Template talk:Comparison of sailplanes hang gliders and paragliders

Good idea

If this info is to appear in several places, then this template is a good idea. It would therefore be churlish to query the name. JMcC (talk) 23:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Collapse

I've changed the comments on collapse behaviour as this supposed to be a fair comparison. It's true that paragliders can collapse in turbulence but this is considered to be in many ways an advantage. In severe turbulence, when a PG will collapse badly, a hang glider can tumble and subsequently undergo structural failure. Sailplanes have more control authority and so can maintain control in stronger turbulence, but will eventually lose control and can undergo structural failure. Of course all three risk severe accident if they lose control near the terrain.

All this is too complicated to be fairly treated in this table. We could introduce a row about safety. We can find numbers for PG and HG (both of which are surprisingly safe, with PG being safer than HG), but I'm not sure where we could get good sailplane stats from that would be comparable.Jontyla (talk) 15:49, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Stats on sailplane accidents are available for individual countries eg through the British Gliding Association, though I don't know if IGC consolidates the results worldwide. You would have to take fatalities and serious injuries (with a consistent definition, ie needing hospital attention) to get a true picture. In theory any aircraft, even airliners, can break up in extreme turbulence, see BOAC Flight 911. However I can't think of an instance of a modern sailplane that was in good repair and flown according to the flight manual, breaking up because of turbulence. Sailplane purposely fly in turbulent conditions, often to get into wave or to run along ridges in strong winds and so are designed with this in mind. Videos of glider wings being tested to destruction are impressive if you are ever worried about one disintegrating. JMcC (talk) 12:07, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is fair comment, though I can think of people I know who have jumped out of sailplanes after having completely lost control, and most are not safe to be flown upside down or rated for spinning. Anyway, I think we would agree that what would be needed would be comparable accident rate stats - we don't care what the accident modes are, just how often they happen. Jontyla (talk) 20:09, 22 October 2011 (UTC)