5 Times US champion here. A friend pointed out to me that soaring is one of a very few activities in which we have tremendous control over the risk. Motorcyclists are often killed by en error made by another motorist. Glider pilots nearly always are fully to blame in their own deaths. This may be one reason it is so attractive.
True. Also seems that most deaths include one of the following: very inexperienced pilots; aerobatics, competition (landing out, low thermals). Age also counts. I'm a hang glider pilot so I can say about how it goes in HG and paragliding. Competition increases the risk enormously. Thermal gaggles and out landings. Recently two PG collided above launch at my club's festival/comp, while they were tumbling down and opening reserves, a third pilot froze and flew straight below them. This third guy was very experienced, and died, was too low for a reserve chute. In free flight, a glider too hot for skill level (or age) also counts. And in january a local HG pilot crashed into trees on final approach. He is past 70 and was flying a competition glider that is much less forgiving and is harder to handle (we shift weight for roll input). He spent over 2 months in ICU and is now on wheel chair. Were he flying a low intermediate, he wouldn't have crashed, I'm sure.
There are other reasons for decline of soaring. First of all, a good used motorcycle is $4,000 and a glider is $400,000. You are hard pressed to find a really used one under $40,000. And its not uncommon to need $20,000 in repairs. Second is requirements. It requires skill that takes practice that takes money and time. Just meeting the FAA requirements and maintaining adequate knowledge pertaining to legal stuff is a burden in itself. A motorcycle endorsement is $50 and an afternoon of your time, and good for life. Then there is liability. The club local to me has several members fighting six figure lawsuits from disgruntled landowners. The club itself is constantly under legal action both civil courts and constantly dealing with the FAA for tow plane noise and what have you. The FAA doesn't recognize Gliders out landings as valid actions. They will violate the pilot of multiple counts as if it was voluntary and intentional. Private property rights are an absolute in America and very strict in states such as Wyoming. If you end up shot, nobody goes to jail. If you live. They can have your house.
@@ericoschmitt While I was subscribed to the Sailplane and Gliding magazine, which is the official magazine of the British Gliding Association I generally looked through the published list of accidents which include everything from near misses, loss of aircraft but pilots managed to bail out to fatal accidents. It contains everything which has to be reported in line with the guidelines of the BGA/CAA. While inexperienced pilots certainly make more mistakes I have observed a very broad mix of experience levels of pilots which are involved in serious incidents. While inexperience carries a lot of risk it appears that complacency of an experienced pilot is even more dangerous.
Love the last part of your video. At my field there is an instructor, he flies gliders for 60 years or so. Last year he was coming home from 500 km triangle and outlanded about 400m straight line from runway threshold. He was not pushing it over the highway, he was not looking for a thermal. He landed in the field so close to home. And today he still flies. Good decicions make old pilots. I only wish we all come to good decisions at all times when flying.
As few my friends and many pilots i knew died in gliding accidents during competitions, I decided not to participate in competitions. I can recognize change in my behavior when I am in competitive environment, and recognize the same in other pilots. I was experienced pilot with golden badge with three diamonds, flying in Himalayas with Sebastian Kawa, flying in Alps and Polish mountains and flats. Few years ago I have made a recall of my near accident situations and decided that I had a privilege to experience one of the greatest activities that exists, I saw so many great views, and that it is enough. The rest would be challenging the fate. I have stopped to fly and I am grateful what I have experienced. And I cry remembering my pilot friends who died as aviators.
A great post. I flew 7 days as p2 in the UK 2 seater nationals, with two different pilots. Both were great pilots and didnt get sucked into dangerous flying, but I witnessed the occasions when over aggressive under skilled pilots joined a crowded thermal and put others at risk. Fly your own flight, within your own abilities, is my creed 👍 For everything else there's Condor VR gliding simulator 🤪 th-cam.com/video/tD7Xv6IIiGQ/w-d-xo.html
I am unsure of what you are saying, sir. English appears to be your second tongue, which is a perfectly fine thing. My secondary tongue is not so advanced. But did you say that you had stopped gliding?
@@Svensk7119 Yes, I am not gliding anymore. As I wrote (in my pigeon English 🤣) I have reviewed all my near-accident situations critically and decided to call myself an exceptionally lucky person. Every one of these situations could have ended differently. They were all "it was close" situations. These were situations that we all narrate to our pilot friends in the evenings. We all have those situations in our memories - lucky safe. I just realized that I am tempting fate. There was another factor that played together in that decision. I have stopped to be part of the corporate world and my life started to be much less stressed than before. I do not need to burn emotions through gliding anymore. As a consequence, the risk level acceptance diminished. So again, I do not fly gliders. No regrets. One day everybody will stop flying, but it is not my medical tests, It is not fate, it is my conscious decision. Sorry for my English. It is difficult to describe quite a complex thought process mixed with emotions.
I could understand to stop gliding in competitions, because that is really more dangerous than usual soaring. But the "normal" relaxed gliding, maybe even not in the mountains, can be excercised as safe as a bicycle ride, in my opinion.
Sobering Tim. My hangar spot became available due to one of the accidents you mentioned and I was involved in the retrieve of the Ash after that accident, which shook me up as he was a friend from the club with similar hours. 320 comments shows how important this video is for everyone who loves this sport, thanks
The CEO of DG, a german glider manufacturer, came to the same conclusion about 20? years ago. He tried to combat the risks with improved safety features in their gliders, like stall warning, extra reinforced cockpits, and other stuff. However he later said that safety in gliders simply does not sell, the community simply does not want those features.
Is like buying a new table saw and removing the blade guard because it gets in the way of your viewing of the blade and cut.. People hate safety features if they compromise on the performance of the instrument.. Gliding is the same.. Parachutes are too heavy.. Collision avoidance systems are expensive, stall warnings are annoying... Each pilot who chooses not to have these features is doing so because he thinks I dont need any of that, I know what im doing, thats only for amateurs..@@samar949
In 1966 my father lost his life. He had taken a winch tow and at the point of release one of the wings snapped. Several others had ridden the same sailplane that day. My father loved the sport and was the president of the local club. He died doing something he truly loved. "C" badge, silver "C", gold "C", and one diamond from the SSA.
RIP Bill Walker from Queenstown. I think he had the world out-and-return distance record at one stage. And I nearly died crashing my paraglider in 1994. As an instructor I always tried to reinforce in people the idea that the decision to take off or not is the critical one, because it is infinitely better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than to be in the air and wishing you were on the ground.
I'm a GA pilot - had an engine failure in 2010 just south of Sydney. One of the mental tricks that saved me and my passengers that day "when you can't work out what's going wrong with the flight, ask yourself what's going _right_ with the flight" (Jim Davis, frequent contributor to Australian Flying magazine). If the answer is "not enough" your focus quickly shifts to how to end the flight as quickly and safely as possible, rather than just floating along seeing how things go. The thing about flying risk is that it's very much on you as you say. In a car you might be the most careful driver on the planet and some doofus could come around a corner and wipe you out. In the air 99% of the time the doofus is a collection of past yous and their decisions that got you in a pickle.
No, you can WATCH that corner and do a step aside for that doofus. If the doofus gets you, you were driving too fast. But yeah, the doofus is pretty small in your mirrors, and he hits you from a direction you do not expect. Still, always watch out for the doofus! If you are only half conscious, you won't make it.
Even with a lot of respect, things still happen. Messages like this video help you keep perspective and keep safety in the forefront of your mind. I am VERY thankful for all the incidents I have survived. Fly safe, my friends.
At a country fair about a decade ago in England, I spoke to a microlight pilot and mentioned that a friend had lost a friend in a crash. His reply: 'We only lost five last year.'.
As a former microlight instructor I can confirm that currently microlights have a safety record as good as, or better than, GA generally. Sadly there are sometimes fatal accidents but they are getting rarer with better, more reliable machines and effective pilot training.
Microlights safer than GA? Per mile? No way. Per flight? Accidents per participant? I can't believe it. I'd say they're safer than wingsuits, though. @@bigglesace1626
I can't fly my little experimental unless I just accept I could die, same attitude if you rock climb. I'm pushing 60 and still dont really care if I die
Nice honest assessment. I fly a flexwing microlight, as well as ride motorbikes. Truth is it's not so much the activity is dangerous, it's more the mindset of the individuals - many pilots, and most motorcyclists believe training is finished the moment they get their licence, and they stop learning, start developing bad habits, normalising risk, and making excuses, blaming others for near misses, and on it goes. The truth is that training, thorough training, and refresher training WORKS - that's precisely why commercial flying is so safe - constant training!!
I'm no expert by any stretch and came across this by curiosity, but all commercial flying has an electronics suite for safety doesn't it? And all these dead glider pilots or the majority were irresponsible then? Or perhaps, more likely, the truth is these were just regular people just like you who rolled a dice and got unlucky? People often do something day in day out like driving but will eventually make a mistake. We are all human. It just seems to me a mistake here is just far more costly.
There are many reasons why people get killed in aviation, there's some crossover, but also some significant differences in what tends to kill pilots between powered flight and soaring. Powered GA pilots tend to get killed by knowledge, inexperience, currency issues. Unintentional flight into IMC conditions, loss of control due to high altitude environments / terrain, etc. It's not uncommon that many GA pilots intentionally avoid active air conditions, they have that option. However many pilots who die soaring are exceptionally knowledgeable and experienced. Soaring however always takes place in an inherently (comparatively speaking) risky environment. The air is active, and it's being done in aircraft that are often lighter than GA aircraft, sometimes much lighter. In competitions you'll be flying in close proximity to other pilots. There's the competitive element itself that rewards pilots for pushing it. Then there are the outlandings, you simulate that in GA training, but many soaring pilots actually do it regularly. A large minority of my landings hanggliding have been into un-scouted fields in fact, that's just part of the reality of cross country flying. There aren't many soaring pilots that intentionally fly in an overly dangerous way, everyone has a sense of how much risk they are willing to accept, but it's very rarely no risk, sometimes you lose that bet and walk away unharmed, sometimes it kills you. I lost a friend this past year. Among the best hangglider pilots in the world, he had been flying for around 40 years. Even after so long he was an absolute monster of a pilot, infinitely passionate about cross country flying, at the end of the soaring day he would always be smiling and sharing beers. I remember at the end of one day, the rest of us had all been on the ground for an hour or two, no clouds left in the sky, the sun starting to get low, sitting in the hanger chatting we heard the tell tale whistle of the wing of a hangglider swooping in overhead and he lands after an enormous fai triangle. I had come down earlier because my hands were frozen despite wearing gloves and so I was curious to see what kind of gloves he had. He wiped some blood off his lip, turbulence smashed his face into the control bar hard enough that he said he had been worried about passing out. Turns out he didn't have gloves with him! Flying through snow, freezing temperatures, and turbulence for over 9 hours to complete his triangle. Despite all that, he was smiling and as passionate as ever, I can only envy such drive, he was an inspiration. Anyone would change the flight that injures or kills them. However fewer pilots are honestly willing to make intentional changes to their risk profile. I'm not going to judge a skilled pilot who has chosen a riskier profile than mine. I know if I was able to ask my friend if he would have changed how he flew over his life knowing how it would end.... I doubt it, he lived for this. Another friend of mine had a hard landing and took a moderate brain injury. He was an instructor and gave safety lectures and landing improvement courses. I don't think there was anything particularly noteworthy about the flight that injured him. I don't think he made any overly dangerous decisions. The reality is that we are leaves on the wind, it's dangerous, even when you are trying to be reasonable with your safety margin. The truth is there's not one top glider pilot that hasn't pushed the envelope further than others were willing to. In Sebastian Kawa's book "Sky full of heat" he recounts some stories of learning to thermal in clouds, and stories of competitions that preceded him when cloud flying was not penalized by competition rules. Pilots would thermal up thunderstorms using the presence of hail as an indicator of where the core was. Keep in mind this was done with just a turn indicator and airspeed, no artificial horizon. Needless to say, gliders were being ripped apart, severe icing, midair collisions, pilots who bailed out could be deposited 30k+ ft frozen and suffocated. After reading some of those stories, most everything else sounds tame by comparison, and it demonstrates that at least in competition, it's important to set rules that create reasonable boundaries on what people are allowed to do. Unfortunately I have more stories of friends as well as my own failures. The moral though is sometimes people knowingly choose a more risky flight envelope, and while it's important to step in when you think people are really crossing a line or doing so unaware, sometimes it's their decision, and I just can't judge them for that. Secondly I would say, do what you can do to stay safe, but never think it can't happen to you, because it can. Commercial aviation is safe because of the combined effort of an entire industry, pilots, engineers, regulations, ground crew, automated systems.... one guy can never equal that.
@@Chris-kv4vl Not entirely sure what you're on about there, but the overall impression I'm picking up on is that getting knocked about would do you the world of good.
@@Chris-kv4vl you have way oversimplified and overgeneralized the whole thing. Pilots of commercial aircraft can still crash, they can still make mistakes. The avionics doesn't prevent crashes wholesale. A lot of these crashes he describes are ones related to competitions, which means they're pushing themselves and the aircraft to their limits. That's a danger in any sport that involves any kind of vehicle. The others, I can't speak for at all but it sounds like in gliding, it's very easy to become complacent and becoming complacent in a glider can lead to death very quickly. But the same can happen in a commercial airliner. Ever seen some really sketchy landings in crosswinds? The avionics can't save bad inputs. It'll alert you, but it's too late if you rock the plane 20deg in a 50mph crosswinds 40ft off the deck. That's gonna be a big, firey oopsie. And sometimes pilots get close and if you watch a video of a pilot breaking it down, it's always due to a bad input.
Very greatly appreciated. I always enjoy your videos. I am a 73yo Australian, coming back to gliding after a few years break. This motivates me to redouble my efforts to absorb whatever my instructors are telling me, and to never make excuses or talk back. Listen. Listen. Listen. What gliding instructors do for no financial reward is absolutely legendary, and is underappreciated. I have been a GA pilot, and the standard of gliding instruction is every bit as good as GA. They want you to live for your benefit and your family's. It is a huge responsibility they take on.
Well done. I lost four friends during my years of gliding in California and know of several other fatalities. It is the experienced pilots who die. I'm too old to fly now, but despite the risks, I miss it.
From some one who stalled a paraglider at about 12m and then hit the deck and got carted off on a spine board this is a calm and reflective analysis - thank you.
@@PureGlide In my paragliding community, I often hear the same saying, that driving to the site is more dangerous than actually flying... And if we PG pilots are slightly more exposed to lethal accidents than glider pilots, we are way, way more exposed to non-lethal but serious accidents.
