Getting out of bed is dangerous. Crossing the street is dangerous. Driving a car to the airport is dangerous. Flying a glider is not dramatically more dangerous than various other dangerous everyday activities. Statistically, you are more likely to get in an accident on the road on the way to the airport than while flying. I found some accident stats showing around 5-10 deaths a year from soaring gliders. Whatever you do, don't imagine you are invincible, there is always danger, do proper preflight inspections and be aware of your training and proper procedures, do the right thing and stay out of trouble and enjoy!

http://www.soaringsafety.org/ssf-06/2006...

The pressure altimeters are not related to the 'pitot tube(s)' -
They operate with pressure obtained from static ports (L and R side of nose ) -
Pressure altimeters read field elevation when airplane on ground using QNH - -

Precision height measurement (above TDZE) is done by radio altimeters -
It is a bounced signal from ground to an antenna (located belly of airplane) -

Radio altimeters are used for Cat.II and Cat.III ILS approaches -
They do not read an altitude, they read a HEIGHT (sbove TDZE) -
Radio altimeters read "zero" when airplane is on ground -

Pressure altimeters are accurate (especially if certificated for RVSM) -
However they do not have the accuracy of radio altimeters -

Probably not many (if any) -
How do you open a cabin door against some 250 mph relative wind...?
And if you could do, when you jump, you could hit the wing or stabilizer -

Forget about parachutes in airliners -
The only plane it could have worked was the tail stairs exit - in a 727 -
Ask D.B. Cooper -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Coope...

While there are all the thumbs down for theperson11, where are all the better answers?

It is actually a hard question to answer, because the efficiency of the fuel, in other words, the potential energy per gallon varies quite a bit with specific density.

Frankly, I don't really know the answer, but if you look at it as "what can a turbofan achieve in terms of its specific fuel consumption" a Boeing 747-400 with RB211-524H engines is about 80% more efficient in fuel use than a Toyota Prius carrying one person, in terms of passenger miles per gallon.

Of course, this neglects the many tonnes of freight the aircraft is also carrying, so we can say it is at least twice as efficient as a Prius.

So lacking a % efficiency for the engines, "pretty darned efficient" works for me!

Llanito or Yanito is a form of Andalusian Spanish heavily laced with words from English and other languages, spoken in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar.

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