Hard Deck

Thanks JJ for sharing. I have had the same thing happen to me, nice to know I am not alone. I had a firm hard deck back then (should probably readdress this) and I was fine with my decision to land as it was made a year before after a friend hit a bump tried a few circles and then couldn't make his intended landing spot. After my fried broke his bird, I made my hard deck and several time over the years I have come up against the hard deck while hitting a bump, NEVER have I made that turn, as I had decided long before..

Having said the above, I did come to an outlanding last summer very low. Got to a "dry lake" with obstacles encroaching from both sides a small stream running through the middle. I arrived at the lake at 300 ft AGL and felt I needed to fly the length of the landing area to pick my path turn 180 degrees fly back, another 180 degree turn and land. The final turn was at 100 feet AGL as per my flight logger. A hard deck would not have changed anything. I made a mistake in pushing on 15 miles south of where I landed. I should have stayed and got the altitude or abandoned the task. I did no low attitude thermaling (other than scrapping rocks trying to break a thermal lose) while still at altitude over valley floor, yet still I was not in the best situation.

Mind you I had a sustainer with a starter and did not think of using it as I was too low when I got to dry lake. I am with Steve Koerner on this matter. Whether the goal is safety or leveling the competition field a fool like me will still screw up 15, 30minutes before the deck and end up where we tried to prevent by more rules and airspace restriction.

On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 6:10:52 AM UTC-8, wrote:
A few years back, I was turning final for a land-out at Swee****er strip (45 miles south of Minden). At 300 feet I hit a large bump and thought about trying one turn in it to see if I could climb, but declined because my hard deck was 500 feet. I landed, called in, then I watched another sailplane hit the same bump, but he turned in it, climbed away and made it home. Should he be penalized? Maybe he had more experience than I had. Maybe he knew that when a west wind blew, it went around mount Patterson and then met again on the east side.......right where my big bump was found. We can't legislate judgement or experience!
JJ..............PS, I'm old enough to remember when the national rules were only 2 pages!

No one circles at 300ft, that is just bs. At that altitude you are on short final for landing. Don't believe everything you read folks. If someone has done it once and survive, congrats, please do not pass the story on.

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 3:49:52 AM UTC-5, krasw wrote:
No one circles at 300ft, that is just bs. At that altitude you are on short final for landing. Don't believe everything you read folks. If someone has done it once and survive, congrats, please do not pass the story on.

I am still waiting for the data, myself. I have flight logs of guys who flew themselves into a bad situation and essentially (my term) panicked, wouldn't commit to the landing because the landing was bound to be crappy. Turning downwind at 80 feet will make it so! I have flight logs of engine starts at 300' with no place to crash. We have the pictures of the wrecks that happened when the engine didn't start at 300'. I have no logs of Nationals contenders or Regional winners that show anything like an intentional roll of the dice to a very low, day or contest winning thermal pulled out of the weeds. Pre-GPS stories are **stories**. Some may even be true. But if you put one of the famous risk takers of old (there were some) against any decent modern soaring pilot in similar hardware, they would not stand a chance. Steady, efficient flying beats the hell out of attempted heroics.

Sometimes the flight into "unlandable terrain" you thought was crazy was simply well managed. There may be a field you don't know about. Flying into any situation that you can survive unscathed only by figuring out a way to climb is sheer lunacy. No one can do this very many times before statistics catch up with them.

The problem children w.r.t. low thermalling are the new guys. I have circled at 300'. When I was a new guy. I'd struggle down to 300' then finally roll the wings level and land, generally in some huge flat benign field. When confronted with more challenging options, I was a little smarter. I made some spaghetti patterns down to about 300' as recently as perhaps 8 years ago. And I finally concluded that it was much more satisfying to give up a little more gracefully and fly my pattern and landing with panache. While I don't enjoy the risk or inconvenience, the patterns and landings are usually quite interesting and even fun. There are always problems to be solved, the places I end up are often very beautiful.

Important aside: Anyone who has had the opportunity to do some RC model soaring will learn much about thermal structure below 500'. And none of what you learn will make you inclined to try it at full scale. It is quite unlikely to work.

As an instructor and XC advocate, the single biggest concern I have is getting the new guys calibrated on risk assessment & risk management. We have seen cases of guys who are very willing to stack on risk in attempt to hang with glider pilots who are much better soaring pilots. Depending on terrain (and we have much that is difficult in New England) that can / eventually will lead to disaster if unchecked. The new guy mindset seems to be (in some cases) "XC soaring is dangerous, I might as well get used to it and man up". I wonder how much this attitude is fueled by threads such as this?

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 7:38:01 AM UTC-5, Tango Eight wrote:
On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 3:49:52 AM UTC-5, krasw wrote:
No one circles at 300ft, that is just bs. At that altitude you are on short final for landing. Don't believe everything you read folks. If someone has done it once and survive, congrats, please do not pass the story on.

I am still waiting for the data, myself. I have flight logs of guys who flew themselves into a bad situation and essentially (my term) panicked, wouldn't commit to the landing because the landing was bound to be crappy. Turning downwind at 80 feet will make it so! I have flight logs of engine starts at 300' with no place to crash. We have the pictures of the wrecks that happened when the engine didn't start at 300'. I have no logs of Nationals contenders or Regional winners that show anything like an intentional roll of the dice to a very low, day or contest winning thermal pulled out of the weeds. Pre-GPS stories are **stories**. Some may even be true. But if you put one of the famous risk takers of old (there were some) against any decent modern soaring pilot in similar hardware, they would not stand a chance. Steady, efficient flying beats the hell out of attempted heroics.

