Future Club Training Gliders

On Sep 19, 1:35*pm, "kirk.stant" wrote:
On Sep 19, 9:30*am, Don Johnstone wrote
:

I did exactly that when teaching students to land a G103 except I would
push down on the tail so that they could see the picture in front of them.
The correct attitude is that where the main wheel and tailwheel touch the
ground at the same time. The glider should then be kept running on the
main and tailwheel for as long as possible, directional control is lost
when the glider goes nosewheel down.

What is interesting is when you compare 4 different gliders: *With a
2-33 (nosedragger), you have to pull the nose up until the tail
touches, then lower it until it's at the correct landing attitude (you
establish the range of available touchdown angle of attack). *With a
Blanik (taildragger), you have to raise the tail a little bit to show
the desired touchdown angle. *With a K-21 (nosedragger), you pull the
nose up until the tail is on the ground, and finally, with a DG-1000
(taildragger), you just level the wings.

Again, it's the gear configuration that is important, and why it's
important is something the student needs to understand.

Cheers

Kirk

OK.....But the same BASIC technique works for all these
gliders............LOW ENERGY LANDING.......

Cookie

On Sep 19, 5:57*pm, Berry wrote:
In article
,





" wrote:
I see many pilots do what I call "landing in a pile".....they touch
down, and immediately let the stick go forward........jamming the nose
wheel (or skid) onto the ground..........some even push the stick
forward!!! *WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!!!!............

With a nose dragger glider, the nose wheel is NOT a "landing gear", it
is merely for ground handling and slow taxi....SAME for the skid on a
nose dragger glider.........it is not a "landing" skid, it is just to
support the glider when stationary or during the very beginning of the
take off roll, and the very end of the landing roll. *Same for the
nose wheel on a tri gear airplane...........

Bad habits come easily.......in our repair shop, we have had a rash of
airplane repairs where the tricycle gear airplane was landed nose
wheel first.......(or bounced into a nose first landing) resulting in
flatened front wheel, bent landing gear, bent firewall, and sometimes
prop strike and engine rebuild.........I see "wheel barrow " landings
at our field all the time......BAD TECHNIQUE!!!!!

Airplanes, gliders, nose dragger, tri gear, tail dragger, all should
be landed nose up, tail down. *Landing loads taken by the main gear,
and pitch control maintained throughout the ground roll.......

So don't blame the 2-33......

Cookie

On one of my wife's 2-33 instruction flights: The instructor wanted to
land and stop quickly so he would not have to push the glider too far
back to the takeoff point. He jammed the skid onto the paved runway at
touchdown. The friction heated the metal skid to incandescence and
caught the wooden skid underneath on fire!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

LOL..........just because he has the certificate..........doesn't mean
much..........

Cookie

On 20/09/2010 15:57, Bruce Hoult wrote:

Incidentally, someone landed their Cirrus on a suburban street here on
Sunday morning. They reportedly deliberately used the poles on either
side of a pedestrian crossing to slow down. I believe my instructors
mentioned tree trunks in this context, but whatever...

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/glid...-alive-3785681
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4144...g-and-a-prayer
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10674749

I love tvnz's careful description:
"The plane landed beside St Patrick's School on
Tongariro Street, at the bus stop, near a give way sign."

He appears to have knocked over the No Parking sign. That won't stop
him getting booked, though. It's clearly not parked legally!

GC

The 2-33 will withstand less than perfect landings by beginners
because it is designed to do so as a TRAINER. *We are *all allowed to
make mistakes.........The idea is for the student / instructor to work
out all these problems early in the program. Once consistant good
landings are made in the 2-33 the pilot can then easily adapt to any
glider. *If poor landing technique is tolerated in the 2-33 then the
less forgiving gliders will show this defeciency.

But this is all the more arguement for the 2-33 as a trainer, and not
using Grob or ASK as a trainer.......

Cookie

First, I don't see any "argument" there for using the 2-33 as a
trainer. The 2-33 flies differently than just about anything else out
there. Beyond basic stick and rudder skills, it doesn't prepare the
pilot to fly anything else. The rest of the world seems to be able to
use more modern gliders safely and efficiently without regular damage
- they also seem to produce better pilots, at least from world
championship results.

