Electronic Yaw Alarm?

On Thursday, 10 November 2011 23:26:49 UTC-5, Eric Greenwell wrote:

Step outside this little world of soaring, and think about why the
automobile fatality rate has dropped so much over the last 50 years. The
majority of the improvement comes from safety devices like divided
highways, seat belts, crush zones, and other improvements in safety devices.

While this is true, Eric, I wish to point out that all but one of the devices you mention are intended to save lives "during" the ensuing crash. Only the divided highway "prevents" the crash, and that by forcibly separating the traffic flow. To my knowledge there is no existing automotive device (except my wife) that screams out, "Stupid! You're going to get us killed!!"..

On a negative side of your argument, the great decrease in fatalities has been matched by a great increase in permanent life-altering injuries. I leave it to individual discretion to determine which is personally preferable.

-John

On Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:00:53 +0000, Jonathon May
wrote:

There are those who think the string should be slightly off center in a
thermal turn I have heard the phrasae" get the string pointing up"from an
old bold pilot who was flying with me.

Yup.
20 to 30 degrees in the glider that I'm flying.


Andreas

On Nov 8, 11:45*am, Westbender wrote:
On Nov 8, 9:44*am, GARY BOGGS wrote:

I've often thought an audio yaw string would be a great idea.
Especially while instructing. *Maybe instead of a noise, a shot of
electricity to the ass would be better? *I am always amazed at how
many pilots are perfectly happy to fly along in a slight slip all
day...

Boggs

Part of me wonders just how much value it would add to have an alarm
go off just when someone is under stress turning to final at low
altitude where it's causing them to try to skid the ship around.

I'd be stating the obvious that pilots should be better trained to not
get themselves into such situations to begin with.

My SZD55 has a mandatory (Canada) stall warning system - SP-3. It
takes pitot pressure and pressure from another hole under the nose and
uses pressure differential to work - you get a loud audio tone. It
goes off frequently in thermalling, and at the start of flilght. I
asked other 55 pilots, and they say they only really use it on the
ridge, it's off otherwise.
The system is here if you want to take a look:
http://www.olk.com.pl/indexen.php?bo...roducts&lpx=26

If you calibrated it better - which apparently is possible, though I
haven't done it, it might be your answer. OSTIV seems to like it.

On 11/11/2011 5:50 AM, C-FFKQ (42) wrote:
On Thursday, 10 November 2011 23:26:49 UTC-5, Eric Greenwell wrote:

Step outside this little world of soaring, and think about why the
automobile fatality rate has dropped so much over the last 50
years. The majority of the improvement comes from safety devices
like divided highways, seat belts, crush zones, and other
improvements in safety devices.

While this is true, Eric, I wish to point out that all but one of the
devices you mention are intended to save lives "during" the ensuing
crash. Only the divided highway "prevents" the crash, and that by
forcibly separating the traffic flow. To my knowledge there is no
existing automotive device (except my wife) that screams out,
"Stupid! You're going to get us killed!!".

It wasn't intended to be a definitive list, but only to point out that
safety devices can and do save lives. If you limit it to prevention
safety devices, it's still true. In gliders, examples are auto hookups
for controls and spoilers that don't suck open.

On a negative side of your argument, the great decrease in fatalities
has been matched by a great increase in permanent life-altering
injuries. I leave it to individual discretion to determine which is
personally preferable.

Are you saying the _rate_ of "permanent life-altering injuries" is
higher now than 50 years ago? I am not aware of studies showing that is
true. What I do read about is crashes with little or no injury, that
surely would've resulted in severe injuries in autos from the 50's.

In any case, I don't think the markedly improved cockpit crash
protection from the ASW 24 on has increased the rate for gliders.
Personally, I'll always choose greater crash protection, glider or car.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)