Landing with one spoiler

I had an instructor coach me through a no spoiler approach (in an ASK-21)
to a rather short runway using a technique that I had never heard described
before. When we got into ground effect, he had me keep the slip in and
rotate the tail *VERY* low. The theory is that the tail will hit first.
This will straighten the fuselage to the runway, which will kick the glider
out of the slip at the very last possible moment. Indeed, this technique
allowed us to land on a short runway with no spoilers.

I found the experience to be very scary. Still, if I every have to do this
for real, I'm going to do it. I just hope it works as well in a '27 as it
did in the '21.






"J.A.M." wrote in message
news
In a low performance glider I don't have any experience. In a glass glider
a
no brakes landing is dicey as hell.
You just enter ground effect and fly forever. With a long runway it's not
much of a problem but the landing takes lots of space... If you have short
runway or an obstacle requiring a stepper approach path, it's a recipe for
an extended trip to the repair shop.

"5Z" escribió en el mensaje
oups.com...

Ray Hart wrote:

landing, just in case. I wouldn't recommend practising
no-brake landings
though.

This is another thread, but a no spoiler approach is one of the
simplest "advanced" manouvers out there. I only have access to a L-23
and tried this a few months back. I was able to use about as much
runway as the typical normal landing made by others. Spot touchdown
was a bit dicey, but I always got stopped where I had planned.


Gotta give it a try in the ASH-26E sometime. Should I "cheat" and use
landing flap, or give it a shot in thermalling flap?
-Tom

In article ,
Eric Greenwell wrote:

Bruce Hoult wrote:

In article .com,
"5Z" wrote:


Pess full rudder one direction before pattern entry to simulate a
rudder cable failure. I suggest releasing the rudder once the
applicant is lined up with the runway as a landing with full rudder is
not good for the glider.


Um ... on the glider I fly most often (original Janus) that results
in the opposite wing pointing almost exactly in the direction in
which you are travelling, a rather high rate of descent, and then
loss of elevator control which (in my experience at least) then
results in a relatively slow but totally uncontrollable 30 or 40
degree pitch down. And that's the point, I'm afraid, at which I
put the rudder back in the middle.

So, do you avoid slipping your Janus, or is it just something that must
be done with extra care compared to most gliders? I assume this behavior
is demonstrated to transitioning pilots.

It slips fine as long as you're careful to limit the yaw angle to
something sensible. Just don't expect to have to limit aileron input to
what you can balance with full rudder as you do in most gliders. You
can get really high rates of descent, but just be prepared to straighten
up a bit if you start to lose elevator control.

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------

Eric Greenwell wrote in
:




Perhaps what Bruce is talking about is the possibility that the Janus (and
for sure the Duo Discus that we have) have a very powerful rudder, whereas
most gliders don't have enough rudder. During my first few tries at full
slips (at altitude!) in our Duo I nearly lost control of the aircraft. I
finally figured out that the technique I had learned for slips -- "stomp
full rudder and use aileron as needed to compensate" was the problem. In
the Duo this will not work. The glider will roll off toward the rudder
pedal in use. In the Duo the technique is "full aileron and use rudder as
needed to compensate". Works great.
-Bob Korves

"Dan Dunkel" wrote in
t:

I had an instructor coach me through a no spoiler approach (in an
ASK-21) to a rather short runway using a technique that I had never
heard described before. When we got into ground effect, he had me
keep the slip in and rotate the tail *VERY* low. The theory is that
the tail will hit first. This will straighten the fuselage to the
runway, which will kick the glider out of the slip at the very last
possible moment. Indeed, this technique allowed us to land on a short
runway with no spoilers.

I found the experience to be very scary. Still, if I every have to do
this for real, I'm going to do it. I just hope it works as well in a
'27 as it did in the '21.

I think I learned this technique from the same instructor Dan did, Andrew
McFall. I learned it at Truckee, California, in a Grob 103 Twin II. It
was much the same as what Dan posted, but we kicked out part of the slip
when _very_ close to the ground to maintain some ground clearance at the
wing tip.

