BRS for emergencies

Ramy wrote:

I don;t wear a parachute when flying myself: I prefer "not hitting
things" to "trying to survive after hitting things"...

Ian

Interesting. I take it that you never fly above 500m and that you have
a shield around your glider protecting it from other "things" hitting
it, especially from behind. Or maybe you believe that "see and avoid"
really works. We just had a guy last year at Minden which was above
500m and was hit by a thing and survived only thanks to his
parachute.

Hitting things, or getting hit, are not the only hazards, unfortunately:
the glider controls can malfunction; structures fail from undetected
damage or manufacturing errors; lightning strikes; getting sucked into
cloud; microbursts; unrecoverable spins from errors in CG location; and
likely others I don't recall. 30 years and 5000+ hours in gliders has
taught me that I'm fallible, mother nature is tricky, equipment fails,
and other pilots can be boneheads; therefore, I might need a parachute
or crashworthy glider, so I have both.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:36:16 -0700, Ian
wrote:


But remember the Idaflieg survey which found no evidence that anyone
had ever made the decision to use a parachute from a glider below
500m and survived.

I'm pretty sure that someone misread that survey. I personally know
three people who bailed out of a glider below 1.000 ft and survived.




Bye
Andreas

On 17 Sep, 13:33, Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:36:16 -0700, Ian
wrote:

But remember the Idaflieg survey which found no evidence that anyone
had ever made the decision to use a parachute from a glider below
500m and survived.

I'm pretty sure that someone misread that survey. I personally know
three people who bailed out of a glider below 1.000 ft and survived.

As I recall, it was the "made the decision" bit which was critical -
there were people who had bailed out below 500m, but they had all made
the decision to do so while higher. However, I'd welcome correction
or, better still, a copy of the report. Anyone?

Ian

As I recall, it was the "made the decision" bit which was critical -
there were people who had bailed out below 500m, but they had all made
the decision to do so while higher. However, I'd welcome correction
or, better still, a copy of the report. Anyone?

I recall my instructor telling me about a guy who got winched with
disconnected controls (or maybe they jammed during the launch?). By
the time he got to the top of the launch he was unstrapped and the
canopy was gone. He jumped and survived. The decision to jump was
obviously made well below 500m.

Bartek

That's a different scenario. It sounds like this guy had some time to get
ready and initiate the bailout while his ship was still climbing and under
some control. That's a lot different than having a mid-air at 1,000' AGL.

Mike Schumann

"brtlmj" wrote in message
ups.com...
As I recall, it was the "made the decision" bit which was critical -
there were people who had bailed out below 500m, but they had all made
the decision to do so while higher. However, I'd welcome correction
or, better still, a copy of the report. Anyone?

I recall my instructor telling me about a guy who got winched with
disconnected controls (or maybe they jammed during the launch?). By
the time he got to the top of the launch he was unstrapped and the
canopy was gone. He jumped and survived. The decision to jump was
obviously made well below 500m.

Bartek





--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:49:13 -0700, Ian
wrote:


As I recall, it was the "made the decision" bit which was critical -
there were people who had bailed out below 500m, but they had all made
the decision to do so while higher. However, I'd welcome correction
or, better still, a copy of the report. Anyone?

I only counted people who *made the decision* below 1.000 ft. One was
a winch launch in an ASW-19 with disconnected elevator, the other two
were Ka-8's involved in a midair immediately after a winch launch.


One the other hand, I also had the doubtful pleasure to watch a pilot
who made his decision to bail out at about 3.000 ft after the wing of
his Lo-100 disintegrated during aerobatics. His parachute opened at
less than 100 ft over the ground. He survived uninjured.




Bye
Andreas