Predestined to Die?

I don't want to hijack the thread about Walter Mueller's 75 gliding
anniversary (GO, Walter!) by talk about an early death...seems a bit
morbid. But I have to comment on Bob's statement:

snip
However...if any reader knows of a gliding participant who feels
predestined to die in a sailplane, perhaps you'd be doing said participant
a real favor by suggesting to them some serious re-examination of why that
thought persists is in order. Just sayin'...

Bob W.

end snip

I think I agree with your statement, Bob, insofar as if you have a belief
that you are predestined to die in any particular way (whether gliding or
otherwise), you are either suicidal (and have picked out your method of
ending it all), have some kind of strange religious belief (i.e. that you
know that God is going to kill you in some particular way), or are
suffering from some other psychosis and probably shouldn't be soaring.

On the other hand, if you are in this sport and don't realize that it may
very well be one of the most dangerous sports out there, I submit to you
that you are deceiving yourself. Obviously, you are still far from
"predestined to die in a sailplane" (statistically speaking, but of course
your individual results may vary), but if you don't recognize the risks
involved you may be more likely to avoid taking the necessary safety
precautions to prevent these risks from growing beyond those that are
inherent in this sport. For this reason, I think it is actually quite
healthy to have a feeling that strapping on your sailplane may very well
be the most dangerous thing you do today...I think about this pretty much
every time I suit up, and I think it helps to keep me focused on safety.

--
Stefan Murry

On May 21, 2:20*pm, "S. Murry" wrote:
I don't want to hijack the thread about Walter Mueller's 75 gliding
anniversary (GO, Walter!) by talk about an early death...seems a bit
morbid. *But I have to comment on Bob's statement:

snip
However...if any reader knows of a gliding participant who feels
predestined to die in a sailplane, perhaps you'd be doing said participant
a real favor by suggesting to them some serious re-examination of why that
thought persists is in order. Just sayin'...

Bob W.

end snip

I think I agree with your statement, Bob, insofar as if you have a belief
that you are predestined to die in any particular way (whether gliding or
otherwise), you are either suicidal (and have picked out your method of
ending it all), have some kind of strange religious belief (i.e. that you
know that God is going to kill you in some particular way), or are
suffering from some other psychosis and probably shouldn't be soaring.

On the other hand, if you are in this sport and don't realize that it may
very well be one of the most dangerous sports out there, I submit to you
that you are deceiving yourself. *Obviously, you are still far from
"predestined to die in a sailplane" (statistically speaking, but of course
your *individual results may vary), but if you don't recognize the risks
involved you may be more likely to avoid taking the necessary safety
precautions to prevent these risks from growing beyond those that are
inherent in this sport. *For this reason, I think it is actually quite
healthy to have a feeling that strapping on your sailplane may very well
be the most dangerous thing you do today...I think about this pretty much
every time I suit up, and I think it helps to keep me focused on safety.

--
Stefan Murry

I feel uncomfortable blackening the sport of soaring with the label
"dangerous" without some caveats. It is certainly dangerous for some
pilots and not so much for others - the variable part is the pilot not
the sport. If the statement is, "Since I have no intention of
becoming a skilled pilot, this sport is dangerous for me", then I
would agree.

The essential part of being a pilot is making something inherently
dangerous into something inherently safe through the application of
knowledge and skill acquired through training and diligence. I happen
to know many, many pilots who have made the effort to become highly
skilled. This has resulted in a long lifetime of safe flying. I try
not to get to know the other kind.

On Mon, 21 May 2012 16:13:26 -0500, Bill D wrote:

On May 21, 2:20 pm, "S. Murry" wrote:
I don't want to hijack the thread about Walter Mueller's 75 gliding
anniversary (GO, Walter!) by talk about an early death...seems a bit
morbid. But I have to comment on Bob's statement:

snip
However...if any reader knows of a gliding participant who feels
predestined to die in a sailplane, perhaps you'd be doing said
participant
a real favor by suggesting to them some serious re-examination of why
that
thought persists is in order. Just sayin'...

Bob W.

end snip

I think I agree with your statement, Bob, insofar as if you have a
belief
that you are predestined to die in any particular way (whether gliding
or
otherwise), you are either suicidal (and have picked out your method of
ending it all), have some kind of strange religious belief (i.e. that
you
know that God is going to kill you in some particular way), or are
suffering from some other psychosis and probably shouldn't be soaring..

