Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 15:54:18 GMT, "Vaughn"
wrote:

From a UK
perspective that seems criminally negligent and we
accept the cost of running parachutes for all seats
in all club gliders as simply something it would be
inconceivable to do.. And yes, they have saved lives...

I don't disagree, like helmets on motorcycles, it is (or is not) part
of the local safety culture and the majority naturally conform. That said,
is chute use normal in all small UK aircraft, or is it just gliders? If
only gliders, why?

Helmets, like much safety equipment, can increase the chance
of an accident but usually reduce the injury when one happens.
Somewhere in there is a good balance...


AFAIK the UK practise of always wearing chutes in gliders dates from
the lightning strike on an ASK-21 about 8 years ago. Its occupants
were wearing chutes and both survived. They would not have done so
without them. Having said that, chute use is not entirely universal:
we never wear them in our T-21b, but that's the only exception I know.
I'm not clear on the reason for this.

Aha! Chute use is NOT mandatory for ALL UK glider operations!
Excellent! Very civilized. And I think a much better way
since at least to some extent now pilots need to ask
themselves "why should I wear a chute" which is MUCH more
important a mental exercise than the rote donning of the
silk...

I've never worn a chute in a light plane, and that includes SF-25s, or
even seen one in the cabin on the relatively few occasions I've flown
in GA aircraft in the UK. I'd always assumed that had a lot to do with
the relative difficulty of getting out of a GA plane in a hurry
compared with a glider. That has to make the chute much less useful.

A question for the PPLs amongst us: just how high would you need to be
to start egress from a full 4-place GA plane for everybody to exit
with room for the chute to open?

C'mon Martin, it's a glider newsgroup. How about, how high would
YOU voluntarily exit a glider with a chute.

For me, somewhere between 1500-2500 feet AGL sounds right.
Below that, I'd rather think I'd try to fly and perhaps
bugger it in...