Fatal Gliding Stats & In-Air Aerotow Hookup

In this episode we look at:
- Follow up to the "Sad Truth about Gliding and Soaring" Video:
• The sad truth about gl...
- A mid air aerotow connection company
- New PureGlide shirts and hoodies
- Fresh look at SeeYou Navigator/Oudie and PureTrack.io
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📷 Equipment Used to Make this Video:
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SmallRig Cage for ZV-1 amzn.to/2UiGGnK
00:00 Follow up to last video
01:09 NZ fatal accident statistics
04:05 Mid-Air Aerotow Connection
05:19 New Shirts
06:04 SeeYou Navigator Features
07:36 PureTrack New Features

[@ThermalWave]

15% of accidents happening in contests actually seems really high to me. There are 84000 flights on WeGlide in New Zealand for the 2022 season - and those aren't all flights (incl. training & local flights), but mainly XC flights that the pilots chose to upload. How many competition flights were there? 20 comps * 5 flying days * 20 pilots would be 2000, and that already seems like a high estimate. That would mean competition flights are about 2.4% of WeGlide flights in New Zealand, but 15% of the accidents. Risk seems elevated by a factor of 6 compared to XC flying (and likely more compared to training & local flights). Of course the statistics are all rather small...

[@PureGlide]

Good points, cheers! A few things: - we had half our comps cancelled this last season due to weather. Very unusual. - with numbers as low as 2, just one or less accidents makes a huge percentage difference as you mention. - olc is probably a better guide to general usage in NZ, not many using weglide here yet. - 84000 flights doesn’t sound right at all! Maybe 8400?

[@bungee7503]

@@PureGlideHis reasoning is right, even if the numbers are contestable. An accurate analysis uses rates, not numbers eg. accidents per 1,000 flights.

[@n2b998]

Thanks for another great video Tim. The same statistical analysis was performed in the UK about 10/15 years ago. It concluded that if you normalise the data by flight type (i.e. contest flying vs other types of gliding) then contest flying is much more dangerous. I was just getting into contest flying at that time and I remember being amazed and disappointed by the risky flying exhibited by pilots I had previously respected for their airmanship (for instance very senior instructors). When challenged these pilots would brush off the comments saying “oh but that’s just competition flying”, compounding the disappointment. I was interested in flying comps solely to improve my cross country skills, so I elected to stop flying competitions. Still happy with my decision now.

[@GarretKrampe]

Contests are not too dangerous . When ever you take up a competition you have two components Ground crew and pilots. Consider this In AU we used to do the CHAOTIC checks . Crew would be next to the pilot confirming checks. Canopy down and locked, Harness secure, Airbrakes closed and locked, Outside free of obstructions and crew paying attention and cable secured and release check, Trim fully forward back an inch, Instruments check and set QNH crew would blow into the pitot tube to confirm AIS working , Crew would then pick up the wing and check Controls full movement and confirm with crew. Then if all ok wave to take up slack. then check Outside again, then give over head go ahead wave. It got modified to better add No personnel on the field to distract checks "clear the field", Pitot check and confirmed clean/no obstructions , QNH set, release check, control surfaces free of debris and air brakes flush, under carriage down and locked, windsock stable, and don't pick up the wing until the check is confirmed by crew and pilot. Implementing the 4th order of Safety controls is procedures / administrative controls. If we step back and realise that the risk is easily overcome by a 3rd order Engineering control and implement an auto stow and lock of air brakes at less than 15 knots this could also be a safe guard. From an engineering point of view this is passively achieved by a small pressure feed above and below the wing that acts against a bladder and spring. In this case even a buzzer and light labelled "AIR BRAKES" if they are NOT LOCKED POSITION simple and easy retro fit. In the interest of safety the crew need to also have a "cheat sheet" with all the checks, then ask the pilot to confirm each and verify any exterior surface movements, traffic and cross wind etc. Back in the 70's most of the crew were 16 yo kids who could run ! The crew cheat sheet should be in the form of a card on a lanyard around the neck that can be lifted and and read but on 6 lb fishing line so as to not cause strangulation or preferably a magnetic clasp of breakaway tension 3 Kgs or 6 lb. You only need a short video presentation on a laptop and 6 of these cards to get crew up to speed. For those who have not done WHS look up the 5 Hierarchy of controls . What are the 5 hierarchy of controls? 0. Identify the risk 1. Elimination. 2. Substitution. 3. Engineering controls. 4. Administrative controls. ( also called procedural controls ). 5. Personal protective equipment (PPE) Good and trained ground crew are part of aviation success and safety .

