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27 crash at Ely?



 
 
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  #21  
Old July 13th 20, 09:43 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default 27 crash at Ely?

Three deaths in Europe over the weekend also.
A DG-300 and a LS-4 midair in Germany. Also, a LS-8 winch launch crash in the Netherlands.
  #22  
Old July 15th 20, 07:47 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
MNLou
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Default 27 crash at Ely?

So sad. He was a great guy who gladly mentored me at Parowan a few years ago.

(Along with a number of other generous pilots.)

Lou
  #23  
Old July 16th 20, 08:57 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default 27 crash at Ely?

I just reread The Beautiful Mountain & her Sinister Trap, by Henry Combs, Soaring mag, Sept 1984. Henry’s friend crashed at 10:30 in the morning looking for earl lift flying alone a ridge line. Henry does an excellent job of explaining how a highly experienced pilot might get trapped on a ridge. Basically, he sets up the trap with a 5 knot thermal out away from the ridge with the sink and rolling away from the thermal, motion that everyone has experienced a thousand times. Only, this morning the sink is aligned with the face of the ridge.............here comes our highly experienced pilot flying along the ridge, looking for an early thermal........ he flies right into 5 knot sink and a rolling away motion of the thermal and the sink and rolling motion is confined by the ridge. Henry, an aeronautical engender states that it’s not hard to experience rolling motion that exceeds the capabilities of our sailplanes ailerons and in this case, the rolling motion is into the ridge!
The Sinister Trap snares someone every now and then........more than a half dozen times in my 50 year soaring experience!
JJ Sinclair
  #24  
Old July 16th 20, 10:02 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Jonathan St. Cloud
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Default 27 crash at Ely?

On Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 12:57:52 PM UTC-7, wrote:
I just reread The Beautiful Mountain & her Sinister Trap, by Henry Combs, Soaring mag, Sept 1984. Henry’s friend crashed at 10:30 in the morning looking for earl lift flying alone a ridge line. Henry does an excellent job of explaining how a highly experienced pilot might get trapped on a ridge. Basically, he sets up the trap with a 5 knot thermal out away from the ridge with the sink and rolling away from the thermal, motion that everyone has experienced a thousand times. Only, this morning the sink is aligned with the face of the ridge.............here comes our highly experienced pilot flying along the ridge, looking for an early thermal........ he flies right into 5 knot sink and a rolling away motion of the thermal and the sink and rolling motion is confined by the ridge. Henry, an aeronautical engender states that it’s not hard to experience rolling motion that exceeds the capabilities of our sailplanes ailerons and in this case, the rolling motion is into the ridge!
The Sinister Trap snares someone every now and then........more than a half dozen times in my 50 year soaring experience!
JJ Sinclair

Henry's article https://www.ssa.org/Archive/ViewIssu...=1984&month=09

As I recall JJ Sinclair also wrote an excellent article on that subject? Perhaps you could post that too.
  #25  
Old July 16th 20, 10:02 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default 27 crash at Ely?

On Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 3:57:52 PM UTC-4, wrote:
I just reread The Beautiful Mountain & her Sinister Trap, by Henry Combs, Soaring mag, Sept 1984. Henry’s friend crashed at 10:30 in the morning looking for earl lift flying alone a ridge line. Henry does an excellent job of explaining how a highly experienced pilot might get trapped on a ridge. Basically, he sets up the trap with a 5 knot thermal out away from the ridge with the sink and rolling away from the thermal, motion that everyone has experienced a thousand times. Only, this morning the sink is aligned with the face of the ridge.............here comes our highly experienced pilot flying along the ridge, looking for an early thermal........ he flies right into 5 knot sink and a rolling away motion of the thermal and the sink and rolling motion is confined by the ridge. Henry, an aeronautical engender states that it’s not hard to experience rolling motion that exceeds the capabilities of our sailplanes ailerons and in this case, the rolling motion is into the ridge!
The Sinister Trap snares someone every now and then........more than a half dozen times in my 50 year soaring experience!
JJ Sinclair


The question is: how to avoid this trap? What time of day and ridge geometry is conducive to this? What is a safe distance from the ridge and how does that depend on airspeed and thermal and wind conditions? How much airspeed (if any) would keep one safe (enough aileron authority)? When would you avoid circling (in a thermal near a ridge) and use figure eights instead (so as never approaching the ridge head-on), and is that enough to keep you safe (since that rolling motion may still get you even while flying parallel to the ridge)?
  #26  
Old July 16th 20, 10:19 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Dan Marotta
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Default 27 crash at Ely?



On 7/16/2020 1:57 PM, wrote:
I just reread The Beautiful Mountain & her Sinister Trap, by Henry Combs, Soaring mag, Sept 1984. Henry’s friend crashed at 10:30 in the morning looking for earl lift flying alone a ridge line. Henry does an excellent job of explaining how a highly experienced pilot might get trapped on a ridge. Basically, he sets up the trap with a 5 knot thermal out away from the ridge with the sink and rolling away from the thermal, motion that everyone has experienced a thousand times. Only, this morning the sink is aligned with the face of the ridge.............here comes our highly experienced pilot flying along the ridge, looking for an early thermal........ he flies right into 5 knot sink and a rolling away motion of the thermal and the sink and rolling motion is confined by the ridge. Henry, an aeronautical engender states that it’s not hard to experience rolling motion that exceeds the capabilities of our sailplanes ailerons and in this case, the rolling motion is into the ridge!
The Sinister Trap snares someone every now and then........more than a half dozen times in my 50 year soaring experience!
JJ Sinclair

I wonder if that's what happened to Tom Bjork and John Weber.
--
Dan, 5J

  #27  
Old July 16th 20, 11:20 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default 27 crash at Ely?

