Some good news

So, perhaps a little lesson to be re-learned by all of us who wear an
emergency chute: DON'T HANG ON TO THE STUPID D-RING! Pull it, throw it
away, then concentrate on using BOTH hands to steer your chute.

...from what i understand though, there is no
steering the round chutes. you are basically gonna land where you land no
matter what, and the only thing you have control over is using the correct
touchdown procedure(knees bent, feet together, tuck and roll thing.


While I have no idea what manufacturers of round emergency 'chutes do these
days, in the days when used and ex-military ones were common in the glider
world (e.g '70's/'80's), an also-quite-common "four line release" modification
was routinely offered/performed by master riggers. It allowed - post-inflation
- the user to quickly release 2 risers on each rear side of the canopy,
thereby providing some measure of continual air-venting and, reportedly,
distinct forward motion along with some degree of steerability.

"Way back when," I had it done to my canopy, but can't speak for its
effectiveness.

Bob W.

P.S. Also, and probably showing the different influences between military and
sport-flying worlds ( :-) ), it was commonly held in the gliding world that
hanging onto the D-ring was preferred, to avoid the $15-or-so you'd be charged
for a new one if you ever had occasion to take your deployed 'chute in for
repacking! At the risk of triggering a burst of internet-enabled
expert-outrage and superciliousness, my brain imagines that inserting the loop
of a D-ring betwixt thumb and index finger thereby retaining same while also
retaining normal hand function, would be trivially easy to do while only
marginally increasing one's under-canopy risks.

On another day a couple gliders were in wave when a slug of moisture
closed the windows trapping them on top. One turned down wind and rode
the undulations to drier air in Maine and landed.

If the weather situation described is a possibility (which in this case it
was) and one possible outcome is to be left with no option but to bail out
(which in this it was), then why are pilots engaging in the activity?

Presuming this is a serious question (and not a rhetorical snark), a short
answer (no snark intended) is: because the personal rewards are worth the
apparent-to-Joe-Pilot risks.

A slightly longer and to-be-hoped more informative reply is noting that
sky/cloud conditions rarely change instantaneously over a sky volume in which
your averagely-informed soaring pilot ought to be (is?) paying attention to.
Thoughtful, comprehensive reading of earlier posts in this thread in which
atmospheric aspects of this day/incident are touched upon, make it apparent
that was (or seemed to me, anyway, from a wave-flying, glider-pilot-informed
self-interested distance) the case. I consider "overall atmospheric awareness"
(beyond merely staying up, I mean) a huge component of "general situational
awareness."

That said, there's no doubt in my mind - having been raised and become a
soaring pilot adjacent the mid-Appalachians and then done the bulk of my
subsequent (including considerable) wave soaring in the intermountain west -
that "eastern waves" tend to be "wetter" than "western waves," though some of
my most memorable western wave flights were "wet" buy local standards. In that
sense, for the moisture reason as well as additional secondary ones {e.g.
local geography and surface conditions) I tend to believe that eastern wave
soaring "generally requires" more incoming weather vigilance than western U.S.
wave soaring.

YMMV.
Bob W.

On Wednesday, January 6, 2016 at 9:19:46 AM UTC-5, wrote:

On another day a couple gliders were in wave when a slug of moisture closed the windows trapping them on top. One turned down wind and rode the undulations to drier air in Maine and landed.

If the weather situation described is a possibility (which in this case it was) and one possible outcome is to be left with no option but to bail out (which in this it was), then why are pilots engaging in the activity?

The only thing that is certain in life, is death. If you want to guarantee risk free flying, stay on the ground at all times.

Please read your post again.

One pilot turned down wind and landed safely in Maine, therefore it was
not a case of no option but to bail out.

The pilot who ultimately bailed made a bad decision for that particular
set of circumstances, and he's publicly discussed that.

Why do you drive a car when there's a possibility of a crash?
Practically anything you do in this life involves some sort of risk. We
glider pilots evaluate the risks of our sport and enthusiastically press on!

On 1/6/2016 7:19 AM, wrote:
On another day a couple gliders were in wave when a slug of moisture closed the windows trapping them on top. One turned down wind and rode the undulations to drier air in Maine and landed.

If the weather situation described is a possibility (which in this case it was) and one possible outcome is to be left with no option but to bail out (which in this it was), then why are pilots engaging in the activity?

--
Dan, 5J

On 1/6/2016 8:56 AM, Bob Whelan wrote:
While I have no idea what manufacturers of round emergency 'chutes do
these days, in the days when used and ex-military ones were common in
the glider world (e.g '70's/'80's), an also-quite-common "four line
release" modification was routinely offered/performed by master
riggers. It allowed - post-inflation - the user to quickly release 2
risers on each rear side of the canopy, thereby providing some measure
of continual air-venting and, reportedly, distinct forward motion
along with some degree of steerability.

During my military flying days we were issued a hook-blade knife which
was carried in a flight suit pocket on the left leg just below the
crotch. We called it the "peter pocket" for obvious reasons. It was
attached to a grommet in the pocket's snap flap by about 5 or 6 feet of
cord so it wouldn't be lost if dropped. All of the parachutes I wore
also had a 4-line modification which allowed releasing the back center 4
suspension lines (two from each rear riser). I guess the knife was for
the occasion that I had an unmodified chute or something about the
modification failed. Release of the 4 lines would open a lobe at the
rear of the canopy which allowed air to spill out at the rear of the
chute both reducing oscillation under the canopy and imparting a small
amount of forward motion.

