On Monday, November 4, 2019 at 7:58:39 PM UTC-5, 2G wrote:
On Monday, November 4, 2019 at 4:52:25 AM UTC-8, wrote:
All this hand ringing... THIS IS NOT a complex problem!
The vast majority of accidents can be crammed into 4 general catagories:
1. False dependance on aux engine
2.aging of general soaring populous
3. Lack of “situational specific “ experience
4. Lack of currancy, not flying regularly ( related to #3.

1. The rash of motor equiped sailplane accidents speaks for itself and is Fricking up the insurance rates for all of us. Flying such that ya depend on that aux power is just plain criminal.

2. Guys are getting old me included and need to know when to reevaluate their declining skills. Some need to just know when to stop, or dial back into less complex flying and back into less complex machines.

3. Situational Specific experience refers to having experience in the specific type of flying one is doing. 10,000 hours flying airliners has ZERO application to flying a sailplane! My worse students are airline types! 10000 hours of flying a sailplane has zero application to flying jets. I hate the bull**** of guys claiming gobs of hours as if they mean something. They only count if they apply to the type of flying your doing on a given day. Example, a guys got 3,000 hours of glider time but its most all flying over the home field with little or no off field landing experience. That guy is an accident waiting to happen when he finds himself in an unusual off field landing situation. The guy who has been pursuing his gold badge and had only a couple hundred hours but has had to make 5 off field landings this past year had a hell of a lot more “situational experience”.

4. Related to the point above, even if I have 4,000 hours of xc flying time, if they are all from 20 years ago, I am at a dissadvantage. Whats needed is currant applicable time in order to keep the skills sharp.

My two cents worth.

I searched for all glider accidents in the US this year - there were 18. Two involved motorgliders - NEITHER involved an attempted restart in flight, BOTH involved a landing accident.

So, your premise that motorgliders driving up insurance costs because of failed engine restarts is JUST FLAT WRONG!

Tom

Semantics. Running out of gas/battery power is not a mechanical engine failure. They are engine operator failure same results. Without the engine present something different would have happened. The professional odds makers don't have a lot of faith in motorglider reliability- doesn't matter if it is mechanical or meat bag failure costs the insurance company the same.