Full-Scale Crash Test of a Retrofitted Reinforced Glider Cockpit

Abstract

Pilot’s safety is a principal objective of sailplane design. From the earliest types on, structure modifications ensured the well-being of pilots in unfortunate events as seen in the Hannover H.1 Vamypr’s balloon tires. With increasing performance and popularity of postwar gliding, the severeness and number of accidents rose. The introduction and constant re-sharpening of certification protocols brought some level of “emergency landing” safety standard. In the recent years we observed that lethal accidents have stagnated in numbers while the number of active glider pilots has decreased. This is in part because of ever growing ambitions and because modern, crashworthy designs have not yet outgrown the active fleet percentage of older sailplane designs. With the crash test results of a retrofitted Astir CS presented here, we contribute to two objectives: Firstly, a crash under realistic circumstances is documented with high-resolution, high accuracy sensors (accelerometers, dummy data, Digital Image Correlation and strain gauges). Secondly, it is experimentally shown that by retrofitting an existing glider of older safety standard with 3230g of additional structural reinforcements, a crash at 15 m/s with 45° flight path angle is survivable with only moderate injuries to the legs.