Another glider crash?

wrote 2015/09/22 at 00:29:

On Sunday, September 20, 2015 at 5:13:54 PM UTC-4, Ron Gleason
wrote:
Saratoga NY, news report here

http://wnyt.com/article/stories/s391... dium=twitter


Look at the thread "the sweetest ASW20B on the planet"-check the
cockpit pictures-I see the 3 almost identical orange handles very
close to each other. Great ASW 20 though !

Dan, have a second look. Thei're wooden, and that's not stock.

Regards
Werner

I have watched two incidents of ASW15s ground effect flying across the
airfield with brakes shut and wheel going up and down. Quite amazing
performance!

An ASW15 pilot I once knew used to place a rubber band around the brake
handle. When he deployed the brake he thought "what's that rubber band
doing on the handle" and it reminded him to put the wheel down! A bit like
tying a knot in your tie.

I guess the converse is true. If it ain't got the rubber band on it then it
isn't the brake handle.

Discussing this incident yesterday at Moriarty, someone related the
story of an acquaintance who placed a tennis ball on the spoiler handle
when the gear was up. When he lowered the gear, he moved the ball to
the gear handle. Worked for him.

We also had a gear up landing the day before that discussion. The pilot
got low south of the field and was preparing to land on RWY 36. He got
a small thermal which boosted him to 300' AGL and decided to extend to
base for RWY 26. He told me he was thinking "Oh Boy! This is gonna be
my best landing ever!", and then hearing a scraping sound...

On 9/22/2015 4:15 AM, Jim White wrote:
I have watched two incidents of ASW15s ground effect flying across the
airfield with brakes shut and wheel going up and down. Quite amazing
performance!

An ASW15 pilot I once knew used to place a rubber band around the brake
handle. When he deployed the brake he thought "what's that rubber band
doing on the handle" and it reminded him to put the wheel down! A bit like
tying a knot in your tie.

I guess the converse is true. If it ain't got the rubber band on it then it
isn't the brake handle.


--
Dan, 5J

Edit: That was 700' AGL, not 300' AGL.

On 9/22/2015 7:18 AM, Dan Marotta wrote:
Discussing this incident yesterday at Moriarty, someone related the
story of an acquaintance who placed a tennis ball on the spoiler
handle when the gear was up. When he lowered the gear, he moved the
ball to the gear handle. Worked for him.

We also had a gear up landing the day before that discussion. The
pilot got low south of the field and was preparing to land on RWY 36.
He got a small thermal which boosted him to 300' AGL and decided to
extend to base for RWY 26. He told me he was thinking "Oh Boy! This
is gonna be my best landing ever!", and then hearing a scraping sound...

On 9/22/2015 4:15 AM, Jim White wrote:
I have watched two incidents of ASW15s ground effect flying across the
airfield with brakes shut and wheel going up and down. Quite amazing
performance!

An ASW15 pilot I once knew used to place a rubber band around the brake
handle. When he deployed the brake he thought "what's that rubber band
doing on the handle" and it reminded him to put the wheel down! A bit like
tying a knot in your tie.

I guess the converse is true. If it ain't got the rubber band on it then it
isn't the brake handle.


--
Dan, 5J

--
Dan, 5J

We also had a gear up landing the day before that discussion. The pilot got
low south of the field and was preparing to land on RWY 36. He got a small
thermal which boosted him to 300' AGL and decided to extend to base for RWY
26. He told me he was thinking "Oh Boy! This is gonna be my best landing
ever!", and then hearing a scraping sound...

I have watched two incidents of ASW15s ground effect flying across the
airfield with brakes shut and wheel going up and down. Quite amazing
performance!

An ASW15 pilot I once knew used to place a rubber band around the brake
handle. When he deployed the brake he thought "what's that rubber band
doing on the handle" and it reminded him to put the wheel down! A bit like
tying a knot in your tie.

1) Every place at which I've ever taken instruction or "BFR" (a U.S. thing)
has taught the "visual spoiler check" as part of the pattern checklist, so I
kinda hoped it was "the standard" throughout the U.S. (a country of
unrepentant individualists). Evidently not?

