At 08:30 16 April 2009, Z Goudie wrote:
In the distant past I saw a friend die when he rocked the wings as a too
slow signal.

Nose down to maintain a safe speed and wait for the winch driver to get
the message. If he doesn't, pull off, land next to the winch and
threaten him with physical violence if he does it again....

Your friends fatal accident, amongst others, is why we gave up rocking the
wings as a too slow signal. Yawing the tail for too slow would be even more
likely to lead to a spin!

The current UK system is to yaw the glider (waggle the tail) with the
rudder for 'too fast' and to lower the nose for 'too slow'. The latter
also reduces the chance of stalling or spinning by reducing the effective
wing loading and angle of attack, notwithstanding the dangers of
manoeuvring close to the stall. BTW, we no longer ease forward to unload
the glider before signalling too fast, as this could initially be
misinterpreted as a too slow signal. If the launch is very much too fast,
or doesn't slow down after signalling, pilots are advised to climb gently
to a minimum safe circuit height and then pull off. The biggest loads on
the glider's structure occur near the top of the launch, and when the
pilot is pulling back hard.

Some of the German Clubs I have flown at rocked the wings for too fast and
waggled the rudder rather rapidly over a small range for too slow. The
latter was intended as a signal to the launch marshall to tell the winch
driver to speed up via the landline telephone that they have to have in
that country.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody has died and no gliders have suffered
structural damage as a result of giving the currently recommended UK
signals.

Derek Copeland