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Aviation Forum / General / Soaring / January 2012Reason 28, 29, 30.... why I don't paraglide
http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2010.htm >http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2010.htm > >Thats scary. I have used Paragliders as lift markers in the past,and thermalled away,I did not realise I was risking there life.I will keep well away from now on. >>http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2010.htm >> >>Thats scary. I have used Paragliders as lift markers in the past,and >thermalled away,I did not realise I was risking there life.I will keep >well away from now on. Wherever the cometclones website gets a mention, we like to try and address the imbalance with this one: http://www.cometcrones.com Anything that dangerous must be fun ;) On the other hand sailplanes have a terrible safety record, training and experience doesn't seem to help either. > Anything that dangerous must be fun ;) On the other hand sailplanes > have a terrible safety record, training and experience doesn't seem to > help either. Hmmm.... Really? Terrible safety record? Compared to what?... Shuffleboard? My $0.02, Zero One On Mar 21, 5:45 am, "greggbal...@gmail.com" <greggbal...@gmail.com> wrote: > Anything that dangerous must be fun ;) On the other hand sailplanes > have a terrible safety record, training and experience doesn't seem to > help either. try taking a leak or eating a sandwich flying a hang glider or paraglider..................been there-done that.................sailplanes are my choice! On Mar 21, 6:45 am, "greggbal...@gmail.com" <greggbal...@gmail.com> wrote: > Anything that dangerous must be fun ;) On the other hand sailplanes > have a terrible safety record, training and experience doesn't seem to > help either. I would rephrase... Pilots who think training and experience doesn't matter tend to have terrible safety records. How many dead ex-world champion glider pilots are there? How many active privately owned gliders in the US and how many fatals per year in privately owned gliders? Soaring is not as safe as glider pilots like to believe. > On Mar 21, 6:45 am, "greggbal...@gmail.com" <greggbal...@gmail.com> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Pilots who think training and experience doesn't matter tend to have > terrible safety records. > On Mar 21, 6:45 am, "greggbal...@gmail.com" <greggbal...@gmail.com> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Pilots who think training and experience doesn't matter tend to have > terrible safety records. Just to make the counter argument, that the original article is making. "There are risks that training do not seem to be able to mitigate." If your wing spar has an X % of breaking on every flight, no amount of pilot training will reduce that percentage. You can not mitigate that risk with pilot training, you must re-design the spar. The same is with paragliders, there are inherent risks of collapse in the design. > > On Mar 21, 6:45 am, "greggbal...@gmail.com" <greggbal...@gmail.com> > > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > risk with pilot training, you must re-design the spar. The same is > with paragliders, there are inherent risks of collapse in the design. Giving that there are way more paraglider pilots than glider pilots worldwide, a quick look at the worldwide statistic at the above link shows that paragliding is much safer than gliding. Same goes for hang gliding. Of course their injury rate is much higher, but fatality rate is much lower. Reason is simple: sailplanes are much less forgiving for any mishap due to the energy involved. There is much less chance to survive a glider accident than a HG/PG accident. You can walk (or at least crawl) away from most HG/PG accidents, wish this was true for gliding as well. Ramy > > On Mar 21, 6:45 am, "greggbal...@gmail.com" <greggbal...@gmail.com> > > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > risk with pilot training, you must re-design the spar. The same is > with paragliders, there are inherent risks of collapse in the design. Somehow there's a thought process that's found its way into aviation. It's, "Gliding must be dangerous 'cause it sure ain't me that's dangerous". Well, it is the pilot who's dangerous. Humans are ALWAYS the weakest link. Training and experience strengthen that link. Training and experience absolutely reduce risk. Otherwise, why would anyone bother to train and test aviators? For a long time now 95% of all GA accidents have been caused by pilot error. It's not hard to ascribe the other 5% to pilots as well since the pilot is charged with insuring his (it's usually guys) aircraft is airworthy. An airworthy spar in a glider flown by a well trained pilot who knows and follows the rules has a 0% chance of breaking. > An airworthy spar in a glider flown by a well trained pilot who knows > and follows the rules has a 0% chance of breaking. Wasn't that the point of the website? That the paraglider has a relatively large, non-zero chance of "breaking", even though you are well trained and follow the rules? I don't know if he's right, but seemed to be reasonable argument, that many/most accidents began when the paraglider became unairworthy. That seems different from our sailplane experience, where I'd say most glider crashes involve an airworthy glider.  