On Thursday, July 6, 2000 3:00:00 AM UTC-4, Tom Serkowski wrote:
If one has nearly full spoiler prior to the flare, a 'wheel' landing is almost
impossible and is a perfect setup for a very nice minimum energy landing.

Think about the situation of being in a tail high attitude, well above stall,
main wheel a few inches above the ground. The CG is behind the wheel, so a
sudden down gust pushes the glider down. When the main wheel hits the ground,
the tail is still high and so the AOA increases and next thing you know,
you're at 10 feet with no airspeed. In a 'nose dragger' such as ASK-21,
DG-505, etc, the nose wheel will hit hard, maybe colapse, but will also cause
the nose to bounce up and again you're left wit altitude and no airspeed.

I fly as steep an approach as I can, then use nearly full spoiler at touchdown
and have never had a problem in over 2000 hours and 27 years of soaring in the
southwestern USA.

Most of the landing incidents in both gliders and airplanes that I've seen
have been due to too much energy at touchdown - not too little. I don't count
landing short of the runway as too little energy, that's a poor approach.

Just my $0.02 worth.


--


ASW-20b
http://www.Serkowski.com

Ajajaj! reading these posts it seems like there is more misconceptions about landings as there is stars in the sky. I learned to fly in Croatia on an L-13. Full flaps and you bleed out airspeed right above the runway until you do not hear the wind noise and at that point you are on the ground. You start your flare with full spoilers and then you smoothly retract them as you keep the glider right above the ground. Once on the ground, you either pop them out again to shorten your rollout or keep them in to go a little farther. How you land depends on the glider type. I miss flaps on L23 and that does not allow me to slow down as much as L13 and rollout is longer. Anyhow, the wing is STALLED if you do it right and there is no returning back in the air at that point. Spoilers out make it impossible to become airborne again after a full stall landing. I landed L23 in some pretty stiff crosswinds and never had control issues.
Jantar Standard is a special case. It was designed to be landed on tailwheel as the angle of incidence of the wing is very low. As long as one does not go crazy on lifting the nose too high and slamming the main wheel down from 4 ft.
Every type has it's own special flavor for landings but if you land wheel or both at the minimum speed possible for that attitude and get the spoilers out, you are staying down. Touch down too fast in anything and you just became a test pilot. Add a sudden gust to the tire bounce and leave your spoilers in and you are in for some interesting times.
Proper training and repetition of things forgotten is the key.
FAA cutting out spins and engine failures in takeoff is a testimony to what is wrong with flight training not what is better. Not training pilots for something that WILL happen to them sooner or later is insane.
Making a 3deg approach on a VFR flight is another insanity I will never get.. You are dragging on the engine power for 3-5 miles and if it quits, you will never make the runway. You could have come high within gliding distance and practice gliding to a landing every time to prepare for that day when the engine does quit. I had five of those and not a scratch on the planes.
Proof is in the pudding.