Brett Kettle wrote:
And yet our national mail list contains stories (I hope someone's just
pulling my leg) of gaffer taped pins & no pins at all;
The number of GFA members in Australia is about 20 times higher than the
number of subscribers on this list. Many of the subscribers on the list
aren't GFA members, so I reckon the membership of the list is < 5% of
Australia's GFA members. Of those, many are subscribed but don't read
it. There are probably less than 20 people who post regularly.
This isn't "our national mailing list." This is something Simon Hackett
has set up as a community building exercise. It's a bunch of pilots
standing around and electronically shooting the breeze; it isn't an
officially sanctioned and approved forum.
and our latest
national mag boasts advertisements for new gliders showing a high energy
finish how far (<3m?) above the deck?
There is nothing inherently wrong with a high-energy finish. They are
routinely carried out legally all over the world (note that the glider
in the photo you're talking about has a German registration). With
appropriate approvals and limitations they're carried out legally in
Australia. GFA and CASA are working towards approving a training syllabus
and a CASA dispensation to permit glider pilots to practice and perform
high-energy finishes in Australia, which is likely to be released before
the end of this year.
For an appropriately trained and qualified pilot, with a suitable
regulatory system, there is no problem with safely carrying out a
high-energy finish; So I'm not sure why you think it's not suitable
for an ad in Soaring Australia.
Surely this type of advert is just plain wrong after the tragic death at UK
Juniors recently;
Maybe you ought to wait for the BGA's accident report. Uninformed speculation
from 20,000km away about an accident which involved two people most of us
don't actually know is not likely to generate a useful outcome.
and the pins stories just plain wrong
Perhaps you're overreacting to a "troll". Do you believe that the
account of the pins was actually factual? My money is on some wag
trying to start an entertaining thread.
I'm not a police-state kind of guy, but I'd almost think it was in the GFA's
interests to take some kind of action to prevent these practices and/or to
reduce their gung-ho profile in the sport.
The GFA is not my mum. They don't have a responsibility for my safety.
They don't have a responsibility for yours either.
I had a nasty little outlanding incident myself a short while back, and I'm
busily recalibrating my own sense of what's safe versus too risky; newcomers
to the sport seeing this kind of stuff are surely getting the wrong message.
Ok, so you've had a scare and you subsequently think the GFA should
step in and do something.
The psychology behind that kind of reaction is understandable, but somewhat
wrong-headed.
GFA, CASA, ATSB, and other aviation regulators give us tools we can use
to enhance our safety and the safety of those around us. But the
responsibility for the use of those tools has always been with us, and
will remain so.
It sounds like you understand that at some level, because you've said
you're recalibrating your own margins. Do you think you'd have recalibrated
them sooner if GFA was your nanny, or would you have had exactly the same
incident under the same circumstances, with the same risks and actions
leading up to it?
- mark
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I tried an internal modem, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
but it hurt when I walked. Mark Newton
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