On Jan 25, 5:45*am, "
wrote:
I thought glider flying was 4 times more dangerous then GA. *Our
annual death toll is low likely because there are so few participants,
flying relatively low hours(for the most part.) * * No idea about
towing #'s, but we seem to lose a tow pilot or two a year, how many
tow pilots are there? *Couple thousand? *With 30000 glider pilots in
the US, less than half that as members of the SSA(some of them are
inactive life members, and people that renew because they are going to
fly this year...), I'd guess 5,000 'active' *glider pilots, even at
15,000 active pilots the numbers per participant are up there. *I'm
not advocating for anything just pointing out that gliding is more
dangerous than it appears.
On Jan 25, 7:40*am, Jamie Shore wrote:



I know that I can review the NTSB database and answer this myself but I am hoping that someone else has already done the homework.

Two Questions
1. What is the accident, incident and/or fatality rate of towing gliders vs GA?
2. Same question but comparing glider flying in general to GA.

I don't recall ever hearing statistics for #1 above. Tom Knauff has referred to statistics that suggest flying gliders is slightly more dangerous than GA(maybe it was comparing gliders to driving your car).

Thanks,
Jamie Shore

I am not aware of any tow pilot or tow plane losses in the last few
years during tow or as a result of glider actions on tow.
I am aware of tow plane/pilot losses caused either by a 3rd aircraft
interaction (Colorado) or a midair back in the traffic pattern after
release and during landing. Not related to the act of towing.

T