On the other hand, if you are in this sport and don't realize that it
may
very well be one of the most dangerous sports out there, I submit to you
that you are deceiving yourself. Obviously, you are still far from
"predestined to die in a sailplane" (statistically speaking, but of
course
your individual results may vary), but if you don't recognize the risks
involved you may be more likely to avoid taking the necessary safety
precautions to prevent these risks from growing beyond those that are
inherent in this sport. For this reason, I think it is actually quite
healthy to have a feeling that strapping on your sailplane may very well
be the most dangerous thing you do today...I think about this pretty
much
every time I suit up, and I think it helps to keep me focused on safety.

--
Stefan Murry

I feel uncomfortable blackening the sport of soaring with the label
"dangerous" without some caveats. It is certainly dangerous for some
pilots and not so much for others - the variable part is the pilot not
the sport. If the statement is, "Since I have no intention of
becoming a skilled pilot, this sport is dangerous for me", then I
would agree.

The essential part of being a pilot is making something inherently
dangerous into something inherently safe through the application of
knowledge and skill acquired through training and diligence. I happen
to know many, many pilots who have made the effort to become highly
skilled. This has resulted in a long lifetime of safe flying. I try
not to get to know the other kind.

Bill,

I think we're almost in agreement here. But I disagree that the sport can
ever be made "inherently safe". It's just not. Even highly skilled
pilots sometimes come to grief (Helmut Reichmann comes immediately to
mind, and Chris O’Callaghan at the nationals in 2010). It's not by
mistake that I picked two pilots killed in midairs, since this seems to me
to be about as far away from anything that is within the control of the
pilot as any accident cause short of catastrophic mechanical failure. Of
course, by not taking all appropriate precautions (including training and
proficiency enhancement), it can be downright UNSAFE, so I agree with you
there.

The nit that I pick with your line of reasoning is that most pilots THINK
that they're safe and proficient (regardless of whether they actually
are), and if you subscribe to the belief that this somehow inoculates you
against dying in a glider then it is very easy to become cavalier. The
way I look at it, the sport is inherently unsafe. Everything we do (or
should be doing) as pilots is in an attempt to make this inherently unsafe
activity safer.

In the end, "safe" and "unsafe" are all relative terms, as you
acknowledge. Certainly, soaring is probably safer than, say, skydiving
(at least that's my guess, I don't know it for sure), but it's probably
less safe than, say, tennis (at least if you define safety as the
probability of not causing death). At least I don't know many people that
died playing tennis, but do know several that have died flying gliders.

I fly a lot (in an attempt to maintain proficiency), read all I can about
soaring, attend and present FAA Safety seminars, try to maintain my glider
in good mechanical condition, etc. In more than 25 years of flying, I've
never had an accident. But I don't have any illusion that this makes
gliding safe (in comparison to many other activities that I might choose
to pursue), only that it makes it SAFER than if I didn't do these things..

Let's be honest. We fly gliders because it's a thrill, a challenge and
because it touches on some primal desire within us. We believe that the
benefits that we obtain by partaking in this activity outweigh the chances
of dying while participating. But I think we'll all agree that if the
only factor in choosing a leisure activity were the avoidance of danger,
gliding wouldn't be our choice. We'd all be playing croquet or
shuffleboard. Gliding is inherently unsafe, but we can mitigate this to a
great extent with caution and training.

--Stefan





--
Stefan Murry

On May 21, 3:45*pm, "S. Murry" wrote:
On Mon, 21 May 2012 16:13:26 -0500, Bill D wrote:
On May 21, 2:20 pm, "S. Murry" wrote:
I don't want to hijack the thread about Walter Mueller's 75 gliding
anniversary (GO, Walter!) by talk about an early death...seems a bit
morbid. *But I have to comment on Bob's statement:

snip
However...if any reader knows of a gliding participant who feels
predestined to die in a sailplane, perhaps you'd be doing said
participant
a real favor by suggesting to them some serious re-examination of why
that
thought persists is in order. Just sayin'...

Bob W.

end snip

I think I agree with your statement, Bob, insofar as if you have a
belief
that you are predestined to die in any particular way (whether gliding
or
otherwise), you are either suicidal (and have picked out your method of
ending it all), have some kind of strange religious belief (i.e. that
you
know that God is going to kill you in some particular way), or are
suffering from some other psychosis and probably shouldn't be soaring.

