RIP Tomas Reich - SGP Chile

Coming back to the Chilean Grand Prix
Extract of the Commentary at about 1h10m

"very low",

"I have never seen a Chilean glider in this area",

"this is usually an area were we do not fly",

"they are very very low",

"you see my face, I would not like",

"one of the situation people get into particularly on the last day where everybody just want to keep going and normaly, they would have stopped for a climb even if it is weak",

"this evening you will be hearing stories about "I have never been so low" ",

"they look like good fields, they are not",

"a lot of fields with vines here",

"Chilean pilots will tell you they are no outlanding fields in Chili",

"this turnpoint is very tricky because in a valley with no good climb",

"we have never been at that low altitude in this area",

Thank you to "Fleg" from the French www.volavoile.net Forum for this extract.

I agree with Lautert's point above: knowing there's a hard deck will influence my flying miles before I reach it. Frankly I think it'd make me fly a little smarter, but who knows. Habitual offenders would be made obvious, perhaps leading to changes in behavior before it's too late

For a flatland contest, I'd put the hard deck at 1000'. That separates the "damn I need to land immediately" distraction from the "damn, I just landed out automatically" distraction.

Once below 1000' agl, set up a landing and then work on the save.

That's more in line with the SSF recommendations than a 500' deck.

Lou

When I bought my last glider, the Discus was all the rage. I paid more to get the ASW 24 because of its crashworthy safety cockpit. I also ordered the canopy wire deflector bar and added a 6-point harness and ELT, among other things, to improve crash survivability. Gerhard Waibel received an OSTIV award for his design, which includes an impact-absorbing landing gear and which has been used in subsequent Schleicher gliders.

The ads seem to indicate that the other makers are paying more attention to safety now but I don't know how successfully, or how important that is to most pilots. I voted with my wallet.

Chip Bearden

On Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 7:56:25 PM UTC-7, wrote:
"Hard deck" rules would effectively eliminate participation anywhere but Kansas (which is actually FLATTER than a pancake. There are more surface anomalies on your average flapjack than the terrain on the Kansas prairie.) In mountainous or ridge terrain, you can go from 100 ft. AGL to 3,000 ft. AGL in less than a half-mile. Does your scoring program recognize these factors? How good is your 3D terrain map? Whose terrain map elevation data do you use? When was the data last updated? Are you using pressure altitude or GPS altitude to determine aircraft altitude? And since when is it considered "unsafe" to run a ridge within a few wingspans of the terrain, with plenty of vertical clearance just to your left (or right)? The proposal to "stop scoring" when you are within 1,000 ft. (vertically or horizontally) from the terrain is laughable. You cannot ridge soar unless you are "on the deck" and close in. It's kind of like when they asked bank robber Willie Sutton why he robbed banks. "Because that's where the money is." In the mountains or ridges, that's where the lift is.

You want no-risk competition? There is always Condor and the regularly scheduled internet contests. Somehow, I don't see it making the Olympics, but then again, neither will real life soaring.

I believe the Air Force Cadets have a hard deck when they fly in contests. It is an altitude that, if they sink to or below while on course, they may not thermal and must land. Not sure how that really helps though if you are low over unlandable terrain.

Mike

I've got an idea. Lets mandate that all contest ships be motor equiped and fly the tasks running their engines. The pilots can all use earplugs so they dont hear the motor running and we can pretend we are "soaring". Guys would still put themselves into dangerous situations. So the ultimate solution seems to be, line up all the contestants on their computers and run a condor based contest. That will show us who the best are and wow no risk to manage other than maybe blowing a fuse.

Ridiculous ideas? For sure they are. But so is the continual dumbing down of the skill set necessary to xc soar. Cross country soaring is unforgiving of the idiotic and the inexperienced and the arrogant. It always has been, it always will be. All the rules in the world will not change that fact. Just like all the tea in china won't make a cup of coffee.

Heres an idea that would probably save more lives than any of the above mentioned rules. Before a guy can fly in a contest, he needs to actually demonstrate the ability to land his ship over a 60 ft obstacle With MINIMUM ENERGY stopping within 800ft of the obstacle. I can tell you the failure rate at that test would be high. But those that actually spent the money and time to nail that skill will keep themselves alive even if they have to put down in a vineyard or a sagebrush covered valley or even a rock pile. I have been part of retreaves for all of the above mentioned landings, ships were busted up, sure, but injuries were all minor. Mostly just bruised egos and pocketbooks. CONTROLLED flight into rough terrain IS survivable, not pretty but survivable. Ask me how I know. But it takes a mindset thats ready for it.

Should guys not put themselves in these type situations? You bet. But even the most conservative contest flier will tell you they have found themselves in a pickle at least once in their racing career which they extracated themselves from or survived vowing to never do that again. I know I have been there. Neither the lack or the presence of rules put them in that pickle, THEY PUT THEMSELVES in it! I put myself in it! The guy thats gonna kill himself racing, is gonna kill himself racing period due to his own mindset. All the rules out there just forstall the inevitable. We all know the guys out there who push beyond good reason. Put a rule in to prevent foolishness in one area and those same guys will push it in another area. It becomes a never ending cycle of reactionary thinking that never addresses the true problem and just curtails the liberties of others (sounds like the government lol). When all is said and done, the end outcome for the guy who doesn't appreciate the seriousness of his decisions or his lack of decisions is the same untill that guy changes internally.

