Put your money where the risk is

“I make my own luck�. I like that, I think I will use that line on my wife the next time a friend dies in a glider accident.

2G wrote on 11/28/2019 4:50 PM:
When someone once told me that I was lucky in life, I replied "I make my own luck."

This is, I think, an example of thinking that can lead to an erosion of margins.
If you soar, you are exposed to things like weather and other pilots that you do
not completely control. I think "stuff happens" and the best I can do is adjust my
margins so that my skill can cope with bad stuff.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 6:51:36 PM UTC-8, wrote:
“I make my own luck�. I like that, I think I will use that line on my wife the next time a friend dies in a glider accident.

You better credit me if you do.

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 7:23:16 PM UTC-8, Eric Greenwell wrote:
2G wrote on 11/28/2019 4:50 PM:
When someone once told me that I was lucky in life, I replied "I make my own luck."

This is, I think, an example of thinking that can lead to an erosion of margins.
If you soar, you are exposed to things like weather and other pilots that you do
not completely control. I think "stuff happens" and the best I can do is adjust my
margins so that my skill can cope with bad stuff.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

Hardly, what it means is that you are proactively, instead of passively, involved in all things that effect your life and business. So, this means INCREASING your margins on glide calculations, or NOT flying in iffy weather, rather than depending upon "luck" to get you thru as Masak did. The entire point is NOT depending upon "luck" which is a euphemism for ****-poor planning. You can't control everything that is happening around you, but you can as best prepared as humanly possible.

Tom

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 5:31:30 PM UTC-8, 2G wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 11:57:58 AM UTC-8, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 9:49:10 AM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Wednesday, November 27, 2019 at 6:07:47 PM UTC-8, 2G wrote:

I did - 20 years worth. Read every last one of the fatals and a lot of the major damage ones as part of an article I wrote for Soaring. I can give you a full statistical rundown as well - by phase of flight, type of glider, region of the country, contest/XC flight vs local, etc.

I think you mis-understood me. A pilot makes hundreds to thousands of in-flight maneuvers every flight hour. Almost all of them executed without incident. Many of them are made based on presumptions about what the airmass, pilot workload, traffic situation, aircraft response and physical/mental capabilities of the pilot are likely to be over the next N seconds. Most of the time the consequences of being a bit wrong on where you are in the probability distribution of all of the above doesn't matter, but sometimes it does. You can attempt to move where you are in the probability distribution of unexpected bad things by increasing your margins, but it's not a panacea.

I would speculate that many of the stall/spin accidents I've seen in the mountains had a fair amount to do with the airmass not doing what the pilot expected. You can say - well, don't fly in the mountains! I think that's not especially helpful. An awful lot of final glides gone bad are the result of persistent sink that exceeded the pilot expectation plus whatever buffer he had. I personally interviewed a number of midair-involved pilots and I can tell you that even with a very good scan your odds of picking up an aircraft on a collision course (particularly if it's head-to-head) is about 50/50. Your fovea just isn't big enough for the closing velocities of aircraft. The Air Force, NASA and various air safety bodies around the world have studied it to death and that's the rough number they come up with. That's one reason we have Flarm - you can't train yourself to have a bigger fovea.

You can call all of that poor airmanship if you want, but I think you're whistling past the graveyard a bit.

Andy

Andy,

I recommend that you do what I did: review ALL of the fatal glider accidents for the last two years and get back to me. Hint: those accidents did not fall into the 0.01% category.

Tom

The air in which we fly is not uniform, sometimes not even honest. Peter Masak, was a great pilot. He met fate flying in an area and conditions he was familiar with. While I did not view his GPS trace I did speak with a pilot whom did. Nothing unusual noted in the GPS. You can stall at any speed and any attitude. We have seen this in the Sierra's. Andy's right on about the stall/spin accidents, sometimes there are other factors. One of the things I worked with a XC student I had was noticing and calling out changes in airmass. Sailors are particularly attuned to this.

