Interesting. Two weeks ago, several of us contacted wave and managed a
beautiful climb up through a fairly small blue hole. Though there was never
any question about being able to get back through, it made me think about
the alternative routes to getting down if I were caught on top. I've tried
the benign spiral in several ships, ranging from a 1-34 to Grob 102 and an
LS4, and it seemed to work in all cases similar to Todd's description.

But, on this recent flight, I tried something different. I turned the
"gain" on my GPS display up to high (ie. shortest range) and used the Tracks
On feature to give me a reference to ground. I set an initial heading
using GPS display (not wet compass) and used the individual dots on the
Track as a sort of reverse CDI. I was curious to see if the response would
be sensitive and rapid enough to avoid major roll excursions. It SEEMED to
work. I was able to hold heading without reference to ground and used only
airspeed for pitch. I tried not to cheat, but since I don't routinely
bring my foggles along on glider flights and didn't have a safety pilot, I
didn't want to go too far heads down :-)) Now, I'm not advocating this,
but does anyone else see this as an option?

Erik Mann



"nafod40" wrote in message
...
Todd Pattist wrote:

I had my doubts about using this technique in a slippery
glass ship, but I found it to work fairly well, except I use
trim back. I have tried this in my Ventus C, once for a
total of 10,000' descent, once for 8,000' descent and once
for 5,000' (a real waste of altitude, but each was after a
wave flight and I was cold). I found that trim back
(thermal setting), flaps at -1 (one notch negative - zero
and positive flap settings are limited to 80 knots), wheel
out and brakes full open worked best. The 10,000' and
5,000' descents were entered level, became a gentle stable
turn and remained fairly stable with some phugoid speed
oscillation. The turn would sometimes steepen, sometimes
shallow or even reverse.

When flying in the military, we used to play games and see what we could
fail and still fly the plane IMC. I found I could get by with a turn
needle, an AOA gauge, a balance ball (or a balance string) and an ASI.
The turn needle coupled with the balance string could be used to
maintain wings level. Basically use rudder to keep the turn needle
centered, and wing to balance flight.

The AOA with the airspeed, oddly enough, worked fine for pitch once you
got used to it. The AOA responded instantly to pitch inputs, and let you
immediately correct them. From a controls standpoint, it gave great
derivative information. The airspeed then let you dampen the slow pitch
deviations. It was a great integrator. One could replicate an AOA
indicator by a string on the side of a cockpit.

I could fly a PAR to mins using this technique. Tiring, but doable.

So the turn needle is the only thing seriously lacking in a glider.