Teaching low energy landings in a 2-33 can be a bit of a trick.
Because the tail is so high relative to the main wheel there is a
tendency to go "ground seeking" with the tail leading to the glider
stalling before the anything touches down and a nice heavy thud.
Hence, very few true low energy landings are taught in a 2-33
(somewhere in the low 30's vs. right around 40). This also doesn't
prepare for proper 2-points - the angle of attack to 2-point being
much lower in a ASK-21 or similar.

Another thread states the 2-33 works fine because eventually *some* go
on to fly glass, *few* go on to fly X-C, and *fewer* fly a contest.
Again this does not address whether the 2-33 properly prepares pilots
for the types of gliders they will likely be flying - even the author
admits that they must first "transition" (translation: retrain) to the
ASK-21. This whole process could just be skipped without the
potential for developing all the sloppy habits that almost come from
pilots trained in 2-33's.

The only "argument" in this either thread is based on price point.
And I won't argue with that one.

OK.....But the same BASIC technique works for all these
gliders............LOW ENERGY LANDING.......

Cookie

A proper low energy landing involves a two point (or arguably tail
first) touchdown. You cannot teach this in a 2-33. The euro's laugh
at us because a not insignificant amount of owners of the newest glass
ships still can't do a proper low energy landing.

If you feel the need to comment so strongly to this thread you may
wish to reveal your real identity. Otherwise we'll have to assume you
are Lennie the Lurker (and if you don't know who this is, you haven't
been in soaring, or at least on RAS, long enough to comment on these
issues)

than a couple of inches low.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

yes....agreed......After I gave some thought to my post, I realized I
should have included that ..........

But not in a 2-33 as a tail first laniding in a 2-33 is in my opinion
under the category of too slow.........this is due to the shape of the
33's belly and tail.......(bulbous belly and high tail).


Cookie

You are being ironic I hope. How can a glider touchdown be "Too slow"?
We are not talking about a tail down attitude at height but rather to
arrive at the point where the main wheel and tailwheel touch the ground
together, (a couple of millimetres either way is acceptable) in effect the
stalling angle is reached just before the glider contacts the ground giving
the minimum touchdown velocity with a minimum ground run. If you do not
understand why this could be important then perhaps your intention was not
irony.

Kevin Christner wrote:
A proper low energy landing involves a two point (or arguably tail
first) touchdown. You cannot teach this in a 2-33. The euro's laugh
at us because a not insignificant amount of owners of the newest glass
ships still can't do a proper low energy landing.

I followed this discussion for a while now and frankly, I don't
understand all the fuss. I have never been shown any paritcular landing
attitude, because this would be meaningless as every glider is
different. I've just been told to flare that beast, and keep it flying
as long as possible until it ceases to fly. Ths means increasing the
angle of attack as the speed decays until the glider falls out of the
air. Properly built gliders will do so in a two point attitude, some
more accurate, some less accurate. That's all I've been taught and
that's how I've been doing it for years. Frankly, I couldn't even tell
you the landing attitude.

On Sep 20, 11:38*pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Sun, 19 Sep 2010 22:57:15 -0700, Bruce Hoult wrote:

Incidentally, someone landed their Cirrus on a suburban street here on
Sunday morning. They reportedly deliberately used the poles on either
side of a pedestrian crossing to slow down. I believe my instructors
mentioned tree trunks in this context, but whatever...

My cousin, who lives in Waikanae, said it was a turbulent, gusty day but
none of the reports mention the weather. How would you rate it?

The entire country was covered by a massive storm centered to the
south of the South Island with strong westerly conditions covering the
whole 2000 km (north/south) of the country. If you could get high
somewhere it could well have been a record-setting day. Some
supermarkets and a stadium in Southland collapsed due to the weight of
snow on them. Around Auckland and Hamilton trees were coming down and
houses losing roofs and a lot of people lost electricity. In the
middle of the North Island there were a lot of slips on to roads.