Masak's accident was a CFIT, the most avoidable of all accidents. This occurred in a contest when he was trying to clear a ridge with a suitable landing field within reach. Every other pilot in the contest did not attempt this. Bottom line: there IS NO contest worth dying over; after all, we are not at war.
https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/Re...Final&IType=LA

Tom

I beg to differ. Peter's mishap was a stall spin, just after a sharp turn away from a ridge.

Tom, actually I completely agree with you that good risk management will definitely improve ones odds. It will not, however, change your “luck�. (Luck management) is kind of an oxymoron.
Some of us feel, based on our experience, that often it seems “Fate is the Hunter� . Luck being pretty much the same as Fate sans the higher power. You feel that poor airmanship is the principal cause of fatal accidents. Both reasonable positions. Both impossible to prove.
Peace

Dale

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 12:49:10 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Wednesday, November 27, 2019 at 6:07:47 PM UTC-8, 2G wrote:

I think you mis-understood me. A pilot makes hundreds to thousands of in-flight maneuvers every flight hour. Almost all of them executed without incident. Many of them are made based on presumptions about what the airmass, pilot workload, traffic situation, aircraft response and physical/mental capabilities of the pilot are likely to be over the next N seconds. Most of the time the consequences of being a bit wrong on where you are in the probability distribution of all of the above doesn't matter, but sometimes it does. You can attempt to move where you are in the probability distribution of unexpected bad things by increasing your margins, but it's not a panacea.

I would speculate that many of the stall/spin accidents I've seen in the mountains had a fair amount to do with the airmass not doing what the pilot expected. You can say - well, don't fly in the mountains! I think that's not especially helpful. An awful lot of final glides gone bad are the result of persistent sink that exceeded the pilot expectation plus whatever buffer he had. I personally interviewed a number of midair-involved pilots and I can tell you that even with a very good scan your odds of picking up an aircraft on a collision course (particularly if it's head-to-head) is about 50/50. Your fovea just isn't big enough for the closing velocities of aircraft. The Air Force, NASA and various air safety bodies around the world have studied it to death and that's the rough number they come up with. That's one reason we have Flarm - you can't train yourself to have a bigger fovea.

You can call all of that poor airmanship if you want, but I think you're whistling past the graveyard a bit.

Andy


Well said, Andy.

I recall reading this article in Soaring magazine about rogue thermals:

http://ourdigitalmags.com/publication/index.php?i=226120&m=&l=&p=28&pre=&ver=html5#{%22p age%22:26,%22issue_id%22:226120}

We can make SOME of our own luck....but not all of it.

Ben Ethridge
CFI-I/MEI (retired)

2G wrote on 11/28/2019 7:49 PM:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 7:23:16 PM UTC-8, Eric Greenwell wrote:
2G wrote on 11/28/2019 4:50 PM:
When someone once told me that I was lucky in life, I replied "I make my own luck."

This is, I think, an example of thinking that can lead to an erosion of margins.
If you soar, you are exposed to things like weather and other pilots that you do
not completely control. I think "stuff happens" and the best I can do is adjust my
margins so that my skill can cope with bad stuff.


Hardly, what it means is that you are proactively, instead of passively, involved in all things that effect your life and business. So, this means INCREASING your margins on glide calculations, or NOT flying in iffy weather, rather than depending upon "luck" to get you thru as Masak did. The entire point is NOT depending upon "luck" which is a euphemism for ****-poor planning. You can't control everything that is happening around you, but you can as best prepared as humanly possible.

Neither Ramy, Dale, or I depend on luck to protect us, and I very much doubt that
Peter did either. I know/knew all these guys, and I and they do/did exactly as you
recommend. Your "You can't control everything that is happening around you" is
what we are calling "luck".


--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

When someone once told me that I was lucky in life, I replied "I make my own luck."

I agree, but one has to draw a useful lesson.

