A good friend of mine, Don Gurnett, suffered a rope break at about 150
feet on tow at a competition and he was loaded with water ballast. He
said he turned back and started dumping instantly and was able to land
on a taxi-way in a crowded environement.

Prof. Tom Schnell of the Universtiy of Iowa Operators Performance
Laboratory, a glider pilot, but the way, gave a talk last week about a
training device they are working on with the Navy. It involves real,
simulated and constructed (artificially simulated) flight. He wires
the test pilots with all kinds of electrodes on the head and torso.
They use either a 3 or 1 screen sophisticated simulator and also
actually fly the back seat of an L-29. The test pilots are mostly
National Guard fighter pilots. Dr. Schnell showed a number of
graphics which showed the increased stress level displayed in various
simulated and actual situaitons. He repeated a number of times that
the brain knows when you are truly at risk and that it is very hard to
get the simulator to duplicate the stresses a pilot feels when really
at physical risk. (One way is considerable task overload.)

I was impressed that simulators may let one practice certain maneuvers
or deal with certain situations in a non-risk environment, but
performing a give way in the simulator does not mean the body will
react the same way when it knows there is physical risk. I am not
saying simulators are not useful. I am only saying they are not
necessarily 100% predictive. Yes, I know that new airline pilots get
their training in a simulator and their first real flight is a revenue
flight.

Here is the OPL site. http://www.ccad.uiowa.edu/opl/