On 5/17/2015 9:17 AM, Bill D wrote:
On Sunday, May 17, 2015 at 8:35:11 AM UTC-6, Papa3 wrote:
On Sunday, May 17, 2015 at 12:15:59 AM UTC-4, wrote:
I have always wondered, why do people get so worked up about gear up
landings in a glider ?

Has anyone ever been killed or seriously injured because of a gear up
landing in a glider ?

I have seen several gear up landings and none of them caused any injury
and only minor damage.

What's the big deal ?

Todd Smith 3S

I've seen someone seriously injured when a pilot was distracted by a
radio call on short final (Glider AB, check your gear). The gear was in
fact up, but the pilot momentarily lost control of the glider trying to
lower it and hit a spectator, seriously injuring that innocent bystander.
It would've been far preferable to land gear up. I also know also of a
pilot who was distracted on short final by an erroneous call from the
ground. In fact, his gear was down and he dealt with it just fine, but
it could easily have been a bad outcome.

Anyway, in several thousand glider takeoffs and landings, I've managed
to land gear up twice. In both cases, I was extremely current,
well-trained, and considered by my peers to be a good pilot. In one of
those, I had a working gear warning which I managed to ignore until after
the glider settled ("oh, that's what that annoying noise was"). Point
being, those who sit on their pedestal and claim that only under-trained
or careless pilots land gear up might want to to reconsider their stance.
I know of several other very good pilots who have suffered the same
fate.

Long-winded intro to the real question which is... yeah, if a strip of
bonded sacraficial material works, great. I would point out that one of
the real problems is that, with any sort of hard hit, the damage isn't
just to the gelcoat. You have to inspect whatever bulkheads and seams
are are bonded at the belly. I know of a relatively minor gear up that
resulted in a fairly tricky repair on an LS glider.

P3

I've always presumed that real aviators can fly their aircraft and listen
to the radio at the same time. If a "check gear" call rattles a pilot so
that he loses control of the glider, there's a problem afoot much more
serious than radio procedures.


Humanity...it's a wonder we've ever survived to create technology and
sailplanes! And considering only the male subset of humankind, it's a wonder
any manage to survive into/measurably-along the journey of adulthood, when you
consider how few of us lack at least one story along the lines of: "Boy, did I
ever get lucky when I did THAT (stupid, ignorant, inattentive,
life-endangering) thing!!!" I don't consider myself particularly
adrenaline-loving, or abbie-normally stupid/ignorant/inattentive, but I've my
own collection of survival stories...fortunately for my embarrassment
quotient, few of them public or related to soaring. If it happens, it must be
possible...

That noted, "What Bill D. said."

Honestly, what percentage of PIC readers haven't yet heard: Aviate! Navigate!
Communicate!

What percentage didn't encounter the aphorism until after their first incident?

What percentage have yet to take it to heart?

My money's on #3 being the largest number.

As for UHMWPE as a belt-n-suspenders adjunct against the day you begin sliding
gear-up on a reasonably smooth surface of any sort, save for the perpetual
minor in-flight aerodynamic drag increase, no obvious downsides spring to my mind.

YMMV,
Bob - no gear-up landings yet; 2 rolling-on-gear-collapses - W.