As an Instructor I practice a lot of out of the Box exercises like; let them close their eyes and put them in awkward unusual attitudes before they open their eyes again and monitor their startle and surprise behavior. I work a lot on their mental strength so when the unexpected happens they can act in a expected pattern of actions to protect themselves from harm. Do not only fly but also manage the flight. Yesterday a very good soaring day but I cut the task of 526 km after only 80 km short because I did not feel ok due some worries at home. I learned already long time ago that Ego is not your Amigo 😇 Good presentation Tim
Sounds like a staggering accident rate! Where I live we have a bit over 2000 flying gliders, an on average less than one fatality a year. The local gliding club, with a bit over 150 members, have had only one fatal accident since I joined in 1975, and that wasn't while gliding but by spinning in an ultra light.
Robert Kiyosaki tells the story of how one of his flight instructors threw their jet fighter into a flat spin then folded his arms and sat looking out of the window, giving control over to him. He says it's one of the best lessons he's ever had :)
This is a great discussion. Ive studied GA accidents for years now, and noticed the obvious: we are capable of both heroic decisions and bad ones. But the bad ones are almost always based on pride.
About 15 years ago, on the day of my third glider lesson, a young pilot on their first cross country flight crashed during an outlanding. The glider was written off, but thankfully there were no injuries. That was a sobering enough experience for a young teenaged me to understand it was a dangerous sport. In the years since, I've personally known two pilots killed and another seriously injured. All very experienced and professional pilots who you'd never think it would happen to. Three out of four of these crashes occured during landing and I've come close to becoming another at least once very early in my solo flying career during a botched landing. I haven't flown for many years, but when I was, every time I landed the thought of these friends and mentors we lost crept into my mind, which is why I always committed to an outlanding at 1000ft AGL, even if I thought I could save it and always flew very conservative circuits at home plate. These are easy rules to follow and are almost always completely within your control. Gliding is the most incredible sport which makes taking these risks worth it, so long as you take all reasonable measures to reduce the risk.
Thank you for sharing such an honest truth about flying. It undoubtedly carries risks, and discussing the harsh realities that can occur is both shocking and necessary. We must acknowledge these risks in order to effectively navigate and mitigate the challenges they present. Cheers
My grandad died in a glider accident (mid air collision) in 2005 in Benella, Australia. But I am intending in the very near future to have a go at the sport that he loved. I remember going up with him a few times back here in NZ and it was epic, and as a sailor and avgeek it seems like a perfect combination
As a hang glider pilot I have known a few guys who also flew sail planes. What I like about hang gliders is that we can go up in some pretty small thermals and can also land in some pretty small fields. Oddly enough, before a sprained ankle was completely healed, I once landed in some 30 foot saplings near the edge of a field - that was full of over grown bushes. Had I gone for a landing in the field I may have clipped a bush with one wing and landed hard re-injuring my ankle. As it was my "tree" landing was totally controlled and once settled in the small trees I was able to reach the ground quite easily. No additional injury to my ankle either. It seems to me that sail planes don't really offer these kind of options. Since you also mention them, it's also VERY hard to spin a hang glider. So, from my semi ignorance (as far as sail plane flying goes) I feel that hang gliding is safer. However, hang gliders, being very lite aircraft, can be over powered by strong/dynamic winds - especially near the ground. I once had a pretty bad landing when I was hit by a STRONG thermal ripping off the ground when I was at only about 200 feet AGL. The thermal hit only one wing and sent me side slipping toward the ground. I was able to 98% recover. If I had only 90% recovered I might not be here to write this. What I just described was my worst accident ever. In 2025 I will have been flying for 50 years. Hopefully I won't have a fatal accident between now and then. Hopefully I won't have any accidents which would be the more typical couple years of flying. : - )
Good post and very true! As a ex glider pilot and skydiver, one knows that you can make any activity as dangerous or as safe as you want. From my personal observations, distraction and complacency are the biggest killers.
Hi. Very sorry to hear about your friends that lost their lives soaring. I have been flying for 30 years and over that time lost six friends of mine to flying accidents in airplanes. I feel your pain.... I got my private glider rating first and then transitioned to airplanes early on and have been actively flying since though I haven't been soaring with any regularity for about 27 years. I am a 20+ year CFIA. Your video really got my attention. Principally because the fatal accident rates you presented seemed much higher than I would have expected. So, I did some checking to satisfy my own curiosity and thought I would share my very cursory "findings" with you. Meaningful statistics are hard to come by but in essence, in the US, we seem to average about 9 soaring fatalities per year with about 15,000 active glider pilots. The info you presented for NZ indicates there are about 0.8 soaring fatalities per year against a pilot population of 700 pilots. Hours flown per year is always hard to come by so I gauged the data we know against an assumption that most glider pilots probably fly about 25 hours per year. It is the rate we are looking for in any case, and the discrete values can be adjusted accordingly. Anyway, based on that, the NZ fatal accident rate looks to be 4.5 per 100,000 hours versus 2.4 per 100,000 in the US. By comparison, the total GA accident rate in the US is 1.7 fatalities per 100,000 flying hours (based on NTSB data). The obvious issue with soaring is that so much time is spent either in the takeoff/landing phases or while maneuvering close to the ground (ridge soaring) or at steep banks and slow speeds while thermaling. By comparison, the GA population does not have to deal with the high risks associated with soaring though they have their other issues such as IMC flight conditions. Bottom line I suppose is that both the US and NZ soaring communities need to step up their stall/spin training...perhaps NZ a bit more? Not sure what the answer is but it sure would be nice to reduce the accident rate where we can however we can. Anyway, just thought I'd share this info with you. All the best.
Great comment. As a PPL/SEL TW pilot, with just a little glider training. I can confirm that stall/spin training is egregiously lacking in the US. The best training I have is 4hrs in a Pitts with the best Pitts instructor in the world. And the most valuable experience I have is Stalls and Spinning Pitts S2A, Citabria, Decathlon, and Cessna 172. I'm sure Sailplanes are trickier. Due to the difference in tip airspeeds, long span, low Reynolds numbers due to narrow chord and low speed, wing torsion and flexibility, overall poor stability and control characteristics such as massive adverse yaw at high lift coefficients. Owing to the fact they are highly compromised aircraft dedicated to one objective.
Interesting points . I would argue that 25 hrs a year is no where enough experience to maintain current skill levels let alone develop new ones . Genuinely surprised how few hours could be flown during any sport which have serious consequences to error . Surprise accident rates aren’t higher . Great vid
Thanks Tim for this video, it actually brought a tear to my eye, reminding me of a fatal accident in our club a few years ago with a young pilot, aspiring to be a champion one day 😢 This video is a great reminder, and I fully agree, I willingly take the risk because it is such a beautiful sport and I just love it😃 But I also make checklists, read accident reports and tell myself "today is not the day I die" when I go flying. And I instruct and teach newcomers about the risks and mitigation 🤓 Keep up the great work with the channel, and stay safe!👍
I don't fly, but I have a dear friend, my former sea kayak partner, who is a glider pilot. I live in the United States, where I run the National Center for Cold Water Safety. What I'm keenly aware of are the many common subjective elements involved in close calls and fatalities in different adventure sports. I also have a deep appreciation and respect for people like you who preach safety and spend countless hours trying to educate people about it. This was an excellent video throughout. Five stars, well-earned. Moulton Avery, Founder and Director, National Center for Cold Water Safety.
That’s a very thoughtful (respectful) handling of a tricky subject, Tim. 👍 I have read Clemens (Chess in the air) article called ; “Does Soaring Have To Be So Dangerous?”, some time ago. It is excellent! Bottom line is: Everything worth doing has some risk involved. It’s up to you to manage the risk as well as you can.
@@PureGlide Well said. Doesn't matter what you do in life as long as you recognize and MANAGE the risks....after all there is risk in EVERYTHING we do from walking down stairs, to crossing the street, to riding in the car with mama, among a whole world of other risks. I had two careers in aviation...first one 20+years) as a military pilot primarily in helicopters, but there were a couple of thousand hours of fixed wing in there (and plenty of opportunities to hurt or kill yourself), too...that was followed by a second career flying corporate jets all over several continents. Along the way of those two careers I added a glider commercial and a glider instructor to several other ratings with that glider stuff begun in a German glider club in Mainbullau, Germany off of a winch. Wound up my career with north of 13,000 hours in multiple categories of flying contraptions....and an FIA diamond badge in gliders. Soo...I'd say that good old common sense, a bit of luck at the right moment(s) and paying attention to the rules (both physical AND regulatory) of the way the world works should keep one alive. Tim is right about MANAGING risk, but FIRST you have to recognize it...and whether you think about it or not, that is true of pretty much every sort of activity a human might participate in.
@@donjohnson8649 Very true! I've been shaken up by near misses driving a car, most recently a motorcyclist was overtaking on the wrong side of the road stationary trucks and cars at traffic lights, and he just couldn't wait. I was about to turn right to go around them and didn't see the motorcyclist but instinct made me hesitate and not pull out to turn right (from a street on a 90 degree angle to the road). He wasn't supposed to be there he wasn't meant to cross into the oncoming past stationary cars and trucks or cross over a white line but the road was free of cars on that oncoming side and he thought Why not? He didn't know I was there about to turn right. He has no idea that he was saved, and possibly me also, from. him hitting my driver side, simply by an instinct. I didn't have clear vision of the right side of the road and something made me think...no. Even though he shouldn't have been there. He imagines he made a great decision. No. I did. But he will continue to dice with death and that's what shook me up more, as I watched him speed triumphantly ahead...towards the next intersection. The way I grew up understanding cars and risk, you take your life into your hands each time you get behind a wheel. Cars are a lot safer these days but we still have people with permanent life-altering injuries, and deaths. Caution and well timed decisions are what keeps us safe. But at the end of the day someone wth a sudden rush of blood to the head, can change everything.
I personally know seven people who have had to bail out (I’m one), two tug pilot deaths, two life changing events following glider crashes and one lovely girl who died. I also know of several other deaths but do not know the pilots involved. I no longer glide only because I am unable to participate at the level I desire and would resume immediately if I could. There were some commonalities in the incidents I have described. Mine was a technical and administrative failure, three were down to training, four were competition pilots (pushing too hard?), one was a lightning strike and two were stupidity, one criminal (in my opinion). What was really heartbreaking is that everyone launched with the expectation of enjoying themselves. Unfortunately, today the gliding accident rate remains virtually unchanged. Countless changes have been made since I stopped. The biggest being the numpties at the CAA getting involved, obviously for “safety”. So loads more uselss rules and regulation, loads more gadgets, loads more gassing on the radio, loads more procedures and checks and yet NOTHING has changed. Why? As well as line flying I used to be an accident investigator for an airline. We looked at all prangs and tried to look at things from the viewpoint at the person at the sharp end. They did not go to work to cause an accident, so what happened? Why did they end up having a bad day? What should they have seen? What caused them to be in the wrong place? Why did they make a poor decision. And so on. This approach helped. We also looked at the “boring” people. The “grey” pilots who nobody knows. These are the ones to learn from. How do they manage to be so boring? What are they doing right? How do they do what they do? The secret is not finding out what people are doing wrong but finding out what others are doing right. When things go wrong, DO NOT expand the rule and regulation book. DO NOT add yet more pointless guff on a checklist. This is the chicken’s way out. It also has no measurable effect. Listen, learn , look, train most of all, think your way ahead. It doesn’t have to be with an instructor, you can do a lot by yourself. Some of this will be at the bar, some on the field, some during lessons and very importantly at the daily briefings at competitions. Whatever you do though, remember that people go gliding for the enjoyment of it.
I think this is well said and largely I agree. However some new rules are not inherently bad. As we grow and learn we expand our knowledge. It would be negligent not to update rules and regulations based on best practices. I can think of numerous accidents not inherent to gliding but in general where regulations were pulled back and accidents happened as a result. Or situations where there is no regulations, looking at ocean gate.
I had one accident and one near miss handgliding during my learning phase. It taught me allot about how not to get into bad situations such as running out of height or crashing into the hill you just took off from!
I’ve been Hang Gliding for 16 years and I have lost 5 friends. I’m right there with you. Don’t give up on living life, the friends you have lost wouldn’t want you to. Fly Safe!
Excellent video. While Gliding has more risk than some other things, it is important to put everything into perspective. I know of people who have dropped dead playing football, going on a night out, slipping in snow and slipping while crossing a stream. There is risk everywhere but flying a glider above a ridge is awesome. Playing in thermals is out of this world.
I no longer fly anything but over the years I have flown many gliders a few light AC and owned my own microlight, the only times I came close was once in a glider (Astir think) I had a fair amount of cross wind on my approach and when I went to kick it off I really, really struggled because the top of my boot was jamming up against the seat pan. Second time was flying a flex wing in France, some clown in a twin prop buzzed me and I ended up side ways on loosing loads of height very quickly, luckily training kicked in and I sorted it out. In December we (the riding community in Cheshire) lost 3 riders, not a single rider was to blame. I accept the risks and do all that I can do to mitigate those risks but I aint ready to sit in a chair all day and watch life go past.
I've been flying since the age of 13 and I fly powered (multi-engine rating), gliders and hang gliders. I've been flying for over thirty years and most of my recreational flying has been done in hang gliders and gliders. I've lost quite a few friends through hang gliding accidents but only two to gliding. It always hits hard because these are people who are unlike most non flyers. They embody the spirit of adventure and they always seemed - to me at least - to be more alive than most other people I've known. I have never taken part in competitions because I personally feel that the only competition pilots need is their own drive for self improvement; I completely understand others need and desire to compete however, it's just my personal perspective. I'm deeply sorry for the loss of your friends and I know it's probably of little comfort, but at least they died doing something they loved. All the best.
My friend Sergei died on a mini Lak 17b - a mistake by a novice pilot - a corkscrew at low altitude. And another friend Vasily with an 8 year old son died on Janus CM. It looks like the belt on the Rotax 535 C engine broke. The second case is a problem of bureaucracy, we dreamed of changing the engine to a more modern and reliable one (it has already failed 4 times!!!!), but the bureaucracy of the EASA world does not allow this to be done easily. A month ago, the same engine on the DG 500 M failed me on takeoff. I made it through experience and training to fly close to the ground. But, I repeat, simplifying the procedures for replacing old engines and installing a FES system on a club-class glider would make our world safer. th-cam.com/video/G1GoPMjGSRc/w-d-xo.html
Great video 👍 . Years ago, before youtube in-cockpit videos etc, I asked two cross country pilots how I should approach my ambition to fly cross country, I got two answers that I remember to this day (in fact they prompted me to write an article in S&G at the time). Both pilots were instructors. One pilot advised that 'If I wasn't landing out on 50% of my cross countries, I wasn't setting myself challenging enough tasks'. Another pilot, a legend in the club and an experienced and fearless pilot who had flown competitions in early glassfibre hot ships with very poor airbrakes said (of non competition cross countries, but...) "I look at the sky ahead and I make a judgement on the soaring prospect on track. If I conclude it looks insufficiently promising, I either go elsewhere that looks more promising or, more likely, divert to the nearest landing strip from where I might get an aerotow retrieve'. I asked that pilot also what advice he would give to any pilot just starting out on their flying career. His reply was 'Never erode your margins.' I reflected on these various bits of advice and made my own decision.
