Soaring Safety Seminars

The Soaring Safety Foundation strives to reach out to the SSA membership with a variety of hands on programs. These include:

Safety Seminars - the SSF hosts an annual safety seminar during the SSA convention. More details of this annual event will be placed here when the schedule is firmed up.

The Soaring Safety Foundation (SSF) Safety Seminars Hit The Road in the USA

The Soaring Safety Foundation (SSF) will cooperate with your gliding organization to present a gliding safety seminar to pilots in your city. The SSF will provide an instructor to present four to six hours' worth of presentations to help you and your fellow pilots identify and reduce risk factors in soaring.

Question: What topics will be covered in the Safety Seminar?

Answer:

Glider accident analysis

Preventing aerotow accidents

Effective Scenario based training

Landing accidents and emergency preparedness training: Is there a link?

Sinking airmass and its role in glider accidents

Soaring site surveys and accident prevention

Detecting and correcting gaps in your club's flight training program

Preventing stall/spin accidents through landing task analysis and recurrent training.

Other topics may be substituted or included at the request of the hosting organization.

Question: What must a gliding club/FBO do to arrange for such a seminar?

Answer:

Consult with the Soaring Safety Foundation to select a suitable date for your Safety Seminar

Publicize and promote the event locally

Provide a meeting room suitable for lecture/powerpoint presentations, and Fill the meeting room with glider pilots, glider pilot wannabes, and towpilots to attend the Safety Seminar.

Question: How much does it cost?

Answer:

Your organization must cover any/all on-site costs (meeting room, light refreshments if deemed appropriate, chairs, a white surface to project powerpoint shows on, and so on). In many cases these expenses will be very low if members work together in volunteer fashion to reduce on-site expenses.

Your organization pays a flat fee of $300.00 to the SSF to help defray the cost of bringing the Safety Seminar to your city. SSF will more than match that amount to bring the Safety Seminar to you. When you add up all travel expenses alone, you can see that the actual cost of a Seminar far exceeds $300. The SSF subsidizes these Safety Seminars because SSF Trustees deem them effective accident-prevention tools.

Question: How can my gliding organization raise $300 to pay for this Safety Seminar?

Answer:

If 30 club members attend the presentation, the cost per person is $10 - a fraction of the cost of a single aerotow launch. Not a bad deal!

Question: How many seminars will take place each year?

Answer:

That depends on the demand. The target for the first year is six. If money is available to continue to subsidize the program, the number of seminars may grow in future years.

To request a safety Seminar for your area contact Tom Johnson, the SSF Safety Seminar Coordinator (tjj757 at live.com)

Tax-deductible donations from individuals and organizations help fund the outreach programs of the Soaring Safety Foundation.