Instead of trying to engineer human behavior with rules, just remind everybody the trophies are made of tin.

On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 5:49:24 AM UTC-8, Steve Koerner wrote:
Jon, That reasoning would work if the hard deck were somehow offered in lieu of the hard ground. Unfortunately we would have to deal with both at the same time. Would we not?


Why is the hard deck any different than the hard ground? Do you find the hard ground to be a distraction? You already successfully race over a hard deck - the ground. Why is this one any different?

In fact it is far less of a distraction, because violation of the rules results in a penalty, and violation of the ground results in death.

Steve, the hard deck replaces the ground in your thinking as it is above the ground. Once violated, now you've ended your contest points accumulation and can fly however you like. If placed at a reasonable altitude (this would be site related) you needn't worry about the ground until then, other than the normal keeping track of potential landing sites given your energy as we all do all the time (or should). The whole intent of a hard deck is that if perfectly designed, as long as you are above it you have a safe glide to a safe landing area. It isn't a perfect world but that is the intent.

In Kansas with landable farm fields as far as you can see, the deck could be 700 ft AGL or whatever people are comfortable with. I quit thermalling well above that myself even in flatlands. In the Minden area and east, the hard deck in many places could be 5000 AGL or even higher as it is a 40 mile glide to the next safe landing area. As you know from flying there, any reasonable day you will be 7000 feet above that. And again, this has nothing to do with ridges and mountains, which will poke through the deck and you can dust the rocks if you choose.

I've seen a number of pilots well below what I consider my hard deck. I've seen pilots down in the Lake Tahoe basin hoping to ridge soar Daydreams to make it out. I've seem pilots down in the canyons south of Mammoth, rocks on every side and no way out. Often then get away. But some of them are dead or no longer own an unbroken glider. I do not want to compete against that behavior.

On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 8:01:59 AM UTC-8, wrote:
I've got an idea. Lets mandate that all contest ships be motor equiped and fly the tasks running their engines. The pilots can all use earplugs so they dont hear the motor running and we can pretend we are "soaring". Guys would still put themselves into dangerous situations. So the ultimate solution seems to be, line up all the contestants on their computers and run a condor based contest. That will show us who the best are and wow no risk to manage other than maybe blowing a fuse.

Ridiculous ideas? For sure they are. But so is the continual dumbing down of the skill set necessary to xc soar. Cross country soaring is unforgiving of the idiotic and the inexperienced and the arrogant. It always has been, it always will be. All the rules in the world will not change that fact. Just like all the tea in china won't make a cup of coffee.

Heres an idea that would probably save more lives than any of the above mentioned rules. Before a guy can fly in a contest, he needs to actually demonstrate the ability to land his ship over a 60 ft obstacle With MINIMUM ENERGY stopping within 800ft of the obstacle. I can tell you the failure rate at that test would be high. But those that actually spent the money and time to nail that skill will keep themselves alive even if they have to put down in a vineyard or a sagebrush covered valley or even a rock pile. I have been part of retreaves for all of the above mentioned landings, ships were busted up, sure, but injuries were all minor. Mostly just bruised egos and pocketbooks. CONTROLLED flight into rough terrain IS survivable, not pretty but survivable. Ask me how I know. But it takes a mindset thats ready for it.

Should guys not put themselves in these type situations? You bet. But even the most conservative contest flier will tell you they have found themselves in a pickle at least once in their racing career which they extracated themselves from or survived vowing to never do that again. I know I have been there. Neither the lack or the presence of rules put them in that pickle, THEY PUT THEMSELVES in it! I put myself in it! The guy thats gonna kill himself racing, is gonna kill himself racing period due to his own mindset. All the rules out there just forstall the inevitable. We all know the guys out there who push beyond good reason. Put a rule in to prevent foolishness in one area and those same guys will push it in another area. It becomes a never ending cycle of reactionary thinking that never addresses the true problem and just curtails the liberties of others (sounds like the government lol). When all is said and done, the end outcome for the guy who doesn't appreciate the seriousness of his decisions or his lack of decisions is the same untill that guy changes internally.

Once again, the value I place in this idea is not that it will keep fools from being fools. Rather, it will save me from having to compete with fools. That is a big difference.

Once you have violated the hard deck you can be as foolish as you like, thermal right into the ground in an attempt to prevent a retrieve, I don't care. But you didn't win the contest by being foolish. We are not trying to legislate behavior with rules. We are trying to stop rewarding foolishness with a trophy, and punishing the wise by leaving them in the audience.

One of the most interesting, thoughtful and thought-provoking threads in
recent RAS history, IMO. Too bad how it came to be, and genuinely saddening
some among us will have future occasions to revisit this particular thought arena.

Excerpted from up-thread...
When all is said and done, the end outcome for the guy who doesn't
appreciate the seriousness of his decisions or his lack of decisions is
the same until that guy changes internally.

Some readers may take the above sentiment as merely another way of sanctioning
the, "Anything goes (woo hoo!)" worldview. I take it as "distilled human reality."

Bob W.

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