SignatureEric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me) Have you factored out the unairworthy gliders made so by faulty assembly? >> An airworthy spar in a glider flown by a well trained pilot who knows >> and follows the rules has a 0% chance of breaking. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >sailplane experience, where I'd say most glider crashes involve an >airworthy glider. > Have you factored out the unairworthy gliders made so by faulty assembly? Why would anyone do that? Proper assembly is a pilot responsibility whether he rigged the glider or not. Pilots have the final responsibility to perform a pre-flight inspection which includes checking for proper assembly. If a pilot crashes due to improper assembly, he alone bears the blame. Again, training and experience is critically important. > Again, training and experience is critically important. billdan, Are you missing the point on purpose, not understanding or just trying to have a different discussion ? Neither the referenced article nor my post disagree with the statement "training and experience is critically important". But we are making the statement "there are some risks not mitigable by training". If you are trying to emphasize the importance of training, please do so without diminshing the posibility of other issues. Thanks Todd Smith 3S > > Again, training and experience is critically important. > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Todd Smith > 3S I'm not missing the point - I'm going right at it. Exactly what issues are not 'mitigable' by training? I'm saying there are no such issues. All safety issues are addressable by training. That's the fundamental premise of safety training. My hot button is the prevalent but very wrong headed statement, "Soaring is dangerous and there's nothing we can do about it". Soaring isn't inherently dangerous of itself but human factors such as lack of skill and knowledge can certainly make it so. Training and experience is how we address human factors. > > > Again, training and experience is critically important. > [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Well, I guess you are missing the point. Which is: "Aircraft design issues can not be addressed by pilot training." Todd > > > > Again, training and experience is critically important. > [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > > Todd What!? Of course design issues are addressed by pilot training. It's called a type checkout. Certain designs do have idiosyncrasies and they're thoroughly covered in the checkout. If you referring to structural or handling deficiencies that somehow made through the certification process without being detected - those are incredibly rare to the point of being almost non-existent. If they do make it through the certification process, they'll lead to an AD which requires all affected aircraft to be modified. With those systems in place, the odds any individual pilot will be the unfortunate one to find them are vanishingly small. > > > > > Again, training and experience is critically important. > [quoted text clipped - 47 lines] > > - Show quoted text - I am very specifically referring to "structural or handling deficiencies" inherent in a paraglider's basic design. Because that is what the linked article was discussing. If you want to discuss certified sailplanes, we won't have much to argue about, because I think Bob K said it very well. Todd > Soaring isn't inherently dangerous of itself but human factors such as > lack of skill and knowledge can certainly make it so. Training and > experience is how we address human factors. I see this in the opposite way: I firmly believe that soaring is inherently unforgiving, and it is only through training and judgment that we mitigate the risks. I think that no conscientious sailplane developer or human factors specialist would say otherwise. We fling ourselves through the air in lightweight plastic shells that have only modest crash protection at speeds up to 150 MPH. We do not always have full control over the conditions under which we land, or where we land. Our machines have myriad idiosyncrasies that give rise to sometimes awkward handling. We often operate these machines in close proximity to one another, despite the fact that even the slightest collision can result in structural failure. We often operate them at altitudes conducive to hypoxia, which causes disorientation. We fly in contests that place incentive on calibrated risk-taking. Against all that we have training, skill, judgment, discretion, engineering, a handful of electronics, some compressed gasses, statistical probability, and a few books full of rules. And so far, that stuff has kept the danger down to a dull roar, down to where soaring is about as dangerous as you make it. It obviously cannot be exactly as dangerous as you make it; in addition to the subjective risks there are objective risks such as getting run down by the occasional airplane that comes from behind. But for the most part subjective risks reign, and training and experience hold the field. Thanks, Bob K. When I earned my pilot's license a fellow pilot gave me a short but serious talk about how dangerous soaring is, and how many friends had been lost, etc. Later in the day he nearly took off with airbrakes deployed. Fortunately I did not pick up the wing but instead pointed at the air brakes. My point is not to criticize the pilot, but to point out that we are all human and sometimes make mistakes. To me this is what