John Cochrane wrote:
Thanks for the numbers.

One logical conclusion: Therefore, not giving contest points for racing under 500-1000 feet will have negligible effects on the sporting outcome of the contest.

John Cochrane


John is absolutely right - we ought to implement a bunch of similarly useless rules. Just a few that leap to mind:

- 100 pt penalty for running with wing-tape scissors.
- 50 pt penalty for failure to yield to traffic approaching from the right while gridding
- 500 pt penalty plus public shaming for any pilot caught wearing white shoes at a contest before Memorial Day or after Labor Day.