Risk is the reason i stopped HangGliding and ParaGliding. I am an airline pilot by profession so i had very solid procedures, i did not compete, took no chances... but there is a huge random factor. I enjoyed it for 5 years and as people i knew started dying or getting seriously hurt i had to stop, i could not justify it anymore. Gliders are safer, but not as safe as many people think.
As a fully committed motorcyclist of forty five years I know how dangerous it is but I mitigate the risk by taking responsibility for my piece of the road and how others relate to it! One of the best days of my life was when a patient took me soaring over Eglinton, Central West NSW on one of those days when we could have stayed up forever. Spectacular! You just can't justify your sport or past time to someone who doesn't understand the feeling. P.S. glad we didn't stay up any longer than we did, my bladder was killing me...
Bravo Tim. I have a very hollow place in my heart from the friends I've lost over the years. Every one of them in a GA accident. So far - not one in a glider, and I intend to help keep it that way. Thank you for the sobering video Tim.
@@PureGlide to be honest: I held back getting back into GA because of it. But at some point I decided that happiness must override the fear. It's a risk. I will do everything in my power to reduce and manage risk - but I have to fly. Soaring is my avenue for now. I'd like to get a tail dragger but those aren't very safe, either. An engine failure or flight control problem is just as bad for your health.
Another great video Tim and excellent material to consider. Brand new (72 yr old) pilot here and it has become very apparent how potentially dangerous soaring is, even at my level, or maybe especially at my level. I was a professional mountaineer for some decades in an earlier life and working with Search and Rescue, one could see how things went wrong. Mostly it was the result of cascading bad decisions and attempting things beyond their level of training. But as you have shown it can happen to very experienced pilots. One of my instructors with a career in commercial aviation and 40+ years in soaring recently had a terrible crash for doing something that has been repeatedly told to me not to do (turning into the slope ridge soaring). Seems to me it's training training training and then sticking to what you have been trained to do and not to do.
Thanks for the video. I once had the opportunity to talk to Bo Bobko, a three times Space Shuttle pilot/commander. I told him about my gliding experience and he said: "gliding? That's dangerous!" 😄 During my 18+ years of gliding, flying in several Italian championships and one polish standard class nationals, 6 fellow pilots who I knew, some of them good friends, lost their lives in gliding, and not only in competitions. Not to mention the many more who I had not met personally but whom I had knowledge of. These statistics made me aware of the level of danger of this sport, but as you say the experience was well worth it and will remain as one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I gave up 25 years ago not because of the danger, which can be managed, but because continuing to glide meant taking time and resources away from my growing family.
Brian Spreckley gives a talk at the start of some competitions where he mentions some of the friends he lost over the years. I can't find the video now but he says that many of them were excellent pilots and suggests that they were pushing it harder than they would have rationally wanted to. His suggestion is that each day we take ourselves to one side and remind ourselves that "today is not the day" that we will push it harder than our personal minimums. E.g. cross that ridge lower than we know is safe, take that last thermal on the way home, push on without a suitable field. Just remind yourself each day that the most important thing is to get home safe.
Thank you for the video. It makes me very sad that you have lost so many friends in this extraordinary sport that we love. When we're up in the air with the glider, these thoughts are not really present - and they shouldn't always be. But it is important to keep them in mind.
I'm not a glider, but I am a motorcyclist. I lost my mother as well as a few club friends to motorcycle accidents. I still ride to this day. I believe that it's better to live life to its fullest and die doing what you love rather than sit in an armchair and regret not following your dreams. You have to be a bit fatalistic. Gliding looks like a wonderful sport. May you be lifted on a warm breeze. 🤙
I was a glider pilot for about 13 years and I was lucky enough never to lose a friend in a fatal accident although two of my friends did have bad accidents but both fully recovered. In 2010 I suffered mental health issues and voluntarily grounded myself. I have never flown since, not even on a commercial flight. Instead I took up sailing which has its own dangers but has the advantage that you can heave-to and put the kettle on if you want a break 😄 I still miss flying and I probably always will miss doing it, but as an alternative to gliding, sailing offers a lot and a modern yacht feels like a K-21 and its response to control inputs feels much the same. It was an easy transition for me to make. Perhaps an alternative if anyone is looking for a change.
A very honest and thoughtful video, Tim. I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly. As a professional pilot (21 years military and 19 years commercial) and a long-time glider pilot, competitor, instructor and examiner, I cringe when I hear comments like “But we just do this for fun!” It doesn’t matter who you are and what your experience is, the sky like the sea, can be unsympathetic to those who take liberties with it.
Tim, this was timely. I just finished the Thermal Camp at Air Sailing here in the US. I’m a new glider pilot, and the value of that week long training exercise cannot be overstated. Your video dovetailed perfectly with that. Stark reminders are healthy. Thank you.
I want add another attitude, I believe is even more important than respect. Not knowing the correct word as a native german speaking, the attitude I want to emphasize is "Demut" which translates to humility. Rather than respect, humility aids in not taking a risk, when in doubt. Respect is for the cerebral cortex, a mindset, whereas humility is for the aviator's very basic being. Pedestrians name it soul, I believe.
Thanks for the thought provoking video. The comment on motorcycling triggered a memory for me. I grew up in California and spent tens of years motorcycling. One of the major insurance companies at the time did a study on motorcycle fatalities. They found that the vast majority (greater than 90%) involved a novice rider with less than a year's experience. They also found that once you get past that dangerous time, motorcycling was quite safe. This was attributed to riders having excellent visibility and the bike being quite agile. Believe it or not, at the time, helmets were not mandated, so many riders did not use them.
Yep. Great memories punctuated by an occasional, well, tragedy. Fortunately for me I've always come down on the line of conservatism (flying gliders). I'm old and was trained in GA by a combo of crazy people and great instructors. So the first chance I got after being licensed I took an aerobatic course with one of the most famous old aerobatic pilots. And when I took an experienced glider pilot up for a treat in a glider unfamiliar to her, she put us in an involuntary full spin; but because of the training in GA aerobatics it didn't even faze me and I took over and recovered. She, on the other hand, said LAND NOW. So good training and common sense go a long way to living to fly another day. But admittedly I've been guilty of being "stupid" but to date have both gotten away with and in the process become more conservative about "pushing it." It still just gave me a chill thinking about some of the things I got away with and afterwards said "never again" and meant it.
I won’t fly anything less than a twin engine, and I’ve had two engine malfunctions (one failure) in over a thousand hours. I was Hard core IFR both times, never even told ATC, with only a few miles to go on the approach. Aviate FIRST, remember? Once with my 6 month old daughter in back. I mainly cussed about how much the repair was going to cost…no actual fear. . I only flew a two place glider with an instructor once, and I was constantly lining up mentally for an engines out approach, terrified... You guys are brave or crazy…you pick which
I've done two SIV paragliding courses, both of them left me feeling uneasy for some months. It's critically important that people realise how quickly they are going to lock up in a serious emergency, and also how to recognise the feeling that you shouldn't be somewhere and then CHOOSE to DO something about it, and then ACT on that decision.
There's That Key Word Lockup- I didn't expect it, but it happened when training too long and now tired from Hang Gliding all day. Then insisted to be pushed faster, I narrowly escaped by doing exactly the wrong stunt on purpose just told to me by instructor that killed his brother, being I knew now I had only inches to spare to pull out of this deadly dive, because of locking up, causing a complete dead stall of zero speed. I flared out at the last second of dive with knuckles digging in the grass,, and instantly on my feet. Ok, we're done for today... But I always wanted to be in a glider, and visiting Germany, I made sure I brought back 2.5 meter electric folding prop glider. It's amazingly quite powerful. Cheers
I actually glided today again, I do it every weekend! Sadly at 30th of May, a crash happened in front of me, I had my parachute on, and I saw a glider crashing during the landing upside down into some trees, this were the last moments for this person. I don't know her, but it made a big inpact on me, especially for beginner like me. After the accident I have been flying again quite a lot, this was the best solution for me. Thanks for sharing this.
wasn't a good month then because i witnessed a crash early may this year... i hope you are okay, it can take a toll on you to see something like that happen. stay safe!
@@thijsboss1246 Sorry to hear that from your side, hope you're okay to! I'm doing great right now, sometimes I get flashbacks to the crash, but in general just doing great and enjoying the flights :). For us, and our country in general, it was a real bad start of the season, lot's of incidents happened...
I'm a 20,000 hour airine pilot now, but came up through GA in Australia. I've had 5 friends die in GA accidents, and two others in Air Force accidents.
Dear, this was a very mature and careful reflection. Very franck, very thouthful. I think you are going to avoid many losses for many people just making them reflecting like you've done here. God job! Amazing job! Keep on it. And please, keep on flying and sharing your experiences, that is inspiring. If there was a minimun chance for me to glide here in my country I'd seriously consider becoming a glider pilot. Unfortunately, I'm far away of any of this. But I'll keep enjoying others passion for it, anyway. God bless you!
Thanks for your heartfelt and somber message Tim. I've only flown RC gliders. But, I hope one day to be a passenger in a real one. In the mean time, your videos are as close as it gets to reality. Lotsa love to all from Toronto ♥♥♥
I was in another profession - licensed, the full nine yards. A lot of truth to this. MANY problems in my world could have been avoided by just taking time at the start of a trip to run through things, familiarize and check stuff (prevention / checklists). Commercially, the pressure was always huge to just grab and go. The other issue is exactly as you describe, pushing the limits. In my old field it was things like night operations, operations in bad weather, and get there itis (big time on this last one for commercial reasons). I was the type A player in my group - company grumbled at me from time to time - but I didn't have issues. It paid off for me in the end. When things went wrong I'd be the one to get a call for the recovery. We'll pay you $X, fly you to Y. I learned plenty of hard lessons making mistakes, but I always tried to make those mistakes on my own time or with other paid stuff - NEVER with PAX. Watching these videos those bother me the most, gliders with PAX pushing limits near clouds, near ground etc. I played NO games with PAX - period. No showing off. No hot dogging. To get PAX to come out again, they first of all need to feel SAFE.
Interesting to see someone discussing the statistics regarding the dangers of aviation / extreme sports. My own experience as a skydiver / BASE jumper over 30 years definitely has indicated that these activities, while incredibly inspiring and life changing, have enormous costs. Physical injuries and death are openly witnessed, however, there are also the latent psychological issues to some of the survivors in the form of PTSD. Internet discussion forums have too many people providing negative comments regarding specific accidents and fatalities, where the commenters through their negativity are really just telling themselves "I would never do that," by criticizing the injured or dead. Best to confront and contemplate the risks of these activities, which are incredibly rewarding but potentially so costly, without deluding oneself that it could never happen to me. It could happen to any of us.
Thank you. Not keen to leave messages here, but thank you for sharing this as it touches some considerations I have been making last few months. After quiting paragliding after getting licensed 15 yrs ago, 100 hrs experience B2/L2 levels, practicing for a few years with some close encounters, I started flying gliders in '21, which felt like an improvement from the cowboy scene, became solo, got 150 flights but never got comfortable with again the more subtle new frontier mentality in our club. My 8yo certainly liked the weeks with our club in France, the free life, assisting with ground movement with gulf carts, but he never wanted to board a glider for a flight with a licensed pilot.. I kind of started to understand him after gliders were ground handled into caravans, and the way the turnover rate of new members really was detriment to the safety levels; i thought that was important information not to convince him otherwise. Last 12 months I got sadly impressed by 2 deaths from persons close to me within or near club, both experienced board members and GPL holders. Your pictures in a way could have been them as a person.. So with a 8 yo and newborn 4 mo recently decided to wage my stats a bit later in life. I love the birdseye view, but birds get eaten too.. Still learning from your vids, thanks for posting these human factor educational insights that most of us could learn from if we want. Will be back for sure, but risk awareness also includes fit-to-fly due to family life, and for sure the considerations and preparations for your family if things go South... Please keep up your work, thanks.
I appreciate this video and your perspective on the risks involved in a sport that you love. I'm an avid down hill skier and have known a few people who have perished on the mountain, including a good friends. Always respect the mountains and be aware of the risks.
Nice one mate. I love watching your vids, you always have a calm no nonsense analysis that had me feeling gliding was safer than ga, but todays no nonsense shows it can have the same pitfalls, its all down to the pilot. Keep the blue side up mate, safe flying
52 years of continuous hang gliding I have seen the passings of fellow flyers, read and have heard the sad stories. All of which gives me puss for thought and refreshed my personal analyzing of all actions one can take away to reinforce one’s own focus on getting back down safely from aloft. Once one starts the roll or off down the ramp we set immediately the actions to pay close attention’s to to have to have a happy outcome. I think it’s called flight plan. ….. living the dream so far
A great video. We all need to be reminded of this periodically. I'm the parent of a small child, I tell myself I'll be the safest glider pilot I can be. There are always times when we shouldn't fly but are tempted, and this sort of wake up call helps to resist that temptation.
I'm also in CA and stopped riding my BMW GS in 2010, after 25 years. We have amazing diversity from all over the world who live here in the Bay Area, but this can translate to very different driving styles. Add smartphones to the mix, and it feels like the risks keep growing IMO. However, I AM taking up gliding... Less smartphone factors. :-)
I believe there are two key points that lead to dangerous situations in gliding and one is definitely competitions. Now, I know competitions are great fun and they do advance our sport. However, it's the same for almost every sport: when entering a competition, you do accept some calculated risks. Sometimes your assessment is wrong. It's true for skiing, cycling, even running (I've seen someone get fatally injured during a marathon, a stumble, catching the fall with your arm, breaking it in an unfortunate position cutting the artery). And being a motorcyclist myself: motorcycling was safer 20 years ago, simply because there were less people on the road and people adhered to the rules more than they do now. There has been a change in driver culture. I feel much safer gliding than riding my motorcycle. I even feel safer gliding than riding my bike (in the city).
Ahhhhh thank you voice of reason! Fair and balanced! I am mindful that we take our lives in our hands every time, and we have only one chance to land. It is a privilege to play, and I am grateful and respectful.
You’re scared 😱 me off with this video. Tomorrow I do have a trial lesson on Cessna 172. Should I continue with my lessons ? I love flying and I want to learn to fly. Also I used to be a courier driver on motorcycle for 4 years. Had to accidents on motorbike which were not my fault.
Happy story; way back in 1974 I was invited along with 2 friends to go gliding in Whyalla, S. Aust. My friends had their go and barely made a full loop, but whn my go cam we went straight up to 10,000 ft and it was glorious. The air was so hot the pilot had to work hard to bring us down, we could have stayed up all afternoon. Forever grateful to that pilot.