On the other hand, if you are in this sport and don't realize that it
may
very well be one of the most dangerous sports out there, I submit to you
that you are deceiving yourself. *Obviously, you are still far from
"predestined to die in a sailplane" (statistically speaking, but of
course
your *individual results may vary), but if you don't recognize the risks
involved you may be more likely to avoid taking the necessary safety
precautions to prevent these risks from growing beyond those that are
inherent in this sport. *For this reason, I think it is actually quite
healthy to have a feeling that strapping on your sailplane may very well
be the most dangerous thing you do today...I think about this pretty
much
every time I suit up, and I think it helps to keep me focused on safety.

--
Stefan Murry

I feel uncomfortable blackening the sport of soaring with the label
"dangerous" without some caveats. *It is certainly dangerous for some
pilots and not so much for others - the variable part is the pilot not
the sport. *If the statement is, "Since I have no intention of
becoming a skilled pilot, this sport is dangerous for me", then I
would agree.

The essential part of being a pilot is making something inherently
dangerous into something inherently safe through the application of
knowledge and skill acquired through training and diligence. *I happen
to know many, many pilots who have made the effort to become highly
skilled. *This has resulted in a long lifetime of safe flying. *I try
not to get to know the other kind.

Bill,

I think we're almost in agreement here. *But I disagree that the sport can
ever be made "inherently safe". *It's just not. *Even highly skilled
pilots sometimes come to grief (Helmut Reichmann comes immediately to
mind, and Chris O’Callaghan at the nationals in 2010). *It's not by
mistake that I picked two pilots killed in midairs, since this seems to me
to be about as far away from anything that is within the control of the
pilot as any accident cause short of catastrophic mechanical failure. *Of
course, by not taking all appropriate precautions (including training and
proficiency enhancement), it can be downright UNSAFE, so I agree with you
there.

The nit that I pick with your line of reasoning is that most pilots THINK
that they're safe and proficient (regardless of whether they actually
are), and if you subscribe to the belief that this somehow inoculates you
against dying in a glider then it is very easy to become cavalier. *The
way I look at it, the sport is inherently unsafe. *Everything we do (or
should be doing) as pilots is in an attempt to make this inherently unsafe
activity safer.

In the end, "safe" and "unsafe" are all relative terms, as you
acknowledge. *Certainly, soaring is probably safer than, say, skydiving
(at least that's my guess, I don't know it for sure), but it's probably
less safe than, say, tennis (at least if you define safety as the
probability of not causing death). *At least I don't know many people that
died playing tennis, but do know several that have died flying gliders.

I fly a lot (in an attempt to maintain proficiency), read all I can about
soaring, attend and present FAA Safety seminars, try to maintain my glider
in good mechanical condition, etc. *In more than 25 years of flying, I've
never had an accident. *But I don't have any illusion that this makes
gliding safe (in comparison to many other activities that I might choose
to pursue), only that it makes it SAFER than if I didn't do these things.

Let's be honest. *We fly gliders because it's a thrill, a challenge and
because it touches on some primal desire within us. *We believe that the
benefits that we obtain by partaking in this activity outweigh the chances
of dying while participating. *But I think we'll all agree that if the
only factor in choosing a leisure activity were the avoidance of danger,
gliding wouldn't be our choice. *We'd all be playing croquet or
shuffleboard. *Gliding is inherently unsafe, but we can mitigate this to a
great extent with caution and training.

--Stefan

--
Stefan Murry

Stefan, you paint with too broad a brush. All accidents are
regrettable but 99% of them can be traced to pilot error. We need to
keep our focus on the real problem - the pilots. Saying "Soaring is
dangerous" because "pilots THINK they're good" is mis-direction at
best.

Bad pilots who think they're good are idiots. Those who just don't
care are worse. Good pilots know they will make mistakes. They plan
for those mistakes with safety margins so they don't get hurt. They
fly for a lifetime without accidents.

The sport can be made safer than it is using technology like FLARM but
fix the pilot and fix the real problem.

BTW, I have known a couple of people who died playing tennis.

