BMPA History

2002 Spring Meeting, April 19-21, Sywell

Accommodation was at the Aviator Hotel on Sywell airfield itself. Saturday saw 5 talks (see below) interspersed with a buffet lunch, discussion, snacks and finished off with Dinner at the Aviator. Sunday saw visits to Fordaire Aviation (engineering and restoration projects) and Sywell Aviation Museum (newly opened July 2001). There were 45 attendees in all, with 35 attending the Saturday night dinner. This meeting had PGEA (Post Graduate Educational Approval) for 3 points and was an open meeting.

Five fatalities and a survival. Dr Anthony Segal.

There are few lectures or expositions I have listened to with interest a second time, but this one was even better second time around. Fascination rather than enjoyment would describe the subject matter, dealing as it does with crashed gliders and the survival or death of the occupants.

Wooden cockpits disintegrate, glass / plastic ones (with one demonstrated exception) are either too rigid, thereby transferring sudden deceleration direct to the occupant, or with weaknesses of strap mountings or the part of the fuselage occupied by the pilot's torso, with fatal consequences.

The Cold War's "Better Dead than Red" slogan becomes "Better broken legs than Dead", if the glider has a soft crumple-zone nose capable of absorbing considerable energy in deforming or breaking but an otherwise strong pilot compartment. We saw slides of accidents to show, for example, that this is the case in the ASW24 single seat glider designed by Gerhard Weibel. To keep feet out of this zone may be the next step, but is a major rethink of the "performance is all" ethos that often drives new glider design and purchase. Slides showed how anchorage points for harness straps vary. Stiff little metal rods simply bonded into the fuselage wall often pull out, but the "lower tech" ropes with splayed ends bonded into the wall stay attached. Straps going round larger radii also stayed intact in the series of UK glider accidents that Tony Segal investigated with the help of the British Gliding Association, the Air Accident Investigation Branch and others.

Tony is a veteran BMPA member and spent 20 years as a GP, then 6 months self funded at the Farnborough Institute of Aviation Medicine on the Diploma course. Subsequent "networking", put to superb and continuing use shows us there is life and new ways of saving lives or spines even after retirement from active medical practice. He is too modest to have pointed out how his own research and investigations, of which we were seeing some, have contributed to safety in Gliders and Motorgliders, and will continue to do so. He did however show us the June 2001 amendment to OSTIV Airworthiness Standards (Gliding's international scientific and technical group) that starts to incorporate this thinking into the requirements for new gliders in section 3.5. What he did not show us was his work on " Four and Five point Glider Seat Harness Static and Dynamic Tests" that he presented to the world's glider designers and manufacturers at the OSTIV Congress in 1999, the "Full size Glider Crashworthiness Impact Test May" (1989), Resonance Frequency of Glider undercarriage and the pilots body" (September 1992), "Anthropometry and Glider Cockpit Design" (1993-4), "Dynamic Testing of Highly Damped Seating Foam" (January 1995), though we did hear in passing that 5hz undercarriage resonance is bad for your survival. I believe his latest publication is on two seater mainwheel impact tests in the latest issue of "Sailplane and Gliding". (the BGA's magazine)

The talk we were privileged to hear was the "proof of the pudding" or to mix metaphors "Out of the kitchen/lab and into the real world" where our fellow pilots' bodies, and not just expensive dummies on test tracks (but DERA- thank you from all of us pilots), inadvertently explore the limits of crash survivability in current and past glider designs. We also learnt that if you must crash, it really can help if you implant your beloved aircraft into soft earth rather than onto concrete, I note that our splendid hosts at Sywell where we were meeting have since obtained hard-won permission to build a hard runway, but at least there will still be plenty of grass around it.

Please can I hear this talk yet again sometime Tony? I have failed to record here even all the important bits and the names of all those credited with contributing. I may have lost my contemporaneous notes….. but never my appreciation of the ongoing science, enthusiasm and drive that we are privileged to benefit from. Perhaps soon you will be able to show us that the crash survival rate is improving.

Stephen Gibson

A History of the Pilot Medical Assessment. Dr Simon Janvrin

Simon Janvrin is the Chief Medical Officer of the CAA and was therefore well able to give us a brief history of medical assessments for pilots, with particular reference to the recent developments in connection with the new National Private Pilots' Licence. It is evident that the health of pilots has always been important for flight safety in both commercial and private flying and the CAA has an obligation to abide by international standards, including those associated with the new JAR regulations. However, with the proposals for the new NPPL comes an opportunity to reappraise the level of risk for private flying in the UK. Research had shown that in the last 25 years, medical factors were implicated in only three accidents involving a third party on the ground. This had led the CAA to agree that there was scope to reduce the stringency of the medical required for the NPPL. The proposal was that GPs should be permitted to issue appropriate medical certificates along the lines of those required for HGV licences and for glider and microlight pilots. The downside is that the new licence would not be valid outside the UK.

David Hillam

The Implications of the National Private Pilots' Licence. Martin Robinson (Chief Executive EOPA)

At the time of the Sywell meeting, agreement on the NPPL was very nearly complete and it was expected to be up and running by July 2002. BMPA members were privileged to receive a first hand account of the reasoning behind the proposed licence and the way the negotiations had taken place. The CAA had indicated that it did not wish to administer the new licence but had stated that the aviation 'industry' must agree on any proposals. A National Pilot Licences Group would be established, composed of representatives from the BMP, AOPA, BGA, PFA etc. The new licence would permit flight in the UK in planes up to 2,000 kilo and there would be categories for single engine planes, self launched motor gliders as well as the existing microlights. The CAA would audit the scheme. Revenue from the issue of licences would be divided between the CAA and PFA. By the time members receive this Newsletter all details of the NPPL should have been finalised and published.

David Hillam

What do you mean "am I fit to fly" Dr Michael Bagshaw

Dr Bagshaw rounded off the afternoon on a rather philosophical note, picking up on various issues raised by previous speakers, taking a broad brush view of fitness to fly and highlighting some of the problems of assessment.

Should the assessment be carried out by GP or AME? The GP knows the pilot's history medical history and illness is less easy to conceal. The AME only knows what the pilot tells him and what he finds on the day.

How is the decision influenced by other factors? What we as doctors see is often what we expect to see and what we think the pilot wants. The caring doctor does not like upsetting the pilot who is a successful person, an achiever, who gets more than a little upset if he fails his medical. He makes it very plain what he wants.

The decision of "fit" or otherwise is based on risk assessment. The concepts of risk are difficult to convey. Decisions on fitness are based on an incapacity risk of less than 106 but if you are the one it becomes very clear and we cannot say with any confidence a person is fit for the period of their medical certificate.

The new National Licence gives the pilot more responsibility. In Dr Bagshaw's view this is progress, He had feared for a future where everything is regulated and based on an assessment of risks we cannot quantify.

Norena McAdam

2002 Lectures

• "Five fatalities and a survival" - An assessment of glider crashworthiness (Dr Tony M Segal)
• General Aviation Activities (Frank McClurg, CFI, Northamptonshire School of Flying)
• A history of Pilot Medical Assessment - Medical Standards for the National PPL (Dr Simon Janvrin, Chief Medical Officer, C.A.A.)
• Implications of the National Private Pilots Licence (Mr Martin Robinson, CEO, AOPA UK)
• What do you mean? "Am I fit to fly?" (Dr Michael Bagshaw, Head of Occupational and Aviation Medicine, British Airways)