2) Having heard it was possible (as in people had done it already) to confuse
handles (e.g. typically, gear for spoilers), I believed; the proposition
seemed plausible. Upon crossing over to the dark side of large-deflection
landing flaps instead of spoilers, I still believed it was plausible, but
another part of my brain simultaneously concluded it was unlikely, given the
"unmistakably differing" effects of flap vs. spoiler deployment. Nonetheless,
I seem to remember a retractable-gear 1-35 crunch that *may* have involved
handle confusion, despite the 1-35's "unmistakably/ergonomically conflicting"
flap/gear handles/actuation. If it happens it must be possible has long been
one of my personal maxims. :-)

3) The gear-up scenario above may well be THE number one reason for glider
gear-ups, i.e. focus on "something else" to the detriment of Joe Pilot's
routine procedures. The very first time I "stretched a glide" back to the
pattern in a retractable gear glider, about the time I concluded I was "good
for at least a straight-in" I also ran my pattern checklist (at ~300' agl).
Yup. I'd completely forgotten about the gear to that point. Talk about shock
and alarm!

Points being, those simple things your instructor (so it's hoped) taught you
about checklists and verifying one's actions, aren't only based on others'
prior mistakes, but they *work!*

Bob - no gear-ups or handle confusions yet - W.

I noticed the same thing when taking the photos and video of th 20. See the thread for the video (early in video are many shots of the cockpit). It does seem like the handles are close together.

Great glider regardless.

I suppose we should be fitting different handles but most importantly, training pilots to have a procedure to ensure they are double checking the control reaction (looking at the spoilers for example) and visual handle location of their hand on the handle every time. Not an easy task.

Sean

I flew that 20B for many years, as standard, as built for Waibel who did the test flight on it. Never saw the need for winglets or anything else ...it went like stink, frogless.
The handles all being on the left seemed to me to be a lot easier than having the gear handle on the right. One hand on the stick, one hand on the handles.
Only confusion I ever had was flying one task with the gear down the entire time. Radio was on the fritz so did not get calls from friendly pilots to check it. Finished task, pulled up into downwind and put gear "down" and it all went quiet. Foolish feeling, so replaced gear handle in correct down position and landed.
Everybody at Fairfield was very nice, little ribbing, some thank yous for giving them an added handicap.
h







On Sunday, September 20, 2015 at 3:13:54 PM UTC-6, Ron Gleason wrote:
Saratoga NY, news report here

http://wnyt.com/article/stories/s391... dium=twitter

On Sunday, September 20, 2015 at 2:13:54 PM UTC-7, Ron Gleason wrote:
Saratoga NY, news report here

http://wnyt.com/article/stories/s391... dium=twitter

The same thing could happen in a Blanik, except it was the flaps and the spoilers that could be confused. I witnessed two crashes in a blanik, one ended in a ground loop just before a barbed wire fence at El Tiro, and another landed off the end of the runway in the sage brush at AirSailing. Call it tunnel vision or in full panic mode, the pilot kept pulling harder on the flaps as the runway was passing underneath getting shorter all the time.

BG

Memory fades but I seem to recall the Blanik's (L-13) brake being a
lever on the floor. I don't remember how the L-23 brake worked.

On 9/23/2015 12:03 AM, BG wrote:
On Sunday, September 20, 2015 at 2:13:54 PM UTC-7, Ron Gleason wrote:
Saratoga NY, news report here

http://wnyt.com/article/stories/s391... dium=twitter
The same thing could happen in a Blanik, except it was the flaps and the spoilers that could be confused. I witnessed two crashes in a blanik, one ended in a ground loop just before a barbed wire fence at El Tiro, and another landed off the end of the runway in the sage brush at AirSailing. Call it tunnel vision or in full panic mode, the pilot kept pulling harder on the flaps as the runway was passing underneath getting shorter all the time.

BG

--
Dan, 5J

I would think someone would switch to a sideslip if they perceived the spoilers not to be working. Might end up scraping the belly anyway, but thats better than a fence at the end of the runway...

Matt H