That sentence, "The most dangerous part of gliding is the trip to the glider field" is the dumbest, most ignorant saying that has found a home in our sport.
Bruno Gantenbrink, 1993 "I would like to weigh the sentence, "The most dangerous part of gliding is driving to the airport" against my personal statistics. To do this, I have made up three lists. The first list is the names of comrades that I have lost in flying. The second list is the names of friends that I have lost through accidents on the way to the airport either in a car or on a bicycle. And finally, to make the picture complete, the third list contains the names of glider pilot friends that I have lost in any kind of traffic accident anywhere. The first list, of friends lost flying, contains about 30 names. I will mention only the most prominent. Just during the last year in Germany there were: Helmut Reichmann, Ernst Peter, Hans Glöckl, Georg Eckle, Horst Kall and then tragically just a year later, his wife Marlis Kall. From Austria: Rudi Göbel and Alf Schubert. From Belgium: Prof. Sander. From France: Sidot and Daniel Quemere, chief flight instructors at St. Auban. From The Netherlands: Kees Musters. From South Africa: Heini Heiriss. As I said, these are just some of the more prominent names. Now the second list: there is no one. I haven't lost any friends on the way to the airport. And I was somewhat surprised to find that for me, the third list of pilot friends whom I have lost in traffic accidents is also empty. In the last 20 years we have lost 3 world champions including Harro Wödl, who is included even though I didn't know him personally, from the total of approximately 30 world champions. In the last ten years, we have lost three former German national champions out of the less than 30 we have ever had. It would appear that you have about a 10% chance of joining them. That should raise the hair on the back of your neck. My personal statistics lead me to believe that glider flying is at least 30 times more dangerous than driving a car." http://www.dg-flugzeugbau.de/safety-comes-first-e.html _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
