Safety at the Track? Oh?

I am one of those who watches NASCAR racing to see crew coordination during pit stops. That is a fascinating 14 seconds!

In 1996 while announcing the airshow at what used to be NAS Miramar, I was invited to go on the JATO ride on "Fat Albert", the Blue Angels C-130 Hercules. That was five and a half minutes of superb crew coordination, and as a pilot I appreciated their work.

I watched both the Saturday and Sunday races at Talladega, Alabama, this past weekend. On Sunday with maybe a quarter mile to go to the finish, there occurred a spectacular accident which sent Carl Edwards' #99 car into the air and into the safety fence which separates spectators from the track. As the crash was replayed and replayed, pieces of automobile could plainly be seen flying into the grandstand. It wasn't until the FOX TV coverage had signed off that we heard there had been seven spectator injuries plus one other "medical issue" not directly related to parts of car striking someone.

In the airshow industry there are rules providing safety margins between spectators and performers. The most common is the 500-foot separation between performance line and the spectator line. If a pilot crosses that "deadline" he (she) risks being cited for unsafe operation and suspension of airman's privileges.

Personally, I like to be as close as I can be to the flying action, if I am not announcing the show. It's the same thing with being a railfan, a fan of railroading. Yes, I watch and photograph trains. I want to be as close to the thundering locomotives and trains as I can be, even standing at the base of the rock ballast on which tracks are set to be eye-level with the rails. I want to feel the deisel power, hear the air, smell the brakeshoe smoke. THAT is excitement. I tend to ignore the fact that a piece of ballast may be picked up by the rushing wind and hurled at me, that a piece of equipment could fall off a passing car, or that there might be an actual derailment which could render me immediately past tense. There is a danger, but I choose to ignore it.

I never ignore the danger at an airshow. I am always aware of it, but the legal 500-foot "deadline" keeps me an appreciable distance from the performers. Jets, like the F-16 or the F/A-18 E/F, are kept out at 1,500 feet when performing any aerobatics. And no aerobatic energy can be directed toward the spectators. If something falls off a plane (and historically, it has happened) it should not imperil me or any of the people watching the show.

So how come NASCAR doesn't have this kind of regulation, one that would move the cars out (or the grandstands back) to give more separation? I may have answered my own question earlier; NASCAR fans want to smell the exhaust and the rubber and feel the pounding of passing power on their chests. But, as with monster truck shows, about which I opined in an earlier BLOG entry, there really should be something other than a fence to separate spectators from a ton and half of metal flying through the air at 180 mph.

Unfortunately, reality dictates that the tracks are not going to be rebuilt to move grandstands further away, and the race course will not be shortened. New tracks, when they are built, should have more spectator safeguards included. Perhaps depressing the track an additional 10 feet below the grandstands, or raising the safety fence and making it double or triple thick might help. The problem there becomes that it will affect the spectators' views. Some design engineer, somewhere, must have an idea.

Driver Carl Edwards, who was seconds away from winning the Aaron's 499, says he saw the fence going by while he was airborne and hoped he wasn't going into the crowd. When the #99 car stopped rolling and bouncing on the track, when he was sure he would not be hit by another car, Edwards climbed out of what was left of his car and jogged across the finish line to complete the race. Later, when he learned of the injuries in the stands, he is quoted by the Associated Press as saying, "We'll race like this until we kill somebody. Then [NASCAR] will change it."

I sincerely hope something is changed before a spectator or anyone dies.

About those Monster Trucks

I am a safety nut, even to the point that I am obsessed with things like liability and the damage that can be done if one person does something stupid one time.

Referring directly to the airshow (flying show) industry, I have been an airshow announcer since 1978 and a pilot since 1967. Our flying performers are all fine pilots, men and women, who are well-compensated for their work and have every intention of taking their checks home and spending them. They fly aerobatics, not "stunts." A "stunt" is something you see in a movie, like flying through a tunnel or through a highway billboard. Aerobatics are thought out and diagrammed in a formal shorthand called "Aresti". The Aresti system was designed by the aerobatic ace José Louis Aresti in 1961, it is a kind of short hand enabling people to write down an aerobatic maneuvres in the form of symbols that is simply and easy to read at a glance. It is a universal language and is essential.

Anyhow, I am talking SAFETY here. In planing an airshow, producers are required (and at every show, pilots sign a document which notes they agree) to remain at least 500 feet from spectators (non-participants), a distance which increases incrementally to 1,500 feet for high speed aircraft like jets. Regulations prohibit any aerobatics OVER spectators, and a minimum flyover altitude is also mandated. No aerobatic energy may be directed toward spectators. And it goes on; it is really quite thorough and a lot more complex than I care to discuss here.

SO HOWCUM:

Over the weekend of January 24-25, 2009, the promoter for the Motor Sports Monster Truck and Thrill Show in Wisconsin was killed when a truck accelerated and ran him down. This a week after a six-year-old boy lost his life at a monster truck event in Tacoma, Washington. If you want to go back in history there are accidents within the past 10 years which have cost life and/or limb. The question is WHY is anyone in harm's way when a truck is signaled to GO; why is anyone permitted to be anywhere near where a monster truck even MAY go if something goes awry? If something catches fire, why is anyone even CLOSE to it? Why can there be spectators at the OPPOSITE END of the venue, facing the trucks, when they perform?

