End of Season Sunset Warning for SSA-OLC Participants

588 wrote:
Eric Greenwell wrote:

...I would be in favor of an OLC rule that requires landing by sunset
to avoid giving an advantage to the few gliders with lights,
and to discourage pilots from adding lights.

How about a limit on span? No untoward advantage must accrue to those
who do simply because they can do.

I think the span situation is adequately handled with the handicapping
system, so I don't see any need for a span limit.


I have a 36 ah battery, so I could add lights without too much
trouble, but I think the OLC would be better if I had to land before
sunset.

The OLC will only be worse if it starts to supplement official
regulations with its own restrictions. As it is, we are all wound up
because some few don't believe we should conform to the rules that
already exist.

The OLC is a contest, which is not covered by official regulations. The
OLC does incorporate, by reference, the aviation rules of the various
nations, but it also has regulations such as the handicapping rules,
that are clearly not in a country's aviation rules. This is true of any
contest; in fact, our FAI contests have a quite few restrictions on how
one is to fly during the event.

I was very excited about OLC last year. This year has been one
frustration after another, personally and nationally -- but I still like
it, and I think we are making too much out of the difficulties.

The FAA is not going to change the rules for night flight in order to
allow the OLC to conform to Eric's or Jack's preferences.

Nor do they need to. The kind of soaring flight the OLC measures is the
purview of the OLC itself.

As long as
everybody plays by the same rules, whether lights or no lights, that's
all that matters.

The details of the rules also matter, because they affect the interest
in the OLC. If the flights were not handicapped, we'd still all be
playing by the same rules, but I don't think it would as popular.

If some do fly at night, we'll soon find out what can
be accomplished by doing so. If I don't succeed at gaining the highest
OLC point total simply because I don't fly at night, I'll just have to
live with it.

One of the values of OLC is that we can all see what is possible -- what
is being done -- in other regions, in other gliders, and by other
pilots, and compare this with our own accomplishments. It is a great
motivator, and learning takes place; more flying is done; and the
overall skill level increases, as does enjoyment.

I like this part of the OLC; however, allowing night flight (for
example) does shift the focus a bit from "contest" towards "flight trace
repository". I think the popularity of the OLC stems from both aspects,
and it's worth discussing how to improve both aspects. I don't believe
it's an "either/or" choice.

Should we mandate that one may not circle to the right in a thermal? I
don't see much difference between that and making other rules that would
limit some aspects of soaring simply because there are those who don't
want to do those things themselves.

We routinely limit some aspects of soaring in our regional and national
contests. Having limits is part of what makes it a contest. Picking the
right limits to meet the goals of the contest is the tough part, and
these limits have changed over the decades.

The OLC is right to require adherence to national flight regulations;
the SSA must conform to that aspect of OLC as part of its agreement with
the organizers and to fulfill its duty to its membership and to the
aviation system in the United States. The best methods may be debatable
but not the necessity. There is no alternative.

Amen.

--
Note: email address new as of 9/4/2006
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

"Transponders in Sailplanes" on the Soaring Safety Foundation website
www.soaringsafety.org/prevention/articles.html

"A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

Bob C writes:

OK, here's a video of flying aerobatics at night, below
1500' in a multi-engine turbine glider. No multi-engine
ticket, no type rating, position lights off, and wingtips
on fire...legally! Should have logged it on OLC just
to stir the pot a bit ;o)

low resolution:
http://www.silentwingsairshows.com/video/nightshow.wmv

Not bad, but at that altitude I would have expected the flack to be
more accurate. Pretty colours, though.

--
Brian Raven

At 21:54 13 September 2006, Brian Raven wrote:
Bob C writes:

OK, here's a video of flying aerobatics at night,
below
1500' in a multi-engine turbine glider. No multi-engine
ticket, no type rating, position lights off, and wingtips
on fire...legally! Should have logged it on OLC just
to stir the pot a bit ;o)

low resolution:
http://www.silentwingsairshows.com/video/nightshow.wmv

Not bad, but at that altitude I would have expected
the flack to be
more accurate. Pretty colours, though.

--
Brian Raven

What flak? Those are anti-missile flares ;o)

If you look close you can see the muzzle flashes from
the 2' mortar tubes mounted to the aft fuselage.

Bob

I agree that night flight withing gliding distance of a lighted airport
is not that dangerous(I would probably do it if I could). That is why I
commented specifically about night cross-country flight in gliders.
Night VFR in airplanes has been shown to be many times more dangerous
than Day VFR in the accident record. I would only expect the situation
to be worse without an engine running.

bumper wrote:
"Doug Haluza" wrote in message
ups.com...

