Peter,
I think you have got to the nub of it, but I am somewhat surprised that you
feel it necessary to bring this topic up again.
Whilst Stu's figures are no doubt valid for actual strikes, the near misses
hardly ever get reported, and therefore tallied up into (yet another), set
of statistics. Unfortunately, (to my knowledge), there are no statistics
for near misses, and more importantly, for glider pilot lives saved by
flarm
I do not know of ANY glider pilot who flies regularly (lets say 100 hours
per year), over a few seasons, who has not experienced a near miss at least
once in his total flying experience. However do keep in mind the proven fact
that mid-airs are most likely to occur within a few km of a glider airfield,
so it is a certainty that early solo pilots can be, and are, right in the
firing line! Time and time again it has been said that the use of flarm is
an adjunct only to good lookout. So let me iterate - LOOKOUT, LOOKOUT,
LOOKOUT.
Peter, you will certainly remember that the requirement for the mandatory
use of flarms in GFA approved competitions, was almost solely driven by
competition pilots in this country - against some bureaucratic resistance.
Something like the resistance to the introduction of seat belts in motor
cars, if you go that far back! In the wash up, seat belts save lives: Proven
fact. In the wash up flarm saves lives: Proven fact. QED.
Military combat situations aside, my feeling is that the use of flarm, has
already (by far), saved more lives than those saved by the use of a
parachute within the time frame following the introduction of flarm.
So ..... how many lives has flarm saved?
Let me say not mine ... Yet! ... and in the bigger picture, I hope never!
Today I cannot conceive of flying without a working flarm!
This would seem to me to be a very good place to acknowledge the debt that
soaring pilots in this country owe to Nigel Andrews, who introduced the
(Swiss developed), system to Australia. Thank you Nigel.
Gary
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Stephenson (Internode)" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2012 6:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Mid Air collision risk
Having been involved with two near hits in the last 10 years, both of
which would have been prevented by a Flarm, it seems bloody stupid not
have a 750 Euro unit not installed in *every* aircraft.
PeterS
On 22/04/2012 12:29 PM, S Smith wrote:
Greetings
If you look in the following database,
http://aviation-safety.net/index.php
which is a wiki and lists aircraft crashes around the world back to
1920's
you will find very very very very few mid-airs.
So far this year, for 896 recorded accidents there are the following
only;
3 - military, training mid-airs 2 were combat jets / 1 was
helicopters
1- GA, R22 helicopter vs Beechcraft in USA - both landed
safely.
That's it.
For the whole world.
Now I accept this database is not a complete listing,
and let's remember how many millions of flights there have been in that
time,
but as a percentage, just 1 GA mid-air out of 896 reported accidents in
last 6 months - a pretty reasonable sample size.
Maybe we should think about the causes of the other 890 too !
and get a sense of proportion.
regards
Stu
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring mailing list
[email protected]
To check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring mailing list
[email protected]
To check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring mailing list
[email protected]
To check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
