Task stopped too late
Discipline
Paragliding XC
What went wrong ?
More and more task are being stopped too late. Many reasons :
Submarine hardened the access to the radio and to the tracker. There is also a quite spread cultural belief amongst organizers which is : comp pilots should just give up when the conditions worsen. They are amongst the best, they should carry themself and act self responsible.
Another reason is linked to human factor. It can be hard to kill a task you created yourself. It's acknowledging you might have done something wrong or suboptimal.
Submarine hardened the access to the radio and to the tracker. There is also a quite spread cultural belief amongst organizers which is : comp pilots should just give up when the conditions worsen. They are amongst the best, they should carry themself and act self responsible.
Another reason is linked to human factor. It can be hard to kill a task you created yourself. It's acknowledging you might have done something wrong or suboptimal.
What would you propose ?
- Mandatory check for radios on the ground (Registration / ToT + submask) and in the Air (answer obligation on MD / SD call).
- Task setter distinguished from task stopper : meet director / safety director.
- MD / SD Curriculum. "Pilots need to be protected from themselves". "They won't fly around".
- Task setter distinguished from task stopper : meet director / safety director.
- MD / SD Curriculum. "Pilots need to be protected from themselves". "They won't fly around".
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Comments
This is a real issue. I’ve noticed that the culture of level (LVL) reporting has gotten worse and worse over the past few years. One reason is probably the submarine-style harnesses, which make it more difficult than ever to report LVL while dealing with issues in the air.
Another problem is the new Flymaster trackers. They were supposed to make LVL reporting easier, but in reality, they’ve made the situation worse — because now, other pilots no longer receive LVL reports from fellow pilots. That means they don’t get warned and can’t relay this information further. The report now goes only to the ground organization.
We need to restore a culture of LVL reporting. One possible solution could be a mandatory PTT (push-to-talk) button for all pilots. This would make communication easy and allow reports even in difficult situations (e.g., during LVL 3). Additionally, it should be standard practice to explain the reporting system in the opening briefing, to encourage pilots to use it — or even to introduce penalties when unsafe conditions are not reported.