My dad, a military trained pilot with years in gliders who owned an open Libelle, had a serious accident (in a 2-33 with a passenger) because of a tow pilot failure at low altitude where there was no chance of getting past a wooded area. He was badly injured in a crash that should have killed him. That tow window is a vulnerable part of every flight, and the control is not entirely with the pilot.
On my second lesson in soaring, my instructor went at-length to point out where the local accidents had occurred, how they happened, and whether or not the pilot survived/injured/got out scott free. It was a bit scary but he really wanted to drive home the point: as safe and as stable as a glider is --> accidents can AND do happen, and that paying attention to the safety briefings/meetings and taking all the safety meetings to heart will keep me out of trees and off the memorial list.
@@arthurwallace9851 Why? I became a safer pilot because of it, and I took his warnings to heart. Lemme know how many glider pilots you send off to check-rides every year!
@@boltforward3611 sir, among CFIs it is common practice not to scare the hell out of a potential student on their first couple flights. Read down in these comments and you will see that has happened. You want that student to enjoy his flight training and come back.There is plenty time to introduce the risks and dangers a little later. I am retired now. 44 years flying sailplanes and 25 years as a CFIG. I have instructed young boys wanting to fly, all the way to commercial pilots wanting to become a CFIG. Good luck, fly safe.
In many channels I don't like the titles like "The death is flying with you!" or the "... most dangerous situation I have ever faces ...!" etc., etc. Almost all of these titles are only used to create more clicks, but in the video they do not have a risky situation or do not talk about really risky stuff or do not analyse potential risks. Here on this channel it is different. When here the title is "Will gliding kill you?" than there comes a good comprehension and analysis of what reality is like. Really great, many thanks for the great videos. 👍
My personal view on the matter is that gliding is safe enough for my comfort level, but it is extremely unforgiving of sloppiness or carelessness. I consider every flight as a lesson that I can learn something from, and I watch videos like this one as often as I can to understand the risks and maybe learn how to avoid traps that others have fallen into. At just over 12,000 hours of flying time, I do not expect to get killed in a plane, but I know it might happen. My only hope is that if it does happen, it is not because I was doing something stupid, but that is likely to be the ultimate cause. The only thing that can reduce the chances of doing something stupid is education, so never stop learning!
Gliding is a fabulous activity. I used to fly in the Alps and the Jura mountains in Switzerland. It's sailing in 3 dimensions. Yes, it's always been a dangerous activity. That's why training is so important.
Sadly lost a friend at my home airfield a few months ago:( about a year ago i had an incident on the side of a hill, which i luckily walked away from. further proves your point Tim. i appreciate your videos.
I used to ride my motorcycle to the airport to fly my aircraft. I often wondered which one would get me first…the bike or the plane? I must be a “lucky one” as I’m still here 35 years later. Being able to calculate risk regardless of your hobby will determine the outcome. There’s always the “if he had only done this differently he’d still be alive” that gets mentioned after an accident. YOU are the only one that can determine the risk and sometimes it’s better to stay on the couch. Still,there are no guarantees in this life. Still, I’d rather be taken out suddenly in a vehicle accident than die of colon cancer.
This is very appreciated. I'm about to start my first gliding course here down south of the americas, and it's nice to see the risks the sport comes with. Thank you for sharing your knowledge 💟
Sadly have also faced several fatal accidents in Chile and many incidents too. After a 50 year analysis of all gliders accidents in our club, the findings were - 22% of the pilots had skills below par (detected at an early stage). Training took longer than average. Action: Below average pilots will not continue flying. - 45% of the accidents occurred in a competition and/or similar environment. Action: Risk assessment before flying a competition (human factor analysis, training required before competing, incident and behavioral analysis, avoid fatigue) The most contributing factors in accidents are: Low recent experience, experience in the glider to be flown, water ballast, fatigue, skill degradation over time, human factors (the elephant in the room- personality, stress,reckless conduct). If you wish to discuss further I am happy to share more info.
You mentioned that several of your friends who passed away were involved in competitions at the time of their deaths. I think it might be more insightful to separate such accidents from accidents which occur during regular flights. It seems clear that the competitions are pretty dangerous and are skewing the overall death rate making the gliding seem more dangerous than it actually is.
As he said, this is a thing even in GA flying even across the world too. My flight team lost 2 members and another family's got two sons who aren't coming home again since it was a midair... But I wouldn't stop flying despite the loss. It isn't what another pilot would want, for someone to give up a wonderful hobby that could end up blossoming into a life-defining career just because theirs was cut short. At least that's what I'd want if I were to crash. Just remember to fly safe and not to take any of your fellow aviators for granted. You might not see them again and you never know when it could be.
Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous, but to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity, or neglect.
Yeah...I got caught in a wave gap which closed up on me ...I was at 12,000 feet above Aboyne...descent through 8,000 feet of cloud...and found myself about 7 miles downwind...Fortunately managed to punch back into wind at 70 knots and arrived back with 1500 ..I vowed I'd never get caught out like that again..mountains at 3000 feet AMSL..all around.
My son started gliding at the age of 13 and is now 22 yrs of age. He has had a few scary moments, but he is careful and thankfully risk adverse. The benefits of gliding is that he has been able to get a very good job as a signalman on the UK Railways which is a very safety critical role. I would encourage gliding to any parents and the time he spent in his teenage years was hanging around and helping at the local airport rather than night clubs.
Two comments: 1. I think you said the most important thing at the end mate. The psychological traps. Aviation has only gotten so safe (low death stats) by dealing with precisely that. I had some psych training previously, but it was eye-opening to hear crusty old instructors talking about human factors and clearly being guided by it. Most of the potentially fatal errors are preventable by proper training. That means ongoing training and monitoring that gives feedback and things like increasing insurance premiums to people who test poorly in the more subtle aspects of decision-making etc. 2. The 80:20 rule. Beyond the decision-making that must improve, IMO we need to get real about who are having the majority of bad outcomes. That starts with drivers, pilots, riders, divers, etc and extends to things like business ventures, drug use etc. It's a subset of people who are probably born with potentially dangerous and resistant mindsets. Every diagnosed mental health disability is the tip of an iceberg of people around them with less amounts of those genetic components. This often results in a reduced general enjoyment of life and an enhanced seeking and tolerance of more extreme options in order to experience shorter periods of intense enjoyment. We're a long way from properly understanding and discussing this.
Not sure about all that. In 10 years of motorcycling I had 14 crashes and two near misses at high speed. I was. lucky to survive. In 1981 I took up gliding. In 42 years and 3000 hours I’ve never had an accident. I try not to show off or take unnecessary risks. Maybe that and solid training frequently reinforced is the key.
Wow, 14 crashes is a lot. I think that's another thing about motorbikes, it might not be you who makes a mistake that could cost dearly e.g someone pulls out in front of you. With gliding it's more than likely a mistake will be your own? So the risk level is more under your control.
This summer will be 10 years I've been riding motorbikes in UK and Europe. Two crashes - both self-inflicted and rider errors. 14 is a lot - were you a pro racer?
My uncle is a CFI-G. About 10 years ago now, he was flying in a competition and involved in a mid-air while thermalling. His aircraft's control surfaces were damaged and it became inverted. Fortunately, he was able to bail out, though not without breaking his collar bone. The other pilot was able to land safely. This was quite the wakeup call for him. While he still flies competitions, he's much more laid back. He views competitions mainly as a way to stay involved with a community of people beyond his local club.
I've had two serious accidents soaring. The first was during my first and only contest. I was low time and ill prepared groundlooping in a paddock severly damaging the glider but avoiding personal injury except for my pride. The accident would never have happened if I didn't push things because of the contest. I vowed never to do another contest after that. The second accident was after over 300 hours of flying. I barely managed to crawl out of the wreckage with 8 fractured vertebra, fortunately with no long-term effects. The flap handle on my LS3-17 would rotate and unfortunately slipped out of my hand on final. Flaps went from 20 deg to -7 deg instantly stalling the glider about 100 ft off the ground. No lectures on changing flap setting on final please, there was a good reason. I have not flown since but I desperately miss it. Soaring is a fantastic sport with great rewards but it is dangerous and demands respect. We lost two sailplane pilots and one towplane pilot in my short 9 years of flying. I also lost a friend in GA in the same period. All were excellent pilots with much more experience than I had. Moral of the story is sh_t happens. Life is chaos and the unexpected can happen anytime to anyone. You can get bit when you least expect it.
Contest flying seems to be the cause of much grief, according to a lot of these comments. I'm sorry you haven't flown since your 2nd accident - is this because you're unable to? Being in the air really does make one feel alive, which is why we do it I guess...
In the early '80s, I joined a soaring club in Ohio, USA. As a student, I was ready to solo. Then we had a fatal accident where the experienced pilot broke one of the cardinal rules that was burned into my head from the first flight: Once you enter the landing pattern, do not leave it. If you're too high, if you're too fast, stay in the pattern and put the plane on the ground. The accident pilot decided he was too high so decided to do a 180 while on downwind. He spun in, killed himself and severely injured the guest rider in the back. After that, I took up skiing. Funny, I recently looked up the accident in the FAA database and it is not listed as fatal.
I love flying sailplanes. I stopped simply because I couldn’t afford the tow fees and plane rentals anymore. Unfortunately, flying is a rich person’s sport.
Very timely. ChessintheAir’s posts on the subject are quite comprehensive and not only detail the risks, but also provides the mitigations for them. Worth a good review for all pilots Thanks Tim.
ill be honest. Ive been riding bikes as my main way of transport since 14. Im 20 now, and been dreaming of gliders too. I just wanted to say, thank you for this video, because the risks we way out every day needs to be rechecked every now and then, and this video did that for me. Thank you!
So have you decided to go gliding or not? I rode bikes from age 19 to around 45, had few accidents, no major injuries and enjoyed 99% of it. Even racing bikes for 10 seasons, with only a broken wrist and a few bruises in total injuries. Plenty of 'near misses' on the road, yes - others to blame. I also had a go at gliding - never got to solo standard but did towline and aero tow gliding under instruction and almost went for my licence but gliding is a bit expensive and it would have meant giving up on racing so I gave the licence a miss. Sometimes wish I had carried on with it. In my twenties I also had a go at free fall parachuting, got as far as 10 second delay jumps, and almost continued with that but as with the gliding cost and convenience came into it. All these activities attract people with a certain adventurous character, however some will recognise the dangers and do their best to minimise them and some, unfortunately will ignore the dangers and push the boundaries for whatever reasons. I should also maybe mention the mountaineering too - the alps and the Matterhorn were involved - again in my twenties, its a good age to be.
Well done and objective video. Having survived a single engine general aviation crash, I am always interested in views about all kinds of flying. I have not flown in a general aviation aircraft since my crash in 1987. Not sure I ever will. But I support anyone who's passion is flying and understand the risks they are taking.
The Chess in the Air analysis is based on participation hours, if you count the hours dreaming and reminiscing (and making TH-cam videos) then the risk goes down a bit 😂 still dangerous though
You allude to this in your video, but it's important to emphasize that group statistics such as you discuss and are shown in that chart, do NOT apply to individuals. For example, *your* risk of dying in the next 1000 hours doing anything *cannot* be computed such as that chart shows. There's simply no way to calculate that because there are too many variables. Thinking that group stats can be applied to individuals is done so often that there's a name for it: Ecological Fallacy. The group stats are good for evaluating risks so that if you choose to do an activity you can address how you plan to mitigate those risks.
Very nicely done. I am a private pilot , single engine land, instrument rated, enthusiast located in Sacramento, California. I am sorry you lost your friends and respect your clam explanation of the risks involved in flying gliders.
the thing that got me was the comparatively lower cost, instant start/stop, and extreme reliability of a small fixed mount H2O2 rocket. ( Blip-able 2 to 3 meter per second climb ) the fuel and catalyst cost a lot more, but that will keep people from using it frivolously, so keeping it in line as a safety feature. so i wrote apollojetpack and explained about the need for a Single H2O2 Tank / Momentary full on-off soliniod / Single Thruster - Glider Safety Thruster System.
The old gliding club my dad used to tow for in Germany had a horrifying record. They single-handedly beat the record you mentioned for all of NZ. I was too young to know whether there were investigations as to their procedures - this was the 70s and the attitude may have just been "risk worth taking". They had a "in memoriam" shrine in the clubhouse that started in a corner and the last time I was visiting some time in the early 90s snaked around the ceiling. 😱As for the risk diagram: I do feel like the GA field is arguably one of the widest, especially when compared to other fields in that poster. From home-builts all the way to a Citation X: it's still GA (provided the last one isn't flown commercially). From 60 years old aircraft held together by willpower to a modern Diamond DA62. which is currently the safest light twin on the planet and matches commercial aviation's record by hours. But of course, the vast, *vast* majority of accidents is by pilot error. The human factor is the main "problem".
5 Times US champion here. A friend pointed out to me that soaring is one of a very few activities in which we have tremendous control over the risk. Motorcyclists are often killed by en error made by another motorist. Glider pilots nearly always are fully to blame in their own deaths. This may be one reason it is so attractive.
Most motorcyclists die in single vehicle accidents.
I think the greatest cause of motorcycle accidents is testosterone.
True. Also seems that most deaths include one of the following: very inexperienced pilots; aerobatics, competition (landing out, low thermals).
Age also counts. I'm a hang glider pilot so I can say about how it goes in HG and paragliding. Competition increases the risk enormously. Thermal gaggles and out landings.
Recently two PG collided above launch at my club's festival/comp, while they were tumbling down and opening reserves, a third pilot froze and flew straight below them. This third guy was very experienced, and died, was too low for a reserve chute.
In free flight, a glider too hot for skill level (or age) also counts.
And in january a local HG pilot crashed into trees on final approach. He is past 70 and was flying a competition glider that is much less forgiving and is harder to handle (we shift weight for roll input). He spent over 2 months in ICU and is now on wheel chair. Were he flying a low intermediate, he wouldn't have crashed, I'm sure.
There are other reasons for decline of soaring.
First of all, a good used motorcycle is $4,000 and a glider is $400,000. You are hard pressed to find a really used one under $40,000. And its not uncommon to need $20,000 in repairs.
Second is requirements. It requires skill that takes practice that takes money and time. Just meeting the FAA requirements and maintaining adequate knowledge pertaining to legal stuff is a burden in itself. A motorcycle endorsement is $50 and an afternoon of your time, and good for life.
Then there is liability. The club local to me has several members fighting six figure lawsuits from disgruntled landowners. The club itself is constantly under legal action both civil courts and constantly dealing with the FAA for tow plane noise and what have you.
The FAA doesn't recognize Gliders out landings as valid actions. They will violate the pilot of multiple counts as if it was voluntary and intentional. Private property rights are an absolute in America and very strict in states such as Wyoming. If you end up shot, nobody goes to jail. If you live. They can have your house.
