LAK-12 Question

I fly a LAK-12 and love it. It is however kept rigged in a hanger.
Rigging is a pain if the guy in charge is clueless - but with time and
preparation - it can be made a lot less painless. Use wing stands
until ready for the final line-up and push and save the wingmans back.

It is easy and nice to fly empty - and very fast when loaded. Have a
few +500km flights in mine including a flight of almost 8 hours. There
is something very satisfying about 170km final glides.

It is also very strong and solid. Things are well put together. Mine
had a slightly off-white epoxy finish which should never crack. It has
subsequently been painted with a polyurethane paint which should also
be hard wearing and it has a glossy white colour. The control hook-ups
are a pleasure to use. And the canopy that locks into the open
position actually works very well. The fittings in the factory trailer
are also solid and the glider is very secure in the trailer. The
trailer is very long (12.5m) and weighs just over a ton loaded. I tow
it with a Landrover Freelander (2.0 TDI) and can tow comfortably at
the national speed limit (120km/h). The trailer has plenty of ground
clearance and towing out of rough fields is not a major issue.

I cannot get mine to spin - at the stall it just wallows around - or
the nose drops and the glider accelerates. It loops very easily. High-
speed flypasts are spectacular with the long wings.

All in all a great machine. I inherited an ASW-20 and had to decide
which aircraft to keep - as value wise they where the same. The LAK is
however 16 years newer and in far better condition. So it was goodbye
to the ASW-20.

Clinton
LAK 12 S/N 6229

50:1?
Land Out?

huh?????????

wrote:
50:1?
Land Out?

huh?????????

If you fly conservatively (well within the boundaries of your skill and
glider's performance), you will rarely, if ever, land out; conversely,
if you fly aggressively, you will land out often. The pilot determines
the risk of landing out, not the glider. The performance of the glider
will determine how far away from home the landout occurs. An aggressive
pilot with a Cherokee will land out conveniently close to home and be
retrieved in time for dinner, but an aggressive pilot in a Lak 12 might
not be retrieved until the next day, cold and hungry.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

Eric referred to aggression level being a predictor of landout probability.

It is possibly semantics but to me aggression equates to pushing the limits
without consideration. An approach that generally results in running out of
height and ideas at some point. Even in a contest you have to finish tasks if
you want to score well, so there is a careful cognitive process of assessment of
conditions, personal and equipment performance and acceptable risk of landout to
determine how hard you push. When racing I generally have little to lose so I
can take risks - the top positions in the pack will be more averse to a landout,
because that will demote them. The winning by not losing idea of George Moffatt.

Same applies to personal flying. We should be balancing risk and goals
analytically.

My club is averse to XC flying, it is very hard to get anyone to retrieve you.
Since not getting retrieved is at best inconvenient and could be bad for your
health, I have to fly conservatively most of the time.

74 flights and 145 hours in my Std Cirrus - 1:37 on a GOOOD day. One land out,
at another airfield. With a nearly two hour average - including the winch
launches at sunset for a hangar landing, you can see I am generally flying in XC
weather. But the conservative flying style means I have only a couple of 300+ km
flights. We have pilots who own 1:29 performance ships that have never landed
out in 10 years of flying. Clearly glider performance is not a predictor of
landout probability.

Conversely, flying in regional contests I can (and do) take a lot more risk in
terms of land out. My flying has improved, as a result. I really believe that
glider pilots should be encouraged to explore the performance capabilities of
their aircraft. I disagree with the aggressive word though, to me this is all
about developing judgement. In this context aggression would be referring to
Instrumental aggression (aggression directed towards obtaining some goal,
considered to be a learned response to a situation - care of wikipedia.)
I would prefer to think of setting a risk level - What is possible today, and
what risk of landout can I accept? As a measure - I tend to be below the half
way position in contests. With my conservative flying meaning I fail to exploit
the conditions and capabilities fully. I generally share this area with the
other mis-judgers, either too conservative or trying too hard. (aggressive if
you like)

Now. I know Eric is a very experienced XC pilot so some opinions please.

