No one here has suggested a mandate for helmet wearing
while glider flying. There was a lot of talk of BRS
vs personal chutes and I threw in helmets half jokingly,
although it is true that a lot of fatalities in gliders
are the result of head injuries-head injuries that
may have been avoided with proper protection and a
new thread topic was born. Earlier in this helmet thread
someone URLed an article with data on A/C helmets,
all of which are lighter than your motorcycle helmet,
but not all will fit in a cockpit.
If anyone is flying so close to being out of gross
or C of G that a helmet (even a heavy one) would be
a deal breaker, then that is not the right glider for
them to be flying and they are already flirting with
disaster.
I personally think it would be an interesting study,
to see how effective at reducing the loss of life helmet
wearing would actually be, but that it certainly remain
an option to be chosen by the better informed pilots.
Perhaps more head clearance and proper headrests would
become a standard feature of the so called safety cockpits
that are employed in newer gliders. It could help evolve
the safety of the sport. A super sturdy keel for really
rough field protection would be a welcome addition
too for that matter, to protect the other head. A small
boulder in my lap going 40mph sounds rather discomforting...Maybe
we should make hard shell groin cups a mandate too
while we're at it. (joke)

Paul Hanson

At 23:42 13 September 2007, Raulb wrote:
Just a few thoughts before we start mandating the wearing
of helmets
in gliders.

1. How many glider pilots fly without parachutes?
If you don't wear
a parachute, a head injury is the least of your worries
in a mid-air.

2. What about canopies that are already fractions
of an inch above
the pilot's head when he just wears a normal hat?
Not everyone can
put their fist between their head and the canopy (I
can't and I'm not
tall).

3. In a moving aircraft, what are the chances of getting
a head
injury vs. (for example) a broken leg?

4. Other than the canopy (which should break but may
not), if you are
strapped in properly, what is your head going to hit?

5. In a glider with reclined seating, won't the weight
of a helmet
will cause more neck strain than it will provide safety?

6. If the glider ends up in an inverted wreck with
injury, the injury
is likely to be serious with ot without a helmet.

Haqving gone through a motorcycle accident where I
was wearing a
helmet, I have nothing against wearing a helmet if
it will do some
good, but I just can't see any advantage of wearing
a helmet in a
glider.

You mention the helmets used in kyaking, skiing, and
motorcycling, but
these are endevors where the head is out in the breeze
and can run
into things. Also, these helmets are not neceassarily
small. A DOT
legal motorcycle helmet is quite big and can be very
heavy. Mine,
made with kevlar, costs almost $500 and is one of the
lightest made
but it still weighs 3.7 lbs while some can weigh up
to 6 lbs. As it
is federally licensed, in an aircraft (unlike kayaking
or skiing), to
provide the sort of protection you are talking about,
if it is
mandated to wear a helmet, you would HAVE to have a
DOT certified
helmet similar (or identical) to a motorcycle helmet.

To extrapolate this a little, why don't you wear a
helmet in your
car? There is just as high (if not higher) risk of
serious head
injury in a car accident even if it has air bags.

As to the wire guards, remember in Europe their farm
fields are
typically A LOT smaller than they are in the US or
Canada. Therefore
it is more likely that a European will hit a wire than
an American
(although it is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility
here).

But having said that, if you want to wear a helmet
in your glider, by
all means wear one. If you want a cow catcher on your
glider, put one
on it. Just don't start making me do it too.

And I haven't even talked about any CG, weight (could
it put you
overgross?), or space problems of wearing a motorcycle-type
helmet in
an aircraft.