@@ericoschmitt While I was subscribed to the Sailplane and Gliding magazine, which is the official magazine of the British Gliding Association I generally looked through the published list of accidents which include everything from near misses, loss of aircraft but pilots managed to bail out to fatal accidents. It contains everything which has to be reported in line with the guidelines of the BGA/CAA. While inexperienced pilots certainly make more mistakes I have observed a very broad mix of experience levels of pilots which are involved in serious incidents. While inexperience carries a lot of risk it appears that complacency of an experienced pilot is even more dangerous.
Love the last part of your video. At my field there is an instructor, he flies gliders for 60 years or so. Last year he was coming home from 500 km triangle and outlanded about 400m straight line from runway threshold. He was not pushing it over the highway, he was not looking for a thermal. He landed in the field so close to home. And today he still flies. Good decicions make old pilots. I only wish we all come to good decisions at all times when flying.
"There are old pilots & bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots!"
Ancient Chinese proverb.
Too much jargon to understand the story.
@@SeattlePioneerapparently their airport lies next to a street. Or the field damages the wings? All the crop.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt indeed, you cross autostradale (highway) on approach to 08
This guy must be good, he flies gliders for 60 years
As few my friends and many pilots i knew died in gliding accidents during competitions, I decided not to participate in competitions. I can recognize change in my behavior when I am in competitive environment, and recognize the same in other pilots. I was experienced pilot with golden badge with three diamonds, flying in Himalayas with Sebastian Kawa, flying in Alps and Polish mountains and flats. Few years ago I have made a recall of my near accident situations and decided that I had a privilege to experience one of the greatest activities that exists, I saw so many great views, and that it is enough. The rest would be challenging the fate. I have stopped to fly and I am grateful what I have experienced. And I cry remembering my pilot friends who died as aviators.
Good for you.
A great post. I flew 7 days as p2 in the UK 2 seater nationals, with two different pilots. Both were great pilots and didnt get sucked into dangerous flying, but I witnessed the occasions when over aggressive under skilled pilots joined a crowded thermal and put others at risk. Fly your own flight, within your own abilities, is my creed 👍 For everything else there's Condor VR gliding simulator 🤪
th-cam.com/video/tD7Xv6IIiGQ/w-d-xo.html
I am unsure of what you are saying, sir. English appears to be your second tongue, which is a perfectly fine thing. My secondary tongue is not so advanced.
But did you say that you had stopped gliding?
@@Svensk7119 Yes, I am not gliding anymore. As I wrote (in my pigeon English 🤣) I have reviewed all my near-accident situations critically and decided to call myself an exceptionally lucky person. Every one of these situations could have ended differently. They were all "it was close" situations. These were situations that we all narrate to our pilot friends in the evenings. We all have those situations in our memories - lucky safe. I just realized that I am tempting fate. There was another factor that played together in that decision. I have stopped to be part of the corporate world and my life started to be much less stressed than before. I do not need to burn emotions through gliding anymore. As a consequence, the risk level acceptance diminished. So again, I do not fly gliders. No regrets. One day everybody will stop flying, but it is not my medical tests, It is not fate, it is my conscious decision.
Sorry for my English. It is difficult to describe quite a complex thought process mixed with emotions.
I could understand to stop gliding in competitions, because that is really more dangerous than usual soaring. But the "normal" relaxed gliding, maybe even not in the mountains, can be excercised as safe as a bicycle ride, in my opinion.
Sobering Tim. My hangar spot became available due to one of the accidents you mentioned and I was involved in the retrieve of the Ash after that accident, which shook me up as he was a friend from the club with similar hours. 320 comments shows how important this video is for everyone who loves this sport, thanks
Thanks Neil, yes the feedback has been overwhelming! So many comments and stories from people.
The CEO of DG, a german glider manufacturer, came to the same conclusion about 20? years ago. He tried to combat the risks with improved safety features in their gliders, like stall warning, extra reinforced cockpits, and other stuff. However he later said that safety in gliders simply does not sell, the community simply does not want those features.
hi i am a novice . could you elaborate on why would this be the case or even provide some website or link for me to look it up?
@@samar949additional cost, additional weight (which reduces performance), etc....
3rd try to post the link to DG's archive.
Is like buying a new table saw and removing the blade guard because it gets in the way of your viewing of the blade and cut.. People hate safety features if they compromise on the performance of the instrument.. Gliding is the same.. Parachutes are too heavy.. Collision avoidance systems are expensive, stall warnings are annoying... Each pilot who chooses not to have these features is doing so because he thinks I dont need any of that, I know what im doing, thats only for amateurs..@@samar949
@@nadiaroler6314TH-cam really doesn't like comments that contain links.
In 1966 my father lost his life. He had taken a winch tow and at the point of release one of the wings snapped. Several others had ridden the same sailplane that day. My father loved the sport and was the president of the local club. He died doing something he truly loved. "C" badge, silver "C", gold "C", and one diamond from the SSA.
RIP Bill Walker from Queenstown. I think he had the world out-and-return distance record at one stage.
And I nearly died crashing my paraglider in 1994.
As an instructor I always tried to reinforce in people the idea that the decision to take off or not is the critical one, because it is infinitely better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than to be in the air and wishing you were on the ground.
I'm a GA pilot - had an engine failure in 2010 just south of Sydney. One of the mental tricks that saved me and my passengers that day "when you can't work out what's going wrong with the flight, ask yourself what's going _right_ with the flight" (Jim Davis, frequent contributor to Australian Flying magazine). If the answer is "not enough" your focus quickly shifts to how to end the flight as quickly and safely as possible, rather than just floating along seeing how things go. The thing about flying risk is that it's very much on you as you say. In a car you might be the most careful driver on the planet and some doofus could come around a corner and wipe you out. In the air 99% of the time the doofus is a collection of past yous and their decisions that got you in a pickle.
Always remember, Airspeed is life! Altitude is Life Insurance!
No, you can WATCH that corner and do a step aside for that doofus. If the doofus gets you, you were driving too fast. But yeah, the doofus is pretty small in your mirrors, and he hits you from a direction you do not expect. Still, always watch out for the doofus! If you are only half conscious, you won't make it.
l don't know what GA means, other than Georgia.
@@robstimson4234General Aviation. Planes with an engine.
@@robstimson4234 general aviation
Generally when a glider pilot dies it is because the glider pilot errored. When a tow pilot dies it. is usually because a glider pilot errored.
Even with a lot of respect, things still happen. Messages like this video help you keep perspective and keep safety in the forefront of your mind. I am VERY thankful for all the incidents I have survived. Fly safe, my friends.
At a country fair about a decade ago in England, I spoke to a microlight pilot and mentioned that a friend had lost a friend in a crash. His reply: 'We only lost five last year.'.
Things have changed a lot since then. I fly microlights, they are very safe these days typically
As a former microlight instructor I can confirm that currently microlights have a safety record as good as, or better than, GA generally. Sadly there are sometimes fatal accidents but they are getting rarer with better, more reliable machines and effective pilot training.
Microlights safer than GA? Per mile? No way. Per flight? Accidents per participant? I can't believe it. I'd say they're safer than wingsuits, though. @@bigglesace1626
Wasn't there a issue with the launch at Sutton bank that caused casualties?
I can't fly my little experimental unless I just accept I could die, same attitude if you rock climb. I'm pushing 60 and still dont really care if I die
Same feelings here as a professional paragliding pilot in the Alps. Know and accept the risks and never lose your respect. ❤
Couldn't agree more, thanks for commenting
Seconded!
Key danger word there - Alps 😊 Fly safe all!!
@@christophergaus3996 Why would it be more dangerous in the Alps? I would've assumed that this is the safest place to do it
Nice honest assessment. I fly a flexwing microlight, as well as ride motorbikes. Truth is it's not so much the activity is dangerous, it's more the mindset of the individuals - many pilots, and most motorcyclists believe training is finished the moment they get their licence, and they stop learning, start developing bad habits, normalising risk, and making excuses, blaming others for near misses, and on it goes. The truth is that training, thorough training, and refresher training WORKS - that's precisely why commercial flying is so safe - constant training!!
I'm no expert by any stretch and came across this by curiosity, but all commercial flying has an electronics suite for safety doesn't it? And all these dead glider pilots or the majority were irresponsible then?
Or perhaps, more likely, the truth is these were just regular people just like you who rolled a dice and got unlucky?
People often do something day in day out like driving but will eventually make a mistake. We are all human. It just seems to me a mistake here is just far more costly.
There are many reasons why people get killed in aviation, there's some crossover, but also some significant differences in what tends to kill pilots between powered flight and soaring. Powered GA pilots tend to get killed by knowledge, inexperience, currency issues. Unintentional flight into IMC conditions, loss of control due to high altitude environments / terrain, etc. It's not uncommon that many GA pilots intentionally avoid active air conditions, they have that option. However many pilots who die soaring are exceptionally knowledgeable and experienced. Soaring however always takes place in an inherently (comparatively speaking) risky environment. The air is active, and it's being done in aircraft that are often lighter than GA aircraft, sometimes much lighter. In competitions you'll be flying in close proximity to other pilots. There's the competitive element itself that rewards pilots for pushing it. Then there are the outlandings, you simulate that in GA training, but many soaring pilots actually do it regularly. A large minority of my landings hanggliding have been into un-scouted fields in fact, that's just part of the reality of cross country flying. There aren't many soaring pilots that intentionally fly in an overly dangerous way, everyone has a sense of how much risk they are willing to accept, but it's very rarely no risk, sometimes you lose that bet and walk away unharmed, sometimes it kills you.
I lost a friend this past year. Among the best hangglider pilots in the world, he had been flying for around 40 years. Even after so long he was an absolute monster of a pilot, infinitely passionate about cross country flying, at the end of the soaring day he would always be smiling and sharing beers. I remember at the end of one day, the rest of us had all been on the ground for an hour or two, no clouds left in the sky, the sun starting to get low, sitting in the hanger chatting we heard the tell tale whistle of the wing of a hangglider swooping in overhead and he lands after an enormous fai triangle. I had come down earlier because my hands were frozen despite wearing gloves and so I was curious to see what kind of gloves he had. He wiped some blood off his lip, turbulence smashed his face into the control bar hard enough that he said he had been worried about passing out. Turns out he didn't have gloves with him! Flying through snow, freezing temperatures, and turbulence for over 9 hours to complete his triangle. Despite all that, he was smiling and as passionate as ever, I can only envy such drive, he was an inspiration.
Anyone would change the flight that injures or kills them. However fewer pilots are honestly willing to make intentional changes to their risk profile. I'm not going to judge a skilled pilot who has chosen a riskier profile than mine. I know if I was able to ask my friend if he would have changed how he flew over his life knowing how it would end.... I doubt it, he lived for this.
Another friend of mine had a hard landing and took a moderate brain injury. He was an instructor and gave safety lectures and landing improvement courses. I don't think there was anything particularly noteworthy about the flight that injured him. I don't think he made any overly dangerous decisions. The reality is that we are leaves on the wind, it's dangerous, even when you are trying to be reasonable with your safety margin.
The truth is there's not one top glider pilot that hasn't pushed the envelope further than others were willing to. In Sebastian Kawa's book "Sky full of heat" he recounts some stories of learning to thermal in clouds, and stories of competitions that preceded him when cloud flying was not penalized by competition rules. Pilots would thermal up thunderstorms using the presence of hail as an indicator of where the core was. Keep in mind this was done with just a turn indicator and airspeed, no artificial horizon. Needless to say, gliders were being ripped apart, severe icing, midair collisions, pilots who bailed out could be deposited 30k+ ft frozen and suffocated. After reading some of those stories, most everything else sounds tame by comparison, and it demonstrates that at least in competition, it's important to set rules that create reasonable boundaries on what people are allowed to do.
Unfortunately I have more stories of friends as well as my own failures. The moral though is sometimes people knowingly choose a more risky flight envelope, and while it's important to step in when you think people are really crossing a line or doing so unaware, sometimes it's their decision, and I just can't judge them for that. Secondly I would say, do what you can do to stay safe, but never think it can't happen to you, because it can. Commercial aviation is safe because of the combined effort of an entire industry, pilots, engineers, regulations, ground crew, automated systems.... one guy can never equal that.
@@Chris-kv4vl Not entirely sure what you're on about there, but the overall impression I'm picking up on is that getting knocked about would do you the world of good.
@@Chris-kv4vl you have way oversimplified and overgeneralized the whole thing.
Pilots of commercial aircraft can still crash, they can still make mistakes. The avionics doesn't prevent crashes wholesale.
A lot of these crashes he describes are ones related to competitions, which means they're pushing themselves and the aircraft to their limits. That's a danger in any sport that involves any kind of vehicle.
The others, I can't speak for at all but it sounds like in gliding, it's very easy to become complacent and becoming complacent in a glider can lead to death very quickly.
But the same can happen in a commercial airliner. Ever seen some really sketchy landings in crosswinds? The avionics can't save bad inputs. It'll alert you, but it's too late if you rock the plane 20deg in a 50mph crosswinds 40ft off the deck. That's gonna be a big, firey oopsie. And sometimes pilots get close and if you watch a video of a pilot breaking it down, it's always due to a bad input.
@@entelin thanks for sharing, great comment
Very greatly appreciated. I always enjoy your videos. I am a 73yo Australian, coming back to gliding after a few years break. This motivates me to redouble my efforts to absorb whatever my instructors are telling me, and to never make excuses or talk back. Listen. Listen. Listen. What gliding instructors do for no financial reward is absolutely legendary, and is underappreciated. I have been a GA pilot, and the standard of gliding instruction is every bit as good as GA. They want you to live for your benefit and your family's. It is a huge responsibility they take on.
Well said :)
Well done. I lost four friends during my years of gliding in California and know of several other fatalities. It is the experienced pilots who die. I'm too old to fly now, but despite the risks, I miss it.
Sorry to hear that
From some one who stalled a paraglider at about 12m and then hit the deck and got carted off on a spine board this is a calm and reflective analysis - thank you.
Sorry to hear that, hope you're OK now
Ouch! 12m is a VERY nasty fall.
@@PureGlide In my paragliding community, I often hear the same saying, that driving to the site is more dangerous than actually flying... And if we PG pilots are slightly more exposed to lethal accidents than glider pilots, we are way, way more exposed to non-lethal but serious accidents.
As an Instructor I practice a lot of out of the Box exercises like; let them close their eyes and put them in awkward unusual attitudes before they open their eyes again and monitor their startle and surprise behavior.
I work a lot on their mental strength so when the unexpected happens they can act in a expected pattern of actions to protect themselves from harm.
Do not only fly but also manage the flight.
Yesterday a very good soaring day but I cut the task of 526 km after only 80 km short because I did not feel ok due some worries at home.
I learned already long time ago that Ego is not your Amigo 😇
Good presentation Tim
Sounds like a staggering accident rate! Where I live we have a bit over 2000 flying gliders, an on average less than one fatality a year. The local gliding club, with a bit over 150 members, have had only one fatal accident since I joined in 1975, and that wasn't while gliding but by spinning in an ultra light.
