Soaring Safety Foundation

The Soaring Safety Foundation (SSF) is the Training and Safety arm of the Soaring Society of America (SSA). Our mission is to provide instructors and pilots with the tools needed to teach/learn both the stick & rudder skills and the Aeronautical Decision Making skills needed to safely fly a glider. We also provide information and analysis of incident and accident trends in order to develop better training tools.

Data collected from Open Glider Network (OGN) as of Monday March 24, 2025

Duration	Gliders	Flights	Hours
Year to Date	1651	8512	8491.77
Last 7 Days	296	1192	1095.87

This table shows the number of individual gliders that recorded a flight in the OGN tracking system ant the number of flights/hours those gliders flew.

Flight Training
Videos and Scenario Database

These videos are introductory in nature and are geared to learning to soar, or a new soaring skill.

Flight Safety
Videos and Incident Database

These videos are safety oriented and appropriate for glider pilots of any skill level.

Visit the Soaring Safety Foundation's Youtube Channel
The SSA's YouTube Video Playlist

The Soaring Incident Database is now available to help pilots, safety officers, clubs, and commercial operators develop new programs that can help prevent incidents from becoming major accidents. See more incidents by searching the database or register a new incident.

Region	Pilot Certificate	Pilot Injuries	Passenger Injuries	Type of Flight	Launch Method	Type of Aircraft
Midwest	CFI	None	None	Local	Aero Tow	Blanik L-13
Incident Activity	Damage to Aircraft	Damage to Canopy	Incident Date	Incident Time	Weather	SSA Member
Preflight	None		0000-00-00	1200-1400	Clear	Yes
Incident Description	Blanik L-13 was returned from maintenance. On the return to service flight, the pilot did a positive control check after a thorough preflight. Upon takeoff, the glider was observed swerving back and forth behind the towplane but took off. The serving continued during tow. The pilot released in the pattern and made a rather rough landing on the runway. So what happened? The rudder cables were hooked up backwards. On the positive control check, be didn't verify the controls were moving in the right direction. We now verify controls are moving the correct direction during positive control checks. The other problem with this flight was the pilot continued the takeoff even though he was having control problems. We stress to all pilots, if it doesn't feel right deal with it on the ground and not in the air.
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