Hard Deck

I agree the hard deck concept has been well discussed (haha), with few new insights since the debate began on another thread. What HAS been revealed are a couple of philospohical differences.

1. I got in trouble very early on with this statement: "Let's be honest. If soaring were a zero-risk activity, like video games, it wouldn't have the same appeal." I'm not risk prone nor do I enjoy scaring myself. But mastering the risks of soaring is one of its appeals to me. That's a philosophy with which not everyone agrees, and it has significant impacts on rules and tasking. For the record, I hate low saves--which I consider as anything below about 1,000 AGL--and don't do them very often (I've only gotten up from under 500' once in 50+ years). I hate landouts even more, but they're part of soaring; I stopped counting at about 100 (blush). To date I've only damaged a glider once (hit a hidden rock in a pasture) but I know the risks are higher. It's obvious that pilots think about the concept of risk quite differently.

2. To Dale Bush's point, we've traditionally tested certain skills and rewarded pilots on that basis, including navigating before GPS, final glides before the finish cylinder, and finding good thermals before leeching became popular. We're chipping away at those skills to the point where some pilots don't want fly at a site like Mifflin or Nephi or Minden because local knowledge is a factor. The ultimate effect of this trend might be soaring competition that occurs on only the best days at "non-technical" sites with tasks that keep pilots within range of airports, and that penalize or disallow risky behavior to a greater extent even than the hard deck contemplates (e..g., being out of glide range of a listed safe landing field). That's not a trend I welcome but times are changing.

Like Erik, I'm a consultant. Before you start designing something, it's important to define the mission, the vision for it over some time period, the objectives, and the scope of what will be included. Some of the points made here are practical ones: i.e., the parties agree philosophically but disagree on the solution (e.g., we should try to stop pilots from making foolish errors, hurting themselves, and driving our insurance rates up and the hard deck is a good/poor step). Other differences are more philosophical (e.g.., whether the risks of competitive soaring make it more or less appealing) and those debates are no less valid. But some disagreements are really philosophical but the parties debate the merits/efficacy of a solution such as a hard deck because that's easier.

Chip Bearden