On Wednesday, March 5, 2014 12:08:55 PM UTC-6, John Carlyle wrote:

Thank for writing that - very interesting that you mix approach types.

My experience is that you can never be sure that you will be able to fly a "textbook" pattern, so better to be comfortable in a variety of situations. It's a matter of getting your glider from where it is to short final to your desired landing area, at a safe speed and altitude for the existing conditions. Patterns are guides - but one can land safely from all sorts of patterns; one can also (as we are proving) crash from "textbook" patterns.


I'm not too clear about your comment "always flying the same pattern into the same airfield pretty much guarantees that your first landout will be exciting". I always use a downwind-base-final pattern, I've logged 10 landouts in farmers fields, and except for having to dodge an electric wire fence once they were low or no drama events (although some of the retrieves were interesting).


If you have the luxury of large fields and plenty of time, then setting up a "standard" pattern is always a good option - but what if you don't have those options? You may find on base that the field you picked is not landable, or the wind changes 180 degrees due to a gust front; you may be following a valley and have to suddenly land in that field on your left; or you may get back to your own field and be in a gaggle of gliders all vying for the same runway at the same time. Most of my landouts have been benign also - but I've also done a couple of final glides into fields that I couldn't see and the pattern consisted of one turn, gear & flaps down, and land. I think you have to be prepared for these kinds of eventualities, and be able to fly your glider safely when low and stressed. That takes planning and practice.


Your "de-stabilized" (non-constant airspeed) approach comment was also interesting. I tend to keep high until on final, just to keep my options open, but my speed stays pretty much constant. Being high has helped me on several occasions to delay a bit (once a person behind me with no radio landed under me, another time someone drove onto the field). Do I understand correctly that you tend to keep your energy in speed rather than altitude?


Energy is the key, high and fast is nice, lower and fast is OK, but slow and low is never good until over the threshold! I see my "hot" pattern speed as a minimum and if it gets a bit high I don't worry about it - final is a fine time to decelerate and get ready to land. Again, it depends on the situation - if there are lots of gliders around trying to land, then playing off altitude and speed is a useful tool to use to get sequenced into the flow - and extra speed on final is good unless you KNOW you have to land short! If there is nothing going on and it's the last landing of the day, then a perfect, constant speed pattern is a fun challenge; but if it's a hectic arrival, I may have to maneuver aggressively to get down; then speed control is more of the "stay fast, stay fast, stay fast..." variety until the immediate problem of where to go is solved. Stall/spins make lousy pattern entries!

Cheers,

Kirk
66