On May 21, 5:04*pm, Bill D wrote:
On May 21, 3:45*pm, "S. Murry" wrote:









On Mon, 21 May 2012 16:13:26 -0500, Bill D wrote:
On May 21, 2:20 pm, "S. Murry" wrote:
I don't want to hijack the thread about Walter Mueller's 75 gliding
anniversary (GO, Walter!) by talk about an early death...seems a bit
morbid. *But I have to comment on Bob's statement:

snip
However...if any reader knows of a gliding participant who feels
predestined to die in a sailplane, perhaps you'd be doing said
participant
a real favor by suggesting to them some serious re-examination of why
that
thought persists is in order. Just sayin'...

Bob W.

end snip

I think I agree with your statement, Bob, insofar as if you have a
belief
that you are predestined to die in any particular way (whether gliding
or
otherwise), you are either suicidal (and have picked out your method of
ending it all), have some kind of strange religious belief (i.e. that
you
know that God is going to kill you in some particular way), or are
suffering from some other psychosis and probably shouldn't be soaring.

On the other hand, if you are in this sport and don't realize that it
may
very well be one of the most dangerous sports out there, I submit to you
that you are deceiving yourself. *Obviously, you are still far from
"predestined to die in a sailplane" (statistically speaking, but of
course
your *individual results may vary), but if you don't recognize the risks
involved you may be more likely to avoid taking the necessary safety
precautions to prevent these risks from growing beyond those that are
inherent in this sport. *For this reason, I think it is actually quite
healthy to have a feeling that strapping on your sailplane may very well
be the most dangerous thing you do today...I think about this pretty
much
every time I suit up, and I think it helps to keep me focused on safety.

--
Stefan Murry

I feel uncomfortable blackening the sport of soaring with the label
"dangerous" without some caveats. *It is certainly dangerous for some
pilots and not so much for others - the variable part is the pilot not
the sport. *If the statement is, "Since I have no intention of
becoming a skilled pilot, this sport is dangerous for me", then I
would agree.

The essential part of being a pilot is making something inherently
dangerous into something inherently safe through the application of
knowledge and skill acquired through training and diligence. *I happen
to know many, many pilots who have made the effort to become highly
skilled. *This has resulted in a long lifetime of safe flying. *I try
not to get to know the other kind.

Bill,

I think we're almost in agreement here. *But I disagree that the sport can
ever be made "inherently safe". *It's just not. *Even highly skilled
pilots sometimes come to grief (Helmut Reichmann comes immediately to
mind, and Chris O’Callaghan at the nationals in 2010). *It's not by
mistake that I picked two pilots killed in midairs, since this seems to me
to be about as far away from anything that is within the control of the
pilot as any accident cause short of catastrophic mechanical failure. *Of
course, by not taking all appropriate precautions (including training and
proficiency enhancement), it can be downright UNSAFE, so I agree with you
there.

The nit that I pick with your line of reasoning is that most pilots THINK
that they're safe and proficient (regardless of whether they actually
are), and if you subscribe to the belief that this somehow inoculates you
against dying in a glider then it is very easy to become cavalier. *The
way I look at it, the sport is inherently unsafe. *Everything we do (or
should be doing) as pilots is in an attempt to make this inherently unsafe
activity safer.

In the end, "safe" and "unsafe" are all relative terms, as you
acknowledge. *Certainly, soaring is probably safer than, say, skydiving
(at least that's my guess, I don't know it for sure), but it's probably
less safe than, say, tennis (at least if you define safety as the
probability of not causing death). *At least I don't know many people that
died playing tennis, but do know several that have died flying gliders.

I fly a lot (in an attempt to maintain proficiency), read all I can about
soaring, attend and present FAA Safety seminars, try to maintain my glider
in good mechanical condition, etc. *In more than 25 years of flying, I've
never had an accident. *But I don't have any illusion that this makes
gliding safe (in comparison to many other activities that I might choose
to pursue), only that it makes it SAFER than if I didn't do these things.

Let's be honest. *We fly gliders because it's a thrill, a challenge and
because it touches on some primal desire within us. *We believe that the
benefits that we obtain by partaking in this activity outweigh the chances
of dying while participating. *But I think we'll all agree that if the
only factor in choosing a leisure activity were the avoidance of danger,
gliding wouldn't be our choice. *We'd all be playing croquet or
shuffleboard. *Gliding is inherently unsafe, but we can mitigate this to a
great extent with caution and training.

