Mid-Air Collision Near Reno: ASG-29 vs. Hawker XP800

[GT182]

The glider pilot is one lucky sob..... he was wearing a parachute.

Short story of incident.....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1694374/posts

Better pictures and story....
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/007288.html

[HundertzehnGustav]

so does that wearing a chute make him lucky?
look, here is what i think...

if you are bonkers enough to get into an airplane without an working engine on it, wearing a chute is a absolute must!:costumes::d

[GT182]

For one thing, I've seen guys fly gliders without parachutes. So in that sense, yeah he was lucky.

Actually they are all lucky... it coulda been much much worse.

[mike_cyul]

Altogether some very lucky people up there that day! :isadizzy:


Mike

[Tako_Kichi]

For one thing, I've seen guys fly gliders without parachutes.
When I took my glider flying course, all of 36 years ago (EEK..that long!), as an RAF Cadet we were NOT issued with parachutes on the grounds that they were considered to be too heavy and a strong "gliders were made to fly without engines so they aren't required!" mentality from the powers that be.

Quite what we were supposed to do in the case of a catastrophic airframe failure I don't know! :isadizzy:

Modern parachutes of the type worn by glider pilots these days are maybe a quarter of the weight (or even less) of the big, bulky, 1960's types available to us so I guess it makes sense to wear one. You can never be too safe after all.