On Mon, 17 Oct 2005 16:02:16 -0700, Eric Greenwell
wrote:

Questions about the crash protection are very sensible, but they should
be good questions. I think "how can your glider be so much lighter than
the German gliders?" would be a much better question than "where is the
Kevlar?". Or maybe: "Is the Diana 2 crash protection as good as the ASW
27 (for example)?"

Indeed.
The 27 is a good example because its dimensions are very similar to
the Diana 2.

I know how long it took for Schleicher to squeeze only 20 lbs out of
the forward fuselage from the ASW-27 (which then became the 27 SL with
an empty wight of 230 kg). Hard to see for me how someone is able to
save another 48 kg on a glider of similar dimensions without
sacrifying anything (the empty weight of the Diana 2 is 182 kg).

I heard that the wings of the Diana 2 are only slightly lighter than
the ones of the ASW-27, but unfortunately I didn't find more
ionformation yet.


I can easily imagine a pilot thinking "This wave has such strong winds,
I must fly very fast to get to the upwind lenticular. The air is quite
smooth, and the actual flutter speed was determined by testing at 40
knots over Vne, so I can fly at 30 knots over Vne quite safely; of
course, I will be very gentle on the stick!"

Well... definitely a proof of the existence of natural selection
then...
I could think about a different scenario with the same result:
Since the indicated Vne goes down with altitude (but the red line
doesn't move), it's easily possible to fly faster than Vne
unintentionally if one forgets to study the Vne over height (no idea
of the correct technical term in English... sorry...) limitation
table and flies at high altitude.





Bye
Andreas