Soaring Safety

Last November, I chaired a panel at the local SSA affiliate (PASCO)'s
Soaring Safety Seminar entitled "Complacency: What Me Worry?" I wrote
up my part of that and made it available at

http://ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/soar...2007_talk.html

Just today, PASCO got a request from the Capetown S.A. soaring club to
reprint the article with the following explanation:

"The reason for writing to you is that my gliding club was unfortunate
to lose a member recently in a ridge accident. He was an extremely
experienced ridge pilot and only on his eighth flight in his brand new
DG808. Your PASCO Safety Seminar article titled "Complacency" is
therefore of particular relevance to our members."

My Soaring Safety page

http://ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/soaring/safety.html

has links to several other highly relevant articles. With respect to
ridge soaring and the too regular fatalities of "extremely experienced
ridge pilots" please see the links to Henry Combs article and JJ
Sinclair's. Gantenbrink's speech is a must read if you haven't seen
it, though I suspect most of you have. But, then again, it is worth
reading more than once.

Hoping this helps.

Martin
N56WT

On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:17:44 -0800 (PST), wrote:

Last November, I chaired a panel at the local SSA affiliate (PASCO)'s
Soaring Safety Seminar entitled "Complacency: What Me Worry?" I wrote
up my part of that and made it available at

Very good article.
I just got the official statistics of Germany for 2007.

20 fatal accidents with German gliders involved (compared to 10 in
2006).
15 of them abroad, 12 in the French Alps.


German autorities suppose that the very bad weather in 2007 made
pilots with insufficient experience go to fly in better weather
conditions that can be found in the French Alps.
They also think that the competition situation due to the OLC might
have made some pilots accept higher risks.



Bye
Andreas

Very good post and links. I consider myself a novice ridge flyer and,
despite having done a fair amount of reading on the subject, have
never seen this phenomenon addressed. Being low on ridge experience, I
tend to give the mountain a pretty wide berth but, as my confidence
level goes up and I start flying closer, the chances of encountering
this will increase. It has happened to me only a couple times at
altitude (once while still on tow) and, initially, scared me pretty
good each time. Being at what seems to be a 90 degree bank with full
opposite control inputs is a little disconcerting. A few seconds of
"What the*#!%?" followed by "Wow! Let me get back to that thermal!"
Great food for thought as the ridge season in the northeast
approaches.

Mike

On Feb 13, 12:17*pm, wrote:
Last November, I chaired a panel at the local SSA affiliate (PASCO)'s
Soaring Safety Seminar entitled "Complacency: What Me Worry?" I wrote
up my part of that and made it available at

http://ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/soar...2007_talk.html

Just today, PASCO got a request from the Capetown S.A. soaring club to
reprint the article with the following explanation:

"The reason for writing to you is that my gliding club was unfortunate
to lose a member recently in a ridge accident. *He was an extremely
experienced ridge pilot and only on his eighth flight in his brand new
DG808. Your PASCO Safety Seminar article titled "Complacency" is
therefore of particular relevance to our members."

My Soaring Safety page

http://ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/soaring/safety.html

has links to several other highly relevant articles. With respect to
ridge soaring and the too regular fatalities of "extremely experienced
ridge pilots" please see the links to Henry Combs article and JJ
Sinclair's. Gantenbrink's speech is a must read if you haven't seen
it, though I suspect most of you have. But, then again, it is worth
reading more than once.

Hoping this helps.

Martin
N56WT

In the Henry Combs article, what did happen to Chet Lymon?
He survived and so did/does he confirm his roll control authority was
overpowered?

This discussion brings to mind an episode I had relatively early in my
soaring life. After licensing at Tehachepi in a 2-33, I went to
Crystal to
transition to glass in their Grob 103's. After being cleared to solo I
was flying along the San Gabriel's in an area that had been shown to
me.
The lift was sketchy and I was flying long passes through bands of
weak lift, not very close to the mountain, (I was and still am quite
cowardly). After hitting a strengthening patch of lift through two
passes, I had the brilliant idea to try circling. I made two circles
just like it was any other thermal I had flown and then, between
heartbeats, It all went to schist. I heard a loud bang and instantly i
was no longer flying. the car keys in my shirt pocket were pinned
against the canopy and all the gravel and dust on the floor was
floating in front of me. my angle of bank entering into this was
shallow and I think both wings hit at the same time. If it had been
one wing only, I would have been vertical or inverted faster than I
could have moved the controls to react.
Luckily I was pointed away from the mountain, and recovery was to
simply nose down and pull out. My own personal recovery took
considerably longer. There is no skill in the world that could tame
that kind of sharp edged shear while rock polishing, in my estimation.