We did four pattern tows practicing this. The first one was awful. I
would have gone off the end of the 4300' long runway before getting the
glider stopped. I was flying much too fast and was kicking out the slip at
too high an altitude. The second attempt was better. The third and fourth
tries went just fine. I had the glider down and stopped without spoilers
or wheel brakes in 1500' (calm wind, ~7000' density altitude). I felt like
I could use the technique as a standard landing method at that point.
Landing while still in a slip felt really dumb at first, much like my first
crosswind landing in an Ercoupe (no rudder pedals). The sideways landing
did not appear to put too much side load on the glider.

Now, many years later, I probably would not do so well, especially in a
real emergency on a gusty, gnarly day. But I do know what to do...
-Bob Korves

A bit off topic perhaps, but a fun story...


Many years ago there was an ASW-19 on leaseback at Soar Truckee. A group
of us watched the glider in the landing pattern and started speculating on
what he was doing.

"Why is he going so fast"? "It's a low pass, look, his wheel is up". "Now
his wheel is down. He won't be able to get it stopped". "The wheel is up
again". "Uh-oh. He thinks the gear handle is the spoiler handle!"

The glider went by low and pretty fast. It went 3500 feet down runway 19,
pulled up at the intersection and turned right toward the last 5000 feet of
runway 28, then went behind some trees and out of sight. We hurried down
to see the carnage. The '19 was stopped in the last 50 feet of runway 28,
and the wheel was down. The look on the pilot's face was priceless.




I also saw _TWO_ ASW-20 gliders go through the fence at Calistoga,
California, about two weekends apart. Both gliders had deep notches in the
leading edges at roughly 12 foot spacing from the wooden fence posts. Same
problem as in the last story -- using the gear handle to try to operate the
spoilers. Both gliders eventually flew again. Both were new when this
happened.




It's funny, I haven't heard of this problem again in all those years since
(20-25 years?). Are we checking out pilots better nowadays, are we less
stupid, or just luckier?
-Bob Korves

On 29 Sep 2005 20:52:04 -0500, Bob Korves bkorves@winfirstDECIMALcom
wrote:

It's funny, I haven't heard of this problem again in all those years since
(20-25 years?). Are we checking out pilots better nowadays, are we less
stupid, or just luckier?

You are describing a typical ASW-20 incident - I saw this twice on my
home airfield, too. Both (very experienced) pilots fortunately had
selected full flaps (55 degrees), so our 1.800 ft runway was
suffieicient even without the use of airbrakes. Airbrake and gear
lever are pretty easy to confuse in the 20 - I guess that's the cause
why all the later Schleicher gliders have the gear lever on the right
hand side.



Bye
Andreas

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 09:17:17 -0700, Eric Greenwell
wrote:

Any glider can suffer partial control failure from connection problems,
freezing, stick or linkage blockage, undetected damage, mechanical
failures, or improper repairs. I think giving pilots some experience in
these situations with an experienced instructor would be an asset.

Hmm... it depends on the type of glider, type of damage, pilot skill,
and luck. I think an airbrake failure is survivable, but any other
kind of primary flight control failure needs a lot of luck to be
survivable.

For example, the seemingly not-so-important rudder:
I once saw a halfways safe no-damage landing of a Twin 2 with a jammed
rudder - but a jammed rudder killed two very experienced pilots in a
DG-500M when they were unable to touchdown in a controlled manner out
of a sideslip.


Basically I think it's not a good solution to find myself slowly
losing control of your glider while on final at 150 ft although I
could have bailed out safely 2.000 ft higher. At least I can blame
myself for trying to be a hero till impact.

My decision for myself is clear: As soon as I'm not absolutely sure
anymore to have the glider under control, I bail out. I have no need
for control experiments at low altitudes where the slightest mistake
is definitely going to kill me - especially if the alternative is a
relatively safe bail-out out of a halfways controlled glider.




