tow rope brake practice crash, what can we learn...

On Tue, 12 Jul 2011 06:43:09 -0700 (PDT), Frank Paynter
wrote:

Hi Frank,

Well, there is a huge body of evidence from GA, airline, corporate
aviation, and military aviation that indicates that ground-based
simulation is very a very effective training tool for emergency
procedures

True.
But maybe you noticed that the hardware these guys are using is not
exactly in your $300 price range....

A student can practice realistic rope breaks in Condor by having an
assistant hit the release unexpectedly, just as in real life. The
student must perform exactly the same functions (lower the nose,
establish a bank in the proper direction, look for an appropriate
landing area, etc) as in real life.



In a real-life rope break, there are two things that save lifes:
1. Before you take off, have a plan. Obvously. Know exactly what you
are going to do - always. Pretty simple to teach.

2. Situation awareness
This is what cannot be simulated on a PC.
Tell the student pilot to lower the nose after release or row break,
and stabilize the glider. I think the US term is "Fly the plane".
so far, so simple - no simulator necessary to teach that.

But now comes the difficult part.
I'd like to list just a couple of points that come to my mind that
need to be judged correctly to get a safe landing:

What's the correct nose-down attitude in reference to the horizon if
there's rising area ahead? Tall trees?
Judge the exact position.
Judge the wind.
Turbulence?

Decide about the maneuver that is going to get you down safely:
Sufficient runway ahead to land safely? Return to runway, shortened
traffic circuit, safe off-field landing ahead?
Or even a controlled crash if a safe landing is not warranted?

Once the pilot has decided which maneuver to fly, he needs to execute
it properly. As we are discussing turns to return to the runway:
What's the direction of the first turn, how many degrees are necessary
for that first turn, when does one start the turn back towards the
runway, what's the correct speed, when to extrend the airbrakes?


All these points need precise judgement - which can only be done
visually. Ever tried to judge heights and distances in Condor? Close
to impossible - at close range things look completely different in
real life.
Quick scanning is absolutely necessary - the pilot needs to turn the
head to get a quick overview. When flying his approach (especially if
he flies a teardrop turn at low altitude in order to turn back to the
runway) he needs to be able to look back over his shoulder and keep
the glider under control at the same time. He must be able to quickly
turn his head, scan horizon position, airspeed indicator, yaw string,
then look back to the runway, judge his position and his turning
radius, and so on.

The ability to do this correctly is going to save his life. This is a
technique that must be practiced.
Simulate this on a 22" screen? No way. You need a dome with a 360
degrees field of view to simulate this.



Any instructor knows that nearly all pilots who are flying a turn at
low altitude tend to keep the wings as level as possible and use the
rudder to turn the nose into the desired heading - the yaw string is
pointing inwards in such a turn. Get too slow, and even the most
benign glider will spin immediately - such an uncoordinated turn is
the classic spin entry maneuvre.

One is never going to see such a mistake on a 22" screen - the
experience on a PC sim is simply missing the imaginary fear that a
wing tip could touch the ground (this is the cause for such an
uncoordinated turn: The pilot wants to keep the lower wing tip as far
as possible from the ground, therefore turns too shallow, therefore he
has to use something else to get his nose pointed into the desired
direction: Voila, the rudder! Usually he's task saturated in such a
situation - he simply does not recognize that the yaw string points
into the wrong direction).

It is incredible what mistakes are being made by task-saturated
pilots, even if there's an instructor on board.
None of these mistakes are made at the desk, steering a glider on a
22" screen with a $50 joystick, a keyboard and no fear of dying.


So the two most important things cannot be taught on a PC sim:
- Precise judgement of the situation, situation awareness
- Fly the plane under severe stress

Of course one can show the student pilot the possible maneuvres on a
PC sim - but as long as there's no access to a flight simulator with a
360 degrees field of view and photo-realistic graphics, the student
pilot MUST experience a rope break simulation in a real glider.



I can pretty much guarantee you
that the first few times the student does this, their reaction will be
indistinguishable from their reaction in real life.

In my experience - they stay cool, fly whatever maneuvre they have
decided, and try again if it does not work.
In real life they are scared to death and make mistakes they'd never
make on a PC.

Moreover, the
situation in Condor can be easily configured so the student has no
hope of returning to the field, and therefore must accomplish a safe
off-airport landing - try that in real life!

In real life the pilot thinks about the value of the glider he's about
to trash - voila, stress! Won't happen on the PC.

After 10 or 20 (or 100)
SRBs in Condor, a student will be very well-drilled in rope-break
procedures for a wide variety of situations, much more so than a
corresponding real life only student who typically is exposed to only
a few well-planned and very safe SRBs.

..... and after he's done some real-life rope-break procedures.
I think that a PC based simulator like Condor could support real-life
training, but never replace it.


For less than $300 (assuming you already have a decent PC) you can
have a training tool that has been shown over and over again to be
effective in saving lives. Need I say more?

What is effective in saving lives is to teach the student pilot the
correct techniques to master such a situation. Show him in a realistic
enviroment how to keep things under control.

Let him experience that even a rope-break at a critical height is
something that gives him enough time to assess a situation and make a
decision for a safe landing. Once he has got the feeling that he is
always in control, he'll loose most of his nervousness - stay calm,
and fly a lot better.

This self-confidence can only be taught inflight, not in a $300 PC
game on a 22" screen.

I am pretty sure that this could also be taught in a simulator with a
cockpit and a view system that closele resembles reality - but then we
are talking about an impressive five-digit $ sum.


I tend to think that such a sum would better be used to (re-)train
instructors to perform *safe* rope-break training.
I have to admit that some of the stories I read in this thread made my
hairs stand up.



Andreas

On 7/12/2011 7:24 PM, Andreas Maurer wrote:
Hi Frank,

Well, there is a huge body of evidence from GA, airline, corporate
aviation, and military aviation that indicates that ground-based
simulation is very a very effective training tool for emergency
procedures

True.
But maybe you noticed that the hardware these guys are using is not
exactly in your $300 price range....

When you tell a student to push the nose down when he's already seeing
individual leaves in stunning detail..... well, I'd like to see that
simulated effectively. As others have said - there's a place for both.

Tony V.