[@Trevor_Austin]

The hours vs accident rate was an interesting. Without further analysis, you might assume that some of the basic skills of high hours pilots have been eroded and/or they require higher levels of supervision. May I also add that when I was flying in competitions, the basic handling skills of some of the highest ranking pilots was rubbish. They would pedal and graunch their gliders through the sky in a truly disgusting fashion. But you you could never beat them because they were almost always in the very best bits of sky. The other thing this guys did was run a risk/reward evaluation on everything they did. They’d fly into blind gullies over saddles, assume a mountain face would work and stretch glides further than you could possibly imagine. I’ve lost count of the gliders I’ve seen landing out on whilst standing on a finishing line. My balls are not big enough to run with a zero margin final glide but they are still attached to my body.

[@jamesedwards7241]

Started gliding when I was twelve, now seventy and drifted in and out of the sport during that time and this question of safety had come up over and over again. But here's an observation. During that time I have noted the sparse nature of accidents fatal or otherwise in gliding overall. They do happen and the demographic of the pilots does not seem to make any impact on who a where they have these accidents but again the small numbers considering the nature of the sport, the number of launches, its obvious limitations and the fact that it is undertaken by casual (Non-professional), pilots just for the hell of it leads you to believe that in the main gliding is a safe sport if you follow the rules and conventions built around it, stray outside of those the risks increase exponentially and very quickly indeed.

[@johngallagher6047]

Greetings Tim. Some interesting food for thought here and on your last video with regard to gliding fatalities. As a former pilot flying from 1985 until 1997 I've seen a few accidents and mishaps, thankfully none of which were fatal. Here in the UK there is a magazine called Sailplane and Gliding (colloquially known as simply S&G) which covers the sport over the entire United Kingdom. I used to avidly read the accident report section and reflect upon my own abilities as a pilot. I'm somewhat surprised that no on in the UK has a KZbin channel similar to yours although you frequently mention the excellent video material produced by the BGA. Keep up the excellent work.

[@PureGlide]

Thank you John, glad you like the videos

[@markpitts5194]

I can think of two instances from friends in GA where a forced out landing due to weather occurred. In both cases I don't think they should have been flying because of their mental state being impaired. One had lost his mother in the previous couple of days. We should all be aware of 'feeling fine' when not realising we are internally distracted from the task. Just my 10 pence worth.

[@Nathan-gg2yj]

Regarding incidents, I heard about a deadly incident in Austria in the last week. A tow pilot died, and from the looks of it it sounded like an tow plane offset (I only saw the news). I think your work is really important to raise the awareness of those!

[@Roskellan]

Stalls vs negative G. Apparently some winch launch accidents have been caused from not knowing the difference.

[@PureGlide]

I can imagine so

[@Skyforger62]

Great video Tim! I like the old school vintage gliders. A shirt with a Schweizer SGS 2-32 in black or navy would be most excellent!

[@EleanorPeterson]

Mmmm, I'll second that, Scott! 🙂

[@maciekbednarski2279]

MDM-1 Fox T-shirt would be a nice addition

[@imsoaring]

Interesting about the tow system. Take off and climb takes most of the power budget. Probably a better approach would be to do a towed launch like a normal aerotow with a tow plane optimised for climb. The aircraft behind then fires up and uses the batteries to cruise from A to B ( and possibly in flight tow/charge ) and then land at the far end. Hey all us aerotow glider pilots might be grandfathered in! :)

[@GarretKrampe]

Pure track seems like an awesome Idea

[@Bleemus]

Loving puretrack. Let's me know when my local gliderport here in Florida is flying as I am thinkng of becoming a glider pilot.

[@PureGlide]

Awesome to hear!

[@hpk31]

I just bought my first glider last month, it's a DG 202. It would be awesome to have a shirt of it. 😃 Keep up the awesome videos Tim. I've been watching and enjoying your content since I began flying.

[@PureGlide]

Awesome thanks! I’ll see what I can do re the dg 202

[@cumulusK]

Hi Tim, great video, difficult topic. Statistics base on a low number of cases leave always a lot of room for interpretation. OSTIV got tasked by IGC to look into the risk of competition flying and how to mitigate by means of design, ten years ago. You find the paper on OSTIV / Panels / SDP / Safety Pays. Best regards, Jannes

[@PureGlide]

Thanks for sharing!

