Ground Operations, Margins, and Safety

On Wednesday, March 17, 2021 at 9:15:10 AM UTC-6, Papa3 wrote:
I'm sure Ryszard will chime in here with more info, but there was an accident during the seniors yesterday that resulted in serious leg injuries to the pilot. It was bad enough that he was flown by helicopter to a trauma center.

"This is what happened to Tom Johnson. V12. One of our club members is Tom’s partner in the Mini-Nimbus. He posted this on our email site as we are all anxious to hear about Tom’s status.

“V12 has a CG hook which is less directionally stable during the initial takeoff. Apparently the left wing dropped to the ground maybe due to propwash from the towplane. The left wingtip on the ground turned the glider about 30 degrees to the East where it departed the runway, crossed the service road and collided with a truck that one of the other contestants had parked next to the runway in violation of contest procedures. The glider submarined the body of the truck.�
Please keep Tom in your prayers a quick recovery, and full recovery."

Schweizers with their "training wheels" are very forgiving, but ships like Greta and the LS4 are not. Couple of things we need to do:

- Always assume the next glider to be launched will lose control at the start of tow. How much clear space do we have? Golf cart? Parked cars? Other gliders?

- As far as the pilot is concerned, if you drop the wing, just release immediately. Don't try to "save it". It's not worth it.

There's a lot more to this topic; probably worth addressing at the annual Safety Meeting. Suffice to say I think we are all getting complacent (me included) with our clear area/margins and need to get back to some hard-and-fast rules about keeping the launch area clear and safe.
Also keep photographers out of harm's way. We winch launch and like to keep areas ahead of the leading edge of the staged glider clear of objects and persons in case of an unplanned excursion. Same applies to aerotow.

Frank Whiteley