At 01:30 15 February 2005, Mark James Boyd wrote:
I think you are right. I think that the glider examiners
could come
together to define a better standard for 'simulated
off-field
landings' that perhaps borrows terminolgy from the
airplane 'short-field landing' stuff.

As long as the focus of such short field landings is
on
'near-minimum energy' and 'touchdown spot' this would
be
good. These are good skills. Stopping after that
within any
actual particular distance is of no interest, however,
since anyone can mash the brakes.

I agree with the first part of this but stopping as
quickly as possible is also important. When landing
on an unknown surface, and all field landings are that,
the greater the chance of hitting something hidden
in the grass/crop like deep ruts or rocks. Making the
ground run as short as possible reduces the chances
of that. I know that it does not eliminate it altogether.
Of course the minimum stopping distance is reduced
by ensuring a minimum touchdown speed which goes right
back to managing the speed on the approach.

So the normal landing being a momentum management task,
and having the
off field landing be a different test for minimum landing
speed and
touchdown point task, seems quite reasonable. Putting
them together,
however, doesn't make sense to me. Either you are
landing with
minimum energy, or you are landing with extra energy
and using it
to stop at a certain point. Never both.

And I would not recommend trying to combine them in
real life, either.
One is for one thing, the other is for something else.
A long ground
roll gives a lot more control (using spoiler AND brake)
than
a slightly long 'minimum energy' landing followed by
attempts at maximum
braking that fail and end up rear-ending someone.

In article ,
T o d d P a t t i s t wrote:
Martin Eiler wrote:

As long as we acknowledge what skill we are testing
(managing a rollout), I'm OK with it. It's just a
skill
that I think it is odd to test when IMHO a more important
skill (low energy accurate touchdown) is not directly
tested.
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Mark J. Boyd