[@cabanford]

Great channel. I always wanted to learn to fly gliders (but somehow ended up being a professional tandem paragliding pilot 🤷🏻)

[@PureGlide]

Thanks!

[@yoursort]

I would love to buy a Club Libelle shirt!

[@detlevb.732]

Please rate the stats comparing competition and non-competition with the hours flown in these two sets (or pilots taking part). Think this changes the picture dramatically. Thanks for sad but important content, Tim!

[@PureGlide]

Yeah I wish I had those stats

[@detlevb.732]

@PureGlide New Zealand's glider association cannot help? Number of participants and unlucky pilots should be retrievable? Cheers!

[@glennwatson]

Makes me wonder what the statistics would be like with a larger sample size. Eg Australia or a alpine area with similar mountain ranges. Does the terrain affect the accident rates or just the type of accidents. Obviously it won’t be a even comparison just due to different conditions in each country.

[@EVE101Patt]

DG-300 - my bea ❤

[@Love4everFree]

Probably not one that's highly requested, but I'd love to see shirts with the L-23, PW6, PW5, or the Pipistrel Sinus or Taurus.

[@PureGlide]

PW5 is a popular request, stay tuned!

[@delphineszecel3003]

Hi, thank you for the videos. They are always interesting. Would you consider to draw the DG500 ? It is the one I have learned on and is unforgettable ("my Juliet Kilo" even if she obviously belongs to the club). Thanks.a lot

[@PureGlide]

Hi yeah I'll add the DG500 to the list! I have a few waiting... Cheers

[@DB-thats-me]

Would you do a K6 tee shirt? On your ‘experienced’ pilot comment. The ability to fall into bad habits increases (IMHO) with experience. ie I watched a a glider being towed out ready for launch. The pilot rejected the nose hook release test in order to get into the sky sooner. On initial ground run behind the tug, the PH wing began to flutter. The aileron connection had not been made or checked. He bunged off, landed straight and no harm, no foul. Familiarity breeds contempt. Whilst writing up this recollection, I realised the wing runner was equally at fault. If the pilot won’t follow SOP safety checks. Don’t launch him!

[@benhilsenrath8093]

Can you do an SHK on those shirts?

[@taylorlindsay1262]

I too read the chess in the air article. I can’t quite figure out where the author is getting his numbers. In the us, sail plane stats are measured in hours and motorcycle stats are measured in miles driven. In the USA you have an approximate 1 in 2000 chance of dying according to Stanford (approximately 5-10 annual deaths and over 15k active pilots). Also in the USA there are around 8.5 million active motorcyclists and about 6100 annual fatalities resulting in a 1 in 1400 chance.

[@klausklausiklaus1880]

Could you please explain and maybe demonstrate how to do a tail landing or 2 point landing? I'm having trouble to stay close to the ground and gently touching down. I tend to pull slightly too much, eventually gaining little height again and not intuitively knowing how/when to coordinate air brakes and elevator.

[@klausklausiklaus1880]

I'm learning in an ASK 13 btw.

[@PureGlide]

Hi you probably need to spend some time with an instructor to work on that. It is common to struggle with round out a bit, and simply does need practice. My advice is to round out slowly, starting a touch early, so you can adjust how much as you do it . Don’t do anything abrupt. Good luck!

[@klausklausiklaus1880]

Thank you, for you too! I really like your videos :)

[@maximusboscus]

Is spin training done often during the licence obtention in NZ? I remember when getting the licence in Italy the instructor was regularly asking us to enter in spin and hold the stick until he gave the order to recover. Another training was to pull the stick slowly and stay in "prestall" for long and turn only with the rudder while in that state.

[@PureGlide]

It is part of the training programme, and every Biannual flight review people have to do a spin too.

[@EnriqueGraciaColl]

Regarding Oudie, do you know if the page can be selected automatically when circling starts, for example? Also, I think they don't have netto databox. Is that right?

[@PureGlide]

Not sure sorry. I couldn't even figure out how to change pages when I just tried! But I thought that was a new feature

[@ELAYPRESS]

Notice that stara need to be read in perspective. Please adjust for number of flights dobę during contests vs rest of the flights. Then we will have much better data.

