How many of those people killed due to accidents in
cars are due to drunk drivers, drugged up drivers,
p1ssed off drivers etc etc etc.

There is NO COMPARISON between gliding and an everyday
chore.

If you are asking to determine whether gliding is safe
then yes. Gliding is safe. It is as safe as you would
like it to be. It can also be as dangerous as you would
like it to be. But it is a sport in which YOU DETERMINE
how risky it is.

Owain



At 15:00 29 August 2003, Jj Sinclair wrote:
Ephraim,
Soaring is not the safest sport around. If I were to
hazard a guess, it would
be on a par with skydiving. Most of us in the sport
enjoy the danger aspect up
to a point. That point for me is when my actions could
result in a landing in
anything other than a farmers field or a dry lake.
I draw the line there and
hold back to get more altitude before committing my
tender body and sturdy
craft to any situation that could result in me sitting
in a pile of fiberglass
ruble.

For the most part, the sport is just as safe as you
want to make it. Oh, there
is the rope brake on takeoff or the unseen mid-air,
but these are rare and part
of the reason we want a sport with a little unknown
factor to deal with every
time we *Slip the surly bonds of earth*

The best advice I can give you is; Don't do anything
that you are not
comfortable with. Having said that, you must press
the edges of your comfort
zone, or you will never grow in the sport. For the
new pilot, the edge of
comfort will usually be slope soaring. Ease into it
by staying out 200 feet
from the rocks, always turn away from the rocks. Always
keep your speed up,
until you have checked out the area for squirrely air.

Come join us, we are a band of brothers, doing something
that not every Tom,
Dick and Harry is doing and we like it that way.
JJ Sinclair