What a turn out

[colin keightley]

What can I say except I was very impressed by the turnout tonight, I would like to say thank you to those involved so far and just hope that we can keep the momentum going in creating change. A big thank you to Ali especially as although he has a lot of good ideas, me and the rest of the people involved are feeding him stuff and using him as the good looking front guy to spearhead this.

[brian day]

Nice one Colin, well done!

Interesting stuff all well presented by Ali.

Colin I did realise I'd left the POM trophy and was on the way back for it when Ali told me I was to late and you'd snaffled it,,,,,some people will do anything to get their hands on that trophy

I'm prepared to do some more pre meeting chats and to put a few dates in the diary for coaching days if that's what people want. Having spoken to the Cumbrian contingent it seems that the Cumbria sessions 'don't always follow the same format' and that there may be more unrest in the camp than we might appreciate.

[colin keightley]

That would be great Brian as I myself would like pick back up working towards my pilot exam.

[colin keightley]

SIV was mentioned last night and I feel a lot of it was lost in the heat of the discussion and I may have come across as a little anti-SIV, which in fact is the complete opposite.

My opinion of SIV is as follows.

Amazing, one of the best experiences of my life.......but

Pro's....
Prepares you for the feel through the harness when it all goes wrong.
Instils an automatic re-action for recovery.
Speeds up re-active thinking when it happens for real.
Gives some people more confidence in there equipment.

Con's....
Can scare people away from flying.
Can create complacency (especially those who didn't have anything go wrong on SIV).
Can create bigger risk taking.

SIV is a scary course to start with, a lot of instructors have a big reputation, and you will feel safe and confident if you believe in your instructor and can easily understand what he is saying, especially over the radio. I in no way mean that an instructor who's first language isn't English isn't as good, but when the shit hits the fan you want to be able to understand everything as you wont be able to ask him to repeat it.

Like I say SIV is not for everyone, Im wired up wrong so I enjoyed doing somewhere in the region of about 20 stalls 12 spins and about 9 SAT's after doing the obligatory assymetrics, full frontals, spirals, b-lines.

[gary stenhouse]

must say I was amazed at the turn out, as I was sure that very few would turn out for such a meeting. this shows how much people have embraced the whole safety attitude.

the thing is with flying is that it is so individual and we all learn at different paces and have different goals. like yes t sure can be fun and if you combine 100's of hours of thermal flying experience mixed in then it will for sure benefit you.

the thing is there is no substitute for flying regular in all types of conditions understanding the wing the conditions etc. this there is no short cuts in hours in the air as this is where real time xperience is.

can you stay up n light and scratchy conditions slope land and kite up?
can you spot land in tight areas as this can be impact on safety.
can you stay up in small thermals when others are managing?
can you safely launch in steep faced hills and keep wing in control.
are you familiar with big ears, these are cosmetic and not a serious way to get down?
have you ever spiralled as not all gliders will B line and most don't recommend it these days.

acro strangely can be done on fly down smooth conditions that will only encounter collapses due to your own manoovers this is very different to flying in super strong thermal on a 5 star day.

[Aeros]

Apologies for my intrusion guys, but just to clear a few things up.

This year has not been good safety-wise in the UK - in the north, and in Cumbria especially we have had more than our fair share of accidents. This has had a resultant fall-out as some of you may have seen on the CSC forum. We have let the dust settle a little.

I only stood as CSC Safety Officer for one year - I have other DHPC duties as CC that take my time. I think the SO position was too easily seen as a 'soft' post - until things start to go wrong on your watch then you realise it ain't! It's possibly the most important.

It was a very useful position to hold though and I learned a lot, especially that it was too often seen as a reactive role when in fact done properly it's 90% pro active. That it gets totally bypassed by the EHPU online reporting system used by the BHPA and it was hard to actually know what was going on and to get the big picture. ( I have spoken with Dave Thompson about this and the system will be looked at in terms of including the SO of a club in the loop.) I have also mentioned that as the SO is a mandatory role for a club, as per the BHPA Constitution then it needs better support in terms of training, clear role description and open and speedy communication channels. The SO role in other words needs to be empowered more than it is.

I also thought we had similar problem to our neighbouring clubs so why not spread the net to include us all in the debate and get shared solutions across the region. I still think this a good idea (we got delayed by events) but it will need a driver - the new CSC SO make take this on. The DHPC will have a new Safety team too shortly.

Bugger!!!!

Sorry a bit garbled my wife is shouting my tea is ready!

[Sad Northerner]

Ed

I think that I speak for the rest of the NHPC in saying that we now recognise that the role of safety is a whole club attitude not just that of the Safety Officer.

The club is working pretty hard behind the scenes to find ways and means of preventing future accidents and the idea of inter-club work, where concerns and best practise can be shared is a logic step forward.

I will contact you soon with regards to this.


Ali