'Canopy Wire Deflector Bars' - Past experience and current thinking

I found a few mentions of Canopy Wire Deflector Bars in the RAS Archives. One said that the deflectors were mandatory in the Netherlands. What has been experience and what is current thinking? Links and search terms appreciated as I could not find much with initial google search.

Temporary electric livestock fences are a known landout hazard in my area.

In my 40+ years in the sport I can remember 2 accidents where a wire deflection system would have saved a life. First ship ground looped into 4 strands of barb-wire that broke the canopy, ripped the compass off the hood, then hit the pilot in the forehead and rode up and over his head. Pilot SURVIVED!

In the second accident, the ship landed short of the runway and hit the airport perimeter fence at a point where 2 posts were used to stretch the wires using very strong double wires. Pilot was DECAPITATED!

It's up to each pilot to decide, I would place wire deflectors way down my safety list below parachute, transponder, FLARM, Life insurance, etc. Single strand electric fences are probably survivable.
JJ

On Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 9:37:33 AM UTC-5, son_of_flubber wrote:
I found a few mentions of Canopy Wire Deflector Bars in the RAS Archives. One said that the deflectors were mandatory in the Netherlands. What has been experience and what is current thinking? Links and search terms appreciated as I could not find much with initial google search.

Temporary electric livestock fences are a known landout hazard in my area..

You're still in VT?

A field that's used for stock, temporary or otherwise, is basically a place to crash in Northern New England. A farmer doesn't go to the trouble of getting all the rocks out and rolling a field flat to put livestock on it. The exception would be a horse farm. You don't want to land there either, if horses are about.

It's true: if you hit a wire, you're better off with a cage.

But instead of X hours and Y dollars installing a cage, I'd spend X hours on Google Earth and Y dollars on gas learning about fields and planning routes. 95% of our XC flying is with airports or known good landable areas (typically clusters of hay fields) in reach and by and large *the routes aren't random*. The only time we fly "field to field" at 3000 agl is when making an early get away for a 500K+ sort of flight, and those routes are are selected for the purpose.

Evan Ludeman / T8

On Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 11:28:22 AM UTC-5, Tango Eight wrote:
On Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 9:37:33 AM UTC-5, son_of_flubber wrote:
I found a few mentions of Canopy Wire Deflector Bars in the RAS Archives. One said that the deflectors were mandatory in the Netherlands. What has been experience and what is current thinking? Links and search terms appreciated as I could not find much with initial google search.

Temporary electric livestock fences are a known landout hazard in my area.

You're still in VT?

A field that's used for stock, temporary or otherwise, is basically a place to crash in Northern New England. A farmer doesn't go to the trouble of getting all the rocks out and rolling a field flat to put livestock on it. The exception would be a horse farm. You don't want to land there either, if horses are about.

It's true: if you hit a wire, you're better off with a cage.

But instead of X hours and Y dollars installing a cage, I'd spend X hours on Google Earth and Y dollars on gas learning about fields and planning routes. 95% of our XC flying is with airports or known good landable areas (typically clusters of hay fields) in reach and by and large *the routes aren't random*. The only time we fly "field to field" at 3000 agl is when making an early get away for a 500K+ sort of flight, and those routes are are selected for the purpose.

Evan Ludeman / T8

To answer the OP's question, I fly in the NE, I have no issues flying WITHOUT a "wire deflector".
One pilot I fly with (here on RAS) always had a deflector (he's a "little taller" than I....).

"Weigh your odds"..... Sorta like any insurance, gripe when you pay it, hope you don't use it, glad you have it when needed.... mostly....

This from one that "Tango Eight" may give grief to (July 2015 off-field landing)....... LOL...... Hi, say "Hi" to the family....

[So.... T8.... you went how high without a O2 back-up?????.....nudge nudge..... wink wink....]

On Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 11:28:22 AM UTC-5, Tango Eight wrote:

A field that's used for stock, temporary or otherwise, is basically a place to crash in Northern New England.

Landowners (not farmers) put electric fence corrals in prime landable hayfields. One new owner put up wires for a small vineyard in a previously used PT3 field close to the airport.

In 2013, a visiting pilot had a electric fence wire ride part way up his canopy. It was still under tension when he stopped. The wire pulled out several fiberglass stakes but was anchored by a long row of stakes.

I'm just curious about wire deflector lore.

The wire deflectors are no longer mandatory in the Netherlands, due to European regulations considering them to be a hinder to free trade inside the European Union (same with yellow car headlights in France). They are rarely installed in newer gliders, and sometimes deleted from older ones. But they did save some lives in the past.

On Monday, December 7, 2015 at 10:00:32 AM UTC-5, wrote:
The wire deflectors are no longer mandatory in the Netherlands, due to European regulations considering them to be a hinder to free trade inside the European Union (same with yellow car headlights in France). They are rarely installed in newer gliders, and sometimes deleted from older ones. But they did save some lives in the past.

