Thoughts on crash/article in Soaring?

I am no longer a member of SSA, so I have not seen the offending
article. One of my complaints with the direction of the society is the
lack of subject experts in editorial positions with the magazine. This
also effects the direction of the group when directors are able to
direct policy in training and standards. Eventually some bad idea will
kill someone.

What exactly is a "high parasitic drag approach?" A Grob 103 will
generate an impressive rate of descent and descent angle at 55-60 knots
and full spoilers. As will the much derided 2-33 at 50-55 mph with
spoilers and a full forward slip. Both of those conditions certainly
qualify in my opinion as high parasitic (or profile) drag.

A few years back I had a student in the Grob from a California Club.
His approach idea was to point the nose at his touchdown aim point and
modulate spoilers to maintain airspeed. After spending many of his fun
tickets, we got him soloed and past his PP exam. I only hope that the
law of primacy was broken in his case.

Bad ideas are worse than horror movie zombies.

DPE Estrella

I agree with those that think this is a useful article (actually two) -
as it does a fine job of working throught the thought process that led
to the accident. And I think it shines a big spotlight on some
problems in our training process in the US.

To me, the whole point is that Mr Skydell was totally unprepared for
the unexpected - he had not been trained for it, and had not thought
about it much. His description of himself as a "conservative" pilot is
a big clue - I'm sure he would never think of a wormburner double pass,
or an L/D max GPS glide to an airfield he's never seen before. By
being "conservative", he thought he was safer. But the unexpected is
exactly what we as glider pilots must think about and prepare for.
From a canopy coming open on takeoff, to the spoiler handle coming off
in your hand turning base, to the herd of cows on the runway - it's the
unexpected that usually cause problems. Endless practice rope breaks
at 200 ft are fine - but how about a rope break at 10 ft - just when
the glider gets airborne?

It takes guts to make a mistake that your peers will jump on and say is
stupid - but we often learn more about those moments of inattention or
confusion - and when our time comes (and trust me it will!) we may just
remember some little fact that saves the day.

I remember being shown high energy patterns (as described in the
article) at Estrella back in the early 90s - along with patterns that
started by diving to redline just above the desert out at the IP and
flying the whole pattern in ground effect, pulling up to make the
turns. They both worked, were a lot of fun, and were useful for
showing what the glider COULD do, not what necessarily should be done.
One can never have too many tricks up your sleeve!

Anyway - I hope Soaring gets more articles like this (I can think of a
few I could write...)

Kirk
66

Why are so many slamming the author of the articles ? He has already
acknowledged the compounded errors which led to the crash ? The point
of the two excellent articles ( better than many previously published
in Soaring ), and in first person no less, as opposed to
reconstructions in the equally important section "Safety Corner", is to
alert other pilots to what can go wrong, NOT to excuse or rationalize a
series of wrong decisions. IMHO, any article pertaining to an accident
or almost-accident is worthwhile. The vociferous personal attacks
against the pilot , even more so those against his instructor, are
entirely uncalled for.

Cheers anyhow, Charles

golly gee........didn't his wife get him an ASW-28 to replace the -300?
At least he has a nicer ship!
Brad

Well,,,ignorance is BLISS!!!
"MS" wrote in message
oups.com...
Does anybody have anything to say about the accident described in
Soaring magazine concerning a pilot who could not land to a stop on a
6,000 foot paved runway or the parallel dirt runway to the South?

I know this sounds very judgemental and I don't ordinarily make
negative comments about an accident, but holy cow, if I couldn't make
a 6,000 ft runway with or without spoilers, I'll quit the sport. I
believe the private pilot PTS states the applicant has to land and roll
to a stop within 200 ft of a predesignated spot. Most students can do
that every time prior to solo. I fly at an operation with a 4,000 ft
runway where we only use 1/2 for landing and the other 1/2 for launch.
Even new solo students don't need the full 4,000 feet! I know the
pilot got the gear and spoiler handles mixed up, but good grief.

Also, what's with the dumbass "high parasitic drag approach"?
Spoilers and slipping works fine. If you can't hit a 6000 ft runway
from 350 ft on final with spoilers or a forward slip, choose another
sport. The high parasitic drag approach described in the article does
not sound like a stable approach to landing.


The article should be renamed "Is conservative safe? YES, but bozos
who blame their instruction/instructors for being clueless are not."
He mainly blamed his conservative instruction and instructors instead
of admitting he was not thinking properly that day. I can't believe
his instructors went along with that attitude. He must have a problem
with freezing up and tunnel vision if something goes slightly wrong and
he can't salvage the situation he got himself into.

Flame away if it makes you feel better, but nothing will change my
mind.

syoun10 wrote:
I have often wondered about what the author calls "high parasitic drag
approach".

