On Thursday, December 10, 2015 at 2:16:18 PM UTC-5, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Wednesday, December 9, 2015 at 9:09:48 PM UTC-5, Sean Fidler wrote:
If you're worried about a power line in the grill while gliding, a canopy cage is the answer.

Power line?? Are you saying that a canopy cage offers some small measure of protection (any protection at all) from the kind of wire strung between telephone poles (telephone wire, house power, coax cable)?

I was talking about the bare 12 gauge wires strung between fiberglass rods maybe 1 meter above the ground.

An "in general comment" (directed to this thread, not SoF)..... what about the wire "just in the tree tops you don't see" while going into a field?
This can slide across the BOTTOM of the fuselage.

You WILL take the flying speed and STOP all forward progress and turn it into a "nose down until you hit something harder".
I arrived at an accident site maybe 20 minutes after a similar event. It was in "central PA" where I had just done a field retrieve of another competitor (I was also in the contest). As we headed home, we saw rescue groups at the other end of a field.
We stopped and found yet another competitor had had an accident. He was trying to "land short" and didn't see the wires in the tree tops that hung his gear and made him hit the ground ~90* nose down ~30' below the wires.

So, we're proposing "wire cutters" on the top of the fuselage, a "wire cage inside the canopy" as well as wire cutters (that retract) under the fuselage so we don't have to worry about wires going UNDER the nose on a retract?

Bold ambition, would be worthwhile (in some cases), better than "making a call to loved ones" after the fact.

If you want to be "perfectly safe", don't do anything that has some danger in it.

[ever see the statistics about fatal falls in the bathroom of your house?]

Everyone has to weigh "risk & reward", we ALL do things that have some risk. We strive to mitigate the risk (training, not doing whatever on a certain day, etc.).