On Aug 27, 9:19*pm, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Aug 28, 1:13*am, JJ Sinclair wrote:





On Aug 26, 6:01*pm, Bruce Hoult wrote:

On Aug 27, 9:15*am, Mike Schumann
wrote:

There's a big difference between doing these kinds of maneuvers at a
private strip where you aren't going to kill anyone but yourself, vs.
doing them at a public airport where there's lots of other traffic you
may or not know about who aren't particularly appreciative of having
someone hotdogging in the pattern.

Missed approaches are a standard thing that is practiced by power
pilots all the time. It is true that glider low passes are a bit
faster followed by a steeper climb than Cessna missed approaches, but
they're a very similar speed and climb angle to 737 ones.

So It all just depends on how mixed your traffic is.

I learned to fly Tomahawks at Wellington International (110,000
movements/year), where most of the traffic was in fact 737's,
WhisperJets, A320s plus the odd 747SP/767/777 depending on exactly
which year you're talking about. But there aren't gliders there.

At our actual glider field there is a lot of light aircraft and
helicopter training, plus small turboprops (e.g. Cessna Caravan), plus
a Q300 ("Dash 8") service starting in October.

If you're flying somewhere that's only got single-engine 1950's spam
cans from Wichita or Vero Beach flying around fat dumb and happy then,
yeah, gliders could exceed their expectations.

Bruce,
Would you do a low pass if you knew there was an FAA inspector on the
field? Then try your "missed approach" tale on him?

I certainly can't see any reason why not, if it is conducted as a
practice final glide and intentions are announced on the radio at the
standard 10km and/or 5 km out.

At our club airfield (NZPP) we often had the deputy director of the
Civil Aviation Authority (NZ's equiv of your FAA) doing low passes in
his Discus, until he retired and moved to another city.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

There are a couple of US regs that could be interpreted either way.
Not flying within 500 feet of people, places or things unless in the
act of landing (your missed approach might work here) and no
acrobatics below 1500 feet where acro in defined as an abrupt maneuver
involving a 30 dergee change in attitude (pull up could be meet this
definition). I saw one top US pilot level off his final glide at 500
feet when the FBO announced there was an FAA inspector on the field.
The accident report from the Idaho crash is posted and it reads like a
botched low pass. He flew down-wind at 75 feet going fairly fast, then
pulled up to an estimated 300 feet, stalled and did a 2 turn spin to
crash. He never got low enough to take advantage of ground effect and
the BG-12 would have slowly bled off his initial speed because of this
and being a good bit more draggy than a glass ship.
Too bad, he probably never knew what was required for a successful hi
speed low pass.
JJ