Perfect Soaring Safety - How to Achieve

On Feb 27, 11:06*am, Bob Whelan wrote:
* * * * Instant, Absolutely Perfect, and Permanent Soaring Safety
* * * * * * * * * * * * (Without Government ‘Help’)

We all want it.

I know how to achieve it...and it does NOT involve sending me money,
taking any of my (non-existent) courses, or cadres of ‘safety nazis’ or
‘safety nannys.’ It doesn’t involve recurrent training (unless you want
it, of course). It doesn’t matter what bona-fides instructors have. It
doesn’t even matter how often or much you fly as PIC of a glider.
And here’s the best part...it’s free!!!

Now I’ll bet some readers are skeptical. I was too, once.
For you skeptics out there, I’ll be up-front with my own bona fides. I
have a U.S.-issued PP-G certificate, have never taken more than 54 tows
annually post-training, haven’t exceeded 20 annually since 2000, will
probably never add on the commercial or instructor ratings, have but 2/3
of my Silver Badge (lacking the distance, of course), have bailed out of
only one (single-seat) glider and minorly bent but two more, have had
fewer than 10 friends and probably fewer than 10 additional
acquaintances die in glider accidents, and have personally witnessed but
one fatal glider accident (winch launch structural failure). Point
being, though I lack any cite-able experience in the professional safety
fields, I - like most alert RAS readers - feel generally capable of
recognizing the absence of safety, even though I’ve never injured a
passenger, airport bystander or glider I’ve not been piloting myself. So
bear with me - it’s been a tiresome winter in much of the northern
hemisphere...

Understand, the term ‘safety’ as used herein means 100% absence of
soaring accidents and incidents, whether of the ‘stupid soaring pilot’
trick sort, the ‘thin margin’ sort, or any other sort short of ‘fate.’
And as soon as mankind learns how to predict sudden death and
incapacitation, I’ll include all ‘fate’ accidents EXcluding ‘structural
fate.’ I don’t know how to prevent the latter, despite an aging
aerospace engineering degree, and doubt anyone will learn how in my
lifetime. Fortunately, ‘structural fate’ accidents are extremely rare in
human soaring’s 99-year history, at least the latter half of it. I
apologize for this one limitation to today’s presentation.

With the meaning of ‘safety’ understood, it’s trivially easy to analyze
all official reports of glider accidents and incidents and instantly
identify a universal thread NOT in every last one of them. Genetically
insert that thread into all future soaring flights' pilots' thinking,
and all future accidents and incidents will be eliminated, because in
this case correlation *IS* indicative of causation.

What’s missing is the thought, the belief, the fully comprehended and
hence always actionable ‘sense’ that this (stupid glider pilot
trick-based, thin margin-based, ignorance-based, etc.) ‘thing’ *could*
happen to me...no matter how much time I have, how experienced I am
(overall or merely in this ship), or how Godlike my gifts to pilot-dom
and my fellow, admiring pilot-friends. Having such thinking in some
active portion of a glider pilot’s mind is the closest thing to being
inoculated against a future accident or incident any glider pilot could
ever hope to acquire. Guaranteed, or your money back.

Now I’m not going to *bet* any actual money I’m never going to have
another glider incident or accident, but I’m pretty darned certain I’m
not going to die from an inadvertent stall/spin in the pattern, hit
another glider/fence/innocent-bystander/vehicle/etc. after landing, pull
my wings off, hit a ridge, miss (short or long) my intended landing
area, or otherwise wind up (again) in the NTSB database due to reasons
*not* beyond my control. I have this ‘certainty’ because I truly,
actively and ‘always’ believe that I am NOT immune from these sorts of
things. Far better pilots than I have died from them. Others will have a
higher risk of following them if they do NOT so believe. Meantime,
because believe, I work really hard to avoid such things. I don’t mind
my paranoia in this particular instance; I consider it a *good* thing.
Somebody IS out to get me, and if I’m not really and continually
careful, it’s going to be ME! Inadvertent pattern stall/spin?...like
playing on the freeway, “Kids! Don’t DO it!!!”

I don’t consider such ‘self-inoculatory’ thinking arrogant; I consider
it a high form of humility. I’m a cowardly, fearful, humble sort of
glider pilot, immensely grateful for every future moment of stick time,
actively determined to maximize personal potential for more. I truly
think that way (and have, now, for many years) no matter how current –
or not – I am.

I apply the same thinking to my driving, too, and it's worked perfectly
since 1982 (when I started applying the thought pattern). That includes
thousands of miles of towing brakeless glider trailers all around the
intermountain west behind a 2,600 lb, drum-braked, 1972
vehicle...including an absurdly heavy, double-axled, 2-32 trailer w.
2-32 across the central Rocky Mountains. Of course, I've never driven a
glider trailer over 85 mph, so my experience has its limits, though I
did have an unstable trailer (cured by moving the axle aft), and have
BTDT with an on-road "Holy $#*t!!!" instability-induced moment.

Point being, believing you CAN have an accident, definitely affects how
you do things, whether we’re talking about using a table saw, driving,
soaring, or sex. ANYthing. If you’re a believer that actions have
consequences (and I’ve yet to meet a soaring pilot who isn’t), then
believing inattention, ignorance, overconfidence - hell, FLIGHT - all
have potential for very serious consequences WILL affect your flying
judgment. For the better. And, it’s free. (Woo hoo!!!)

Please – no thanks are necessary.
- - - - - -

Post Script: Believe it or not, I’m completely uninterested in hearing
why anyone disagrees with my Pollyannish vision of soaring perfection -
but probably not for any reason angry or dismissive readers might guess.
That said, by all means, flame away. Think hard about where and how I’ve
missed the boat, and share your own visions. If by so doing, your own
flying future safety improves, THAT will make my day, because I don’t
really care who agrees or disagrees with me. What I sincerely DO care
about is reading fewer avoidable accidents and incidents in “Soaring”
magazine, the NTSB database, and anywhere else, in the days and years
ahead. Further, not being a believer in ‘safety at any cost,’ I’m a big
fan of improving soaring safety as inexpensively as possible. I also
believe we can do it.

P.P.S.: Interested readers need look no further than Captain Chesley
Sullenberger’s recent book “Highest Duty – My Search for What Really
Matters” for a compelling example of the accuracy that truth underlies
my underlying claim that how a person thinks, matters. I suspect more
than a few U.S. glider pilots were disappointed to learn ‘Sully’ gave
his glider training zero credit for his deciding to ditch the Airbus he
was commanding in the Hudson River January, 2009, after losing both
engines to birds. I wasn’t disappointed. On the other hand, my worldview
gives him even greater credit for coming to the best conclusion deSPITE
not being able to credit glider training to his thinking & actions that
day. (I suspect he’s in the minority of ‘power-only’ pilots in his
demonstrated ability to think/act ‘outside the normal safety box,’
quickly and decisively making a basic decision so utterly foreign to
‘normal’ power-pilot thinking.) What allowed him to 'go there' was
(paraphrasing from his book) a long-standing interest in safety, a
desire to learn from others’ mistakes, and believing that ‘it’ could
happen to him...even though he never thought it would. (It’s a great
book for lots of other reasons, too, incidentally...)

P.P.P.S.: We return now to our regularly scheduled newsgroup…

Well said Bob...............my buddies and I will usually high-5 and
generally strut around like studs after a particular gratifying
flight, but during private de-briefing sessions we all agree that it
was heads up flying, and we all posses a healthy respect for what we
are doing, and believe it or not, are actually humble about these
sorts of things. Knowing full well that what we do carries with it the
risk of pain, or death, or loosing your toy and not being able to play
anymore.

Brad