Anti Collision Warning

Statistics are like lamposts, more for illumination
than leaning on.

The Mark Twain quote is:

Most people use statistics the way a drunk uses a lamppost:
more for support than for illumination.

Thank you Tony, no offence meant to Mark Twain :-)
a fine writer.

At 18:54 04 May 2004, Tony Verhulst wrote:

Statistics are like lamposts, more for illumination
than leaning on.

The Mark Twain quote is:

Most people use statistics the way a drunk uses a lamppost:
more for support than for illumination.

It is distressing that my name keeps getting carried over with a bunch
of comments I did not make. It appears from my accidental inclusion
(as my comments at the beginning of this thread have no statistics nor
references to age)in this diatribe that I have an ax to grind with
aging glider pilots while those who know me realize that I am a member
of this very group.

jeff

Don Johnstone wrote in message ...
Dear Michel

Over 90% of people who go into Old Peoples Homes die
there
Over 80% of people die in bed
Over 30% of people who go into hospital die

To live you need to avoid going into hospital, going
to bed or going into a home.
You are right older people do fly more they have more
time they are likely to have more accidents through
that factor alone. This argument is not likely to
be won by ageist ramblings.

Statistics are like lamposts, more for illumination
than leaning on.



At 16:48 04 May 2004, Michel Talon wrote:
Robert Ehrlich wrote:
Michel Talon wrote:

Jeff Dorwart wrote:


Let me mention an important factor here, the age of
the pilot.
I have constated on myself that as one ages, the field
of vision
becomes narrower, not to mention that attention is
not of the same
quality, reflexes become poor, etc. This could well
be one of the most
important factors at play here. Sooaring is much much
bettre fitted to
young people in excellent health and doing a lot of
sports (i mean
sports like squash) than to old people.


But mostly old people have the time and money for
gliding. In my
personal case, I am well aware of my declining capabilities,
but
I think the lot of free time I can (and do) devote
to gliding
compensates for that, i.e. if I had started gliding
betweeen
15 and 50, I would have been flying less than 50 hours
per
year (now over 200) and this factor overrides the
decline due
to age.

I don't think so. I remarked that a fair number of
people whom i
learnt killed themselves soaring, were 'well known
famous' pilots,
flying a lot, but getting older. And, yes, since the
soaring pilots
population is indeed getting older, thanks to the effect
you mention
(time and money), it could well be that the number
of accidents
augment, if this theory is true, of course.


--

Michel TALON

The BRS website lists the Russia AC-4 and the Mechta as aircraft they
have mounted the BRS system into. I have been unable to track down
the specific aircraft involved.

jeff

(Andy Durbin) wrote in message om...
Dave Martin wrote in message
An in built parachute with automatic deployment would
surely help. Tests have been carried out and shown
to work.


Manually deployed built-in parachutes have been tested and shown to
work in controlled conditions. I am not aware that anyone has
developed or demonstrated an automatic deployment parachute for
gliders.

Schleicher offered a ballistic chute option in the marketing brochures
for the ASW-28. As far as I know it was never an available option. I
heard the testing showed problems. Anyone know details.


Andy

Don Johnstone wrote:

snip

I am sorry if my opion offends and seems negative but
the answer to this problem is a human one, better education,
better training, better awareness of the problem and
potential hazards and perhaps even a change in the
way we view flying close to each other.

Don, I'm not offended by your opinion - I just don't understand it.
Better everything would be, well... better - but it's a goal that has
existed forever and it hasn't answered the problem yet. Perfect
education, perfect training, perfect awareness, etc. would be an answer,
but it's just not available. Lets be honest with ourselves - in the
real world of jobs, families, weather, and long commutes to the
gliderport all of those betters are just *not* going to happen, at least
not in any systemic way.

My subjective view is that the majority of collisions
take place between aircraft that know exactly where
the other aircraft is yet still manage to make contact.
This is certainly true of the military who as I said
earlier are the only other significant organisation
that encourage aircraft to fly close together. I really
don't see how another gadget in the cockpit can help
unless it is very sophisticated indeed.

Let's try on another analogy and see how it fits - automobiles.
Hundreds of modestly-trained individuals moving in tight formation,
passing within a meter of one another, closure rates of 200+ kph, etc.
Horribly complex to analyze, and no system has yet been invented that
will recognize a bad situation and reliably guide the driver out of it.
Thankfully, rather than say "can't be done - let's have some more
driver education" the auto industry has provided any number of safety
"gadgets" such as airbags, anti-lock brakes, traction control, proximity
radar, and on and on. For each individual gadget there are plenty of
straw-man situations that can be conjectured for which the gadget
doesn't help, but of much greater significance are the lives saved in
situations where the gadget *did* help.

No one advocating the FLARM or other hypothetical system thinks it can
safely guide a pilot out of *all* possible collision situations - let's
stop debating it's usefulness in a 40-ship gaggle. Can we agree that
there are *some* or perhaps *many* situations where it could help, and
were it available and widely deployed today at least *some* of this
year's mid-airs might have been avoided.

I'd buy one.

Dave

Pour nous, l'accident serais de morir dans un lit.

"Don Johnstone" wrote in
message ...
Dear Michel

Over 90% of people who go into Old Peoples Homes die
there
Over 80% of people die in bed
Over 30% of people who go into hospital die

To live you need to avoid going into hospital, going
to bed or going into a home.
You are right older people do fly more they have more
time they are likely to have more accidents through
that factor alone. This argument is not likely to
be won by ageist ramblings.

Statistics are like lamposts, more for illumination
than leaning on.

303pilot wrote:

Pour nous, l'accident serais de morir dans un lit.

Plutôt "mourir".

Texas accent....
"Robert Ehrlich" wrote in message
...
303pilot wrote:

Pour nous, l'accident serais de morir dans un lit.

Plutôt "mourir".

(Jeff) wrote in message . com...
The BRS website lists the Russia AC-4 and the Mechta as aircraft they
have mounted the BRS system into. I have been unable to track down
the specific aircraft involved.



My reply was intended to contest the statement that *automatic* built
in chutes have been tested and shown to work. Do you believe these
BRS installations offer *automatic* deployment? If so, under what
circumstances do they automatically deploy?

I'd be interested in one that required manual operation and worked
with the glider in an inverted spin, or other severe unusual attitude
resulting from a structural failure. The one I wear on my back will
if I'm not incapacitated.

It would be technically possible to wire a firing circuit through the
wing tips and horizontal stab such that a discontinuity in the circuit
caused by loss of any of the major parts of the glider would cause the
chute to fire. Better be careful to disarm it though before derig.

Andy

303pilot wrote:

Texas accent....
"Robert Ehrlich" wrote in message
...
303pilot wrote:

Pour nous, l'accident serais de morir dans un lit.

Plutôt "mourir".

Et aussi plutôt (also rather) "serait".