Should we be landing out frequently enough to account for luck only, or more?
Should we ever intentionally fly aggressively as per the definition of aggression?

BG,

I think what we have here is a difference in our "english". US usage
of aggressive vs conservative. Different points on a range of
approaches to a task. Foolhardy or Impulsively, or even carelessly &
dangerously would be beyond aggressive on the scale.

I think of aggressive when I tilt the balance of rewards vs risk in
the direction of risk (in this case, landing out, not damage/injury).
Conservative is avoiding the risk of landing out at any cost, usually
due to logistics of a retrieve.

US use of term aggressive may be cultural, come to think about it...

Changing the subject, it's interesting that you have the same problem
we have of clubs not liking XC flights. There really seems to be two
types of glider pilots out there, at times!

Cheers,

Kirk
66

In article . com,
"kirk.stant" wrote:

BG,

I think what we have here is a difference in our "english". US usage
of aggressive vs conservative. Different points on a range of
approaches to a task. Foolhardy or Impulsively, or even carelessly &
dangerously would be beyond aggressive on the scale.

I think of aggressive when I tilt the balance of rewards vs risk in
the direction of risk (in this case, landing out, not damage/injury).
Conservative is avoiding the risk of landing out at any cost, usually
due to logistics of a retrieve.

US use of term aggressive may be cultural, come to think about it...

Changing the subject, it's interesting that you have the same problem
we have of clubs not liking XC flights. There really seems to be two
types of glider pilots out there, at times!

Cheers,

Kirk
66

Man, I hate clubs that discourage x-country flying. Our little club,
Southern Eagles Soaring, flying out of LaGrange, Georgia, USA, whole
heartedly encourages x-country, badge, and contest flying. One of the
first flights of our "new" two-place glass bird resulted in a honest cow
pasture landout. Of course, we were not too thrilled about the towplane
landing out in a cow pasture...

Man, I hate clubs that discourage x-country flying. Our little club,
Southern Eagles Soaring, flying out of LaGrange, Georgia, USA, whole
heartedly encourages x-country, badge, and contest flying. One of the
first flights of our "new" two-place glass bird resulted in a honest cow
pasture landout. Of course, we were not too thrilled about the towplane
landing out in a cow pasture...- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm totally with Wally on XC flying with the club. I've been taking
students out for 100K or longer flights. They get a chance to see
things from a totally different prospective. Wally, you forgot to
mention that we were doing a triangle speed run for the second time
that day, after we had broken the Georgia record. It least this time
it was a 3,500 foot field, and it didn't even have any emu's!

kirk.stant wrote:
BG,

I think what we have here is a difference in our "english". US usage
of aggressive vs conservative. Different points on a range of
approaches to a task. Foolhardy or Impulsively, or even carelessly &
dangerously would be beyond aggressive on the scale.

I think of aggressive when I tilt the balance of rewards vs risk in
the direction of risk (in this case, landing out, not damage/injury).
Conservative is avoiding the risk of landing out at any cost, usually
due to logistics of a retrieve.

US use of term aggressive may be cultural, come to think about it...

Changing the subject, it's interesting that you have the same problem
we have of clubs not liking XC flights. There really seems to be two
types of glider pilots out there, at times!

Cheers,

Kirk
66

Hi Kirk

As I said probably semantics.
Have been actively working on getting some of our members to fly a little
further. Limited success so far, but I am painfully persistent...

We definitely have a few kinds of glider pilots. Broadly the goldfish bowl types
and the XC types. Wild variation in other attributes within the groups. For
example the highest risk taker and most likely candidate for a BIG moment in a
glider - feels the danger represented by outlanding is too high to risk, and
flies very limited XC in very conservative mode. Then does low level aerobatics
and redline wormburners over the runway at home. One has to wonder.

Inadvertently changed my signature there when I re-installed my news reader -
have to fix it.