Of course, it should never happen... but IF one found oneself very
high on final I have always thought the best strategy would be to pull
full airbrake, slip as much as possible and then dive as fast as
placarded limits allow. Drag increases with the square of speed, so
this should get you down with the steepest descent. In this scenario
you should bleed off speed to normal approach speed before getting into
ground effect.
snip
My experience and thinking process are probably derived from
hang-gliding where there are no spoilers or flaps and you can't
consistantly slip. Increasing the speed on final is the recommended
way of steepening the approach, in fact it is the ONLY way. I'm not
sure why this experience would not translate to sailplanes.
snip

It does translate to sailplanes. I did not see the article, so I don't
know about the "high parasitic drag" approach referred to, but I often
do an extreme version of this with a very high approach, full flap,
full spoiler, and a tail chute. In this configuration, I can just point
the nose at the round-out point, and the airspeed will remain stable,
even at an approach angle approaching 1:1. At steep pitch angles, the
glide geometry changes (e.g. lift is no longer equal to weight). So
there is some advantage to doing this, if it is done properly.

The normal procedure for using a tail chute for a short field landing
over an obstacle is to make the approach just clearing the obstacle,
then pitch down sharply and deploy the chute to get down as close to
the approach end as possible. One thing, you do have to be careful to
round out properly. If you do it too high, airspeed will bleed off
quickly, and you could stall. If you do it too low, you may not have
enough room to complete the roundout before the ground comes up to
simite thee. So this is a critical maneuver.

Now there are only a handful of gliders equipped with a chute, so this
is not generally applicable. The point is that if you have enough drag,
it can be done. IIRC the Grob 103 manual actually says that it is
permissible to either use the brakes to control glide path and pitch to
control airspeed, or to use pitch to control glide path and brakes to
control airspeed. But the G103 has very powerful brakes.

So I have always taught only to use pitch for airspeed and brakes (and
slip) to control glide path. This method works with all gliders, even
those without good brakes (it also applies to airplanes using the
throttle in place of the brakes). And it does not require as much skill
as the other method. As long as it is done properly, there is no need
for the other method, except possibly for landing in a small field with
a big obstacle. But this should only arise if you are flying aggressive
cross country, and you should not be doing that until you are more
skilled.

A steep approach is especially unnecessary for landing at an airport
without obstructions (on the approach end). And it won't be very
effective without deploying the dive brakes, especially with the wheel
retracted.

At 19:00 11 July 2006, wrote:
1. The sailplane is going 75 knots 10 to15 feet off
the ground with
the spoilers open. The spoilers are then closed and
the sailplane
travels maybe 4500 feet losing 10 knots of airspeed
(65 knots on
impact) and the pilot is slipping the sailplane for
some of that time.
How is that possible? That equates to an L/D of 300/1
to 450/1. I
understand the concept of ground effect but I'm not
sure that ground
effect can have that much impact. Nor do I believe
that reducing ones
airspeed from 75 to 65 can increase ones L/D tenfold.
Some of the
story is not making sense to me.

I can assure you that ground effect is real and will
keep you in the air far longer than you might think.
One of the demonstrations that I gave students was
an approach over the runway threshold with 65-70knots
at 5 to 10 ft in a Grob 103 no airbrake. I was able
to show that the glider would still be flying when
the end of the 10000 ft runway was reached. Admittedly
the second half of the runway is slightly downhill
but if the airbrakes were not opened we would 'miss'
the runway. It would be nice to know just how far it
would go but we don't have a long enough runway in
the UK to find out, well not one I have access to.
I could of course start further back but I dont fancy
the bill for all those lights and things.

Clearly Jim Skydell is a sincere stand-up guy. It took a LOT of courage to
present his mea culpa in so public an arena. Just as clearly, he wants to
do his best to help others avoid his mistakes and, moreover, the thought
processes that led to them. I'm sure he would agree that his actions that
day were dumb. It strikes me from the responses here that he has
accomplished a great deal.

We are all human and therefore can make big mistakes. The take home lesson
is that we need to check and re-check our actions to avoid those big
mistakes

I think we all owe Jim a vote of thanks for his openness and his public
sacrafice made on our behalf..

Bill Daniels


wrote in message
ps.com...
I could not agree with you more. The only change I would make in your
comments would be to put the words "STUPID, MORONIC," in front of your
statement "dumbass high parasitic drag approach".

Any one of us can make a mistake when flying and that is just the
nature of being human. It sometimes happens. But to rationalize the
event as this article has done is beyond belief. The only thing I can
think of that is worse is that the SSA published the article.

