How much is a glider pilot's life worth?
Martin Volck from Diamond Aircraft in Wiener Neustadt gave a talk at the Glider Symposium in Braunschweig with this interesting title.
To begin with, he repeated the well known results of the inquiry made by the TUEV-Rhineland about the accident statistics in Germany and the primary types of accidents.
Between 1987 and 1992 there were, on average, 10 glider pilots per year killed and 22 seriously injured. Mid-air collisions, which are the classic types in which a rescue system is usable, are only a portion of the accidents. Most of the accidents occurred close to an airport over relative soft ground. There are already a whole host of systems that can make not only our sport safer. Not even after spectacular accidents which we see on television in Formula 1, these terrible crashes often are followed by the driver getting out of his race car with only slight injuries.
Also in the daily accidents on our highways, we see cars which have sustained heavy damage and the driver gets out dazed but often without injuries. The safety advantage of, for instance, a VW Golf over an old VW Beetle is only too obvious!
The level of research in safety alone in the VW is much greater than the total sales done by all of the glider manufacturers put together! There are possible applications which are already available. M. Volck has played the numbers game and has brought the accident rates into a relationship with the cost of avoiding them and thereby creates an answer to the opening question. He pulls his results on costs and availability of safety devices together very simply. We, on the other hand, can be much more concrete with our gliders in the following ways:
- The first and best beginning, in his words and from the crash-tests at the TUEV-Rhineland, is a very strong cockpit. This affords the highest gain in safety,
- But also a very strong gear system helps keep the hard landing impulse from the pilot. He recommends increasing the requirements of the Construction Rules.
- The seat harness hard points must be strong enough that the harness can not tear loose from the cockpit walls.
- A cushion made out of energy absorbing foam or some kind of impulse absorber should be put between the pilot and the bottom of the hull.
- A nose hook would prevent many aerotow accidents.
- The glide calculator should be controllable from a remote control on the stick to prevent loss of attention to controlling the aircraft.
I recommend in addition:
- A NOAH system which is already deliverable and gives definite help in exiting the aircraft after a mid-air or structural failure.
Mr. Volck estimates that the number of fatalities could be cut in half if all of the described improvements were installed.
In my opinion, the number of fatalities could be reduced from 50% to 40% if the NOAH and DSI systems were added to his list.
Now let's look at the numbers:
There are 7,000 gliders in Germany. With 10 deaths per year, that means that a particular glider is involved in a fatal accident every 700 years. I really don't want to live that long!
It looks quite different if one assumes a life expectancy of 35 years and then says:
"Every twentieth glider will be involved in a fatal accident!"
That sounds much more dramatic. It is clear that when you compare the "rescue quota" for example, with air-bags in cars, it is much smaller. In spite of this, they are installed in all new cars.
What kind of costs are we talking about?
We can answer that exactly for our gliders:
Safety Cockpit | standard |
Strong Landing Gear | standard |
Strong Strap Tie Points | standard |
Shock Absorbing Foam | standard |
Nose hook | Euro 1.500,-- |
Remote Control of | Euro 250,-- |
NOAH | Euro 4.000,-- |
Total | Euro 5.750.-- |
At a cost of less than Euro 6,000, we can significantly improve our flying safety. (The price in foreign markets is somewhat higher.) In addition, there is sales tax in Europe. Of course this is valid for a new glider only. Older ones mostly does not have the standard features.
At only 19 out of 20 gliders, that amount is certainly not a good investment. But with one, you rescue one life with a 60% probability.
That comes to: Worth-of-Life = 6,000 x 20/0.6 or:
One glider pilot's life can be rescued for Euro 200,000.
An unbelievably good value! And even when you add a complete new glider, it is still a good value.
If one includes the reduction of injury risk, the value is even more!
What is a glider pilot's life worth?What is the avoidance of life in a wheelchair worth?
By comparison, what is the situation with cars?
There are about 30 million cars in Germany. Every year about 4,500 people are killed in road accidents. Not counting pedestrians, bicyclists, etc., about 4,000 people die in cars.
A car lasts about 10 years. In the life cycle of all cars, 40,000 people die. Or, in other words, every 400th car is involved in a fatal accident.
Something else: a glider offers a 70 times higher risk because it lasts 3.5 times longer.
Therefore, 70 times as much should be spent on safety features for a glider than on a car!
When you look at these costs, one would think that a manufacturer would make all of these safety items standard and everybody who bought one of their gliders would be forced to accept the cost of them. Being able to sleep well at night would make it worth to me. But we can't do this alone though, otherwise our gliders would be noticeably more expensive than those of the competition without these features.
But you, as customers have the power to buy only gliders that have all the sensible safety details
that can be manufactured and through this influence progress can be made!
Help all of us with this and, most importantly, develop your own safety consciousness!
So much for my version Mr. Volck’s talk at the Braunschweig Symposium. Now I want to be very personal and if you're a regular reader of this Web Site, you know that sometimes I can be very plain-spoken. So click on not to hear this from me.
OK, you want to hear more since you didn't jump to another site.
What I'm going to say applies to you, personally! Yes, you in front - you're the one who just made a date to take a trial flight in our DG-808C. And you there in back, you have already ordered a glider and it should be delivered in a few months! I look forward to your getting the especially good product that you want and with shining eyes get out of the cockpit and get together with our salesman to decide on a list of equipment.
But do you know what you are actually doing here?
You are ordering a sport vehicle - a “Toy for the Boy” for about Euro 130,000 or more.
Your hobby is worth that much to you and you have worked hard and successfully for it.
But your life is apparently not worth so much. Because for Euro 200,000 you can rescue it and stay among the living.
You don't have that much money? You don't need that much because we are offering you insurance.
The premium is Euro 6,000, less than 5% of the cost of your glider.
In case we need to pay off, we pay you no money. But we give you your life! And your health! Are you married? Children? OK, we will increase the payoff. We give your wife her husband back, and we give your children their father back! All this with no increase in premium!
You in the back row, don't you want to give Bruchsal a quick call and have the insurance I just described added to your order? And you here in front, don't you want to put check marks in the boxes beside the safety items?
Is that really so boorish what I have just written? But is it true?
My wife and I would like to be able to sleep knowing that we have made all possible meaningful technical and business arrangements which will make our gliders as safe as possible. What that has already cost in development time will never be mentioned again here.
And we also want to sleep peacefully in the knowledge that we have done everything we can to convince our customers of the value of these safety devices.
Always happy Landings!
K.-F. Weber
If you think I have written this in terms that are too strong, write and tell me so.
Or possibly you agree with me?
Betreff: Safety
Von: David Fee
Dear Mr. Weber, my compliments on an excellent web site and what appears to be an excellent product.
I am a new glider pilot ( not yet solo ) and am in a very safety conscious club.
This is the main reason I chose this club.
I am writing to respond to your challenge on the bottom of your web page entitled "How much is a glider pilot's life worth ?".
You asked if I thought your language was too strong or if I agreed with you.
I agree with you !
I am reading everything I can about glider accidents and their causes and prevention's in the hope that I can avoid them myself.
I was very happy to find your web site ( by searching Google for "glider" and "winch" ) which is so aware of safety and has so many good ideas.
Do not feel like you are boring or annoying people with your safety attitude - you are not.
Only a fool will ignore safety advice.
Of all of the sites I have looked at, you and an English site (www.gliding.co.uk ) are the most safety conscious.
My compliments to you, I have learned much from your site, and I will send your URL to all the pilots in my club in the hopes they will read it too.
Thanks you very much, sincerely....dave.
--
David Fee