Our towplane (CalAir) was a cropduster in its previous life. It still
has the anti-wire features: wire cutter up the canopy plus a wire from
the top of the cockpit to the top of the rudder (to avoid having a wire
saw off the rudder). The airport owner spent a lot of time dusting
crops and has quite a few wire encounter stories. I heard of two glider-wire
encounters in the past few years here in the SE US: one in Chilhowee in 2011
and one this past fall at Blue Ridge. Both were cases of hitting power lines
in the air. One resulted in no injuries and a repairable glider, and the other
almost killed the pilot and destroyed the plane. Both were fortunate that
the wire broke without hitting the pilot (as I understand it): the Blue Ridge
pilot was injured by the nose-down impact.

Matt

Might have helped he

AccidentoccurredMonday, February 19, 1990inCABINS, WV
Probable Cause Approval Date:09/21/1992
Aircraft:ROLLADEN-SCHNEIDER LS-6, registration:N511M
Injuries: 1 Fatal.
WITNESSES REPORTED SEEING THE GLIDER FLYING NORMALLY AT A LOW ALTITUDE
AND APPEARED AS IF IT WAS GOING TO LAND. DURING THE LANDING APPROACH,
THE GLIDER CONTACTED A POWER LINE WHICH SLICED THROUGH THE CANOPY,
FATALLY INJURING THE PILOT. THE GLIDER THEN DESCENDED TO THE TERRAIN AND
CONTACTED A BARBED WIRE FENCE PRIOR TO COMING TO REST. FLAPS WERE FOUND
IN THE FULL DOWN POSITION AND THE LANDING GEAR WAS EXTENDED. OTHER
PILOTS IN THE AREA REPORTED MODERATE TO SEVERE TURBULENCE AND STRONG
ROTOR ACTIVITY IN THE AREA OF THE ACCIDENT SITE.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable
cause(s) of this accident as follows:

* THE PILOT FAILED TO DETECT AND REMAIN CLEAR OF THE POWER LINE WHICH
CROSSED THE FIELD IN WHICH HE WAS ATTEMPTING TO LAND. CONTRIBUTING
TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE MODERATE TO SEVERE TURBULENCE IN THE AREA AT
THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.




On 12/7/2015 8:44 AM, wrote:
On Monday, December 7, 2015 at 10:00:32 AM UTC-5, wrote:
The wire deflectors are no longer mandatory in the Netherlands, due to European regulations considering them to be a hinder to free trade inside the European Union (same with yellow car headlights in France). They are rarely installed in newer gliders, and sometimes deleted from older ones. But they did save some lives in the past.
Our towplane (CalAir) was a cropduster in its previous life. It still
has the anti-wire features: wire cutter up the canopy plus a wire from
the top of the cockpit to the top of the rudder (to avoid having a wire
saw off the rudder). The airport owner spent a lot of time dusting
crops and has quite a few wire encounter stories. I heard of two glider-wire
encounters in the past few years here in the SE US: one in Chilhowee in 2011
and one this past fall at Blue Ridge. Both were cases of hitting power lines
in the air. One resulted in no injuries and a repairable glider, and the other
almost killed the pilot and destroyed the plane. Both were fortunate that
the wire broke without hitting the pilot (as I understand it): the Blue Ridge
pilot was injured by the nose-down impact.

Matt

--
Dan, 5J

As mentioned they are no longer mandatory in The Netherlands. They were
introduced in the 1960s I believe after a string of accidents (some fatal).
Since then fields have become a lot bigger, obstacles a lot less and air
traffic a lot busier. We opted to replace all fences around the airport by
ditches, and deleted them from our fleet to improve on look-out. Also,
modern gliders seem less prone to injure pilots compared to the older ones
where the wire would go into the gap of the canopy front (compare K8 line
of fuselage/canopy to discus and you'lle see what I mean).

On Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 1:00:12 PM UTC+3, Eric Munk wrote:
As mentioned they are no longer mandatory in The Netherlands. They were
introduced in the 1960s I believe after a string of accidents (some fatal).
Since then fields have become a lot bigger, obstacles a lot less and air
traffic a lot busier. We opted to replace all fences around the airport by
ditches, and deleted them from our fleet to improve on look-out. Also,
modern gliders seem less prone to injure pilots compared to the older ones
where the wire would go into the gap of the canopy front (compare K8 line
of fuselage/canopy to discus and you'lle see what I mean).

From the New Zealand point of view, several things have changed:

- at the dawn of electric fencing, it was common to distribute it via a single high tensile wire quickly added to an existing fence using risers. These could often be quite high so that vehicles could pass under the electric wire at gates, and also so that risers were only needed every 5 or 10 posts.. As it was a single wire and the risers perhaps only 2x1s it was not easy to see.

- Since at least the early 70s new electric wires have been added as part of the main fence using staples over plastic insulators, and gates are traversed by routing the electric wire through a buried plastic (alkathene) pipe..

- at first, temporary fences for break-feeding (subdividing a paddock) used solid wire. Since, again, the early 70s, this has been universally replaced by stranded plastic (usually orange) with very thin aluminium filaments to carry the current. Besides being many times lighter to carry and many times easier to roll up and unroll somewhere else, it will also break before doing much damage. Many was the time, as a lad, that I rode a motorcycle through such a fence by accident.