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Put your money where the risk is



 
 
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  #21  
Old November 21st 19, 03:02 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Bob Kuykendall
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Default Put your money where the risk is

On Wednesday, November 20, 2019 at 12:38:33 PM UTC-8, CindyB wrote:
When the machine makes an unexplainable, observed descent in a seemingly random flight path to impact -- regrettably the local coroner concludes "blunt force trauma" and makes no effort to ascertain what happened "prior" to impact. Coroner's job is done, paperwork filed.
NTSB has a report, case closed.


Medical issues often present with impaired judgement and cognition of a level well short of debilitating under normal circumstances, but critical in the context of soaring flight. Dehydration and hypoxia are common initiators in the soaring world, but there are also many less common ones including the aforementioned cardiac events.

My personal suspicion is that somewhere around 10% of soaring accidents are the result of these low-level debilitations, where for whatever reason someone considered themselves safe to fly but shouldn't have. What makes them especially hard to diagnose afterwards is that their symptoms are often masked by the shock that typically results from an accident.

--Bob K.
  #22  
Old November 21st 19, 05:34 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Ramy[_2_]
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Default Put your money where the risk is

Tom,

Check 2018. I researched a little more about those and personally knew 3 of the victims.

Ramy
  #23  
Old November 21st 19, 01:24 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
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Default Put your money where the risk is

Bob, I think your hitting the nail on the head. While a fuy may not be experiencing an in-air heart attack, age has a way of dulling the mind and slowing the decision making process, along with the reflexes. As the soaring pilot pool ages, we are most likely seeing and going to see more of age/imparing accidents.

I know in my situation, I have moved my dusting flying from the quite demanding area of E washington/W idaho, down into the flat land of the midwest. The primary reason was to minimize the challenges involved in ag flying. While I started my dusting career in those western hills with numerous very very challenging fields, I was young-slightly dumb, and dodged death fairly easily. Getting older I know for a fact, that I do not have 20 year old reflexes. Flight experience and muscle memory (instinctively knowing what action to take) has probably balanced out the loss. But old age will eventually win. I will give myself another 5 years or so of ag flying and then pull the plug on that type of flying. Not due to not being able to effectively do it, but due to knowing that those challenges require a continual concentration. In addition, I told myself years ago I would stop flying ag the year I find myself thinking about other things while on-swath, and not calculation and reassessing exactly where, in an emergency, I am gonna set her down from any position in the field. A guy has to know instantly what move to make, turn left, right, straight ahead etc. Without total concentration, a guy either does a crappy job of application or worse gets his tail in a crack. This mental concentration has served me well all these years. A guy needs to know when to hang up the spurs.

While imop, soaring is much less demanding except in ridge running, or high speed flying, it still requires a level of concentration beyond that of tooling along in a c-172 at altitude. And that level of concentration needed INCREASES with diminishing altitude! aka getting low over marginal terrain, or in a landing pattern. When a guy starts to find himself not concentrating in those situations, just relying on experience “ I’ve landed this bird a thousand times, no big deal”, that should be a big yellow caution light, telling a guy he needs to re-evaluate his mental abilities.

However, on the other hand, My ag flying buddies think I am already “mental” for flying xc in a glider, and my soaring buddies think the same thing when they see me doing it in one with the glide ratio of a rock.
  #25  
Old November 21st 19, 05:50 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
BobW
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Default Put your money where the risk is

I always wonder how many accidents are a result of an in-air medical problem.
Interesting to contemplate, alright, and some verra thoughtful replies
downthread...

Beginning 'way back' (i.e. when I was a wet-behind-the-ears soaring tyro, and
already seriously-interested in 'stuff' like soaring's life-ending risks,
etc.), I began to semi-regularly encounter 'the medical emergency rationale'
discussionally arising. Medical emergencies (and age-related mental
diminutions) are unarguably unavoidable over time (well, except by death, I
mean, sardonic chuckle). What to do about those risks is every pilot's
personal issue.

Not yet mentioned is something that - for me - has long raised a *potential*
red flag about *some* fellow soaring nuts. Without meaning to suggest a strong
correlation between the doubt inherent in the snippet above and any individual
pilot's actual judgment, I've always been reluctant to buy into 'medical
emergency' as my get out of jail free card as a pilot. Sure, medical
emergencies happen, but to exclusionarily dismiss whatever other lessons might
be drawn from this or that fatal accident is - IMHO - a disservice to the Joe
Pilot playing that card.

FWIW...
Bob W.
  #26  
Old November 24th 19, 02:50 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
2G
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Default Put your money where the risk is

On Wednesday, November 20, 2019 at 8:34:52 PM UTC-8, Ramy wrote:
Tom,

Check 2018. I researched a little more about those and personally knew 3 of the victims.

Ramy


Ramy,

I reviewed all of the 2018 fatal accidents listed by the NTSB:
https://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.a...6-ea42dfd47c36

The majority were clearly bad airmanship, but a couple are more curious. Two involved commercial flights that were CFITs (controlled flight into terrain), and totally avoidable. One of the curious ones involved pilots I am sure you knew, the Duo Discus that crashed on Slide Mtn. It did several very tight loops until it broke up. I find it hard to believe that was intentional, so why did it happen? I have never heard of an elevator jamming in the full up position, and the Duo is automatic hookup, so that wasn't the cause.. The only thing that makes sense to me is a medical emergency with the pilot flying, causing him to pull full aft on the stick, but we will probably never know.

