Hard Deck

The RC did partially address flying too close to clouds, at least pre start.. The top of the start gate is supposed to be set 500 feet below cloudbase. CDs don't frequently follow the guidance. Out on course.. well, there is no way to do this as simple as the hard deck. And, let's not invent problems that aren't there. In the wispies before start is indeed a problem. There have not been any accidents due to misbehavior of this sort on course, nor any charges that people are winning contests by seriously dangerous behavior. Not perfect, but let's leave well enough alone.

Where this is contentious is the ban on cloud flying instruments. Start a new thread if we want to tear that one up some more.

John Cochrane

On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 12:00:05 PM UTC-7, Jim White wrote:
Time to change the subject line?

I have been thinking about the hard deck idea. Possibly fine in flat land
soaring but I am not sure it adds much when ridge flying.

I perceive another problem: Turbos are even more dangerous near the ground
than pure gliders. I may be happy in my 27 at 500ft but in a turbo?

Setting a 1000ft deck because that is safer for turbos will take away the
advantage that real gliders have in this zone. Many pure pilots would say
this advantage goes some of the way to make up for the additional
opportunities turbo pilots have in competition.

Setting a turbo deck for everyone will force everyone to go to the dark
side!

Jim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXFaPNqKtS8

Was just sent the above link. The 19:00-minute mark starts a good discussion.

A low airspeed skidding turn below 200 agl followed with a stall/spin will result in a hard, nose down ground thump. I did watch the entire clip, but no mention that our contests represent any additional danger to these type accidents(might have missed that).
They also speak of stress and how that may play a part, with other thoughts.. Good review. They do encourage more safety discussion's on all of our parts which is a good thing. Helps keep many in the safety loop.


Best. Tom. #711.

"A few years ago, the RC invited local OLC pilots gather one evening during the RC meeting. The anecdotal evidence is that the most active OLC pilots decline to race for reasons that seem quite different from Erik's survey, so I for one would be interested in learning more form a broader group of OLC (or other XC) pilots. "

I have raced in several disciplines over the years- Professional drag racing in Funny Cars, roadracing motorcycles and sports cars, motocross and dirt track etc., and the one thing these had in common was that the course is the same for all competitors. And you can actually SEE it!

When I transitioned into aviation sports (hang gliding and now soaring), I discovered to my delight (and sometimes dismay) that the course simply isn't the same for everybody and changing conditions are far more likely to reward (or punish) choices that are made if you do not or cannot recognize these changes.

Organized soaring competitions are based on guessing on a set of weather conditions and setting a task early in the day, and then coming up with a valid task for competition. I am basically flying for fun, and the tasks that are set in advance often conflict with my desire to just fly and enjoy myself. A task that takes me into areas of mediocre conditions, when obviously better flying is to be had in another direction is what I like about flying OLC vs. organized competition.

If a cloudstreet sets up 90 degrees to what would have been a task leg, I would prefer to take the opportunity to extend my flight, as opposed to following the assigned course. I often tell people who ask why I don't enter competitions that I am fully capable of making all the wrong decisions I need without the help of a Competition Director or Task Committee.

Don't get me wrong; I have the highest respect for competition pilots and the serious racing decisions they need to make to participate in a very demanding environment. It just isn't my cup of tea (or mug of beer.)

OLC competition allows me and even encourages me to push my X-C skills beyond merely staying aloft and avoiding yardwork. I have flown over 80,000 km in the last six years, and the OLC was the driving impetus. I enjoy my flying, but have no particular desire to enter into organized soaring competition, as I do not enjoy the sometimes intense personalities (although many other personalities are a great load of fun!). The lack of freedom in making my own decisions (good or bad) also plays a major role in my decision to avoid contest flying.

And finally, I think that the three hour tasks are basically a waste of the day, when soaring conditions can last eight hours or more in the summer. Milling around for an hour waiting for the gate to open and then hauling ass for three hours, leaving several hours of prime conditions unused seems, well, maybe not criminal, but certainly irresponsible when yardwork looms over your head.