Robert Kiyosaki tells the story of how one of his flight instructors threw their jet fighter into a flat spin then folded his arms and sat looking out of the window, giving control over to him. He says it's one of the best lessons he's ever had :)
This is a great discussion. Ive studied GA accidents for years now, and noticed the obvious: we are capable of both heroic decisions and bad ones. But the bad ones are almost always based on pride.
About 15 years ago, on the day of my third glider lesson, a young pilot on their first cross country flight crashed during an outlanding. The glider was written off, but thankfully there were no injuries. That was a sobering enough experience for a young teenaged me to understand it was a dangerous sport. In the years since, I've personally known two pilots killed and another seriously injured. All very experienced and professional pilots who you'd never think it would happen to. Three out of four of these crashes occured during landing and I've come close to becoming another at least once very early in my solo flying career during a botched landing. I haven't flown for many years, but when I was, every time I landed the thought of these friends and mentors we lost crept into my mind, which is why I always committed to an outlanding at 1000ft AGL, even if I thought I could save it and always flew very conservative circuits at home plate. These are easy rules to follow and are almost always completely within your control. Gliding is the most incredible sport which makes taking these risks worth it, so long as you take all reasonable measures to reduce the risk.
Well said :) sorry to hear about your lost friends
Thank you for sharing such an honest truth about flying. It undoubtedly carries risks, and discussing the harsh realities that can occur is both shocking and necessary. We must acknowledge these risks in order to effectively navigate and mitigate the challenges they present. Cheers
Thanks Jimbo, must be a whole other thing dealing with top dressing risks as well as doing it full time!
My grandad died in a glider accident (mid air collision) in 2005 in Benella, Australia. But I am intending in the very near future to have a go at the sport that he loved. I remember going up with him a few times back here in NZ and it was epic, and as a sailor and avgeek it seems like a perfect combination
As a hang glider pilot I have known a few guys who also flew sail planes. What I like about hang gliders is that we can go up in some pretty small thermals and can also land in some pretty small fields. Oddly enough, before a sprained ankle was completely healed, I once landed in some 30 foot saplings near the edge of a field - that was full of over grown bushes. Had I gone for a landing in the field I may have clipped a bush with one wing and landed hard re-injuring my ankle. As it was my "tree" landing was totally controlled and once settled in the small trees I was able to reach the ground quite easily. No additional injury to my ankle either.
It seems to me that sail planes don't really offer these kind of options. Since you also mention them, it's also VERY hard to spin a hang glider. So, from my semi ignorance (as far as sail plane flying goes) I feel that hang gliding is safer.
However, hang gliders, being very lite aircraft, can be over powered by strong/dynamic winds - especially near the ground. I once had a pretty bad landing when I was hit by a STRONG thermal ripping off the ground when I was at only about 200 feet AGL. The thermal hit only one wing and sent me side slipping toward the ground. I was able to 98% recover. If I had only 90% recovered I might not be here to write this. What I just described was my worst accident ever. In 2025 I will have been flying for 50 years. Hopefully I won't have a fatal accident between now and then. Hopefully I won't have any accidents which would be the more typical couple years of flying. : - )
Good post and very true! As a ex glider pilot and skydiver, one knows that you can make any activity as dangerous or as safe as you want. From my personal observations, distraction and complacency are the biggest killers.
Hi. Very sorry to hear about your friends that lost their lives soaring. I have been flying for 30 years and over that time lost six friends of mine to flying accidents in airplanes. I feel your pain....
I got my private glider rating first and then transitioned to airplanes early on and have been actively flying since though I haven't been soaring with any regularity for about 27 years. I am a 20+ year CFIA.
Your video really got my attention. Principally because the fatal accident rates you presented seemed much higher than I would have expected. So, I did some checking to satisfy my own curiosity and thought I would share my very cursory "findings" with you.
Meaningful statistics are hard to come by but in essence, in the US, we seem to average about 9 soaring fatalities per year with about 15,000 active glider pilots. The info you presented for NZ indicates there are about 0.8 soaring fatalities per year against a pilot population of 700 pilots. Hours flown per year is always hard to come by so I gauged the data we know against an assumption that most glider pilots probably fly about 25 hours per year. It is the rate we are looking for in any case, and the discrete values can be adjusted accordingly. Anyway, based on that, the NZ fatal accident rate looks to be 4.5 per 100,000 hours versus 2.4 per 100,000 in the US. By comparison, the total GA accident rate in the US is 1.7 fatalities per 100,000 flying hours (based on NTSB data).
The obvious issue with soaring is that so much time is spent either in the takeoff/landing phases or while maneuvering close to the ground (ridge soaring) or at steep banks and slow speeds while thermaling. By comparison, the GA population does not have to deal with the high risks associated with soaring though they have their other issues such as IMC flight conditions.
Bottom line I suppose is that both the US and NZ soaring communities need to step up their stall/spin training...perhaps NZ a bit more? Not sure what the answer is but it sure would be nice to reduce the accident rate where we can however we can. Anyway, just thought I'd share this info with you. All the best.
Great comment.
As a PPL/SEL TW pilot, with just a little glider training. I can confirm that stall/spin training is egregiously lacking in the US.
The best training I have is 4hrs in a Pitts with the best Pitts instructor in the world. And the most valuable experience I have is Stalls and Spinning Pitts S2A, Citabria, Decathlon, and Cessna 172.
I'm sure Sailplanes are trickier. Due to the difference in tip airspeeds, long span, low Reynolds numbers due to narrow chord and low speed, wing torsion and flexibility, overall poor stability and control characteristics such as massive adverse yaw at high lift coefficients. Owing to the fact they are highly compromised aircraft dedicated to one objective.
Interesting points . I would argue that 25 hrs a year is no where enough experience to maintain current skill levels let alone develop new ones . Genuinely surprised how few hours could be flown during any sport which have serious consequences to error . Surprise accident rates aren’t higher . Great vid
Thanks Tim for this video, it actually brought a tear to my eye, reminding me of a fatal accident in our club a few years ago with a young pilot, aspiring to be a champion one day 😢
This video is a great reminder, and I fully agree, I willingly take the risk because it is such a beautiful sport and I just love it😃
But I also make checklists, read accident reports and tell myself "today is not the day I die" when I go flying.
And I instruct and teach newcomers about the risks and mitigation 🤓
Keep up the great work with the channel, and stay safe!👍
I don't fly, but I have a dear friend, my former sea kayak partner, who is a glider pilot. I live in the United States, where I run the National Center for Cold Water Safety. What I'm keenly aware of are the many common subjective elements involved in close calls and fatalities in different adventure sports. I also have a deep appreciation and respect for people like you who preach safety and spend countless hours trying to educate people about it. This was an excellent video throughout. Five stars, well-earned. Moulton Avery, Founder and Director, National Center for Cold Water Safety.
That’s a very thoughtful (respectful) handling of a tricky subject, Tim. 👍
I have read Clemens (Chess in the air) article called ; “Does Soaring Have To Be So Dangerous?”, some time ago. It is excellent!
Bottom line is: Everything worth doing has some risk involved. It’s up to you to manage the risk as well as you can.
Thanks Johan :)
@@PureGlide Well said. Doesn't matter what you do in life as long as you recognize and MANAGE the risks....after all there is risk in EVERYTHING we do from walking down stairs, to crossing the street, to riding in the car with mama, among a whole world of other risks. I had two careers in aviation...first one 20+years) as a military pilot primarily in helicopters, but there were a couple of thousand hours of fixed wing in there (and plenty of opportunities to hurt or kill yourself), too...that was followed by a second career flying corporate jets all over several continents. Along the way of those two careers I added a glider commercial and a glider instructor to several other ratings with that glider stuff begun in a German glider club in Mainbullau, Germany off of a winch. Wound up my career with north of 13,000 hours in multiple categories of flying contraptions....and an FIA diamond badge in gliders. Soo...I'd say that good old common sense, a bit of luck at the right moment(s) and paying attention to the rules (both physical AND regulatory) of the way the world works should keep one alive. Tim is right about MANAGING risk, but FIRST you have to recognize it...and whether you think about it or not, that is true of pretty much every sort of activity a human might participate in.
@@donjohnson8649 Very true! I've been shaken up by near misses driving a car, most recently a motorcyclist was overtaking on the wrong side of the road stationary trucks and cars at traffic lights, and he just couldn't wait.
I was about to turn right to go around them and didn't see the motorcyclist but instinct made me hesitate and not pull out to turn right (from a street on a 90 degree angle to the road). He wasn't supposed to be there he wasn't meant to cross into the oncoming past stationary cars and trucks or cross over a white line but the road was free of cars on that oncoming side and he thought Why not? He didn't know I was there about to turn right.
He has no idea that he was saved, and possibly me also, from. him hitting my driver side, simply by an instinct. I didn't have clear vision of the right side of the road and something made me think...no. Even though he shouldn't have been there.
He imagines he made a great decision.
No. I did. But he will continue to dice with death and that's what shook me up more, as I watched him speed triumphantly ahead...towards the next intersection.
The way I grew up understanding cars and risk, you take your life into your hands each time you get behind a wheel. Cars are a lot safer these days but we still have people with permanent life-altering injuries, and deaths. Caution and well timed decisions are what keeps us safe. But at the end of the day someone wth a sudden rush of blood to the head, can change everything.
I personally know seven people who have had to bail out (I’m one), two tug pilot deaths, two life changing events following glider crashes and one lovely girl who died. I also know of several other deaths but do not know the pilots involved. I no longer glide only because I am unable to participate at the level I desire and would resume immediately if I could.
There were some commonalities in the incidents I have described. Mine was a technical and administrative failure, three were down to training, four were competition pilots (pushing too hard?), one was a lightning strike and two were stupidity, one criminal (in my opinion). What was really heartbreaking is that everyone launched with the expectation of enjoying themselves. Unfortunately, today the gliding accident rate remains virtually unchanged. Countless changes have been made since I stopped. The biggest being the numpties at the CAA getting involved, obviously for “safety”. So loads more uselss rules and regulation, loads more gadgets, loads more gassing on the radio, loads more procedures and checks and yet NOTHING has changed.
Why? As well as line flying I used to be an accident investigator for an airline. We looked at all prangs and tried to look at things from the viewpoint at the person at the sharp end. They did not go to work to cause an accident, so what happened? Why did they end up having a bad day? What should they have seen? What caused them to be in the wrong place? Why did they make a poor decision. And so on. This approach helped. We also looked at the “boring” people. The “grey” pilots who nobody knows. These are the ones to learn from. How do they manage to be so boring? What are they doing right? How do they do what they do? The secret is not finding out what people are doing wrong but finding out what others are doing right.
When things go wrong, DO NOT expand the rule and regulation book. DO NOT add yet more pointless guff on a checklist. This is the chicken’s way out. It also has no measurable effect. Listen, learn , look, train most of all, think your way ahead. It doesn’t have to be with an instructor, you can do a lot by yourself. Some of this will be at the bar, some on the field, some during lessons and very importantly at the daily briefings at competitions. Whatever you do though, remember that people go gliding for the enjoyment of it.
Well said and very interesting. Thanks for sharing
I think this is well said and largely I agree. However some new rules are not inherently bad. As we grow and learn we expand our knowledge. It would be negligent not to update rules and regulations based on best practices. I can think of numerous accidents not inherent to gliding but in general where regulations were pulled back and accidents happened as a result. Or situations where there is no regulations, looking at ocean gate.
I had one accident and one near miss handgliding during my learning phase. It taught me allot about how not to get into bad situations such as running out of height or crashing into the hill you just took off from!
I’ve been Hang Gliding for 16 years and I have lost 5 friends. I’m right there with you. Don’t give up on living life, the friends you have lost wouldn’t want you to. Fly Safe!
Excellent video. While Gliding has more risk than some other things, it is important to put everything into perspective. I know of people who have dropped dead playing football, going on a night out, slipping in snow and slipping while crossing a stream. There is risk everywhere but flying a glider above a ridge is awesome. Playing in thermals is out of this world.
I no longer fly anything but over the years I have flown many gliders a few light AC and owned my own microlight, the only times I came close was once in a glider (Astir think) I had a fair amount of cross wind on my approach and when I went to kick it off I really, really struggled because the top of my boot was jamming up against the seat pan. Second time was flying a flex wing in France, some clown in a twin prop buzzed me and I ended up side ways on loosing loads of height very quickly, luckily training kicked in and I sorted it out. In December we (the riding community in Cheshire) lost 3 riders, not a single rider was to blame. I accept the risks and do all that I can do to mitigate those risks but I aint ready to sit in a chair all day and watch life go past.
I've been flying since the age of 13 and I fly powered (multi-engine rating), gliders and hang gliders. I've been flying for over thirty years and most of my recreational flying has been done in hang gliders and gliders. I've lost quite a few friends through hang gliding accidents but only two to gliding. It always hits hard because these are people who are unlike most non flyers. They embody the spirit of adventure and they always seemed - to me at least - to be more alive than most other people I've known. I have never taken part in competitions because I personally feel that the only competition pilots need is their own drive for self improvement; I completely understand others need and desire to compete however, it's just my personal perspective. I'm deeply sorry for the loss of your friends and I know it's probably of little comfort, but at least they died doing something they loved. All the best.
My friend Sergei died on a mini Lak 17b - a mistake by a novice pilot - a corkscrew at low altitude. And another friend Vasily with an 8 year old son died on Janus CM. It looks like the belt on the Rotax 535 C engine broke. The second case is a problem of bureaucracy, we dreamed of changing the engine to a more modern and reliable one (it has already failed 4 times!!!!), but the bureaucracy of the EASA world does not allow this to be done easily.
A month ago, the same engine on the DG 500 M failed me on takeoff. I made it through experience and training to fly close to the ground.
But, I repeat, simplifying the procedures for replacing old engines and installing a FES system on a club-class glider would make our world safer.
th-cam.com/video/G1GoPMjGSRc/w-d-xo.html
I thought it should be as easy to modify things on a motor-glider than on a experimental class...
A lot of the risk seems to be clustered in the competitive side of the sport. The first two cases you cite could have been cases of „get-there-itis“.
Great video 👍 . Years ago, before youtube in-cockpit videos etc, I asked two cross country pilots how I should approach my ambition to fly cross country, I got two answers that I remember to this day (in fact they prompted me to write an article in S&G at the time). Both pilots were instructors. One pilot advised that 'If I wasn't landing out on 50% of my cross countries, I wasn't setting myself challenging enough tasks'. Another pilot, a legend in the club and an experienced and fearless pilot who had flown competitions in early glassfibre hot ships with very poor airbrakes said (of non competition cross countries, but...) "I look at the sky ahead and I make a judgement on the soaring prospect on track. If I conclude it looks insufficiently promising, I either go elsewhere that looks more promising or, more likely, divert to the nearest landing strip from where I might get an aerotow retrieve'. I asked that pilot also what advice he would give to any pilot just starting out on their flying career. His reply was 'Never erode your margins.' I reflected on these various bits of advice and made my own decision.