Obviously, night cross country
in gliders is very dangerous, due to the possibility of an outlanding
in a dark field, so I hope we don't have to wait until someone dies to
address this.


I've flown my previous glider, a Stemme S10-VT, in wave at night. A most
beautiful and memorable flight. Fields? Dangerous? I stayed within easy
gliding distance of airports with pilot controlled lighting. The Stemme was
equipped with the required position and anit-collision (strobe) lights.

bumper

Doug Haluza wrote:
I agree that night flight withing gliding distance of a lighted airport
is not that dangerous(I would probably do it if I could). That is why I
commented specifically about night cross-country flight in gliders.
Night VFR in airplanes has been shown to be many times more dangerous
than Day VFR in the accident record. I would only expect the situation
to be worse without an engine running.

The vast majority of landings after legal sunset are the result of long
final glides that started before sunset. These are not "night
cross-country flight", except in the legal sense, and would likely have
aborted much earlier if there was doubt about reaching the destination
airport. Legally, they absolutely should be equipped with position
lights, but it is hardly dangerous (and I know of a few people who have
installed lights for precisely this reason). In fact there are a few
places (Tonopah comes to mind) where it would be more dangerous to abort
the final glide at sunset, and try to find someplace else to land, than
it would be to just continue...

Marc

Sounds like poor planning if you don't start your final glide early enough
to get back before sunset and you don't have lights.

Mike Schumann

"Marc Ramsey" wrote in message
...
Doug Haluza wrote:
I agree that night flight withing gliding distance of a lighted airport
is not that dangerous(I would probably do it if I could). That is why I
commented specifically about night cross-country flight in gliders.
Night VFR in airplanes has been shown to be many times more dangerous
than Day VFR in the accident record. I would only expect the situation
to be worse without an engine running.

The vast majority of landings after legal sunset are the result of long
final glides that started before sunset. These are not "night
cross-country flight", except in the legal sense, and would likely have
aborted much earlier if there was doubt about reaching the destination
airport. Legally, they absolutely should be equipped with position
lights, but it is hardly dangerous (and I know of a few people who have
installed lights for precisely this reason). In fact there are a few
places (Tonopah comes to mind) where it would be more dangerous to abort
the final glide at sunset, and try to find someplace else to land, than it
would be to just continue...

Marc

Mike Schumann wrote:
Sounds like poor planning if you don't start your final glide early enough
to get back before sunset and you don't have lights.

We aren't all perfect, like you obviously are...

Marc Ramsey wrote:
lights, but it is hardly dangerous (and I know of a few people who have
installed lights for precisely this reason). In fact there are a few

So Mark, any chance of enlighetning(!) us about these installations?
I'm very interested in finding out how it was done both technically and
of course the legalities for my Standard airworthiness ASH-26E.

Thanks,
-Tom

Marc Ramsey wrote:
Mike Schumann wrote:
Sounds like poor planning if you don't start your final glide early
enough to get back before sunset and you don't have lights.

We aren't all perfect, like you obviously are...


Why would planning to meet an arrival time be any more demanding than
the other planning and decision making that glider pilots do?

It's not a matter of perfection, it's a matter of priorities.


Jack

"5Z" wrote in message
oups.com...

Marc Ramsey wrote:
lights, but it is hardly dangerous (and I know of a few people who have
installed lights for precisely this reason). In fact there are a few

So Mark, any chance of enlighetning(!) us about these installations?
I'm very interested in finding out how it was done both technically and
of course the legalities for my Standard airworthiness ASH-26E.

Thanks,
-Tom


There was a long thread on rec.aviation.homebuilding last year about home
made LED position lights. It turned out that the FAA specs are pretty
lenient - easily met with high-brightness LED's. The gist is that if you
met the FAA angular, brightness and color specifications, you could build
your own lights and get them signed of - at least for an experimental
airworthiness certificate.

I have seen pictures of glider winglets with red or green plastic (Plexi?)
tips that had high brightness LED's imbedded in them. Looking at the
current draw of these LED arrays it appears that a couple of "D" size
lithium batteries in each winglet would power them for 12 - 24 hours. That
would mean they could be left on for the entire flight so no in-wing wiring
or switches would be needed.

There is also a Nimbus 4DM in, I think, Argentina with an array of ultra
high brightness Luxeon white LED's on the landing gear as a landing light.
I doubt even these would actually light up a runway but they would be bright
enough to produce visible reflections from runway stripes and edge
reflectors.

Bill Daniels