On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 15:04:46 +0100, "W.J. \(Bill\) Dean \(U.K.\)."
wrote:

You are obviously referring to my posts earlier.
Yes.

If you read them again, you will see that when you get close to 200 knots
diving an ASW20C it does not matter whether you notice it or not, it is too
late (this is not my opinion or experience, it came from Schleicher).

No doubt about that (I'm still of the opinion that most 20 and 20C's
will break up due to flutter before they come close to 200 kts) - but
honestly: Flying far over Vne and not noticing it?

The pilot was fairly inexperienced, and new to the type. This was true for
me in the past, how about you?
We all were inexperienced once - but this is not the point.
How often did you fly 55 kts faster than Vne when you were
inexperienced with a new glider? Or screwed up a spin recovery so
badly that you ended up far over Vne (and this in a 20 that can be
kept under 100 kts in a properly executed spin recovery)?

Pilot error is pilot error - and in this case the pilot error was
huge. And huge pilot errors unfortunately kill a pilot most of the
time - even the smartest designs cannot prevent that.




Bye
Andreas