It wasn't so bad around Wellington and was, fundamentally, a fine day,
but windy. I wasn't at the club but I'd expect that it was probably
gusting over 30 knots.

Those are mostly fairly benign conditions at Paraparaumu with smooth
air coming off the ocean and on to the hills 3 or 4 km inland, and the
sea cliffs further south. The only real problem is Kapiti Island, 5
km offshore, which produces wave which can either reinforce the ridge
lift or else dump on to it, and can also generate a fair bit of rotor
in semi-random places.

Even when the wave/rotor is dumping on to the ridge, you can generally
at least keep as high as the ridge, as in this video I shot on my
phone last December:

http://youtu.be/aLCSpVL35Tk

The ridge is at 1000-1200 ft and I could manage 1800 ft or so. I could
stay up but I couldn't get high enough to go anywhere.

Then you've got to make it 3 km back to the field (near the sea,
towards the right hand end of the island in this video) which is not
very far, even in sink.

wrote in message
...
snip

OK.....But the same BASIC technique works for all these
gliders............LOW ENERGY LANDING.......

This is a fascinating and slightly scary discussion.

I was taught in the UK the BGA way, and the only kind of landing I have been
taught is the fully-held off one - ultimately the glider mushes onto the
ground. Flying on is not considered good as it's all too easy to end up
airborne again if there are lumps and bumps, and the average grass strip or
field usually has plenty of those. Landing in less than 200m is not hard in
just about any glass ship so long as approach speed control was good and
there was at least 1/2 airbrake used. The touchdown is either main wheel
and tail wheel/skid at the same time or tail slightly first. Then it's
right back with the stick (which is just about where it will be if the
landing was really held off) to help keep the ship on the ground, and also
to keep the tail wheel/skid planted as long as possible on things like K21s
to aid directional stability if there is a cross-wind.

Is this what US folks mean by a low-energy landing? If not, what is meant?

On 9/20/2010 11:02 AM, Surfer! wrote:

wrote in message
...
snip

OK.....But the same BASIC technique works for all these
gliders............LOW ENERGY LANDING.......

This is a fascinating and slightly scary discussion.

I was taught in the UK the BGA way, and the only kind of landing I have been
taught is the fully-held off one - ultimately the glider mushes onto the
ground.
Descriptive details snipped

Is this what US folks mean by a low-energy landing? If not, what is meant?

What you've described is *my* (U.S.) idea of a low-energy landing.

As to much of this discussion, kids can you say, "Nuance is difficult to
describe in short paragraphs!" :-) My own take is: KISS (Keep It Simple,
Stupid). The principles *are* simple...the devil's in the descriptive details.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I've overlooked an oddball-configured
glider somewhere, but 'the vast majority of gliders' (including 2-33s, even
those withOUT spring tailwheels) will perform nice, low-energy touchdowns if
successfully landed about an inch in the air...meaning that if they quit
flying 'way up there', nothing's going to get hurt or broken from the fall.
Actual fuselage attitude falls out in the wash...

True for nose-draggers and taildraggers.

Guessing wildly - and not excusing failure to practice low-energy technique
when conditions permit - perhaps one reason some western U.S. glider pilots
rationalize skill in performing low-energy landings isn't 'crucial' is because
it's the norm in these parts for strong, gusting (often, cross)winds to be
present unless landing near dusk, away from any thunderstorms. One's view of
the desirability of a fully held-off landing (especially on paved runways)
probably varies inversely proportionally with the strength of the gusting
crosswind!

My personal record for touchdown speed was a 65+ knot, wheeled-on touchdown
(75+ knot final to maintain a 'reasonable crab angle') in a direct crosswind
of 25-35 knots onto the only (narrow, sans-lights) pavement around - it was
that or hassle with an OFL and a post-sundown retrieve in the same winds (from
a distant T-storm)...15-meter, flapped, no-spoilers ship. About 20-feet of
lateral downwind displacement occurred in the roll-out, despite
(post-touchdown) full downwind rudder, a negative-flap-planted tail wheel,
maximum wheel braking and (eventually) an intentionally dragging downwind tip.
A held-off landing under the circumstances wasn't seriously considered.

Bob W.