Letters received from the RAS regarding parachutes.

I happen to belong to a club that has had, over the years, many
well-intentioned rules. I won't go into details (unless some
member of my club starts claiming that I am wrong) but many
of them were nothing short of moronic. Upon examination,
it turned out that some of them actually existed due to petty
personal conflicts. That, unfortunately, is the nature of most
clubs. Those people who want to make rules always
seem to find a way to get into a position to do
so. Unfortunately, the nature of soaring in the US is such
that in much of the country, leaving the club is equivalent to
dropping out of soaring altogether. For that reason, many
people stay in clubs and put up with the bullshit.

As an aside, if the airport where I base my power plane
is any indication, that is the main reason soaring is not
growing in the US. I know many pilots at all experience
levels who fly there and are very interested in soaring.
Once they find out they have to join a club, and all that
involves, they're no longer interested.

There is, fundamentally, a difference between a mender of a
club and a customer of a business. As a customer, you
have no rights except the right to take your business
elsewhere. As a member of a club, however, you've made
an investment in time and money and have a stake in the
club. That means if you don't like club rules, you have a
perfect moral right to try and change them by any reasonable
method. Holding them up for public ridicule is reasonable,
especially when they are ridiculous. Clubs are in general
governed by some sort of democratically elected government,
but as in any other democracy the will of the majority as
expressed by its elected officials is not and should not be
enough to shut up even one disgruntled individual.

Some people feel that a club's private business is just that,
and that any member who discusses club practices in
a less than complimentary manner in a public forum is 'airing
dirty laundry' and is automatically in the wrong. I think this is
a morally bankrupt position. A club, at least in the US,
is a public entity. It is a 501 (c) (3) tax exempt organization
that receives preferential treatment under the tax codes.
In most cases, it is an organization that actively recruits
membership, often by offering demo rides.

Another aspect of soaring in the US is that many club
members may have little or no experience flying at any
club other than the one they are members of. This is
unfortunate for many reasons, and not the least important
is that such members have little basis for comparing the
actions of their elected club representatives to a
standard and determining if said actions are reasonable.
It has often been said that for every Usenet poster there
are dozens of lurker. How many lurkers are there now
from the club being discussed, or one with similar rules,
reading the discussion and seeing the actions of their
elected officials held up to public ridicule? I'm sure the
elected officials do not appreciate this, since odds are
they have enough background in soaring to know how
this will look in the light of day, but no restraint of
speech, however minor, is ever justified if the only
purpose of said restraint is preventing public embarrassment
of an elected official.

No soaring club has any reasonable expectation of keeping
its bylaws and practices secret unless it wishes to stop
recruiting new members, give up its tax exempts status,
and thus become a truly private entity. Since so much of
soaring is club oriented, soaring club practices are very much
on topic for this forum. In other words - not only is it
proper to discuss soaring club rules and practices in public,
but this is exactly the proper place to discuss them. If some
clubs come off looking less than stellar, the solution is to
amend the practices rather than keep secrets.

What we have here is a disgruntled individual club member
who is clearly attempting to change a club rule by holding
it up for public ridicule, and that's entirely proper. Rules
that are reasonable can stand the light of day and public
scrutiny; any that can't are not reasonable.

Now, as to the content of the rule itself:

My club does not provide parachutes. This is not rare in
the US, though it may be in other countries. Most of the private
owners have them, and private owners with two place ships
sometimes do demo rides in them. My demo ride was in a
very nice privately owned glass ship. The pilot/owner wore
a parachute; I was not offered one. No explanation was
offered for this, and I did not request one. I did feel just a bit
odd, but I didn't make an issue of it. Thus the idea, put
forth by some, that wearing a chute while carrying a student
or demo who is not provided one is unheard of, and thus
automatically cause for rulemaking, is clearly wrong. Would I
do that? Probably not. But unlike some, I do not believe
that just because I would not do something there needs to
be a rule against it.

In the course of my training, I received spin training in club
gliders, up to an including full-turn spins to headings. We
did not wear parachutes for any of that. Again, this is more
the norm than the exception in the US. I can't say I like
that - in general, I would prefer to have a parachute for
aerobatic flying (including spins). I would certainly
have been EXTREMELY upset had there been a club
rule preventing me from wearing one, regardless of who
actually owned the parachute.

I'm no stranger to parachutes. I have somewhere around 700 jumps
over the past decade. As a rule, I don't wear one in my glider.
Why not? Well, I don't compete. If the thermal gets too crowded
for my tastes, I leave. Parachute or not, a bailout from a crippled
aircraft is far from a sure thing. Would I change my mind if I
were to start competing, or doing glider aerobatics? Maybe.
As it is, I don't own an appropriate parachute (more on this later)
and don't feel buying one is worth the money.

When I test flew a Ka-8 that sat for four years without being
flown for my friend (a student pilot) I wore a parachute and
was very glad to be able to borrow one. When I first
flew my HP-11, I did not feel I needed one - I had just seen
it fly a few days prior. When I decided to go practice stalls
in various flap configurations in my HP-11 (I figured making a
mistake on final would be the wrong time to discover the stall
characteristics) I wore a parachute. While I was at it, I also
made some very steep turns. I have not worn one in that
glider since. Yes, I know the design (especially with the
T-Tail) is experimental. But it's done OK for the last 800
hours so I just don't feel the need.

For me, the highest risk area is the pattern. Bailouts from pattern
altitude are usually not practical. Why? Well, the main reasons
are regulation and training. I happen to own a parachute system
that makes a jump from 250 ft practical, and one from 500 ft a
non-event (yes, I know this from experience). I have the skill
and knowledge to maintain and operate this system, but few
others do. In its infinite wisdom, the FAA deems it illegal for
me to use this system in making parachute jumps from aircraft,
or even to have it available in case of emergency, even in cases
where I am not required to have a parachute at all.

Why? Well, it won't comply with the TSO by design. It will
not survive multiple openings at 130 kts, which is required.
You can't build a parachute which will reliably open in 100
ft with low initial airspeed AND will survive multiple openings
at overload and overspeed. It's an engineering impossibility.
This rule does not exactly promote safety - in fact it detracts
from safety. But it is a well-intentioned rule. It ensures
emergency parachutes will meet some minimum standard.

I can't do much about that rule - it's an FAR, and my ability
to influence the FAR's is essentially nil. But you can bet
that if it was a club rule air it for public comment if I could
not immediately get it repealed.

Bottom line, I see three separate issues.

Should a club provide parachutes for its members? I think
that's pretty much a club decision. Mine doesn't, and I
see nothing wrong with that. Fact is, most of the private
owners have them for their ships, and they would do
little good in club ships which really don't do very much
soaring. Last year, at the height of our soaring season
(I think it was July or August when I actually crunched
the numbers) the average flight in our club ships was less
than 30 minutes - other times of the year they are shorter.
I have to believe this means that most of the time the
ships are too low for a reliable bailout by an untrained
parachutist.

Should a club prevent the pilot in command from wearing
a parachute while his passenger doesn't have one? That's
a tough one. I would not do it, as pilot in command, but
I also don't believe in imposing my personal preferences
on others. The fact is that the pilot in command probably
flies a lot more than his passenger or students, and thus his
overall exposure to risk is higher. He is also more likely
to be able to use a parachute effectively. And having him
die simply because the passenger can't be saved hardly
seems to make sense.

Should a club be able to prevent one club member from
lending another club member a parachute to be used in
a club glider? That's just plain ridiculous, and I have
yet to see anyone make a cogent argument for such a
rule. Instead, everyone trying to justify it is simply resorting
to personal attacks.

Michael