--Stefan

--
Stefan Murry

Stefan, you paint with too broad a brush. *All accidents are
regrettable but 99% of them can be traced to pilot error. *We need to
keep our focus on the real problem - the pilots. *Saying "Soaring is
dangerous" because "pilots THINK they're good" is mis-direction at
best.

Bad pilots who think they're good are idiots. *Those who just don't
care are worse. *Good pilots know they will make mistakes. *They plan
for those mistakes with safety margins so they don't get hurt. *They
fly for a lifetime without accidents.

The sport can be made safer than it is using technology like FLARM but
fix the pilot and fix the real problem.

BTW, I have known a couple of people who died playing tennis.

All this talk about good pilots, bad pilots, safe pilots etc has me
curious. It seems rather subjective to me actually. Would a bad pilot
and an un-safe pilot be the same? What about a pilot with only a few
hundred hours that flies only a few times before a contest and then
flies a particularly challenging event in a technical environment.
Would that pilot be safe? Would they be exhibiting good judgement,
would they be seen by their peers as a "seasoned" veteran? I suppose
this is a moot point until "example" pilot crashes and then the events
leading up to the crash are painfully reconstructed here on RAS. Or
perhaps said pilot beats the pants off of everybody and is then seen
as a stick and rudder prodigy, one to mentor and give advice to
aspiring pilots............all that stands between "hero-to-zero"
could be one simple mistake. And unfortunately it seems one simple
mistake erases the hundreds of good choices that are made during each
flight, figuratively and literally.

How and who are we to know everything about a pilot to come to such
conclusions. Yes, I have seen examples of truly bad piloting skills,
I've also seen high time pilots do very questionable things. But
because I judge them against what I would or would not do, does that
indeed give me the imprimatur to judge them?

Like most posting to this topic, I think about the risks and the
possible outcomes of my flying decisions every time I fly. I am loath
to do something that will break my glider or my body, I do not want to
sit on the sidelines while my glider is being repaired, or worse yet
find myself out of the sport due to busted body and glider. Is it
possible that someone at my glider port might consider me "unsafe" or
a "bad" pilot? I suppose so.................but again, what behavior
or actions would they cite to make that claim? and would that claim be
supported by the gliding community? I submit that the pilots Peers and
the Gliding community are not mutually exclusive; there may be
crossovers, but not 100% continuity.

We're all now just a bad landing or a turn into the hill away from
being a "statistic" here on RAS. Who will be the next topic of "Crunch
Alert"? and more to the point, what will it change in anyone's
behavior?

Brad

On 5/21/2012 2:20 PM, S. Murry wrote:
I don't want to hijack the thread about Walter Mueller's 75 gliding
anniversary (GO, Walter!) by talk about an early death...seems a bit morbid.
But I have to comment on Bob's statement:

snip
However...if any reader knows of a gliding participant who feels predestined
to die in a sailplane, perhaps you'd be doing said participant a real favor by
suggesting to them some serious re-examination of why that thought persists is
in order. Just sayin'...

Bob W.

end snip

I think I agree with your statement, Bob, insofar as if you have a belief that
you are predestined to die in any particular way (whether gliding or
otherwise), you are either suicidal (and have picked out your method of ending
it all), have some kind of strange religious belief (i.e. that you know that
God is going to kill you in some particular way), or are suffering from some
other psychosis and probably shouldn't be soaring.

On the other hand, if you are in this sport and don't realize that it may very
well be one of the most dangerous sports out there, I submit to you that you
are deceiving yourself. Obviously, you are still far from "predestined to die
in a sailplane" (statistically speaking, but of course your individual results
may vary), but if you don't recognize the risks involved you may be more
likely to avoid taking the necessary safety precautions to prevent these risks
from growing beyond those that are inherent in this sport. For this reason, I
think it is actually quite healthy to have a feeling that strapping on your
sailplane may very well be the most dangerous thing you do today...I think
about this pretty much every time I suit up, and I think it helps to keep me
focused on safety.


Thanks for giving the topic its own thread. I couldn't think of a semi-decent
way to segue into another philosophically-based safety topic, and certainly
didn't mean to take the spotlight away from Walter Mueller's awesome
achievement. Actually, I envy him his vitality!

