Some gliders safer than others?

Just to expand a little bit more... all of the major manufacturers have changed their philosophy to a greater or lesser extent around cockpit design over time. I fly an LS8, which is largely based on the later model LS6. If you look at the cockpit of an early LS6, vs the later LS6 and the LS8, you can see significant changes in the construction of the cockpit area and the seat pan in particular. The same applies to Schemp-Hirth (e.g. later Ventus2 vs. original Ventus). So, other things being equal, a later generation of a given class of glider from a given manufacturer probably affords better crash protection than the prior generation (e.g. ASW-24 vs. ASW-19; LS8 vs. LS4; Ventus 2 vs. Ventus). How the various manufacturers stack up when comparing gliders of the same generation (e.g. LS8 vs. ASW28 vs. Discus2) is probably a little harder to quantify without extensive testing. I know some has been done (see the OSTIV link in this thread), and I'm sure the "conventional wisdom" gives the nod to Schleicher. It would be nice to see some more hard data.

P3


On Thursday, October 24, 2013 8:03:47 AM UTC-4, Dave Nadler wrote:
On Thursday, October 24, 2013 7:45:03 AM UTC-4, joesimmers wrote:

I think [Schleichers] are the only one with the crash cockpit design.



Wrong. Many modern gliders have reinforced cockpits

and many have energy-absorbing gear. Lange also adds

a crush zone in nose:

http://www.lange-aviation.com/htm/en...0e/safety.html



RAS - Rampant Aviation Speculation....