makes soaring dangerous... falling into a routine and then falling out of it without realizing you have done so. > When I earned my pilot's license a fellow pilot gave me a short but > serious talk about how dangerous soaring is, and how many friends had [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > soaring dangerous... falling into a routine and then falling out of it > without realizing you have done so. My point exactly. Gliders don't kill pilots - pilots wreck gliders. > > Soaring isn't inherently dangerous of itself but human factors such as > > lack of skill and knowledge can certainly make it so. Training and [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > > Thanks, Bob K. Well said. Bill, My comment was in reaction to the last statement in his post. "That seems different from our sailplane experience, where I'd say mos glider crashes involve an airworthy glider." My point was simply that a glider with an improper hookup is no airworthy. I know there are a lot of accidents because of thi phenomenon, but I don't know how significant this is statistically. This does not take away from your argument. Best, Nyal >> Have you factored out the unairworthy gliders made so by faulty >assembly? [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >assembly, he alone bears the blame. Again, training and experience is >critically important. >>> An airworthy spar in a glider flown by a well trained pilot who knows >>> and follows the rules has a 0% chance of breaking. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >> sailplane experience, where I'd say most glider crashes involve an >> airworthy glider. > Have you factored out the unairworthy gliders made so by faulty assembly? Yes, I was thinking of gliders that were airworthy at the beginning of the flight. I would also exclude all paragliders that were not airworthy at the beginning of the flight. SignatureEric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me) I don't think that bringing people to soaring is done by trashing other aviation sports. One could come up just as easily with morbid "reasons 23, 24, 25.... why gliding is not a good idea". As a glider and paraglider pilot, my reasons to practice both sports have so far exceed the list of reasons not to. They both have some level of danger and failure to ignore this when I go fly would be an added source of danger. > It's not hard to ascribe the other 5% to pilots as well since > the pilot is charged with insuring his (it's usually guys) aircraft is > airworthy. > > An airworthy spar in a glider flown by a well trained pilot who knows > and follows the rules has a 0% chance of breaking. Wait. If pilot n-1 overstresses said spar, then chances of it breaking may be closer to 100% for pilot n. Yet, the damage may well be invisible and impossible to detect during normal preflight. Are you saying that if pilot n gets killed then it is his own fault for not properly x-raying the wings before flying? B. Thanks for pointing out this link. I started flying HGers in the earl 80s while in the Army in Germany. I flew a lot of modest cross countr flights, mostly in the Bavarian Alps, Austria and in France. When PGer came out in the mid 80s started flying them too, mostly hiking up stuf and flying off. I looked at them as just a fast way to get down from hike, not as a way fly. In fact, it never really felt like flying a all, more like being in an aerial lawn chair. I have my share of canop collapses and situations with zero ground speed in high winds. N thanks. After a couple of close calls I started flying them only in ver calm conditions. I continued to fly the HG for real flying. Then drifted out of HGing. But the flying bug was still with me and two year ago in my mid 50s I got my glider license. I must say that I FEEL much much safer in a sailplane than I ever did in a PGer, no question. U until last summer I still did hike'n'fly PGer trips but no more. It' just too dangerous. I agree that there is massive denial in the PGin community about its dangers. Compared to HGing and sailplanes it's eas to get a basic handle on PGing. It appeals to ideas of individualis among youth. And let's face it, PGing has sidetracked hundreds of youn people who might otherwise been interested in flying sailplanes. It' also physically much easier than HGing; no manhandling an 18 ft long, 9 lb bag and wrestling with the control bar in rough air. An it's cheap It's big in Europe where most people live in apartments so storage i not an issue. All of this lures semi qualified people into the air. just wish I could find some really good statistics that compare HGing PGing and sailplane accidents. T. Knauff has made a start wit sailplanes but I somehow have the impression that the numbers are to fuzzy. Perhaps someone needs to apply real statistical mathematics t the analysis -- gotovkotzepkoi Most all of my sports starting with second generation HG's to diving have been relatively high risk and I have survived so far in spite of myself but there is no way I would fly a wing that can easily be collapsed by air turbulence. Statistics will not be required to tell me that is not a good idea but it’s your life so enjoy it while you can. >http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2010.htm Wherever the cometclones website gets a mention, we like to try and address the imbalance with this one: http://www.cometcrones.com |
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