On Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 9:25:29 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Just in case you crash tail first at high speed huh? Sounds likely.

Not that likely, but I know of two occasions.

"On this landing the pilot's head,
on first impact, quartering to the front,
went through the canopy with little
damage because the mounting rails
and quarter-inch steel canopy retaining
rods bent at extreme angles ( and
the plastic broke) to absorb most of
the energy. However, on the second
impact, traveling backwards, the pilot's
head was driven back into the headrest.
Fortunately, dead on center. The
leather cover and padding were driven
back into the headrest and two steel
mounting brackets, 1 x 1/8-inch plate
and 5 or 6 inches long came slicing
out through the front of the headrest.
They made significant bruises on either
side of the pilot's head and could have
penetrated had the head been slightly
turned."

A.J. Smith writing about the crash of his Nimbus II on the last day at the Worlds in Vrsac in 1972 (Soaring magazine, Apr 1973).

I'm also unfortunately very familiar with a fatal crash where the fuselage impacted in a relatively flat position, sinking at high speed, and the pilot's head snapped back hard because there was no headrest (early ASW 20).

As I said: I sawed it off. Just in case. If we could plan when and how we crash, we could save a lot of money on unneeded insurance, parachutes, etc.

Chip Bearden