On Sunday, September 9, 2018 at 4:44:46 PM UTC-5, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
While they were not perfect, they did better than quite a few early/mid glass ships. Too many back then would "eggshell" with a reasonable nose down hit leaving the pilot hanging out there from the hips (or so) down just sitting in wreckage.
Saw a few of them as well.
I never said they were great, but many bad landings had peeps walking away in a SGS compared to a lot of glass ships. I was there in the retrieval on both.

Yes, pretty much all mfr's do better now. Then again, I have been around this for about 45 years, so I have seen a lot of the progression over time as well as the aftermath.
No mfr is perfect, even now, but yes, they are mostly better.

Sorta like saying, "why didn't auto manufacturer so and so make their cars safer in the 60's?". Sheesh, a lot of cars then around the world had seat belts as an option. Most are pretty good today, provided you at least "sorta" use what is already there. Belts are number 1. They work on their own, they also make airbags a LOT more effective when needed. Airbags without seat belts may actually be worse in some cases!

Carry on with the discussion.

I didn't really mean to slam SGS. The certainly did no worse than any others, and maybe better in some ways concerning structural robustness. Remember the 1-36 that got over-gee'd, bending the wings up into a distinct "V"and it still flew for a couple hours and landed safely?

I've flown a 301 Libelle for over 20 years. You can very nearly read a newspaper through the fuselage. I think that's a safety feature. No one dares crash in one.