Ely, Nevada - Accident?

On Monday, December 4, 2017 at 5:25:48 PM UTC-8, wrote:
Well I'm glad the pilot is ok, but curious if there is a lesson I should learn here. Given a good distance from anything else hard, this doesn't seem like it should result in an unscheduled disassembly.

If you are thermaling, the glider is not operating anywhere near a structural limit like any max G or speed. Flying an inattentive slow circle makes for the stall and subsequent spin. (Ask me how I know.)

So why not just fly out of the unusual attitude? Was there another glider, or not enough distance to the ground? Or perhaps there was a problem with the recovery?

The NTSB seems to say that a stall spin should result in a broken glider. This doesn't seem right unless there is no other margin.

I believe there is no another glider near by such as in the same thermal.
I believe 2000ft AGL. Ely is 6000FT. He was above hill top which is 8000ft. NTSB report tells he was 10,000ft.

He said what he learned was that attach locating device with him such as parachute.

If you are thermaling, the glider is not operating anywhere near a structural limit like any max G or speed. Flying an inattentive slow circle makes for the stall and subsequent spin. (Ask me how I know.)

So why not just fly out of the unusual attitude? Was there another glider, or not enough distance to the ground? Or perhaps there was a problem with the recovery?

It's possible the glider inverted for a moment going well past VNE.

This video is an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPWaNxTP-SA

9:51 PM (less than a minute ago)



If you are thermaling, the glider is not operating anywhere near a structural limit like any max G or speed. Flying an inattentive slow circle makes for the stall and subsequent spin. (Ask me how I know.)

So why not just fly out of the unusual attitude? Was there another glider, or not enough distance to the ground? Or perhaps there was a problem with the recovery?

It's possible the glider inverted for a moment going over vno and something broke

This video is an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPWaNxTP-SA

Coming back down a dark cloud street over a mountain valley I pulled into a

vigorous thermal at 50 kt.

Some 270° in the first turn I was flipped inverted and spat out on a
downline in
an eye blink. The trace showed an 11kt drop in TAS in one second followed
by a
9 kt increase one second later.

Best to get the stick back before the airspeed builds recovering from
inverted.

While many glider manuals allow loops, there's very few that allow rolls.