GLIDING INTERNATIONAL -- RESEARCH

On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 6:07:47 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Hi Ben, true, the guy doing his first few off field landings is at greater risk. But the point being, the guy who has been doing alot of recent off field landings now has a body of experience to draw from when confronted with his next one. The guy who is just a local flier, is not as 1. Tuned up to accessing a field etc and 2. Doesnt have any experience to draw from.

Agree, but it seems like a bit of a "Catch-22" until we have reliable, long-distance sustainer engines and/or reliable self-launching gliders, I just don't see how we can get from "point A" (no off-field landing experience) to "point B" (lots of off-field landing experience) without becoming an accident statistic (i.e. an accident-waiting-to-happen that consequently happened).

Condor2 with Oculus Rift VR (Virtual Reality - which I have and use almost daily) helps with off-field landing procedures, but the landscape scenery is not yet detailed enough to show boulders, fences, haystacks, potholes, etc., so it's not all that valuable for this purpose.

I suppose the FAA could require us all to take off-field landing instruction in motor gliders, as some high-time glider instructors have suggested before, but that would add a lot to the cost of a glider rating. Does the accident rate warrant that?