What I was alluding to was if any reader knows any soaring pilot(s) with a
sufficiently fatalistic attitude about the risks inherent to the sport that
they choose to use those risks as justification for not working as hard as
they otherwise might be working to improve themselves (knowledge, judgment and
skills), then such an inert/fatalistic pilot is - in my view - doing
themselves a dis-service.

Maybe I've set up a straw man here...but maybe not. If any reader knows a
soaring pilot who believes - about any particular aspect of the sport -
something along the lines of "there's nothing I can do about (this or that)
risk in this sport, so therefore I'm not going to worry about trying to
mitigate them, that might be a person who could benefit from a change in
outlook/attitude. The sort of risks I have in mind are those which ARE
mitigatable by increased pilot awareness, knowledge, judgment and skill of
course (e.g. inadvertent departures from controlled flight, group thermalling,
final glides, etc.).

In any event, my sense is you and I are in general agreement that a healthy
sense of one's mortality is likely a good thing for helping create and
maintain "a safe soaring pilot."
- - - - - -

Not that anyone has yet asked, but what I imagine I'm really hoping to
accomplish by actively discussing these sorts of ideas and attitudes on RAS
might be two things:

1) actively encouraging a pilot or two to focus on upgrading some aspect of
their piloting that they might not otherwise be inclined to do. (I've known
many a pilot who seemed to actively open their minds to learning mostly when
they're "obviously" taking instruction [meaning, from a government-approved
instructor]. I think that's a shame, and in some cases it's actively worried
me for their futures.)

2) encourage a pilot or two who might not feel "sufficiently personally
empowered" to speak up at their club (or wherever) when they witness
difficult-to-comprehend, marginally safe, outright dangerous piloting antics,
etc., to actually SPEAK UP! (None of us has a monopoly on good judgment,
knowledge or skills, and all of us - good judgment/knowledge/skills-wise -
exist relative to the rest of our peers...meaning each of us individually has
a good chance of being able to engage in useful "peer discussions" when we
witness anything that puzzles or dismays or otherwise attracts our attention
in a way that vaguely triggers an internal safety alarm. Look for reasons to
have those discussions, rather than hope "someone else will fix it." In my
experience, you'll typically learn something useful, and occasionally feel
you've actually contributed something good to the sport we all love, even if
not "a government approved instructor.")

Bob W.

On 5/21/2012 7:03 PM, Brad wrote:

Major snip...


We're all now just a bad landing or a turn into the hill away from
being a "statistic" here on RAS. Who will be the next topic of "Crunch
Alert"? and more to the point, what will it change in anyone's
behavior?

"{W]hat will it change in anyone's behavior?" is - to my way of thinking - the
sixty-four-thousand dollar question.

I'm inclined to think that if discussions as these - and the personal thought
that presumably is a part - does NOT change an individual's future behavior
(because it changes their outlook/thinking which in turn has power to alter
behavior), then so be it...but I'd ask a following question: Why not?

It's a serious question. A valid answer - in my mind - for NOT changing one's
outlook/behavior is the person is already "in the right place" mentally.
That's a great thing! (I like to think I got myself there regarding
inadvertent departures from controlled flight some time back in the 1980's,
for example.) Actually, that's the ONLY valid answer I've ever been able to
conjure up.

If there's anyone out there who seriously thinks differently, it certainly
seems a great topic for discussion!

Bob W.

On May 21, 7:03*pm, Brad wrote:
On May 21, 5:04*pm, Bill D wrote:









On May 21, 3:45*pm, "S. Murry" wrote:

On Mon, 21 May 2012 16:13:26 -0500, Bill D wrote:
On May 21, 2:20 pm, "S. Murry" wrote:
I don't want to hijack the thread about Walter Mueller's 75 gliding
anniversary (GO, Walter!) by talk about an early death...seems a bit
morbid. *But I have to comment on Bob's statement:

snip
However...if any reader knows of a gliding participant who feels
predestined to die in a sailplane, perhaps you'd be doing said
participant
a real favor by suggesting to them some serious re-examination of why
that
thought persists is in order. Just sayin'...

Bob W.

end snip

I think I agree with your statement, Bob, insofar as if you have a
belief
that you are predestined to die in any particular way (whether gliding
or
otherwise), you are either suicidal (and have picked out your method of
ending it all), have some kind of strange religious belief (i.e. that
you
know that God is going to kill you in some particular way), or are
suffering from some other psychosis and probably shouldn't be soaring.

