On 5/2/21 1:41 PM, Tony wrote:
On Friday, January 12, 2007 at 2:30:48 PM UTC-5, Papa3 wrote:
Leaving aside the fire or short issue, you need to consider what
it would feel like to be hit in the back of the head with an 80 lb
sack. Many of the first and second generation gliders have the
"storage shelf" level with the back of the pilot's head and nothing
(no bulkhead or other structure except a flimsy headrest) in
between. A gallon of water weighs about 8 lbs, and it's very
possible to induce a rapid 10G deceleration in an otherwise
survivable crash (many texts talk about survivable 20G pulses).
10Gs operating on 8lbs of water with a straight shot to the back of
your head or neck could put you in a world of hurt. At minumum, you
need to have a system of tying the bag down to some solid
structure. If using the shelf, you'll probably need to run anchor
bolts down to the bulkhead surrounding the landing gear. LS, for
example, has very detailed instructions on doing this. I've seen a
couple of guys go to the trouble of mounting water supplies behind
the main bulkead (in front of the spars and out of the way of the
mixers/ control rods). They fill the supply through a tube. I would
worry about cleaning the container out periodically lest it get
funky over time, but I'm sure they've thought of this. Cheers, Erik
Mann LS8-18 P3 jcarlyle wrote:
I, like probably most glider pilots, put my Camelbak behind my
head next to my battery. But a cautionary tale seems appropriate
here.

Last Summer a club member had his glider totaled when his battery
set fire to his empty Camelbak. The probable causes, pinched
wires and too big a battery fuse, were certainly preventable.
However, it's clear that the Camelbak acted as tinder for the
overheated battery, and the fire may not have occurred if the
Camelbak hadn't been placed next to the battery.

-John

Gav Goudie wrote:
Why dont you just put it behind your head like everyone else?!

The seat pan / control column support wasnt designed to have a
camelbak 'lashed' to it and its easier to work with gravity
than against it!!
AFAIK, being involved in multiple accident investigations, an 11g
deceleration will fail your restraints and liquefy your internal
organs. So securing your Camel full of ice and using it as a cooling
headrest should be well outside risk considerations...the oxygen rack
is even scarier, even though my charged steel bottle only weighs 13#.
Without getting into why I offer this, I would defer to anyone that
can show their work...


Here's my chance to (maybe, har har) set new RAS records for
contributing to an old thread (14 years) while maximizing thread
drift!!! (Will I need a new record category? Who's in charge of RAS,
anyway?) I blame this on the thunderstorm that just drove me indoors...

So, OK, there's always devils in the details, but on the assumption that
the following quoted statement lacks any intentional hyperbole "...an
11g deceleration will...liquefy your internal organs", if he could, Col
Paul Stapp (and many other investigators in years since) and
considerable, multi-field, crash data (e.g. from aviation, auto racing,
etc.) might beg to differ. Many a (sore and bruised) person has survived
up to 20g decelerations, if I'm to believe lots of "technical crash
stuff" I've read over the years. And, no, I'm not volunteering to become
one!

That quibble noted, strapping things firmly (in addition to yourself, of
course, hyuk hyuk), is definitely a good thing, in the event of
crash-induced deceleration...

Bob W.