On Sunday, July 12, 2020 at 8:45:45 AM UTC-6, Waveguru wrote:
Does anyone know if a 27 crashed in Ely recently?

Boggs


Good read - Martin Hellman (Stanford edu)speech in 2007 at PASCO -

https://ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/soa...2007_talk.html -

and the article stated by JJ is excellent - it almost happened to me
twice - once it happens you are almost powerless to counter the rolling
force - especially if you are without water ballast and you are slow -
I believe this phenomenon has happened often
  #28  
Old July 17th 20, 01:35 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
2G
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Default 27 crash at Ely?

On Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 12:57:52 PM UTC-7, wrote:
I just reread The Beautiful Mountain & her Sinister Trap, by Henry Combs, Soaring mag, Sept 1984. Henry’s friend crashed at 10:30 in the morning looking for earl lift flying alone a ridge line. Henry does an excellent job of explaining how a highly experienced pilot might get trapped on a ridge. Basically, he sets up the trap with a 5 knot thermal out away from the ridge with the sink and rolling away from the thermal, motion that everyone has experienced a thousand times. Only, this morning the sink is aligned with the face of the ridge.............here comes our highly experienced pilot flying along the ridge, looking for an early thermal........ he flies right into 5 knot sink and a rolling away motion of the thermal and the sink and rolling motion is confined by the ridge. Henry, an aeronautical engender states that it’s not hard to experience rolling motion that exceeds the capabilities of our sailplanes ailerons and in this case, the rolling motion is into the ridge!
The Sinister Trap snares someone every now and then........more than a half dozen times in my 50 year soaring experience!
JJ Sinclair


This situation is much more complex than that described by Combs. The day was very gusty with a simultaneous combination of ridge, thermal, and wave lift. The thermals were broken and hard to work. Marak's left-wing dipped (perhaps stalled), yet he turned hard to the right (??). The left wing tip hit the top of the ridge causing the glider to cartwheel. The cockpit took the full force of the impact, which was great enough to break the shoulder harness webbing. The wings were still in their assembled position, albeit with the pins ejected.

While one may want a simple explanation of what happened to Marak, the realities are more complex. The take-home advice is that you need plenty of separation from the rocks. I advise enough to complete a turn toward the rocks with margin to spare.

Tom
  #29  
Old July 17th 20, 02:35 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default 27 crash at Ely?

I watched Tom Madigan fly into a ridge at a contest in Bishop California. There were three of us working a thermal East of Bishop. Those of you that have flown there know that you have to patiently work your way up to the top of the White Mountains by crawling stepwise up the western ridges, and then, when on top the going gets easy. It was a long task and so we launched early. Myself, Tom and Dr. Chuck Fisher were doing figure eights not far from the ridge. We were above the buttress and probably about 500 ft AGL so we could probably safely abandon our figure eights and start circling. Tom Was probably 100 feet below Chuck and I when I observed him turn toward the East to begin his circle. He appeared to sink into the ridge and at the last minute, he leveled his wings and pulled up. He came within a few feet of the top but failed to clear the terrain. I have an indelible memory of his water ballast bags flying out the leading edge of his wings and bursting on the rocks in front of the glider.
After making a few more turns I flew directly over the crash site to confirm the tail number before notifying contest ground. There was impressive sink just above the crash site and I assume it was there when Tom made his fatal turn toward the ridge. Chuck and I landed and, along with a local sheriff, hiked up to the crash site hoping that Tom was still alive. He was shoved up under the spar and appeared to have died instantly.
Once the convection gets going on the Bishop western ridges, there is a friendly push away from the terrain caused by the anabatic flow that sets up on most afternoons. We had been enjoying that push all week, and I suspect Tom counted on it being there on this day as well. The uphill breeze was present by the time we hiked up to the crash site, I think our early takeoff was a significant part of the setup for this accident.
The recent Ely accident,I understand, was also following an early launch.. It makes sense that early in the day thermals may stand away from the ridge, thus allowing the adjacent sink to dump onto the ridge, and then later they tend to hug the ridge after the anabatic winds gets established. Certainly Tom made a mistake, but how many of us have made that first circle toward rising terrain and when half way around, wished we had Done a few more figure eights. I’ve never fully regained my fearlessness since that incident 30 years ago. I give ridges a safe margin and then add a few hundred feet for wife and the kids.

Dale Bush
  #30  
Old July 17th 20, 03:34 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default 27 crash at Ely?

Ridge rules to live by..........on my first pass on a ridge, I keep my speed up (65 knots, dry; 70 knots, wet) and I stay about 300 feet off the rocks, both vertically and laterally! Another rule that I try to follow is to be very careful anytime the wind is over 20 knots! There are days when I just wont get within 1000 feet of the ridge, but rules cant always be followed. Last year I made a run for Peterson ridge with a tail-wind of 25 knots. I got there about half way up the side and was rewarded with very turbulent lift. I flew figure-eights until I was 500 feet above the ridge, then I tried a 360 degree turn. As my circle passed the top of the ridge, I hit a tremendous bump and the ship was thrown completely vertical, nose down. Didn’t last long and I was flying again within a few seconds. The stick remained neutral throughout the incident. I think it was a shear line on the back side of the ridge. Came away thinking I should have figure-eight’d until I was 1000 feet above the ridge!
JJ
 




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