Then again, at least organized competition forces you to leave your yardwork behind because of the need to travel to the contest site. ("Honey, I would just love to de-thatch the lawn and spread a truckload of fertilizer with you, but I have already sent in the entry fee for the Region 77 Qualifier, Beer Drinking Contest and Barbecue Evaluation Seminar. You wouldn't want me to miss out on that, would you? Oh, wait! Maybe you should come along! It will be fun!)

Here is a little rambling rant I wanted to get off my mind:
This has been a very interesting thread with a lot of good information and statistics put forth.
What this has driven home for me is, really, how dangerous this sport of cross country sailplane flying really is. It is hard to attract new pilots to this cross country aspect of Soaring because it is a reality that landing off airport is so dangerous in alot of areas we fly. I'm only familiar with the area west of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, never been gliding in the east or the midwest or the south. I mainly fly out of Salida, Parowan, Nephi and Ely and at my home site of Telluride. In 20 + years of going cross country in a sailplane I have only put it into a field once, flying out of Logan, and it was a unworked semi clearing that was really rough. I was surprised that my glider was OK after I got out, super rough.
That makes me think that's why alot of Pilots don't really like assigned tasks, unless there carefully designed to fly airport to airport. As several posts have made clear for various reasons off airport landings are SO dangerous. Look at Blairstown's statistics, scary.
TAT days at least give you a choice on where to go as far as safety is concerned.
One particularly crazy area we send pilots on competition tasks IMHO is the area SE out of Parowan between Cedar City and Kanab, over Zion National park. I have been so scared out there several times. You go down in there and you are going to get killed, for sure. Yet they call tasks over it. Sure you can go around it, but it is a long way around, but you do have that choice of course.
This hard deck proposal that started this thread has turned out to be fairly complex. Another layer of rules when we are trying to get away from more rules.
It is clear that alot of nasty accidents are caused by pilots desperate not to land out in a field. Circling very low and trying not to land, and then either stalling and spinning or blowing the approach. I am guilty of this low level circling too. Last year out of Nephi I had a very low save over the Yuba Reservoir while setting up to land. It was a long series of events that led to me being a couple of hundred feet off the ground going into a unknown potential landing site, on the dirt road going into the reservoir.It looked doable from the air but who knows, all I thought was road landings often go bad. Baby Jesus got me out of that one.
I don't think any new rule is going to change this behavior. Us guys that are still alive have to be as careful as possible. Cross Country Soaring is super fun when its going well, bombing down cloudstreets at 17K with your friends is the best, but we have to remember that when close to the ground, you are one, quick, easy to make mistake from getting killed.
Keep the speed up and be careful, especially when close to the ground, either taking off, ridge soaring or landing.
And try to stay of of those fields that you don't know about first hand.

In some respects, please don't pick on Blairstown. I have know quite a few that have flown/still fly there. There have been, mostly the last few years, a few real "hard chargers" willing to do some things that I have an issue with.
When they talk to lower time XC pilots and basically say, "oh yeh, sure, suck it up at this transition and you will likely make it.....".
I have seen some local threads by some of these hard chargers and comments on what they consider a decent landing option.
Welllllll......yessssss........that spot is likely better than trees, but marginally so. Even me, with some places I have successfully landed, looked at some of these proposed options and said, "WTF!"?

So maybe a couple peeps with a high tolerance to major risk (usually in someone else's glider) says, fine, go for it, may be setting a poor example.
In general, I wouldn't say Blairstown is high risk.
FWIW......

Amen, Rick. Great sensible words.

For this hard deck scheme to work (land off airport if below a certain agl altitude) a major penalty would need to be imposed for not doing so. Simply "landing" the pilot at the low spot would give the same score as climbing away and returning to the evening meal at the airport. Who's going to pass up a climb out marked by a bird, vario or whatever thus avoiding all the dangers of an outlanding when there is no advantage to doing so?

