I agree with Simon - it is crazy to bet your life or glider on the reliability of any type of engine. Personally I am far more concerned about windmill starting draggy 2 stroke turbos than a turbine which why my glider is at the workshop to get its turbine installed today.

It is clear from several posts that some contributors have absolutely no idea of the depth and intensity of the EASA certification process that the three new turbines have had to go through. A post mentioned broken blades so as an example of one test - the M+D jet is planned to have a 500 start and run cycles TBO but, as it was explained to those of us waiting, they had to demonstrate 3 times that number of starts and power runs with cracked blades with no failure - which tests alone took several months to run.