My September 2017 visit to GP Gliders

2G wrote on 8/18/2020 10:10 PM:
On Tuesday, August 18, 2020 at 7:26:51 PM UTC-7, Eric Greenwell wrote:
2G wrote on 8/18/2020 3:07 PM:
On Tuesday, August 18, 2020 at 1:49:35 PM UTC-7, andy l wrote:

GP doesn't just claim "lower weight," but "far lower weight" than other gliders, but w/o any evidence to support this claim. The only real evidence I have seen is that Sebastian Kawa was very unhappy with the glider GP delivered to him and switched gliders at the last minute. Kawa also had a propulsion failure while flying a GP-14 in Italy, yet GP gliders makes this bizarre claim on their website:

"The motor can be deployed and running at full power within five seconds providing confidence in the event of when a ‘low save’ is on the cards."

I guess Sebastian didn't get the memo on how reliable GP propulsion systems are. You are certainly welcome to accept all of GP's claims w/o any evidence, but I won't. And I certainly wouldn't send them six figures in cash for it.
The motor can indeed be deployed and running in 5 seconds, and with considerable
confidence. The original mechanical mast switch, external to the mast, was deemed
too vulnerable to damage after Kawa's accident with the prototype glider. It was
replaced with two redundant, buried solid state switches to prevent a repeat of
the problem. You've had a similar switch failure on your Schleicher glider, but
were lucky that it eventually worked after repeated attempts. Other Schleicher
owners have also experienced mast switch failures, but Schleicher still uses the
external mechanical switches. Maybe they didn't get the memo?
--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

I DIDN'T have a similar failure - in fact, I had no failure at all. The switch was in perfect working order, the only explanation was flying a little too fast for the mast to deploy fully. In any event, this has NOTHING to do with the outrageous claims being made by GP Gliders. No one should depend upon propulsion to start in an emergency.

My main point was we shouldn't judge a product on a failure in a prototype a
couple years ago, as there have been many changes made since then.

My apologies - I did not realize you'd concluded it was pilot error that caused
your problem; even so, other pilots have had failed switches, including myself.
For the particular failure I had, Schleicher did respond by switching to more
water resistant switches.

This is off topic, but since I fly a Schleicher glider with the same engine
system, how fast were you flying when the problem occurred?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1