Consider BlackJack with card counting. Definitely luck is involved because the cards are still random. Skill is involved to be able to understand the situation and choose when and how to play. Applying this skill allows one to manipulate the odds so that there will likely be a favorable outcome. Does this not qualify as "making your own luck"?

Airplane flying requires knowledge and good judgment in choosing when, where, and how to fly. I can appreciate that there is a great deal of this separating old from bold pilots.


Performance soaring has the added random in that you are also dependent on the micro weather as a lift source. You deal with this by putting yourself in the best position to gather energy, hopefully while still accomplishing your task, but always remembering that things are unlikely to work out exactly as expected, so you are continually adjusting.

So for the final glide example, you do your best to setup a final glide, but if you hit continual sink, then move over to get out of the sink street quickly and into the lift street. If that doesn't work, you might be able to circle before getting too low. If that doesn't work, then you should have landing options near the airport. Continuing a deteriorating glide hoping that some unknown will prevent you from having to make your own luck seems one of those 'let us not do that again' things that makes good judgment.

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 9:35:45 PM UTC-8, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 5:31:30 PM UTC-8, 2G wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 11:57:58 AM UTC-8, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 9:49:10 AM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Wednesday, November 27, 2019 at 6:07:47 PM UTC-8, 2G wrote:

I did - 20 years worth. Read every last one of the fatals and a lot of the major damage ones as part of an article I wrote for Soaring. I can give you a full statistical rundown as well - by phase of flight, type of glider, region of the country, contest/XC flight vs local, etc.

I think you mis-understood me. A pilot makes hundreds to thousands of in-flight maneuvers every flight hour. Almost all of them executed without incident. Many of them are made based on presumptions about what the airmass, pilot workload, traffic situation, aircraft response and physical/mental capabilities of the pilot are likely to be over the next N seconds. Most of the time the consequences of being a bit wrong on where you are in the probability distribution of all of the above doesn't matter, but sometimes it does. You can attempt to move where you are in the probability distribution of unexpected bad things by increasing your margins, but it's not a panacea.

I would speculate that many of the stall/spin accidents I've seen in the mountains had a fair amount to do with the airmass not doing what the pilot expected. You can say - well, don't fly in the mountains! I think that's not especially helpful. An awful lot of final glides gone bad are the result of persistent sink that exceeded the pilot expectation plus whatever buffer he had. I personally interviewed a number of midair-involved pilots and I can tell you that even with a very good scan your odds of picking up an aircraft on a collision course (particularly if it's head-to-head) is about 50/50. Your fovea just isn't big enough for the closing velocities of aircraft. The Air Force, NASA and various air safety bodies around the world have studied it to death and that's the rough number they come up with. That's one reason we have Flarm - you can't train yourself to have a bigger fovea.

You can call all of that poor airmanship if you want, but I think you're whistling past the graveyard a bit.

Andy

Andy,

I recommend that you do what I did: review ALL of the fatal glider accidents for the last two years and get back to me. Hint: those accidents did not fall into the 0.01% category.

Tom

The air in which we fly is not uniform, sometimes not even honest. Peter Masak, was a great pilot. He met fate flying in an area and conditions he was familiar with. While I did not view his GPS trace I did speak with a pilot whom did. Nothing unusual noted in the GPS. You can stall at any speed and any attitude. We have seen this in the Sierra's. Andy's right on about the stall/spin accidents, sometimes there are other factors. One of the things I worked with a XC student I had was noticing and calling out changes in airmass. Sailors are particularly attuned to this.

Masak's accident was a CFIT, the most avoidable of all accidents. This occurred in a contest when he was trying to clear a ridge with a suitable landing field within reach. Every other pilot in the contest did not attempt this. Bottom line: there IS NO contest worth dying over; after all, we are not at war.
https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/Re...Final&IType=LA

Tom

I beg to differ. Peter's mishap was a stall spin, just after a sharp turn away from a ridge.

Only after he realized he wasn't going to make it and made the decision to turn back far too late, so I call it a CFIT.

Tom