[@adams3411]

Totally offtopic command but I just wanted to say - @pureglide, you are definitely in for a haircut! 😀

[@PureGlide]

Haha thx had one the other day :)

[@klaasdecoster3897]

i just think when flying contest, everyone will see ur "mistake" or outlanding and ur willingly to push further and maybe too hard and then not being able to fidn a decent outlanding field orso and crash

[@philplane3181]

I notice in the stats you discretely avoid mentioning age. I have noticed that many 'experienced' pilots are getting on in years. With most incident/accidents there is a failure of basic airmanship. It is rare for some-one to invent a new way of getting into trouble. Either they fail to follow their training, or their training had gaps and failed to teach them things that they should have known. None of us are perfect though, so even if we know what to do and have the skills we require, we can still mess up. And we are flying in an unforgiving environment. As we age our lightning quick reflexes degrade. Our razor sharp mental processes become blunt. Our eyesight dims. But the environment we fly in doesn't make any allowance for our deficits. It doesn't matter how good you think you are. It doesn't matter how good I think you are. It doesn't matter how good you were. It only matters how good you are in the moment. And you need to be good enough in the moment for the whole flight. -- Phil Plane Experienced Pilot

[@PureGlide]

Yeah good point I should have put age in there!

[@philippelambert329]

The signature "experienced pilot" reminds me of a saying I like to repeat to my students : There are bold pilots, and there are old pilots. There is no old bold pilot. Being myself a pilot with a few flight hours and on the "aging" side, may I say that flying safely is more a question of margins than a question of age : one must keep one's body fit for flying, and maintain safety margins right where they should be. "Lightning quick reflexes" will not make up for complacency : one who chooses to fly with razor-thin safety margins is sure to get cut someday, perhaps sooner the one thinks. Airplanes bite fools...

[@timkin4190]

While I appreciate the content of the channel and the honest intent to discuss gliding safety openly and to encourage discussion, it concerns me that such basic statistics are being used in the conversation. Even for such a low number of events, the underlying causes of the events will be varied but meaningful (pilot error, pilot incapacitation, equipment/airframe malfunction, errors/mistakes on the ground not picked up before flight, etc.). Without understanding or discussing the underlying causes and the likelihood of occurrance (and the reasons they occur) we're left just saying "gliding is dangerous because people die at some rate X when some other activity has a death rate of Y". Your about 5 times more likely to die by being crushed by a vending machine than by being eaten by a shark. That doesn't tell us about what sort of behaviours cause you to die more readily while at a vending machine than swimming at the beach! Taking this a step further, it is far more meaningful to ask questions such as: How many deaths while mountain soaring were collisions with terrain after a spin commenced? How mean spins near terrain did NOT result in a collision? Were all spins near terrain fatal? For fatal spins near terrain, how current was the pilot with regards to spin recovery training/review? Overall how experienced were the pilots? Answers to these questions lead us to understand some of the factors that potentially place a pilot more at risk while flying near terrain and hence should be the focus of risk mitigation strategies for pilots and clubs.

[@ronaldglider]

Can you refine the stats by factoring in the rate per flown hour in the last 3 months? I suspect this is more important than total hours flown. I don't like the stats on commercial km flown vs km driven: looking at hours spent doing it makes commercial flying much worse..

[@PureGlide]

Yeah I wish I had that data, cheers!

[@ronaldglider]

Do you have a university nearby? Might be a good master student thesis

[@Fidd88-mc4sz]

Hours flown in gliders is not necessarily an indicator of risk - or otherwise. A pilot of 16 hours, were he winch-launching probably consists nevertheless of hundreds of flights. Or, if he regularly aerotows, it might only be a few dozen flights.... A better indicator would be hours multiplied by the number of flights to attain those hours?

[@marcinpasnicki248]

Pirat shirt?

[@stijnvandamme76]

1:30 Ok but those figures can only be compared if you calculate amount of flying hours IN or OUT of competition and get a ration per flying hour extrapolated out of the data. just comparing compo vs non compo is misrepresentation since there are more non compo hours..

[@PureGlide]

True, unfortunately we just don't have that information. A lot of pilots do most of their flying during contests, so it's hard to tell...

[@andrenadeau4462]

It sems to me that this analysis is faulty. I would have compared the rate of accident per-hour-flown for each category. I may be wrong but there are likely a lot less of contest hour flown than other categories. At least, that is the case in my neck of the wood. That may be different in New Zealand.

