wrote:

I have to smile at all these musings about safety cockpits because it
will have virtually no effect on the injury/death rate in soaring. Even
if every new glider had a "safety" cockpit there would be no
significant increase in the percentage of such cockpits for decades to
come. Gliders, as well as other aircraft, will be, and are, kept in
service until it is overwhelmingly uneconomical to do so.


I'm encouraged by all the discussion, because I believe it will
increase
the rate of change, and even though new safety features take a while to
be a significant part of the fleet, the value of the feature is
durable:
a safer glider bought now will provide that extra safety for the life
of
the glider.

And spare me
the "well we have to start somewhere" comment.


We have "started somewhere", and in my opinion, the big "somewhere" was
over 20 years ago, when Schleicher and Waibel made a big investment in
the design of the ASW 24 cockpit. We didn't have the Internet to
discuss
things at the time, but I recall many pilots were not impressed because
the cockpit design and disk brake added weight and size. I know
Schliecher lost some sales because of it (but gained some, also).

Even earlier, Waibel expressed his deep disappointment that some pilots
ordered the new ASW 20 B/C models with the older ASW 20 "A" fuselage,
which lacked the stronger cockpit, the tilting instrument panel that
made it easier to bail out, and the shock absorbing landing gear with
disk brake, just to save a few pounds. I think we've come a long ways
from that attitude, and it's been in good part because of discussions
about the value of these changes.

Of course, the discussions about safer gliders began before the ASW 24,
about such things as better spin behavior, automatic control
connections, spoiler effectiveness, and so on. Still, for me, that is
when pilots were offered a real choice.

Personally, I am not
going to spend an extra $100K to replace my current motorglider with a
"safer" one.


That would buy you a new motorglider, but you could buy a used DG
800/808 (or equivalent Schleicher or Schmepp-Hirth) for more like
$60,000, and gain most of the improvements in the new models. For less
than $1000, you could upgrade the safety of your current glider with a
Roeger hook, available from DG as a retrofit.


That last fatal accident I posted shows you where you need to spend
your effort: influencing the judgement of pilots. This is not an
impossible task; the GA accident rate has been declining even with an
ageing fleet.


It is not only in the air that a glider pilot must use good judgment,
but also on the ground. For me, these discussions ARE about influencing
the judgment of pilots: choosing the glider you intend to trust with
your body is an important decision.