I am amazed that anyone will insure any event that is so blatantly dangerous to spectators. Further I am surprised that some governmental agencies have not involved themselves in the regulation of monster truck events. And I can all but guarantee that if you go to a monster truck show and mention flying, not even aerobatic flying, you will find people who will say that they are afraid of flying... it's too dangerous. ?

Yes there have been airshow accidents; I have lost friends in them. But in no case in something like 45 years [I am not looking up the actual date, but I believe it's longer ago than that] has any non-participant, a spectator, suffered so much as a hangnail in any of those accidents. The airshow industry strives to be entertaining and exciting, but it also prides itself on being safe.

Performers agree to a certain amount of risk to themselves; spectators do not. This should be the same for monster truck shows. Let's see some producers and promoters have the guts to keep the trucks an appreciable distance from spectators, and to aim them somewhere that, if everything goes bad, no one gets so much as dirty.

The Rant is Ended. Frank

The "BPA Story" Never Ends

We... our entire promotional products industry... have been watching and waiting for any new developments in the bisphenol A story, argument, war, whatever since some national governments summarily banned the plastic additive from drinking water bottles, baby bottles, ANYTHING to do with food. It has been an up and down fight, and rather than joining the fray, many plastic bottle manufacturers have simply gone with the flow and offered BPA-free bottles.

What this means is there are fewer polycarbonate bottles on the market. PolyCarb bottles are the hard, clear bottles which many people prefer because you can see what's in them.

The third week of August 2008, our Food and Drug Administration released a "draft assessment" stating the BPA DOES NOT pose a health hazard when used in food containers.

A part of these findings are based upon the methodology used in the original product testing. It was noted that one of the tests involved heating a liquid in the bottle to an extremely high temperature, then testing the liquids in the containers for signs of evil chemicals. I don't know about you, but I usually lose or break a water bottle before I have a chance to wash it 500 times, and I am certainly not going to drink a hot liquid from it. Personally I viewed the original findings as based upon an unrealistic premise.

The FDA's draft continues, saying that exposure to the small amounts of BPA which may migrate from containers into the food they hold are not dangerous to infants or adults.

Bisphenol A is used in the production of the plastics, but it is not a part of the final product. BPA residue is washed away with normal dish washing. Any traces which are left are not harmful.

Interesting how we can be in the middle of the fight, yet we are simultaneously on the sidelines. Our preferred bottles are polycarbonates. We will continue to use them. But we also continue to offer bottles which are guaranteed by the manufacturers to be BPA-free. Most are not nearly as attractive or are twice the cost or more of the polycarb bottles. An alternative is bottles with stainless steel linings, but that, too, drives the cost up.

We believe that the BPA "scare" was a knee-jerk reaction to something which someone heard at a party. I am not being facetious; buzzwords make great press. Like: emissions from a cellphone antenna will turn your brain to mush. My favorite is hearing a terrifying misuse of the term "stall" when applied to anything aviation-related. But I digress.

We continue to watch the BPA story, and it is, indeed, never-ending.

The FDA Weighs In; BPA in Plastic Bottles is OK

The continuing saga of BPA

We have been following closely the recent developments in the story of a chemical compound called bisphenol A (BPA), a hardening agent found in many plastics. In an earlier entry I noted international confusion about what it is, why it might be a danger to health, how it was tested and some conclusions of that testing, whether valid or not. The story continues.

The federal government is wonderful to behold. Many people before me have observed that some government agencies have names so long and complicated that there must be precious little room on a page of stationery for a message.

On Tuesday, June10th, at a hearing held by [get this] the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, a panelist from the Food and Drug Administration, seeking to ease public concerns about the health hazards of BPA used in some plastic products, said that the agency has no reason to recommend that consumers stop using products containing BPA. Small amounts of bisphenol A can be released as plastics break down. Dr. Norris Alderson, the Food and Drug Administration's associate commissioner for science, said, however, that the level of exposure was safe. He further noted that some studies had reported higher release levels than projected by the agency, but many of those studies were conducted under unrealistic conditions.

A group of Democratic senators and consumer groups continues to be sufficiently concerned that they are calling for a ban of BPA in all children's products, including baby bottles and sippy cups.

The National Toxicology Program said in a recent draft report that there is "some concern" that bisphenol A can cause changes in behavior and the brain, as well as reduce survival and birth weight in fetuses. Those conclusions were drawn from animal studies and would be a stretch to equate to human behavior.

The bottom line becomes -- the FDA has approved the use of BPA in plastics. If you want to go with that, fine. But once again, if you don't want any BPA in any water bottles you might order from us, the you won't HAVE any BPA.

Information collected from the Wall Street Journal, June 11, written by Melanie Trottman; and from an Associated Press story published by the Arizona Republic