At 08:11 17 July 2014, Chris Rollings wrote:
At 20:10 16 July 2014, Kevin Christner wrote:
On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 3:42:12 PM UTC-4, Chris Nicholas wrote:
Sorry, you haven't.



Chris N

Some reasonable questions:

Are there over 25 known accidents (likely more than 50 fatalities) from
stall / spin accidents in the Puchacz?

Have very experienced advocates of safety (Tom Knuaff, Cindy Brickner)
opined that they have serious concerns about the P. and do not feel it
is
safe to spin?

Is there any other glider type that has lost ~10% of its production i
spin
/ stall accidents?

If the answer to these questions is yes, it is very irrational t
continue
putting people at the risk of death. Sorry but think that is arguable.


I think you'll find that the Schweizer 2-32 has lost considerably more
tha
10% of the fleet inn spinning accidents.

It is not the number of gliders lost that concerns me, it is the number
lost following deliberate spins.
In the absence of any other finding of technical defect there are only two
possible causes:
1. The pilot(s) mishandled the glider and failed to apply the correct
action to recover from the spin
2. Under certain, maybe very specific loading conditions it is impossible
to recover from a spin in that particular glider.

Given that the only people who could tell you for certain are dead the
assumption has always been made that the pilots screwed up. The other
possible cause has always been vehemently denied. That is extremely poor
investigative practice, not to mention wooly thinking.
I concede that the 2nd possibility is extremely unlikely but there again
the airline safety people thought that a double engine failure on a twin
engine airliner was extremely unlikely. It took a pilot with the skill of
Sully Sullenberger to recover from that "impossibility"