"Never erode your margins." This is really the key.
Risk is the reason i stopped HangGliding and ParaGliding.
I am an airline pilot by profession so i had very solid procedures, i did not compete, took no chances... but there is a huge random factor.
I enjoyed it for 5 years and as people i knew started dying or getting seriously hurt i had to stop, i could not justify it anymore.
Gliders are safer, but not as safe as many people think.
Paragliders are safer than gliders or hang gliders
@@illla25 years experience would beg to differ.
@@illla It literally says the opposite in the statistics in this video...
It's better to be on the ground wish you were flying than be in the air wishing you were on the ground.
I thought swimming was safe but then I read about the brain eating amoeba...
I take it then you never go outdoors and you live in a bungalow? 🥱
It's better to be alive than dead
Thanks to this man for honestly explaining the risks rather than trying to convince and persuade one way or another.
As a fully committed motorcyclist of forty five years I know how dangerous it is but I mitigate the risk by taking responsibility for my piece of the road and how others relate to it! One of the best days of my life was when a patient took me soaring over Eglinton, Central West NSW on one of those days when we could have stayed up forever. Spectacular! You just can't justify your sport or past time to someone who doesn't understand the feeling. P.S. glad we didn't stay up any longer than we did, my bladder was killing me...
Well said! Also check out the video on how to pee in a glider haha 😂
Bravo Tim. I have a very hollow place in my heart from the friends I've lost over the years. Every one of them in a GA accident. So far - not one in a glider, and I intend to help keep it that way.
Thank you for the sobering video Tim.
Thanks! hope it stays that way too.
@@PureGlide to be honest: I held back getting back into GA because of it. But at some point I decided that happiness must override the fear. It's a risk. I will do everything in my power to reduce and manage risk - but I have to fly. Soaring is my avenue for now. I'd like to get a tail dragger but those aren't very safe, either. An engine failure or flight control problem is just as bad for your health.
Another great video Tim and excellent material to consider. Brand new (72 yr old) pilot here and it has become very apparent how potentially dangerous soaring is, even at my level, or maybe especially at my level. I was a professional mountaineer for some decades in an earlier life and working with Search and Rescue, one could see how things went wrong. Mostly it was the result of cascading bad decisions and attempting things beyond their level of training. But as you have shown it can happen to very experienced pilots. One of my instructors with a career in commercial aviation and 40+ years in soaring recently had a terrible crash for doing something that has been repeatedly told to me not to do (turning into the slope ridge soaring). Seems to me it's training training training and then sticking to what you have been trained to do and not to do.
Thanks for the video. I once had the opportunity to talk to Bo Bobko, a three times Space Shuttle pilot/commander. I told him about my gliding experience and he said: "gliding? That's dangerous!" 😄 During my 18+ years of gliding, flying in several Italian championships and one polish standard class nationals, 6 fellow pilots who I knew, some of them good friends, lost their lives in gliding, and not only in competitions. Not to mention the many more who I had not met personally but whom I had knowledge of. These statistics made me aware of the level of danger of this sport, but as you say the experience was well worth it and will remain as one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I gave up 25 years ago not because of the danger, which can be managed, but because continuing to glide meant taking time and resources away from my growing family.
Neil Armstrong was a glider pilot, and instructor as I recall.
Brian Spreckley gives a talk at the start of some competitions where he mentions some of the friends he lost over the years. I can't find the video now but he says that many of them were excellent pilots and suggests that they were pushing it harder than they would have rationally wanted to. His suggestion is that each day we take ourselves to one side and remind ourselves that "today is not the day" that we will push it harder than our personal minimums. E.g. cross that ridge lower than we know is safe, take that last thermal on the way home, push on without a suitable field. Just remind yourself each day that the most important thing is to get home safe.
Thank you for the video. It makes me very sad that you have lost so many friends in this extraordinary sport that we love. When we're up in the air with the glider, these thoughts are not really present - and they shouldn't always be. But it is important to keep them in mind.
I'm not a glider, but I am a motorcyclist. I lost my mother as well as a few club friends to motorcycle accidents. I still ride to this day. I believe that it's better to live life to its fullest and die doing what you love rather than sit in an armchair and regret not following your dreams. You have to be a bit fatalistic. Gliding looks like a wonderful sport. May you be lifted on a warm breeze. 🤙
I was a glider pilot for about 13 years and I was lucky enough never to lose a friend in a fatal accident although two of my friends did have bad accidents but both fully recovered. In 2010 I suffered mental health issues and voluntarily grounded myself. I have never flown since, not even on a commercial flight. Instead I took up sailing which has its own dangers but has the advantage that you can heave-to and put the kettle on if you want a break 😄 I still miss flying and I probably always will miss doing it, but as an alternative to gliding, sailing offers a lot and a modern yacht feels like a K-21 and its response to control inputs feels much the same. It was an easy transition for me to make. Perhaps an alternative if anyone is looking for a change.
Sailing is a wonderful sport. May you have fair winds and following seas!
@@TheWealthOfNationz - thanks
A very honest and thoughtful video, Tim. I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly. As a professional pilot (21 years military and 19 years commercial) and a long-time glider pilot, competitor, instructor and examiner, I cringe when I hear comments like “But we just do this for fun!” It doesn’t matter who you are and what your experience is, the sky like the sea, can be unsympathetic to those who take liberties with it.
Tim, this was timely. I just finished the Thermal Camp at Air Sailing here in the US. I’m a new glider pilot, and the value of that week long training exercise cannot be overstated. Your video dovetailed perfectly with that. Stark reminders are healthy. Thank you.
NV 23 hi from Raven!
I want add another attitude, I believe is even more important than respect. Not knowing the correct word as a native german speaking, the attitude I want to emphasize is "Demut" which translates to humility. Rather than respect, humility aids in not taking a risk, when in doubt. Respect is for the cerebral cortex, a mindset, whereas humility is for the aviator's very basic being. Pedestrians name it soul, I believe.
This why I decide to stop this beautiful sport after 38 years of practice. Lost 5 friends last five years 😢
Sorry to hear that :(
Thanks for the thought provoking video. The comment on motorcycling triggered a memory for me. I grew up in California and spent tens of years motorcycling. One of the major insurance companies at the time did a study on motorcycle fatalities. They found that the vast majority (greater than 90%) involved a novice rider with less than a year's experience. They also found that once you get past that dangerous time, motorcycling was quite safe. This was attributed to riders having excellent visibility and the bike being quite agile. Believe it or not, at the time, helmets were not mandated, so many riders did not use them.
Yep. Great memories punctuated by an occasional, well, tragedy. Fortunately for me I've always come down on the line of conservatism (flying gliders). I'm old and was trained in GA by a combo of crazy people and great instructors. So the first chance I got after being licensed I took an aerobatic course with one of the most famous old aerobatic pilots. And when I took an experienced glider pilot up for a treat in a glider unfamiliar to her, she put us in an involuntary full spin; but because of the training in GA aerobatics it didn't even faze me and I took over and recovered. She, on the other hand, said LAND NOW. So good training and common sense go a long way to living to fly another day. But admittedly I've been guilty of being "stupid" but to date have both gotten away with and in the process become more conservative about "pushing it." It still just gave me a chill thinking about some of the things I got away with and afterwards said "never again" and meant it.
I won’t fly anything less than a twin engine, and I’ve had two engine malfunctions (one failure) in over a thousand hours. I was Hard core IFR both times, never even told ATC, with only a few miles to go on the approach. Aviate FIRST, remember? Once with my 6 month old daughter in back. I mainly cussed about how much the repair was going to cost…no actual fear. . I only flew a two place glider with an instructor once, and I was constantly lining up mentally for an engines out approach, terrified... You guys are brave or crazy…you pick which
A really useful and honest summary of the risks, how we can all make the sport safer, and enjoy the enormous privilege of flying like a bird :😍
Thank you, it really is a privilege
I've done two SIV paragliding courses, both of them left me feeling uneasy for some months. It's critically important that people realise how quickly they are going to lock up in a serious emergency, and also how to recognise the feeling that you shouldn't be somewhere and then CHOOSE to DO something about it, and then ACT on that decision.
There's That Key Word Lockup-
I didn't expect it, but it happened when training too long and now tired from Hang Gliding all day.
Then insisted to be pushed faster, I narrowly escaped by doing exactly the wrong stunt on purpose just told to me by instructor that killed his brother, being I knew now I had only inches to spare to pull out of this deadly dive, because of locking up, causing a complete dead stall of zero speed. I flared out at the last second of dive with knuckles digging in the grass,, and instantly on my feet. Ok, we're done for today... But I always wanted to be in a glider, and visiting Germany, I made sure I brought back 2.5 meter electric folding prop glider. It's amazingly quite powerful.
Cheers
I actually glided today again, I do it every weekend! Sadly at 30th of May, a crash happened in front of me, I had my parachute on, and I saw a glider crashing during the landing upside down into some trees, this were the last moments for this person. I don't know her, but it made a big inpact on me, especially for beginner like me. After the accident I have been flying again quite a lot, this was the best solution for me. Thanks for sharing this.
Sorry to hear about that :(
wasn't a good month then because i witnessed a crash early may this year... i hope you are okay, it can take a toll on you to see something like that happen. stay safe!
@@thijsboss1246 Sorry to hear that from your side, hope you're okay to! I'm doing great right now, sometimes I get flashbacks to the crash, but in general just doing great and enjoying the flights :). For us, and our country in general, it was a real bad start of the season, lot's of incidents happened...
“Her”
I'm a 20,000 hour airine pilot now, but came up through GA in Australia. I've had 5 friends die in GA accidents, and two others in Air Force accidents.
Dear, this was a very mature and careful reflection. Very franck, very thouthful. I think you are going to avoid many losses for many people just making them reflecting like you've done here. God job! Amazing job! Keep on it. And please, keep on flying and sharing your experiences, that is inspiring. If there was a minimun chance for me to glide here in my country I'd seriously consider becoming a glider pilot. Unfortunately, I'm far away of any of this. But I'll keep enjoying others passion for it, anyway. God bless you!
Thanks for your heartfelt and somber message Tim. I've only flown RC gliders. But, I hope one day to be a passenger in a real one. In the mean time, your videos are as close as it gets to reality. Lotsa love to all from Toronto ♥♥♥
I was in another profession - licensed, the full nine yards. A lot of truth to this. MANY problems in my world could have been avoided by just taking time at the start of a trip to run through things, familiarize and check stuff (prevention / checklists). Commercially, the pressure was always huge to just grab and go. The other issue is exactly as you describe, pushing the limits. In my old field it was things like night operations, operations in bad weather, and get there itis (big time on this last one for commercial reasons). I was the type A player in my group - company grumbled at me from time to time - but I didn't have issues. It paid off for me in the end. When things went wrong I'd be the one to get a call for the recovery. We'll pay you $X, fly you to Y. I learned plenty of hard lessons making mistakes, but I always tried to make those mistakes on my own time or with other paid stuff - NEVER with PAX. Watching these videos those bother me the most, gliders with PAX pushing limits near clouds, near ground etc. I played NO games with PAX - period. No showing off. No hot dogging. To get PAX to come out again, they first of all need to feel SAFE.
Interesting to see someone discussing the statistics regarding the dangers of aviation / extreme sports. My own experience as a skydiver / BASE jumper over 30 years definitely has indicated that these activities, while incredibly inspiring and life changing, have enormous costs. Physical injuries and death are openly witnessed, however, there are also the latent psychological issues to some of the survivors in the form of PTSD. Internet discussion forums have too many people providing negative comments regarding specific accidents and fatalities, where the commenters through their negativity are really just telling themselves "I would never do that," by criticizing the injured or dead. Best to confront and contemplate the risks of these activities, which are incredibly rewarding but potentially so costly, without deluding oneself that it could never happen to me. It could happen to any of us.
Thank you. Not keen to leave messages here, but thank you for sharing this as it touches some considerations I have been making last few months.
After quiting paragliding after getting licensed 15 yrs ago, 100 hrs experience B2/L2 levels, practicing for a few years with some close encounters, I started flying gliders in '21, which felt like an improvement from the cowboy scene, became solo, got 150 flights but never got comfortable with again the more subtle new frontier mentality in our club.
My 8yo certainly liked the weeks with our club in France, the free life, assisting with ground movement with gulf carts, but he never wanted to board a glider for a flight with a licensed pilot..
I kind of started to understand him after gliders were ground handled into caravans, and the way the turnover rate of new members really was detriment to the safety levels; i thought that was important information not to convince him otherwise.
Last 12 months I got sadly impressed by 2 deaths from persons close to me within or near club, both experienced board members and GPL holders.
Your pictures in a way could have been them as a person..
So with a 8 yo and newborn 4 mo recently decided to wage my stats a bit later in life.
I love the birdseye view, but birds get eaten too..
Still learning from your vids, thanks for posting these human factor educational insights that most of us could learn from if we want.
Will be back for sure, but risk awareness also includes fit-to-fly due to family life, and for sure the considerations and preparations for your family if things go South...
Please keep up your work, thanks.
Thanks for sharing, sorry to hear about the people you lost. Yes with young children I completely understand a decision to give it a rest!
I appreciate this video and your perspective on the risks involved in a sport that you love. I'm an avid down hill skier and have known a few people who have perished on the mountain, including a good friends. Always respect the mountains and be aware of the risks.
Sorry to hear that, there’s a lot of parallels really, both sports need tremendous respect!
Nice one mate. I love watching your vids, you always have a calm no nonsense analysis that had me feeling gliding was safer than ga, but todays no nonsense shows it can have the same pitfalls, its all down to the pilot. Keep the blue side up mate, safe flying
52 years of continuous hang gliding I have seen the passings of fellow flyers, read and have heard the sad stories. All of which gives me puss for thought and refreshed my personal analyzing of all actions one can take away to reinforce one’s own focus on getting back down safely from aloft. Once one starts the roll or off down the ramp we set immediately the actions to pay close attention’s to to have to have a happy outcome. I think it’s called flight plan. ….. living the dream so far
A great video. We all need to be reminded of this periodically. I'm the parent of a small child, I tell myself I'll be the safest glider pilot I can be. There are always times when we shouldn't fly but are tempted, and this sort of wake up call helps to resist that temptation.
Sounds like a good sensible attitude :)
I'm also in CA and stopped riding my BMW GS in 2010, after 25 years. We have amazing diversity from all over the world who live here in the Bay Area, but this can translate to very different driving styles. Add smartphones to the mix, and it feels like the risks keep growing IMO. However, I AM taking up gliding... Less smartphone factors. :-)
I believe there are two key points that lead to dangerous situations in gliding and one is definitely competitions. Now, I know competitions are great fun and they do advance our sport.
