Winch Safety Discussion

[Larry Kase]

Winch Safety Discussion

There were accusations of winch operation safety issues at Saturday’s meeting. I would like to voice my disagreement with these accusations in the strongest possible terms.

Our club is very fortunate to have an instructor force with a high level of aviation experience and an unwavering commitment to safety. A few of those are career professionals, including J. Skog, J. Scott, and myself. We have flown supersonic jets in the military. We were also airline captains tasked with safely flying 50,000 passengers per year to their destinations. In the Air Force, I was chosen to fly a billion-dollar spy plane against the Soviet Union, North Korea and Libya. In my 10 years as an airline captain, no one has ever questioned my safety judgement.

1. Snyder , M. Mallamo, G. Palumbo, and T. Ponset are outstanding instructors and pilots. Although they may not have the paid professional experience, I consider them general aviation safety experts. I would not hesitate to put my life in their hands. I hold their judgment on safety in the highest regard.

I know that some the board members making the accusations have low flight experience levels, and are not familiar with the winch training, since they have not completed it themselves. It would be understandable to have safety concerns when only reviewing the documentation available.

I will argue for days that our winch operations are and have been safe. However, I do not disagree with the accusation of limited documentation. We have had the winch in operation for 3 full seasons and with all new endeavors, procedures can evolve faster than documentation.

Therefore, I propose that we create a new “Committee for Winch Operations” to ensure documentation is up to date. Art Silverman volunteered to coordinate the winch program as chair, assisted by Mike Hurd as vice chair.  Tim Ponset volunteered to be winch driver and documentation coordinator. I volunteer to be the weekday coordinator.

I think we all strive to be better and safer pilots every day, and this new committee will further that goal.
Larry Kase

[John Phelan]

New topic posted by Larry Kase. Title: General Discussion, Winch Safety Discussion

Just my opinion, but I don’t think the SSI e-mail system is the proper forum for a safety discussion.  As has been pointed out for decades by numerous Boards, safety issues are best discussed off of public message forums and such public discussions leave the Club and its members open to legal repercussions should an operational issue come up.  We would be wise to adhere to that admonishment.

 

Best Regards,

 

John F. Phelan

 

From: Sky Soaring <webmaster@skysoaring.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2021 17:30
To: phelanjf@gmail.com
Subject: [Sky Soaring] New topic: General Discussion, Winch Safety Discussion

 

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