Blue Ridge Crash

On Apr 15, 5:33*am, Peter F wrote:
At 03:59 15 April 2011, Nick Kennedy wrote:

I am also a big fan of launchin
with the spoilers open and have been doing it now for several years wit
good results.
Nick Kennedy
Grob Twin Astir TF
LS-6 *XS

Consider the two scenarios.

1) You start the launch with the brakes locked, your hand on the release.
You drop a wing pull off, start again.

2) You start the launch with you hand on the open airbrakes, not on the
release. You drop a wing, can't pull off, groundloop, smash your glider
to bits.

Which one makes you feel more of an idiot?

What does it say in your flight manual bout launching?

Have you actually bothered to read that bit of the manual?

PF

Or, you read the flight manual which says "Additional aileron
effectiveness during initial takeoff roll may be achieved by extending
airbrakes, retract airbrakes before leaving ground" [LS4 flight manual
p 4-8]. So in that case, should you feel like an idiot because you
dropped the wing for NOT following this advice?

There's no need to get snarky about this. It's a tough problem that
deserves reasoned discussion. And, unfortunately, there's probably
not one single approach that works. Different aircraft have
different traps, and the preflight routine needs to be adapted
accordingly. For example, I teach somewhat different routines with
students in the 2-33 vs. the Grob 103 based on the peculiarities of
each and the checklists we've established. Ultimately, the
preflight checklist for each aircraft needs to be followed carefull.
It's that discipline of following checklists and anticipating the 2-3
critical problems that happen early in the tow that needs to be
drilled home.

My 0.02.

P3