On Jul 21, 6:16*pm, BobW wrote:
(Groan.) Well...sincere praise to the pilot for his honesty 'after the fact.'
How utterly terrible the 'opportunity' to display it, and may no other glider
pilot ever have to make such a choice in the future.

I'll be honest, the only time I ever experienced a "real" rudder wag
signal, I also released immediately. You're under tow and barely
climbing, there is obviously something quite wrong, you're
anticipating the tow plane to signal for a release any moment, your
hand is already on the release, you're looking around to assess
landing options, then you get a signal (any signal will do by that
point) and reflexively pull the release. In my case, though, the tow
pilot made a big slow circle back over the runway before making the
signal. As soon as I pulled the release, the problem was obvious, I
closed the spoilers and landed normally.

I asked the tow pilot afterwards why he waited, he said that all the
pilots at that operation had been briefed to delay, if possible, until
the glider was in a position to make a normal pattern. Despite
demonstrating the rudder wag during training, asking people about the
signals during every flight reviews, etc., in practice at that site,
well over half the pilots who were given rudder wags for open spoilers
released immediately.

I'm aware of two other fatal accidents following a rudder wag.
Perhaps, we are all too dense to be flying. Perhaps some, like
myself, who were flying long before the rudder wag signal was
"standardized", are confused by the fact that it was once commonly
used as a signal to indicate that this would be a good point to
release. Or, perhaps it is just a bad idea...

Marc