Sometimes the flight into "unlandable terrain" you thought was crazy was simply well managed. There may be a field you don't know about. Flying into any situation that you can survive unscathed only by figuring out a way to climb is sheer lunacy. No one can do this very many times before statistics catch up with them.

The problem children w.r.t. low thermalling are the new guys. I have circled at 300'. When I was a new guy. I'd struggle down to 300' then finally roll the wings level and land, generally in some huge flat benign field. When confronted with more challenging options, I was a little smarter. I made some spaghetti patterns down to about 300' as recently as perhaps 8 years ago. And I finally concluded that it was much more satisfying to give up a little more gracefully and fly my pattern and landing with panache. While I don't enjoy the risk or inconvenience, the patterns and landings are usually quite interesting and even fun. There are always problems to be solved, the places I end up are often very beautiful.

Important aside: Anyone who has had the opportunity to do some RC model soaring will learn much about thermal structure below 500'. And none of what you learn will make you inclined to try it at full scale. It is quite unlikely to work.

As an instructor and XC advocate, the single biggest concern I have is getting the new guys calibrated on risk assessment & risk management. We have seen cases of guys who are very willing to stack on risk in attempt to hang with glider pilots who are much better soaring pilots. Depending on terrain (and we have much that is difficult in New England) that can / eventually will lead to disaster if unchecked. The new guy mindset seems to be (in some cases) "XC soaring is dangerous, I might as well get used to it and man up". I wonder how much this attitude is fueled by threads such as this?

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8
It is dumb even when flying a plastic shopping bag. But here is what it looks like being done. You can see how small/weak the thermals are. If you can't go that slow it almost certainly isn't going to work.
https://youtu.be/-nzj9TR8pdI?t=2m51s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGQqmXGtfjw

Originally Posted by krasw

No one circles at 300ft, that is just bs. At that altitude you are on short final for landing. Don't believe everything you read folks. If someone has done it once and survive, congrats, please do not pass the story on.

They do and they aren't always proud of it. Lessons were learned by more than just the pilot

:-) Colin

https://www.dropbox.com/s/atfnpzvs20...c0al1.IGC?dl=0

This hard deck concept fits in with the liberal, big brother, zero pain concept emanating from DC that is gradually dumbing down and choking away individual freedoms in our lives. Same for the min cylinder finish height.
Pilots know that engaging in any activity that exceeds 10 mph or 10 feet high has an element of danger. Let the pilot decide whether to chance a landing in field with hidden fences, wires, holes, crops, or animals or climb out and fly home.
As for the worry that a low save gives the pilot an advantage on the score sheet, forget it. Such events eat up a lot of time and result in a back page score.

Karl Striedieck

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 11:40:35 AM UTC-5, Karl Striedieck wrote:
This hard deck concept fits in with the liberal, big brother, zero pain concept emanating from DC that is gradually dumbing down and choking away individual freedoms in our lives. Same for the min cylinder finish height.
Pilots know that engaging in any activity that exceeds 10 mph or 10 feet high has an element of danger. Let the pilot decide whether to chance a landing in field with hidden fences, wires, holes, crops, or animals or climb out and fly home.
As for the worry that a low save gives the pilot an advantage on the score sheet, forget it. Such events eat up a lot of time and result in a back page score.

Karl Striedieck

Thank you Karl, Exactly!

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 9:40:35 AM UTC-7, Karl Striedieck wrote:
This hard deck concept fits in with the liberal, big brother, zero pain concept emanating from DC that is gradually dumbing down and choking away individual freedoms in our lives. Same for the min cylinder finish height.
Pilots know that engaging in any activity that exceeds 10 mph or 10 feet high has an element of danger. Let the pilot decide whether to chance a landing in field with hidden fences, wires, holes, crops, or animals or climb out and fly home.
As for the worry that a low save gives the pilot an advantage on the score sheet, forget it. Such events eat up a lot of time and result in a back page score.

Karl Striedieck

Karl said it for me! Any experienced cross-country pilot should be capable of making these decisions for themselves and not be subjected to an increasing barrage of restrictive rules. There are times when you can safely execute a low save (Helmut Reichmann describes one in his book) and times when you shouldn't even try. Similarly flying near mountain ridges where a rough thermal could toss you into the rocks but smooth ridge lift or weaker thermals might be safe. And if you can't properly plan and execute a final glide, you should take up another sport!

Mike

"There are times when you can safely execute a low save (Helmut Reichmann describes one in his book) and times when you shouldn't even try."

If we could see some contest flight logs demonstrating the former then this might all go away as you wish.

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 9:37:25 AM UTC-8, Mike the Strike wrote:

Karl said it for me! Any experienced cross-country pilot should be capable of making these decisions for themselves and not be subjected to an increasing barrage of restrictive rules. There are times when you can safely execute a low save (Helmut Reichmann describes one in his book) and times when you shouldn't even try. Similarly flying near mountain ridges where a rough thermal could toss you into the rocks but smooth ridge lift or weaker thermals might be safe. And if you can't properly plan and execute a final glide, you should take up another sport!

Mike

“One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity there ain’t nothing can beat teamwork.�
Mark Twain