ELT's Personal vs Installed

Hmmm...in my case a mounted ELT would have, at best, a 5% chance
of activating in the best case.

This is because I have flown 20 gliders without ELTs in the
past 2 years. A single mounted ELT in one of them would have
done little for me except ground the aircraft while it
was installed.

On the other hand, my personal ELT has been with me on every single
glider flight out of the pattern. And I've activated it four times.

Eric Greenwell wrote:

My imprecise recollection is pilots that parachute out are generally
found a lot quicker than pilots that crash, probably because they
survive and use the radio, cell phone, etc. For this reason, I decided a
mounted ELT would do me, my wife, and search personnel more good than a
personal one.
--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd

How about setting up a rescue fund? Require pilots without
ELTs to donate $300 each year in order to fly in a contest.

What, maybe a few hundred contest pilots. If half
don't use ELTs, then $60,000 would go a long way towards
a rescue search.

And you read Colin's post about 2 aircraft found that
had ELTs and transponders, to no avail.

With 6 fatalities a year on average in all glider
flying, it looks like 1 or 2 per year at most are
during a contest. And of these, 0 or 1 require a search.

If I were a contest pilot, I would certainly like the option
of shelling the $300 instead of just not flying at all.
At least $300 towards a "search and rescue fund" would go
towards a good cause. I'd prefer this to the requirement of
installing a nuisance maker in my glider.

Yes, I've had one accidental activation and been hunted down
("impact" of a backpack nudging an ELT in a 172).
And I've had a CAP guy hunt down an inadvertently activated
personal ELT on an ALSE (aviation life support equipment)
vest.

Also, how long do you think it will be before the FAA requires
EVERY installed ELT to be the expensive kind? 2010? That's
my guess...

Suggesting, prodding, and encouraging contest pilots to
have some kind of ELT sounds great. Requiring it is another matter.
It sure adds to safety, in the same way as sawing off a potential
contestant's wings right before flight. If they don't fly, they won't
be injured or killed in flight. Say, why not just have the BBQ and
forego the whole flying business anyway? $300 from each
contestant buys a LOT of beans and weenies...

The statistic I'm most interested in is:

How many times would an ELT installation in a glider have
resulted in life instead of death for a pilot? If the answer
is "once" and the cost is $4,000,000 then I will go with the findings
of the NTSB about requiring child car seats in airliners.

They found that the estimated cost would be so great that
it was virtually pointless. They actually recommended that the
same amount of money would save hundreds of times as
many childrens lives if it was used to publicize the dangers of
venetian blind cords as a household strangulation
hazard.

Perhaps instead of an ELT, or even a "rescue fund," we should
all take $300 and mail it to J.R. for nicoderm patches and
encourage her to stop smoking

Just kidding, J.R.! We love you and hope you live a long, long time


P.S. By the way, what does "reducio ad absurdum" mean? My wife said it
to me, but I don't speak Italian...can someone translate?

Sure would be nice if the RC would allow the individual to make the
decision as to what he/she thinks is best. If the RC makes a
recommendation, that is certainly understandable.

Mark Keene

--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd

Mark James Boyd wrote:
...
P.S. By the way, what does "reducio ad absurdum" mean? My wife said it
to me, but I don't speak Italian...can someone translate?
...

This is not Italian, this is Latin and should be spelled "reductio ad absurdum"
(with a "t"). The litteral translation, as you can guess is "reducing to nonsense",
a method often used in mathematical proofs which consist in assuming that the
opposite of what you want to prove is true and deducing from that some contradiction
(absurdity or "absurdum" in Latin).

Coulda been raddichio ad absurdum--the grocers' practice of charging a
ridiculous price for cabbage of a different color.

"root" wrote in message
...
Mark James Boyd wrote:
...
P.S. By the way, what does "reducio ad absurdum" mean? My wife said it
to me, but I don't speak Italian...can someone translate?
...

This is not Italian, this is Latin and should be spelled "reductio ad
absurdum"
(with a "t"). The litteral translation, as you can guess is "reducing to
nonsense",
a method often used in mathematical proofs which consist in assuming that
the
opposite of what you want to prove is true and deducing from that some
contradiction
(absurdity or "absurdum" in Latin).

At 22:00 19 January 2005, Mark James Boyd wrote:

all the good stuff chopped out

P.S. By the way, what does 'reducio ad absurdum' mean?
My wife said it
to me, but I don't speak Italian...can someone translate?

------------+
Mark J. Boyd


Mark, Why didn't you ask HER?

Some of the other members of this newsgroup know:

My wife doesn't speak Italian, Yiddish, or Latin
Minden, California isn't, and I know that (right Al?)

:P

On the flip side, I did find out "reductio etc." referred
to a proof by contradiction, which I did not know.
And I know a lot more about the price of radishes, too...

This shows that sometimes when I ask a question about something
I recall from Latin class 20 years ago, I may
find out something new...

;O

In article ,
Nyal Williams wrote:
At 22:00 19 January 2005, Mark James Boyd wrote:

all the good stuff chopped out

P.S. By the way, what does 'reducio ad absurdum' mean?
My wife said it
to me, but I don't speak Italian...can someone translate?

------------+
Mark J. Boyd


Mark, Why didn't you ask HER?





--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd

Actually it's "Reductio ad absurdum" (with a 't').

http://www.iep.utm.edu/r/reductio.htm

"Nyal Williams" wrote in message
...
At 22:00 19 January 2005, Mark James Boyd wrote:

all the good stuff chopped out

P.S. By the way, what does 'reducio ad absurdum' mean?
My wife said it
to me, but I don't speak Italian...can someone translate?

------------+
Mark J. Boyd


Mark, Why didn't you ask HER?