I have spent more than enough time over the last several weeks
explaining this article to my students. More than one has asked about
the "high parasitic drag approach" and mentioned that I never taught
that to them. My answer is the same each time. "No I have not taught
this to you and I never will. It is NOT the way to land a sailplane.
Period." (Unless, of course, you want to fly through a 6,000 ft
runway and crash on the far end of it. Or, on the other hand, maybe
this method of "approach" had nothing to do with the crash and should
not have even been mentioned in the article. Even if the latter is the
case this approach method, in my opinion, is not an acceptable method
for landing a sailplane and should not be used nor "taught".)

Frank Reid


MS wrote:
Does anybody have anything to say about the accident described in
Soaring magazine concerning a pilot who could not land to a stop on a
6,000 foot paved runway or the parallel dirt runway to the South?

I know this sounds very judgemental and I don't ordinarily make
negative comments about an accident, but holy cow, if I couldn't make
a 6,000 ft runway with or without spoilers, I'll quit the sport. I
believe the private pilot PTS states the applicant has to land and roll
to a stop within 200 ft of a predesignated spot. Most students can do
that every time prior to solo. I fly at an operation with a 4,000 ft
runway where we only use 1/2 for landing and the other 1/2 for launch.
Even new solo students don't need the full 4,000 feet! I know the
pilot got the gear and spoiler handles mixed up, but good grief.

Also, what's with the dumbass "high parasitic drag approach"?
Spoilers and slipping works fine. If you can't hit a 6000 ft runway
from 350 ft on final with spoilers or a forward slip, choose another
sport. The high parasitic drag approach described in the article does
not sound like a stable approach to landing.


The article should be renamed "Is conservative safe? YES, but bozos
who blame their instruction/instructors for being clueless are not."
He mainly blamed his conservative instruction and instructors instead
of admitting he was not thinking properly that day. I can't believe
his instructors went along with that attitude. He must have a problem
with freezing up and tunnel vision if something goes slightly wrong and
he can't salvage the situation he got himself into.

Flame away if it makes you feel better, but nothing will change my
mind.

Not only do you have ground effect, but the runway might be pretty hot,
generating some nice lift.

Mike Schumann

"Don Johnstone" wrote in message
...
At 19:00 11 July 2006, wrote:
1. The sailplane is going 75 knots 10 to15 feet off
the ground with
the spoilers open. The spoilers are then closed and
the sailplane
travels maybe 4500 feet losing 10 knots of airspeed
(65 knots on
impact) and the pilot is slipping the sailplane for
some of that time.
How is that possible? That equates to an L/D of 300/1
to 450/1. I
understand the concept of ground effect but I'm not
sure that ground
effect can have that much impact. Nor do I believe
that reducing ones
airspeed from 75 to 65 can increase ones L/D tenfold.
Some of the
story is not making sense to me.

I can assure you that ground effect is real and will
keep you in the air far longer than you might think.
One of the demonstrations that I gave students was
an approach over the runway threshold with 65-70knots
at 5 to 10 ft in a Grob 103 no airbrake. I was able
to show that the glider would still be flying when
the end of the 10000 ft runway was reached. Admittedly
the second half of the runway is slightly downhill
but if the airbrakes were not opened we would 'miss'
the runway. It would be nice to know just how far it
would go but we don't have a long enough runway in
the UK to find out, well not one I have access to.
I could of course start further back but I dont fancy
the bill for all those lights and things.

We've got some long, straight, hot highways in the US, like Interstate 5 in
California. Except for those pesky overpasses, oh, and the FAA that would
frown on it, I've often thought it would be fun to get down on the deck and
see if one could beat the records held by Gordy and Kempton .

bumper
"Mike Schumann" wrote in message
nk.net...
Not only do you have ground effect, but the runway might be pretty hot,
generating some nice lift.

Mike Schumann

"Don Johnstone" wrote in message
...
At 19:00 11 July 2006, wrote:
1. The sailplane is going 75 knots 10 to15 feet off
the ground with
the spoilers open. The spoilers are then closed and
the sailplane
travels maybe 4500 feet losing 10 knots of airspeed
(65 knots on
impact) and the pilot is slipping the sailplane for
some of that time.
How is that possible? That equates to an L/D of 300/1
to 450/1. I
understand the concept of ground effect but I'm not
sure that ground
effect can have that much impact. Nor do I believe
that reducing ones
airspeed from 75 to 65 can increase ones L/D tenfold.
Some of the
story is not making sense to me.

I can assure you that ground effect is real and will
keep you in the air far longer than you might think.
One of the demonstrations that I gave students was
an approach over the runway threshold with 65-70knots
at 5 to 10 ft in a Grob 103 no airbrake. I was able
to show that the glider would still be flying when
the end of the 10000 ft runway was reached. Admittedly
the second half of the runway is slightly downhill
but if the airbrakes were not opened we would 'miss'
the runway. It would be nice to know just how far it
would go but we don't have a long enough runway in
the UK to find out, well not one I have access to.
I could of course start further back but I dont fancy
the bill for all those lights and things.