I agree that the quantitative number of fatalities is of little statistical
value.

In order to have statistical value the fatalities have to measured against
flight hour, or against flights, etc. in order to establish an fatality
rate.

It is a fact that fatalities seldom happen in gliders that are in the hangar
or their trailer. How many hours have these high performance gliders flown
compared the fatality count? How many high performance gliders are flying
in the country compared to the low performance group?

Flight time, sortie rate, flight mission type, and pilot's experience are
all items that need to be considered in order to determine risk factors
associated with a sailplane's performance level.

Respectfully,
Wayne
http://www.soaridaho.com/



"Andreas Maurer" wrote in message
news
On 7 Feb 2005 15:10:10 -0800, (Mark James Boyd)
wrote:

29 fatalities.

7 ridge
4 off-airport landings
4 spin on final
3 intentional aerobatics
3 did a PCC but not an assembly check
2 drugs
2 midair
1 rope break
1 on top of rotor clouds
1 fuel exhaustion takeoff eng fail
1 trim failure, killed the towpilot

Those statistics is absolutely worthless, I'm sorry to say.