Hello Guys,
I want to suggest it may be VERY GOOD that the harness attach in Bob's KR took
only part of the pilot's momentum and then failed. Bob and his test pilot may
want to be extremely happy over it.
You might recall how NASCAR driver Dale Erndhart was killed. His car hit the
wall at a rather low speed, his torso was firmly restrained but his head was
not. It was a fatality.
Per the wiki on Dale: "ARCA race car driver Blaise Alexander died in a race car
crash suffering from the same life-ending injuries as Dale Earndhardt."
Just a few years ago, after Dales crash, I read about an RV-taildragger
emergency landing which included a photo. In the photo, the RV was resting on
it's mains and the nose. It appeared undamaged except for the displaced motor
cowling it was resting on. Everything else looked undamaged. Both occupants
were killed. How could that be? My guess was that it 'tripped' on
something, nosed over and came to an abrupt stop and subsequently the occupants
experienced what Dale did. Of course I don't have access to a coroners
report.
Crashes and survivability are complex. Crush zones, mass, momentum, travel
path, angular velocities, surface items hit, etc. It would be quite a
challenge to engineer and calibrate the perfect forgiving harness but I feel
some 'give' would be good in most cases, face injuries aside.
Just something to consider before beefing up that attachment.
By the way, I notice in Jacks webpage of Gene Byrd's crash that "His lap belt
attached to the rear spar broke free from the spar".
Regards
Tom