On the other hand, if you are in this sport and don't realize that it
may
very well be one of the most dangerous sports out there, I submit to you
that you are deceiving yourself. *Obviously, you are still far from
"predestined to die in a sailplane" (statistically speaking, but of
course
your *individual results may vary), but if you don't recognize the risks
involved you may be more likely to avoid taking the necessary safety
precautions to prevent these risks from growing beyond those that are
inherent in this sport. *For this reason, I think it is actually quite
healthy to have a feeling that strapping on your sailplane may very well
be the most dangerous thing you do today...I think about this pretty
much
every time I suit up, and I think it helps to keep me focused on safety.

--
Stefan Murry

I feel uncomfortable blackening the sport of soaring with the label
"dangerous" without some caveats. *It is certainly dangerous for some
pilots and not so much for others - the variable part is the pilot not
the sport. *If the statement is, "Since I have no intention of
becoming a skilled pilot, this sport is dangerous for me", then I
would agree.

The essential part of being a pilot is making something inherently
dangerous into something inherently safe through the application of
knowledge and skill acquired through training and diligence. *I happen
to know many, many pilots who have made the effort to become highly
skilled. *This has resulted in a long lifetime of safe flying. *I try
not to get to know the other kind.

Bill,

I think we're almost in agreement here. *But I disagree that the sport can
ever be made "inherently safe". *It's just not. *Even highly skilled
pilots sometimes come to grief (Helmut Reichmann comes immediately to
mind, and Chris O’Callaghan at the nationals in 2010). *It's not by
mistake that I picked two pilots killed in midairs, since this seems to me
to be about as far away from anything that is within the control of the
pilot as any accident cause short of catastrophic mechanical failure. *Of
course, by not taking all appropriate precautions (including training and
proficiency enhancement), it can be downright UNSAFE, so I agree with you
there.

The nit that I pick with your line of reasoning is that most pilots THINK
that they're safe and proficient (regardless of whether they actually
are), and if you subscribe to the belief that this somehow inoculates you
against dying in a glider then it is very easy to become cavalier. *The
way I look at it, the sport is inherently unsafe. *Everything we do (or
should be doing) as pilots is in an attempt to make this inherently unsafe
activity safer.

In the end, "safe" and "unsafe" are all relative terms, as you
acknowledge. *Certainly, soaring is probably safer than, say, skydiving
(at least that's my guess, I don't know it for sure), but it's probably
less safe than, say, tennis (at least if you define safety as the
probability of not causing death). *At least I don't know many people that
died playing tennis, but do know several that have died flying gliders.

I fly a lot (in an attempt to maintain proficiency), read all I can about
soaring, attend and present FAA Safety seminars, try to maintain my glider
in good mechanical condition, etc. *In more than 25 years of flying, I've
never had an accident. *But I don't have any illusion that this makes
gliding safe (in comparison to many other activities that I might choose
to pursue), only that it makes it SAFER than if I didn't do these things.

Let's be honest. *We fly gliders because it's a thrill, a challenge and
because it touches on some primal desire within us. *We believe that the
benefits that we obtain by partaking in this activity outweigh the chances
of dying while participating. *But I think we'll all agree that if the
only factor in choosing a leisure activity were the avoidance of danger,
gliding wouldn't be our choice. *We'd all be playing croquet or
shuffleboard. *Gliding is inherently unsafe, but we can mitigate this to a
great extent with caution and training.

--Stefan

--
Stefan Murry

Stefan, you paint with too broad a brush. *All accidents are
regrettable but 99% of them can be traced to pilot error. *We need to
keep our focus on the real problem - the pilots. *Saying "Soaring is
dangerous" because "pilots THINK they're good" is mis-direction at
best.

Bad pilots who think they're good are idiots. *Those who just don't
care are worse. *Good pilots know they will make mistakes. *They plan
for those mistakes with safety margins so they don't get hurt. *They
fly for a lifetime without accidents.

The sport can be made safer than it is using technology like FLARM but
fix the pilot and fix the real problem.

BTW, I have known a couple of people who died playing tennis.

