Nothing personal at all. I guess it's because the absurdity of not
being able to land a glider on a 6,000 foot runway using the
conventional forward slip or spoilers. I often hear glider pilots
over analyze and try to "get to the heart of a deeper problem in order
to partially exonerate themselves. "It couldn't be me making several
huge lapses in judgement, so it must be my instructors fault for not
providing me proper training. My instructors are too conservative.
They did not teach me everything I needed to know." The author never
stated it that way, but that's what I got out of the article.

I am an aviation safety counselor and I once had to counsel an ATP who
ran out of fuel on a personal flight. Luckily, it ended without damage
to the aircraft or killing him, his wife or his small child. Part of
the "punishment" the FAA handed out was for him to give his story at
several pilot meetings. He began his story " Hey, if it could happen
to me, it could happen to anyone." Although he admitted to some of the
error, he was still in denial that ithe series of pilot errors he made
could be 100% avoided by him or other people.

I see some of the same theme in this article and it really upsets me.

I wouldn't have the problem with the article if the author did not
blame "conservativism" or his conservative flight training as the real
blame for his lack of airmanship, forethought and planning. With
spoilers and a slip, I can induce 1,000 ft per minute sink at 60kts
which should be sufficient to land on a 6,000 ft runway from 500 ft AGL
over the numbers. We practice rope breaks at 200ft AGL in a strong
headwind that becomes a strong tailwind once you complete the turn back
to the 4,000 runway. We rarely use up more than 3,000 ft to come to a
complete stop.

The article should have stated the inherent dangers with using a high
drag approach, diving at the runway with full spoilers and then making
all the adjustments. It's not conservative. It's not stable. It's not
needed.

MS
wrote:
There have been few articles in Soaring or subjects on r.a.s. which
have generated so much flak and so many "ad hominem" attacks against
the author of the articles. It seems that the most virulent ones were
sent anonymously or under initials only. Am I missing something here,
or is there something personal against Jim Skydell ? The whole point of
those two articles was to describe a series of events, and NOT excuse
them, so what is the beef ?

Cheers, Charles