However, it's the same for almost every sport: when entering a competition, you do accept some calculated risks. Sometimes your assessment is wrong. It's true for skiing, cycling, even running (I've seen someone get fatally injured during a marathon, a stumble, catching the fall with your arm, breaking it in an unfortunate position cutting the artery).
And being a motorcyclist myself: motorcycling was safer 20 years ago, simply because there were less people on the road and people adhered to the rules more than they do now. There has been a change in driver culture. I feel much safer gliding than riding my motorcycle. I even feel safer gliding than riding my bike (in the city).
Ahhhhh thank you voice of reason! Fair and balanced! I am mindful that we take our lives in our hands every time, and we have only one chance to land. It is a privilege to play, and I am grateful and respectful.
You’re scared 😱 me off with this video. Tomorrow I do have a trial lesson on Cessna 172. Should I continue with my lessons ? I love flying and I want to learn to fly. Also I used to be a courier driver on motorcycle for 4 years. Had to accidents on motorbike which were not my fault.
Yes, remember you control how safe it is for yourself! Enjoy yourself, it’s worth it.
Happy story; way back in 1974 I was invited along with 2 friends to go gliding in Whyalla, S. Aust. My friends had their go and barely made a full loop, but whn my go cam we went straight up to 10,000 ft and it was glorious. The air was so hot the pilot had to work hard to bring us down, we could have stayed up all afternoon. Forever grateful to that pilot.
That does sound like a good day!
My dad, a military trained pilot with years in gliders who owned an open Libelle, had a serious accident (in a 2-33 with a passenger) because of a tow pilot failure at low altitude where there was no chance of getting past a wooded area. He was badly injured in a crash that should have killed him. That tow window is a vulnerable part of every flight, and the control is not entirely with the pilot.
On my second lesson in soaring, my instructor went at-length to point out where the local accidents had occurred, how they happened, and whether or not the pilot survived/injured/got out scott free. It was a bit scary but he really wanted to drive home the point: as safe and as stable as a glider is --> accidents can AND do happen, and that paying attention to the safety briefings/meetings and taking all the safety meetings to heart will keep me out of trees and off the memorial list.
That was a really inappropriate thing for your instructor to do on your second flight.
@@arthurwallace9851 Why? I became a safer pilot because of it, and I took his warnings to heart. Lemme know how many glider pilots you send off to check-rides every year!
@@boltforward3611 sir, among CFIs it is common practice not to scare the hell out of a potential student on their first couple flights. Read down in these comments and you will see that has happened. You want that student to enjoy his flight training and come back.There is plenty time to introduce the risks and dangers a little later. I am retired now. 44 years flying sailplanes and 25 years as a CFIG. I have instructed young boys wanting to fly, all the way to commercial pilots wanting to become a CFIG. Good luck, fly safe.
@@arthurwallace9851 Do you feel better now that you have that off your chest?
In many channels I don't like the titles like "The death is flying with you!" or the "... most dangerous situation I have ever faces ...!" etc., etc.
Almost all of these titles are only used to create more clicks, but in the video they do not have a risky situation or do not talk about really risky stuff or do not analyse potential risks.
Here on this channel it is different. When here the title is "Will gliding kill you?" than there comes a good comprehension and analysis of what reality is like. Really great, many thanks for the great videos. 👍
Thank you, glad you appreciate the videos
My personal view on the matter is that gliding is safe enough for my comfort level, but it is extremely unforgiving of sloppiness or carelessness. I consider every flight as a lesson that I can learn something from, and I watch videos like this one as often as I can to understand the risks and maybe learn how to avoid traps that others have fallen into. At just over 12,000 hours of flying time, I do not expect to get killed in a plane, but I know it might happen. My only hope is that if it does happen, it is not because I was doing something stupid, but that is likely to be the ultimate cause. The only thing that can reduce the chances of doing something stupid is education, so never stop learning!
Well said!
Gliding is a fabulous activity. I used to fly in the Alps and the Jura mountains in Switzerland. It's sailing in 3 dimensions. Yes, it's always been a dangerous activity. That's why training is so important.
Sadly lost a friend at my home airfield a few months ago:( about a year ago i had an incident on the side of a hill, which i luckily walked away from. further proves your point Tim. i appreciate your videos.
Very sorry to hear that :( But glad you walked away from your incident.
I used to ride my motorcycle to the airport to fly my aircraft. I often wondered which one would get me first…the bike or the plane? I must be a “lucky one” as I’m still here 35 years later.
Being able to calculate risk regardless of your hobby will determine the outcome. There’s always the “if he had only done this differently he’d still be alive” that gets mentioned after an accident. YOU are the only one that can determine the risk and sometimes it’s better to stay on the couch. Still,there are no guarantees in this life. Still, I’d rather be taken out suddenly in a vehicle accident than die of colon cancer.
This is very appreciated. I'm about to start my first gliding course here down south of the americas, and it's nice to see the risks the sport comes with. Thank you for sharing your knowledge 💟
Best of luck with your training!
Sadly have also faced several fatal accidents in Chile and many incidents too. After a 50 year analysis of all gliders accidents in our club, the findings were
- 22% of the pilots had skills below par (detected at an early stage). Training took longer than average. Action: Below average pilots will not continue flying.
- 45% of the accidents occurred in a competition and/or similar environment. Action: Risk assessment before flying a competition (human factor analysis, training required before competing, incident and behavioral analysis, avoid fatigue)
The most contributing factors in accidents are: Low recent experience, experience in the glider to be flown, water ballast, fatigue, skill degradation over time, human factors (the elephant in the room- personality, stress,reckless conduct).
If you wish to discuss further I am happy to share more info.
You mentioned that several of your friends who passed away were involved in competitions at the time of their deaths. I think it might be more insightful to separate such accidents from accidents which occur during regular flights. It seems clear that the competitions are pretty dangerous and are skewing the overall death rate making the gliding seem more dangerous than it actually is.
As he said, this is a thing even in GA flying even across the world too. My flight team lost 2 members and another family's got two sons who aren't coming home again since it was a midair... But I wouldn't stop flying despite the loss. It isn't what another pilot would want, for someone to give up a wonderful hobby that could end up blossoming into a life-defining career just because theirs was cut short. At least that's what I'd want if I were to crash. Just remember to fly safe and not to take any of your fellow aviators for granted. You might not see them again and you never know when it could be.
Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous, but to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity, or neglect.
Yeah...I got caught in a wave gap which closed up on me ...I was at 12,000 feet above Aboyne...descent through 8,000 feet of cloud...and found myself about 7 miles downwind...Fortunately managed to punch back into wind at 70 knots and arrived back with 1500 ..I vowed I'd never get caught out like that again..mountains at 3000 feet AMSL..all around.
My son started gliding at the age of 13 and is now 22 yrs of age.
He has had a few scary moments, but he is careful and thankfully risk adverse.
The benefits of gliding is that he has been able to get a very good job as a signalman on the UK Railways which is a very safety critical role.
I would encourage gliding to any parents and the time he spent in his teenage years was hanging around and helping at the local airport rather than night clubs.
Two comments:
1. I think you said the most important thing at the end mate. The psychological traps. Aviation has only gotten so safe (low death stats) by dealing with precisely that. I had some psych training previously, but it was eye-opening to hear crusty old instructors talking about human factors and clearly being guided by it. Most of the potentially fatal errors are preventable by proper training. That means ongoing training and monitoring that gives feedback and things like increasing insurance premiums to people who test poorly in the more subtle aspects of decision-making etc.
2. The 80:20 rule. Beyond the decision-making that must improve, IMO we need to get real about who are having the majority of bad outcomes. That starts with drivers, pilots, riders, divers, etc and extends to things like business ventures, drug use etc. It's a subset of people who are probably born with potentially dangerous and resistant mindsets. Every diagnosed mental health disability is the tip of an iceberg of people around them with less amounts of those genetic components. This often results in a reduced general enjoyment of life and an enhanced seeking and tolerance of more extreme options in order to experience shorter periods of intense enjoyment. We're a long way from properly understanding and discussing this.
Not sure about all that. In 10 years of motorcycling I had 14 crashes and two near misses at high speed. I was. lucky to survive. In 1981 I took up gliding. In 42 years and 3000 hours I’ve never had an accident. I try not to show off or take unnecessary risks. Maybe that and solid training frequently reinforced is the key.
Wow, 14 crashes is a lot. I think that's another thing about motorbikes, it might not be you who makes a mistake that could cost dearly e.g someone pulls out in front of you. With gliding it's more than likely a mistake will be your own? So the risk level is more under your control.
This summer will be 10 years I've been riding motorbikes in UK and Europe. Two crashes - both self-inflicted and rider errors.
14 is a lot - were you a pro racer?
My uncle is a CFI-G. About 10 years ago now, he was flying in a competition and involved in a mid-air while thermalling. His aircraft's control surfaces were damaged and it became inverted. Fortunately, he was able to bail out, though not without breaking his collar bone. The other pilot was able to land safely. This was quite the wakeup call for him. While he still flies competitions, he's much more laid back. He views competitions mainly as a way to stay involved with a community of people beyond his local club.
Think it probable that competition is motive for eroding the margin of safety? Thus the high accident rate?
I've had two serious accidents soaring. The first was during my first and only contest. I was low time and ill prepared groundlooping in a paddock severly damaging the glider but avoiding personal injury except for my pride. The accident would never have happened if I didn't push things because of the contest. I vowed never to do another contest after that. The second accident was after over 300 hours of flying. I barely managed to crawl out of the wreckage with 8 fractured vertebra, fortunately with no long-term effects. The flap handle on my LS3-17 would rotate and unfortunately slipped out of my hand on final. Flaps went from 20 deg to -7 deg instantly stalling the glider about 100 ft off the ground. No lectures on changing flap setting on final please, there was a good reason. I have not flown since but I desperately miss it. Soaring is a fantastic sport with great rewards but it is dangerous and demands respect. We lost two sailplane pilots and one towplane pilot in my short 9 years of flying. I also lost a friend in GA in the same period. All were excellent pilots with much more experience than I had. Moral of the story is sh_t happens. Life is chaos and the unexpected can happen anytime to anyone. You can get bit when you least expect it.
Contest flying seems to be the cause of much grief, according to a lot of these comments. I'm sorry you haven't flown since your 2nd accident - is this because you're unable to? Being in the air really does make one feel alive, which is why we do it I guess...
@@brendangilmore4297 I chose not to fly anymore. Two dimensions are enough now. I do miss it though.
In the early '80s, I joined a soaring club in Ohio, USA. As a student, I was ready to solo. Then we had a fatal accident where the experienced pilot broke one of the cardinal rules that was burned into my head from the first flight: Once you enter the landing pattern, do not leave it. If you're too high, if you're too fast, stay in the pattern and put the plane on the ground. The accident pilot decided he was too high so decided to do a 180 while on downwind. He spun in, killed himself and severely injured the guest rider in the back. After that, I took up skiing. Funny, I recently looked up the accident in the FAA database and it is not listed as fatal.
I love flying sailplanes. I stopped simply because I couldn’t afford the tow fees and plane rentals anymore. Unfortunately, flying is a rich person’s sport.
Very timely.
ChessintheAir’s posts on the subject are quite comprehensive and not only detail the risks, but also provides the mitigations for them.
Worth a good review for all pilots
Thanks Tim.
Thanks Bill, yes well worth reading them
ill be honest. Ive been riding bikes as my main way of transport since 14. Im 20 now, and been dreaming of gliders too. I just wanted to say, thank you for this video, because the risks we way out every day needs to be rechecked every now and then, and this video did that for me. Thank you!
Great that's exactly the point of the video: just to remind us to be careful doing the things we love
So have you decided to go gliding or not? I rode bikes from age 19 to around 45, had few accidents, no major injuries and enjoyed 99% of it. Even racing bikes for 10 seasons, with only a broken wrist and a few bruises in total injuries. Plenty of 'near misses' on the road, yes - others to blame.
I also had a go at gliding - never got to solo standard but did towline and aero tow gliding under instruction and almost went for my licence but gliding is a bit expensive and it would have meant giving up on racing so I gave the licence a miss. Sometimes wish I had carried on with it.
In my twenties I also had a go at free fall parachuting, got as far as 10 second delay jumps, and almost continued with that but as with the gliding cost and convenience came into it.
All these activities attract people with a certain adventurous character, however some will recognise the dangers and do their best to minimise them and some, unfortunately will ignore the dangers and push the boundaries for whatever reasons.
I should also maybe mention the mountaineering too - the alps and the Matterhorn were involved - again in my twenties, its a good age to be.
Well done and objective video. Having survived a single engine general aviation crash, I am always interested in views about all kinds of flying. I have not flown in a general aviation aircraft since my crash in 1987. Not sure I ever will. But I support anyone who's passion is flying and understand the risks they are taking.
The Chess in the Air analysis is based on participation hours, if you count the hours dreaming and reminiscing (and making TH-cam videos) then the risk goes down a bit 😂 still dangerous though
Haven't gone gliding in years but love watching it on TH-cam. I miss Balleka and his giggles of sheer delight.
You allude to this in your video, but it's important to emphasize that group statistics such as you discuss and are shown in that chart, do NOT apply to individuals. For example, *your* risk of dying in the next 1000 hours doing anything *cannot* be computed such as that chart shows. There's simply no way to calculate that because there are too many variables.
Thinking that group stats can be applied to individuals is done so often that there's a name for it: Ecological Fallacy.
The group stats are good for evaluating risks so that if you choose to do an activity you can address how you plan to mitigate those risks.
Very nicely done. I am a private pilot , single engine land, instrument rated, enthusiast located in Sacramento, California. I am sorry you lost your friends and respect your clam explanation of the risks involved in flying gliders.
the thing that got me was the comparatively lower cost, instant start/stop, and extreme reliability of a small fixed mount H2O2 rocket. ( Blip-able 2 to 3 meter per second climb )
the fuel and catalyst cost a lot more, but that will keep people from using it frivolously, so keeping it in line as a safety feature.
so i wrote apollojetpack and explained about the need for a Single H2O2 Tank / Momentary full on-off soliniod / Single Thruster - Glider Safety Thruster System.
The old gliding club my dad used to tow for in Germany had a horrifying record. They single-handedly beat the record you mentioned for all of NZ. I was too young to know whether there were investigations as to their procedures - this was the 70s and the attitude may have just been "risk worth taking". They had a "in memoriam" shrine in the clubhouse that started in a corner and the last time I was visiting some time in the early 90s snaked around the ceiling. 😱As for the risk diagram: I do feel like the GA field is arguably one of the widest, especially when compared to other fields in that poster. From home-builts all the way to a Citation X: it's still GA (provided the last one isn't flown commercially). From 60 years old aircraft held together by willpower to a modern Diamond DA62. which is currently the safest light twin on the planet and matches commercial aviation's record by hours. But of course, the vast, *vast* majority of accidents is by pilot error. The human factor is the main "problem".