All this talk about good pilots, bad pilots, safe pilots etc has me
curious. It seems rather subjective to me actually. Would a bad pilot
and an un-safe pilot be the same? What about a pilot with only a few
hundred hours that flies only a few times before a contest and then
flies a particularly challenging event in a technical environment.
Would that pilot be safe? Would they be exhibiting good judgement,
would they be seen by their peers as a "seasoned" veteran? I suppose
this is a moot point until "example" pilot crashes and then the events
leading up to the crash are painfully reconstructed here on RAS. Or
perhaps said pilot beats the pants off of everybody and is then seen
as a stick and rudder prodigy, one to mentor and give advice to
aspiring pilots............all that stands between "hero-to-zero"
could be one simple mistake. And unfortunately it seems one simple
mistake erases the hundreds of good choices that are made during each
flight, figuratively and literally.

How and who are we to know everything about a pilot to come to such
conclusions. Yes, I have seen examples of truly bad piloting skills,
I've also seen high time pilots do very questionable things. But
because I judge them against what I would or would not do, does that
indeed give me the imprimatur to judge them?

Like most posting to this topic, I think about the risks and the
possible outcomes of my flying decisions every time I fly. I am loath
to do something that will break my glider or my body, I do not want to
sit on the sidelines while my glider is being repaired, or worse yet
find myself out of the sport due to busted body and glider. Is it
possible that someone at my glider port might consider me "unsafe" or
a "bad" pilot? I suppose so.................but again, what behavior
or actions would they cite to make that claim? and would that claim be
supported by the gliding community? I submit that the pilots Peers and
the Gliding community are not mutually exclusive; there may be
crossovers, but not 100% continuity.

We're all now just a bad landing or a turn into the hill away from
being a "statistic" here on RAS. Who will be the next topic of "Crunch
Alert"? and more to the point, what will it change in anyone's
behavior?

Brad

There are a lot of things to discuss in Brad's post. Obviously,
pilots come in many skill and experience levels but all can fly
safely. The key is mature judgement - knowing when an action will put
the pilot "in over his head". It has been said gliding is like chess
- you have to think several moves ahead.

One of the key steps in making good judgements is the questions asked
of oneself before committing, "What if this doesn't work?" and "What
if it does?" The answers are different for pilots with different
experience and skills and each answer can lead to an altered plan of
action. If the questions aren't asked or there are no answers, the
pilot is in over his head.

The turn into a ridge is an example. Once committed to the turn,
there are few options other than hitting the ridge if it doesn't
work. Given it's a near certain crash if it doesn't work, some extra
safety margin is in order. One of mine is to never do a 360 in a
suspected thermal on a ridge until well above the top - high enough to
dive to the upwind side 'if it doesn't work'.

There's a story of a pilot who tried to cross Point Loma flying south
from the Torry Pines ridge and succeeding - then finding himself over
San Diego Bay with no where to land. He had a plan if the crossing
didn't work but was clueless if it did.

Good point snipped from the other thread.
I will try to "do the favor" for the pilot who tops my personal list of people who will die in a glider, next time I see him... That is if he bothers to use the conventional radio frequencies while doing aerobatics near other aircraft.
Jim

On Monday, May 21, 2012 1:20:37 PM UTC-7, S. Murry wrote:

snip
However...if any reader knows of a gliding participant who feels
predestined to die in a sailplane, perhaps you'd be doing said participant
a real favor by suggesting to them some serious re-examination of why that
thought persists is in order. Just sayin'...

Bob W.

I'm curious whether or not there are any statistics about accident rates of RAS participants.

No doubt most of us are certain that we aren't the one likely to be in the next crunch alert as we read the forums and reports. But is the fact that usually it is this group that is acknowledging the reality that we might join that club any indicator that we might be a little less likely to join it? Are we all just preaching to the choir?

Morgan

On Tuesday, May 22, 2012 12:33:24 PM UTC-7, JS wrote:
Good point snipped from the other thread.
I will try to "do the favor" for the pilot who tops my personal list of people who will die in a glider, next time I see him... That is if he bothers to use the conventional radio frequencies while doing aerobatics near other aircraft.
Jim

On Monday, May 21, 2012 1:20:37 PM UTC-7, S. Murry wrote:

snip
However...if any reader knows of a gliding participant who feels
predestined to die in a sailplane, perhaps you'd be doing said participant
a real favor by suggesting to them some serious re-examination of why that
thought persists is in order. Just sayin'...

Bob W.