Mark Jardini

Sadly, we lost Stew Kissel shortly after I wrote "Don't Smack the
Mountain-101", so we need to add yet another name to the list of
"Mysterious high energy impacts on the side of a mountain". I live by
the rules I stated and so far (35 years & 5000 hours in the Sierras &
Whites) they have kept me from impacting the mountain.
JJ

On Feb 14, 2:06*pm, wrote:
In the Henry Combs article, what did happen to Chet Lymon?
He survived and so did/does he confirm his roll control authority was
overpowered?

I checked with my friend who knew Combs and gave me the article, but
so far he hasn't been able to provide an answer to the above question.
I did do a search of the NTSB database and found the report attached
below which says he encountered wind shear. The longer report lists
the wind as 270@13, so I suspect they really meant a thermally induced
wind shear. If that was the case, it wasn't quite the same mechanism
that Combs described but the point is still there. Anytime we fly
close to terrain, life is much more dangerous since there's less time
(no time sometimes) to recover from an anomaly -- be it a wing lifted
(as Combs describes), wind shear that causes a stall, etc.

Hope this helps.

Martin

NTSB Identification: LAX84FA315 .
The docket is stored on NTSB microfiche number 25291.
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Saturday, May 26, 1984 in LLANO, CA
Aircraft: Bölkow PHOEBUS A-1, registration: N7700
Injuries: 1 Serious.
CIRCLING IN LIFT NEAR A HIGH RIDGE THE SAILPLANE ENCOUNTERED WHAT THE
PLT REFERRED TO AS WIND SHEAR. LOSING CONTROL, THE SAILPLANE COLLIDED
WITH A TREE BEFORE IMPACTING THE GROUND.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable
cause(s) of this accident as follows:

WEATHER CONDITION..WINDSHEAR
AIRSPEED(VS)..NOT MAINTAINED..PILOT IN COMMAND

Mark Jardini wrote:
This discussion brings to mind an episode I had relatively early in my
soaring life. After licensing at Tehachepi in a 2-33, I went to
Crystal to
transition to glass in their Grob 103's. After being cleared to solo I
was flying along the San Gabriel's in an area that had been shown to
me.
The lift was sketchy and I was flying long passes through bands of
weak lift, not very close to the mountain, (I was and still am quite
cowardly). After hitting a strengthening patch of lift through two
passes, I had the brilliant idea to try circling. I made two circles
just like it was any other thermal I had flown and then, between
heartbeats, It all went to schist.

"Going to schist" When rock polishing goes bad.
Yeah, yeah, I know what your thinking "How gneiss."
;-)


Shawn

I remember reading an article, I thought it was Henry Combs, but not
sure, about a technique of rolling inverted deliberately and moving
away from the mountain inverted, when encountering such a gust.

It made sense to me, if you roll authority is less than the strength
of the gust, then don't fight it and even reverse input and let
yourself go inverted. You can then turn away inverted, or at least not
into the mountain. Sounds like a Judo move to me.

Does anyone remember this article or concur with this technique?

On Feb 15, 12:39 pm, Shawn wrote:
Mark Jardini wrote:
This discussion brings to mind an episode I had relatively early in my
soaring life. After licensing at Tehachepi in a 2-33, I went to
Crystal to
transition to glass in their Grob 103's. After being cleared to solo I
was flying along the San Gabriel's in an area that had been shown to
me.
The lift was sketchy and I was flying long passes through bands of
weak lift, not very close to the mountain, (I was and still am quite
cowardly). After hitting a strengthening patch of lift through two
passes, I had the brilliant idea to try circling. I made two circles
just like it was any other thermal I had flown and then, between
heartbeats, It all went to schist.

"Going to schist" When rock polishing goes bad.
Yeah, yeah, I know what your thinking "How gneiss."
;-)

Shawn

Oh, that's just marbelous.