My old Pioneer Thin Pack round canopy emergency chute had a mesh panel
at the rear which served the same function as a 4-line cut. For my
personal safety, I retired that chute, mainly because no riggers these
days seem to have the wherewithal to inspect it due to it's 40+ year
age, and replaced it with a ram air canopy for which I took several
training jumps.

The advice to discard the rip cord is to "avoid it becoming tangled in
the parachute". Frankly, I find this to be so unlikely as to be
ridiculous but the $50 or so required to replace it seems to be small
insurance against that unlikely event. Likewise, with my current chute,
the pilot chute and deployment bag are sacrificial, i.e., they're not
connected to the canopy and, after deploying the canopy, they're lost.
The advice in that regard is to not try to catch them during your
descent. Picture hitting a bridge or power line just as it comes within
your reach!

--
Dan, 5J

On Wednesday, January 6, 2016 at 9:19:46 AM UTC-5, wrote:

If the weather situation described is a possibility (which in this case it was) and one possible outcome is to be left with no option but to bail out (which in this it was), then why are pilots engaging in the activity?

Richard, on that day, there was other options that could have been taken earlier on in the flight that would (in 20/20 hindsight) been safer and more conservative. From my vantage point when beginning the descent, I was unable to see to the east as I was still riding along the front edge of the lenticular. As that time I assumed the safest option to be an emergency descent down through the last closing foehn gap, which turned out to be a critical mistake.

With the length of this discussion now, I understand that the event details may be vague, so I invite you to read though the files posted earlier to examine the event for yourself.

"that pilot"

On Wednesday, January 6, 2016 at 9:56:20 AM UTC-6, Bob Whelan wrote:
P.S. Also, and probably showing the different influences between military and
sport-flying worlds ( :-) ), it was commonly held in the gliding world that
hanging onto the D-ring was preferred, to avoid the $15-or-so you'd be charged
for a new one if you ever had occasion to take your deployed 'chute in for
repacking! At the risk of triggering a burst of internet-enabled
expert-outrage and superciliousness, my brain imagines that inserting the loop
of a D-ring betwixt thumb and index finger thereby retaining same while also
retaining normal hand function, would be trivially easy to do while only
marginally increasing one's under-canopy risks.

Hmm, so now you are trying to PLF on some rocky slope or grab a tree as you let down into a forest, while hanging on to a useless $15 D-ring? Sorry, that seems like a bit foolish to me. We aren't talking about a controlled landing on some nice smooth LZ, this is an emergency descent onto unknown territory! I can see several ways that D-ring could cause some serious pain and damage to your hand in a rough landing, too. If you are really cool under pressure, drop it at the last moment!

Seriously, while this may all seem a bit trivial, the process of bailing out of a glider and successfully completing the descent under canopy needs to be carefully thought out before it happens!

Cheers,

Kirk
66
(Airborne, Ft Benning 1971, plus AF free fall training, 1973).

I'm guessing we're on the same page. In any event, since this thread is
low-risk to morph into a "dreaded technology monster" discussion (PLB's noted,
ha ha), and, I happen to think some of the safety-related things it touches
upon are of very real & serious importance to every glider pilot, and hoping
to not be beating a moribund horse, I'll chance expanding on a few items...

On 1/6/2016 1:05 PM, kirk.stant wrote:
On Wednesday, January 6, 2016 at 9:56:20 AM UTC-6, Bob Whelan wrote:
P.S. Also, and probably showing the different influences between
military and sport-flying worlds ( :-) ), it was commonly held in the
gliding world that hanging onto the D-ring was preferred, to avoid the
$15-or-so you'd be charged for a new one if you ever had occasion to take
your deployed 'chute in for repacking! At the risk of triggering a burst
of internet-enabled expert-outrage and superciliousness, my brain
imagines that inserting the loop of a D-ring betwixt thumb and index
finger thereby retaining same while also retaining normal hand function,
would be trivially easy to do while only marginally increasing one's
under-canopy risks.

Hmm, so now you are trying to PLF on some rocky slope or grab a tree as
you let down into a forest, while hanging on to a useless $15 D-ring?
Sorry, that seems like a bit foolish to me.
It does to me, too (although "a bit" may be too kind)! That's why I would've
had no qualms ditching mine (pardon the pun) when for a while it looked like I
was going to land in a big mountain reservoir. As it was, I saved it with no
D-ring-inflicted injuries despite landing in the county dump.

We aren't talking about a controlled landing on some nice smooth LZ, this
is an emergency descent onto unknown territory! I can see several ways that
D-ring could cause some serious pain and damage to your hand in a rough
landing, too. If you are really cool under pressure, drop it at the last
moment!
Murphy is real, so, "Roger all that!"

Seriously, while this may all seem a bit trivial, the process of bailing
out of a glider and successfully completing the descent under canopy needs
to be carefully thought out before it happens!
100% "Roger THAT!!!"


Cheers,

Kirk 66 (Airborne, Ft Benning 1971, plus AF free fall training, 1973).
Thanks for your military service!

Bob - no broken bones yet - W. (extensive kiddie 10'-porch-jumping, book
l'arnin', ultimately BTDT PLF 1975)