Bye
Andreas

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 19:55:28 GMT, "Dan Dunkel"
wrote:

I had an instructor coach me through a no spoiler approach (in an ASK-21)
to a rather short runway using a technique that I had never heard described
before. When we got into ground effect, he had me keep the slip in and
rotate the tail *VERY* low. The theory is that the tail will hit first.
This will straighten the fuselage to the runway, which will kick the glider
out of the slip at the very last possible moment. Indeed, this technique
allowed us to land on a short runway with no spoilers.

That's the only technique that produces enough drag to allow a
halfways precise touchdown. Unfortunately the lower wing tip is only
inches from the ground (as well as the main wheel, while the 21 still
has 30 degrees of yaw). I stopped doing this when my club comrades
told me in no uncertain terms that it looked extremely scary (right
they were - it looks as scary out of the cockpit).


I found the experience to be very scary. Still, if I every have to do this
for real, I'm going to do it. I just hope it works as well in a '27 as it
did in the '21.

Good luck... or simply use the landing flap position of the 27 - this
ought to produce enough drag.



Bye
Andreas

Bob Korves wrote:

I also saw _TWO_ ASW-20 gliders go through the fence at Calistoga,
California, about two weekends apart. Both gliders had deep notches in the
leading edges at roughly 12 foot spacing from the wooden fence posts. Same
problem as in the last story -- using the gear handle to try to operate the
spoilers. Both gliders eventually flew again. Both were new when this
happened.

It's funny, I haven't heard of this problem again in all those years since
(20-25 years?). Are we checking out pilots better nowadays, are we less
stupid, or just luckier?

All the ASW20 accidents of this sort that I heard of (about 6) way back
then, happened to pilots that had flown Libelle 301s for many years. The
301 had it's spoiler handle where the 20 has it's gear handle. Less
people transitioning to 20's from 301s might account for the difference.

I never had a problem, but I flew my 301 for only 3 years/500 hours.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

"Bob Korves" bkorves@winfirstDECIMALcom wrote in message
. 87...
A bit off topic perhaps, but a fun story...


Many years ago there was an ASW-19 on leaseback at Soar Truckee. A group
of us watched the glider in the landing pattern and started speculating on
what he was doing.

"Why is he going so fast"? "It's a low pass, look, his wheel is up".
"Now
his wheel is down. He won't be able to get it stopped". "The wheel is up
again". "Uh-oh. He thinks the gear handle is the spoiler handle!"

The glider went by low and pretty fast. It went 3500 feet down runway 19,
pulled up at the intersection and turned right toward the last 5000 feet
of
runway 28, then went behind some trees and out of sight. We hurried down
to see the carnage. The '19 was stopped in the last 50 feet of runway 28,
and the wheel was down. The look on the pilot's face was priceless.




I also saw _TWO_ ASW-20 gliders go through the fence at Calistoga,
California, about two weekends apart. Both gliders had deep notches in
the
leading edges at roughly 12 foot spacing from the wooden fence posts.
Same
problem as in the last story -- using the gear handle to try to operate
the
spoilers. Both gliders eventually flew again. Both were new when this
happened.




It's funny, I haven't heard of this problem again in all those years since
(20-25 years?). Are we checking out pilots better nowadays, are we less
stupid, or just luckier?
-Bob Korves

The Blanik L13 flap and spoiler levers caused their share of
incidents/accidents too.

I teach my students that the "A" in the pre-landing check "STALL" (Speed,
Trim, Airbrakes, Look, Land) is not just to check that the airbrakes work,
but that the handle they are using actually operates the airbrakes. If it
proves to be the airbrake lever, then keep a hand on it. Otherwise, try
another lever.

More specifically, I teach that any cockpit control should be identified
visually before a hand is placed on it. Further, the position of the
landing gear and flaps levers should be identified visually before moving
them.

Bill Daniels