At 17:02 30 August 2018, wrote:
On Thursday, August 30, 2018 at 12:24:58 AM UTC-4,

wro=
te:
Three people were killed in the crash of a 2-32 today.

This is an especially sad situation. The pilot was Don Post, the
owner of
S=
towe Soaring, was a good friend to all of the glider pilots flying out
of
M=
orrisville Stowe airport. For the last 10 years Don had been the
backbone
o=
f the soaring movement at MVL.

We of course, also want to remember all the lost souls and their
family
mem=
bers as well. =20

For those of you who fly 2-32s who were not checked out in them
by a pilot
=
as competent as Roy McMaster, who checked me out in 1967, it is
important
t=
o remember that the 2-32 can be an especially lethal sailplane to
fly that
=
has often ended up killing the pilot, and on some occasions the
passengers
=
in the rear seat as well!=20

A crucial factor is the laminar flow NACA airfoils that were used,
that
res=
ults in most stalls falling into a spin immediately. It is especially
impor=
tant to fly patterns well above the stall speed, at least 70 mph, and
if
yo=
u plan to use full dive brakes to fly the pattern at 80 mph, never
pulling
=
full dive brakes below about 60 mph as at this airspeed attempting
to
recov=
er from a rapid descent results in the tail slamming down hard:
this fact
c=
an be discovered by simply looking at the last bulkhead in the tail
of
most=
2-32s, that has either been replaced or doubled over.=20

As a former FBO who owned five 2-32s over a 16 year period, at
the 1971
SSA=
convention I asked Bernie Carris, the test pilot at Schweitzer, why
were
t=
here so many 2-32 spin ins. What he then told the group attending
the FBO
m=
eeting that I believe was published in Soaring Magazine was that
the 2-32
h=
ad a peculiar spin characteristic: after entering a fully developed
spin,
t=
hat might take more than one turn to get to, the 2-32 can then
take up to
t=
wo turns to recover, and if a recovery is not held for two turns,
upon
rest=
arting it will take two more turns to recover. Of course, at low
altitude,
=
with typical spin entries starting with the ship appearing to roll
over
ont=
o its back, there may not be enough time to even recover the
spin.=20

As a former FBO whose knowledge of these peculiar flight
characteristics
ha=
unts me to this day, it was not my mission in life to expound on
these
sort=
s of issues after leaving the business 36 years ago. One of the real
proble=
ms that the SSA and the FAA has today, is the fact that the old
timers
like=
myself, who are aware of the Achilles tendons that some gliders
posses,
do=
not have the time to go around pointing out the hidden dangers in
the
spor=
t including the hidden dangers that only become obvious when you
are also
r=
unning a shop that repairs the sailplanes you sell, which in the 70s
includ=
ed Blanik L-13s, that had a pair of Achilles tendons that kept on
bringing
=
back to us ships that CFIGs were flying in which they landed with
flaps
aga=
inst our advice and when low, instead of pushing the dive brakes
off,
pushe=
d the flaps, off, a mistake you can make in any flapped sailplane by
the
wa=
y, but seemed to be a bigger problem in Blaniks than others
because of the
=
close proximity of the flap and dive brake handles. These sorts of
issues,
=
like the fact that around 30% of the ASH-26e owners on their first
flights
=
thought the brakes were locked when they were not, is just
another example
=
of this sort of human interface problem that some gliders have that
repeat
=
regularly or on first flights do not get properly publicized, one of
the
mo=
st common accidents that often ends up in fatalities being the
canopy
flopp=
ing on take off, which after another triple fatality in a 2-32 accident
Sch=
weitzer determined did not prevent a glider pilot from controlling
the
glid=
er while ignoring the canopy completely and yet there is a video on
the
web=
showing how to fly a 1-34 while holding the canopy with one hand
and
flyin=
g with the other, and by the way, the gliders that end up crashing
with
pil=
ots attempting to close their canopies instead of flying them, turn
out to
=
include other two seaters as well.=20


Stephen Fried


Sorry for your loss, Steve.. That's a tough one. I gave rides and did
some instructing in a 2-32 at Arizona Soaring back in 1973-1974.
Laz Horvath made sure that he gave me a very thorough check-out
(mentioning most all of what you wrote above) before he let me go
with it. The 2-32 was the primary workhorse and bread winner in
his operation, and any "down time" for repairs severely affected his
operation's revenue bottom line, so he was extremely careful with
whom he let fly it. I assume the same is probably true of most USA
commercial operators who are lucky enough to have a 2-32 at their
disposal. Being able to fit 2 passengers in the back seat for rides is
a huge plus for that glider when one compares it to all others.

RO