KS

On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 9:39:29 PM UTC-5, Karl Striedieck wrote:
For this hard deck scheme to work (land off airport if below a certain agl altitude) a major penalty would need to be imposed for not doing so. Simply "landing" the pilot at the low spot would give the same score as climbing away and returning to the evening meal at the airport. Who's going to pass up a climb out marked by a bird, vario or whatever thus avoiding all the dangers of an outlanding when there is no advantage to doing so?

KS

my point exactly Karl! the hard deck does nothing to prevent pilots from attempting climb-outs.

If the idea is to discourage low saves because of the potential for stall/spin at a low altitude and not wanting to encourage risk for points. Fine we are trying to save lives. After the scored landout the pilot figures to dig out and fly home. While trying the glider augurs in, ship destroyed and pilot dead. How is this different than taking the same risk for points is on the contest and if after the scored landout the pilot decides to take the same risk to get home but this is okay because they died trying to avoid inconvenience and not gather a few points. The death is not on the contest but the PIC's poor decision? Taking risks is always relative and even with data the number of deaths from botching a low save are so few compared to other aspects of the flight (starts and finishes) trying to regulate for such low probability is a waste of effort.

It seems like the pilots were injured screwing up the landings. If we want safer contests we should stop debating rules to stop minuscule aspects of the sport and put real effort into teaching pilots how to safely land the glider in unfamiliar territory.

Too often pilots land at home and roll up to the trailer for convenience. Maybe landing in such a way to simulate an off field landing and suffer the inconvenience of having to get the ship with a golf cart might help. A club mate trying to save time decided to land long and roll back to the departure. Glidervended up across the raid in a ditch. No damage or injury but prevenatable and stupid.

Every time we fly we are training ourselves how to act in a situation. Convenience should NEVER enter into our decision making process but when pilots routinely land at home with convenience in mind it becomes part of the equation.

We, the Soaring community, need more and better training much more then rules.

OK.......simple example.......
The Elmira/HHSC "Snowbird" contest.
No cross country.
The rules are mostly based on "exact time" and "spot landing/parking".
Some minor bonus points for altitude gain (although this may mean pilots are doing spins back down to gain more accumulated altitude points, which may be a tie breaker....yes, I have done this.)

Over many years (decades) this has been fine tuned, emphasizing "energy management" to cover the first 2 goals (time and spot landing/parking).

Yes, I am biased......having done well over the years, my group (Valley Soaring in Middletown, NY) as well as personal.
Interesting to see the peeps that are used to, "land wherever, roll to wherever, push it to where we want" vs., "practice putting into a field" which to me is a major part of the goal.
I believe many "long time flyers" as well as CFIG-s at our field drill this into students and above, all the time.

When I was an active CFI-G, part of the private test was, "landing, stopping within 200', but not past, of a predetermined mark".
I read that as, "I could land rather fast, roll 1/2 mile, stop within 200' but don't go by it".
Sorta poor training.

You can search for the Snowbird rules, there should be a link to the "landing portion" for scoring.
Should give some here some pause.

While waiting late to decide to land is poor judgement, not really knowing how to put the aircraft "exactly" where you want when you want is a major recipe for broken bits.
Taken from someone that has helped FIX broken bits later as well as watch pilots wait until their broken bits mend (assuming they survived in the first place, been there as well.....sigh....).

I won't weigh in on whether any "hard deck" will Improve crash/death numbers, I will say it won't really make a difference to me.
I have been "too low before", but no clue on when that decision could have been made. At least a few times, crap happened with weather/geography that I totally missed and I was in a bad spot.
Points didn't matter, not breaking the sailplane was paramount. Sailplane not broken, worst I had was soiled underwear.

So please, read the scoring for the HHSC Snowbird, ask yourself, "How do I think I would do?".
As an aside, on a good weekend, if you are NOT scoring around 950+ points/flight, you are looking at 4th or lower.



PS, I should answer the question in another active thread, last 20 or so contest years (went up from 10 since I have not been real active recently), worst glider damage was torn gear door hinges in a 20 landing in a potato field. Glider was flying the next day. Foliage stains are not counted as damage.
Hoping I don't do anything real stupid in the foreseeable future......doing my best, hoping to guide others along the way.