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Old June 17th 18, 07:28 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Jonathan St. Cloud
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Posts: 1,463
Default Grand Teton Crash

I just read Bob Thompson's excellent article on "Rogue Air". Reminds me of an encounter I had in a Inyo mountains thermal. I was maneuvering in a canyon running up the mountains, had a nice thermal, good climb rate, it even seemed round. All the sudden I was picked up by what felt like a force grabbing the tail of my ASW-24, nose pointing down perhaps 70-80 degrees and the glider was pulled skyward for two thousand feet while still pointing downward. At the top of the thrust I recovered from the unusual attitude and had a great day flying. Learned later we lost glider at the switchbacks that same day. Two other great articles to familiarize yourself with are "Don't Smack the Mountain" by Henry Coombs and JJ Sinclair's article on the same topic (JJ if you see this post please post a link to your article.)
Stay safe guys and gals!
Jon

On Friday, June 15, 2018 at 9:13:49 PM UTC-7, BobW wrote:
On 6/15/2018 2:03 PM, Bob T wrote:
Snip...

Sad indeed. Clear air, cloudy, or stormy, This is why I spent a long time
researching and then writing the 10 page article in Soaring Magazine a few
years ago titled "Rogue Air". Every once in a while the air can sneak up
on pilots and cause an upset, sometimes fatal. My upset came in clear air
with a few cu. Luckily, I pulled out at about 500' agl and was surprised
the wings stayed on. It just wasn't my day to go. For others, it's their
time, and our time to be sad, yet remember all the good of those that have
moved on.

http://www.danlj.org/~danlj/Soaring/...b_Thompson.pdf


Excellent article with 'some darn good pictures' as well! Well worth Joe
Glider Pilot's reading time and continuing ponderation. I base my assertion on
having encountered 'rogue air' a number of times myself in gliders, and being
fortunate enough to not have bent or broken anything (or died, humorless
laugh) in those encounters...though two instances were 'somewhat in doubt' in
my mind *while* they were happening. Eyeball defocusing turbulence and 3,000+
fpm sink will definitely get your attention.

Bob W.

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