Posted Wednesday, May 27, 2009 @ 04:08 PM  

I second Eugenio's comment (as usual) and I would add that I think the original notion that motorgliders have their safety in better glide (= better gliding range to a suitable landing spot) rather than a secondary, back-up ignition system in case of engine failures makes sense. This is more true in the RF 5 b than many other motorgliders, in my experience I¨d say that a 1:28 glide rate is not at all impossible with a folding prop. In addition, engine failures are not unheard of even in dual ignition aeroplanes and in a recent thread on a Piper Cub forum there was consensus to recommend an emergency (glider pilots call it "landing out" and it's not considered a big deal) landing instead of going for a dicey air restart. Quite a lot o Cub drivers seemed to have had engine failures.

And let's not forget that the Elvis equivalent in Fournier Flying, René Fournier himself called his biography "Mon réves et mes combats" (my dream and my fights- unfortunately I haven´t been able to get my hands on a copy yet) were the latter supposedly alludes to the difficulties in persuading the authorities to accept single ignition motorgliders on the above stated presumption. Let´s not prove him wrong, what?