The other was an in-flight breakup of an IS29D. This glider was thoroughly inspected by several pilots, one of which was an A&P, who was flying. Did he over-stress the glider, or did it have an undetected flaw? We will have to await a final report for any more information.

A full review of all these accidents is at the SSF website:
https://www.soaringsafety.org/accide...ual_report.doc

The bottom line is ****-poor airmanship still is THE primary cause of glider fatal accidents.

Tom
  #27  
Old November 24th 19, 02:15 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default Put your money where the risk is

Regarding chances of having a locked “full up” elevator situation, my brother did experience just that. He was involved in a gaggle midair over Cal City during a regional. He was flying the then new to racing Ventus A model. His elevator was impacted by the wing of the other glider which resulted in having an elevator jamming in full up deflection. His ship did a series of three high speed loops before he was able to kick the canopy away and get out. He was under pretty high g’s as he told me he could barely move and had real limited eyesight. He was lucky to barely have had enough altitude for his chute to open. The ship now sans-pilot continued to loop itself right down to the ground. She landed herself in the sagebrush ending up with a broken tail boom, semi destroyed elevator and crumped control rod/linkages, and dented fuselage but no noticeable wing damage from the pilot-empty landing.

Regarding that duo discus accident, there is a definite mystery there, I do not think they found any control surface related issues in the investigation. but any way you slice it, be it two guys stunting, two guys fighting each other for control, one guy thinking the other guy has control and doing nothing, one guy having a medically related episode, etc, its another example of another needless accident.
  #28  
Old November 24th 19, 03:05 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
RR
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Default Put your money where the risk is

Tom,this is why I asked for your definition of airmanship. If it is both stick and rudder skills and judgment then all that is left is mechanical failure and hand of god. It makes sence to me that the last two are small contributors. If we asume our skills are superior and will keep us out of trouble, how do we explain the "**** poor airmanship" of highly skilled contest pilots how have been killed. To me is seems to be erosion of margins. Over time we get more bold, get away with it time and time again until it becomes the new normal. In my effort to keep from being a stistic, I try to reset my margins from time to time.

I have known 3 pilots that have hit trees on the ridge. All resulted in minor damage and flew on. 2 of the 3 were excellent pilots, one a world record holder. All fly a little higher off the ridge now. And without hitting a tree, so do I...
  #29  
Old November 24th 19, 07:07 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Dan Marotta
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Default Put your money where the risk is

There's a pretty good discussion of airmanship he
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airmanship

On 11/24/2019 7:05 AM, RR wrote:
Tom,this is why I asked for your definition of airmanship. If it is both stick and rudder skills and judgment then all that is left is mechanical failure and hand of god. It makes sence to me that the last two are small contributors. If we asume our skills are superior and will keep us out of trouble, how do we explain the "**** poor airmanship" of highly skilled contest pilots how have been killed. To me is seems to be erosion of margins. Over time we get more bold, get away with it time and time again until it becomes the new normal. In my effort to keep from being a stistic, I try to reset my margins from time to time.

I have known 3 pilots that have hit trees on the ridge. All resulted in minor damage and flew on. 2 of the 3 were excellent pilots, one a world record holder. All fly a little higher off the ridge now. And without hitting a tree, so do I...


--
Dan, 5J
  #30  
Old November 24th 19, 07:20 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
2G
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Default Put your money where the risk is

On Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 6:05:37 AM UTC-8, RR wrote:
Tom,this is why I asked for your definition of airmanship. If it is both stick and rudder skills and judgment then all that is left is mechanical failure and hand of god. It makes sence to me that the last two are small contributors. If we asume our skills are superior and will keep us out of trouble, how do we explain the "**** poor airmanship" of highly skilled contest pilots how have been killed. To me is seems to be erosion of margins. Over time we get more bold, get away with it time and time again until it becomes the new normal. In my effort to keep from being a stistic, I try to reset my margins from time to time.

I have known 3 pilots that have hit trees on the ridge. All resulted in minor damage and flew on. 2 of the 3 were excellent pilots, one a world record holder. All fly a little higher off the ridge now. And without hitting a tree, so do I...


RR,

Being a highly skilled contest pilot does not make you immune from a momentary lapse, and that is all that it takes if it happens at exactly the wrong time. Flying too close to the trees on a ridge and hitting them is also known as a CFIT, and CFIT is likely the best example of ****-poor airmanship as it is totally preventable.

I am not a holier than thou type - it's happened to me, but I was lucky enough to have survived, twice. One was when I failed to hookup my elevator on an ASW19, the other where I botched the engine restart of a DG400 and landed in a plowed field with the engine extended.

In general, I fly with pretty wide safety margins, especially concerning weather. Thunderstorms are a very real possibility where I do most of my flying, and airports are few and far between. So the decision to fly or not is critical. I regularly repeat a very simple axiom to fellow pilots, "I would rather be down here wishing I was up there, than be up there wishing I was down here."

Tom
 




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