Tom Gardner wrote:


Once, when I was still pre-solo, with a 15kt headwind, I felt unsure
of the K13's penetration, so I deliberately turned onto finals at
about 600'
only just outside the airfield boundary. Given that its a 6000ft
landing strip,
there wasn't exactly a problem with overshoot, but there would have
been a walk.

However the instructor told me to get to 75knots and apply full
airbrake.
It felt like a 45degree dive into the ground - somewhat exhilarating.
I got serious groundrush at (I guess) about 100ft and consciously
started to pull out the dive. Very quickly I was satisfied that I
wasn't
going to hit the deck, and so returned to the roundout and pleasantly
short landing.

Overall the speed was always more than adequate for the windshear
conditions, and the plane lost height and stopped remarkably (to me)
quickly. During the debrief neither the instructor nor I was
concerned about my reactions during that manoeuver. There was
more discussion about how much deeper it would have been
sensible for me to go in K13/15kt.

Would I recommend it? Of course not!
Would I do it again? Yes, if it seemed that was the only course
of action, or if I was more skilled.


Hello Tom. To be sure, if you ever need to be doing this at Aston Down
then you've got something very wrong :-)

The first demo given to me was at the more extreme end of what's
possible, and I think there may have been an element of willy waving on
the part of the chap demonstrating (what with the hop over the wall).
And I take the point that it's not usually necessary to finish the
manoeuvre at ground level. I was reintroduced to the technique in the
context of winch launch failures at awkward heights and positions in
short fields. Not enough height to do a 360, and marginally high for
landing ahead. So everything had to be done pretty accurately.

Alastair