[@PureGlide]

Yeah agreed, unfortunately I don’t have those stats

[@EleanorPeterson]

Ooh, I like those custom T-shirts! I'm not a big woman - 5' 6" and 9½ stone - but unfortunately I'm very, very [see also: very] top-heavy (a UK 'NN' fitting, 24lbs [11kg] of squidgy girlie ballast), so having a pair of supposedly straight super-high aspect ratio carbon-fibre wings spanning my chest would be an aerodynamic disaster just waiting to happen. 🤭

[@user-ur7qu6xz7t]

Nicely expressed! Cheers.

[@nisse1337]

LS4!

[@8OrangePants]

I thought "The sad truth..." was an excellent video. Hope the bad comments didn't get you too down. Truth hurts sometimes...it's better we accept it than ignore it.

[@PureGlide]

Exactly right, and no, bad comments are just part of the game of KZbin! PS nice pants

[@joedoe8931]

I was in a glider club as a teen and once in awhile a high time commercial pilot would show up at the field to transition his ticket to glider endorsement . All us young glider guiders would be amazed at how little control these high time pilots had over the craft. So what I am saying is most of the hours they log might as well have been logged at there house watching TV for all the piloting is being done as a ATP logging hours by the hundreds. There is no substitution for real stick and rudder piloting of a aircraft. It is not a video game even if all the manufacturers of big transports want to push out pilots in favor of micro chips. And badly enough many people think now days trusting a micro chip makes more sense then trusting a fellow human being . There is a push to make autonomous aircraft that the general public boards like sheep to then live and die only if all the mechanics of automation go well without even a real pilot to take the blame and try to fix the technical clichés. How will the next miracle on the Hudson go when all there is are micro computers deciding what happens next. Right now in USA the entire department of transportation is running the air transport system into the ground on purpose. They are doing it for political reasons and under cover of EEOC BS. We have department heads totally uniquified doing the bidding of the Democrat party and it's old piece of shit boss now President of USA. I proven traitor and criminal unindicted and unrested .

[@matteotronu94]

very nice video but next time pick a different color for the pie charts please, 2 slightly different shades of the same color are quite misleading 😅

[@PureGlide]

I knew someone would bring that up!

[@EnriqueGraciaColl]

I think that statistics can be misleading when you say x% of accidents are in contests when there is no relationship to the number of flights or hours flown are made in a contest. Same thing when you mention accidents under pilots with less or more than 1.000 hours. If the number of pilots with less than 1.000 hrs was 10x the number of pilots (or hours flown) with more than those hours, then the % are misleading or may not be representative. Your video is very instructive and I am not making a critic as I like them a lot, just providing some comment for improvement on relativity of conclusions.

[@PureGlide]

Yeah stats by hours flown would be useful, but i just didn’t have that data

[@wolfijenne]

The fatal accidents on competition vs normal flying should be accidents / thousand hours flight time, not absolut numbers to give some meaning risk. Probably not so easy to generate this stat.

[@PureGlide]

Exactly right, all I have is raw numbers from accident reports

[@bobsutton9698]

is car raceing safe

[@PureGlide]

Probably about the same as gliding

[@toadamine]

Why would I buy an electric air0lane that needs a tow, when i can just buy a gas one that doesn't need a tow and is cheaper?

[@toadamine]

Sounds like a really inefficient glider. Lol

[@pebble24]

I see you have a std cirrus design but an open cirrus would be nice

[@PureGlide]

Noted!

[@GarretKrampe]

No experienced pilots are over confident. and are not that critical of their own mortality.

[@userfortytwo]

You're skewing the statistics and dangers both of the hobby and sport of flying gliders. On average (and thereby mostly everywhere) the activities of gliding are very safe. To me it seems, making videos with extraordinary titles (aka clickbait) that generates high volume views is becoming more important to you than bringing about the wonders and joy it really brings to new and experienced pilots. Sad to see this development of yours lately. Hope you'll get back on track.

[@PureGlide]

Hey thanks for the feedback. Not sure how I’m distorting anything, they are just raw numbers! Anyway it’s a topic I’ve been thinking about for a long time, it is the reality of our sport. Yes will be back to not quite so morbid topics soon :)

[@chrisbehm5947]

Hph304cz17 please!