Bruce

"BG" wrote in message
...
kirk.stant wrote:
BG,

I think what we have here is a difference in our "english". US usage
of aggressive vs conservative. Different points on a range of
approaches to a task. Foolhardy or Impulsively, or even carelessly &
dangerously would be beyond aggressive on the scale.

I think of aggressive when I tilt the balance of rewards vs risk in
the direction of risk (in this case, landing out, not damage/injury).
Conservative is avoiding the risk of landing out at any cost, usually
due to logistics of a retrieve.

US use of term aggressive may be cultural, come to think about it...

Changing the subject, it's interesting that you have the same problem
we have of clubs not liking XC flights. There really seems to be two
types of glider pilots out there, at times!

Cheers,

Kirk
66

Hi Kirk

As I said probably semantics.
Have been actively working on getting some of our members to fly a little
further. Limited success so far, but I am painfully persistent...

We definitely have a few kinds of glider pilots. Broadly the goldfish bowl
types and the XC types. Wild variation in other attributes within the
groups. For example the highest risk taker and most likely candidate for a
BIG moment in a glider - feels the danger represented by outlanding is too
high to risk, and flies very limited XC in very conservative mode. Then
does low level aerobatics and redline wormburners over the runway at home.
One has to wonder.

Inadvertently changed my signature there when I re-installed my news
reader - have to fix it.

Bruce

One way to describe agressiveness is that a conservative pilot will fly M=2
on a 4 knot day and an agressive pilot may fly M=8 on a 4 knot day. With
flight analysis programs feeding NMEA data to PDA glide software you can
determine the McCready setting the pilot is using. I see a lot of very
successful pilots flying aggressively that way. These guys succeed because
they're very good at finding their next source of lift.

Another way to describe a conservative XC pilot is that he will always have
two 'known-safe" landing spots within gliding range using half his published
max L/D corrected for headwind/tailwind.

I'm conservative both ways.

I'm not sure what scares pilots most about landouts. I find that light
airplane pilots with a lot of XC experience are less stressed than those who
have rarely landed away from their home field. It's probably just fear of
the unknown - what they don't know is that airportrs are pretty much alike.

It's also possible instructors, knowingly or otherwise, have taught landing
patterns using landmarks near the home field. The student instinctively
knows the "red barn" he uses to turn base won't be there at another airfield
and that scares him. It's really great if a student can get experience
landing at several different fields.

Bill Daniels

kirk.stant wrote:
BG,

I think what we have here is a difference in our "english". US usage
of aggressive vs conservative. Different points on a range of
approaches to a task. Foolhardy or Impulsively, or even carelessly &
dangerously would be beyond aggressive on the scale.

I think of aggressive when I tilt the balance of rewards vs risk in
the direction of risk (in this case, landing out, not damage/injury).
Conservative is avoiding the risk of landing out at any cost, usually
due to logistics of a retrieve.

Good catch, Kirk. Another way to put it when talking about doing
something: "conservatively" implies the outcome is very predictable;
"aggressively" implies it is moderately predictable; foolhardy,
impulsively, etc implies the outcome can be anything.

BG is right that we balance the risks (generally a landout) and costs
(money, time, pleasure) against our goals for each flight. For example,
I believe:

-Many pilots are attracted to contests because the retrieve process is
already set up and they are expected to fly aggressively. It frees them
from the usual concerns of organizing a retrieve and the potential
embarrassment of landing out.

-Some pilots are attracted to 30:1 gliders because they can fly them
aggressively and still be retrieved easily, cheaply, and quickly. Look
at some of the 1-26 pilots who are very aggressive in their flying and
make great flights, but with manageable retrieves; put the same pilot in
a 25 meter glider and it'd take days to retrieve them - not practical or
fun for a lot of pilots.

-A big attraction of a motorglider is it allows a pilot to fly
aggressively on every flight, but enjoy the conservative pilot's
outcome: home in time for beer and pizza!

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org