Race of Champions

The opposite argument would be that allowing straight in finishes stops people from trying to thermal up from 200 feet a mile from the airport while a bunch of other finishers are wizzing by at 100kts. Not sure whats more dangerous, but probably the whole thermalling thing. Perhaps we need a hard deck?

2C

On Sunday, September 8, 2013 9:11:27 AM UTC-4, wrote:
This is a beautiful story..right up to the last two paragraphs. Read those again, carefully



"At the awards ceremony, he added that he was going to do a straight in to the

ground, options permitting, but he was NOT going to quit. He intended to leave

nothing "in the cockpit" so to speak. He was trying to make the field. Runway

18 has some powerlines on its northern approach, and a barbed-wire fence not

far beyond. He figured he could safely make it UNDER the powerlines...but

wasn't certain he could make it OVER the fence. He landed. He said it was the

roughest 1-26 landing he'd ever made. And that's saying something from a man

who probably has well over a hundred off-field landings in a 1-26, many of

them on dirt roads.



He said that after all the banging and bumping stopped, and after all the dust

had cleared away, and after he could see his flight computer, it showed he'd

come to a stop barely within the finish circle! Under the 1-26 rules he would

be scored with speed points!! He said he didn't care at that moment if he had

lost, he knew he'd done his and the day's best. That's what competition - and

life - is all about. Doing your best.

RRK wrote, On 9/8/2013 2:39 PM:


Harry Baldwin. Champion of champions.


Hey, Santiago, an aging fisherman struggled with a giant marlin.
Harry struggled with reaching his goal. Triumph of will over
weakness...and rules.

The fisherman would not be injured or die if the Marlin got away.

I don't see how he triumphed over the rules, as it was the specifics of
the rule that let him get speed points. I was very surprised to learn
you can land in a field instead of the airport, and still get speed points.

Perhaps the 1-26 is so sturdy and lands so slowly, there is little to
worry about from rocks or barb wire fences.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl

In article ,
Bob Whelan wrote:

Pardon the long post, but a Really Nifty Something happened at the recent
1-26, 2013, North American Championships held at Moriarty, New Mexico,
recently. Hollywood couldn't have written a more dramatic script, and I'm
guessing some RASidents might enjoy hearing about it. I know I sure enjoyed
witnessing it from the perspective of a ground grunt (aka crewperson for a
fellow competitor in the concurrently run 13.5 Meter Region 9 Super
Regional).


Wow, great write-up, Bob. That really needs to be in SOARING. Good show
to the competitors and congrats to Mr. Baldwin.


I understand and generally agree with John Cochrane's position on safety
rules, but I'd like give Mr. Baldwin the benefit of the doubt regarding
his final glide strategy. I have not flown at Moriarty, but have flown
at one or two places where, WITH LOCAL KNOWLEDGE, flying a 1-26 right
down to the ground would not involve much risk and would not be "dumb".
I would like to think that this was the situation described in the
story. Finally, did not Mr. Baldwin exhibit fine judgement? He knew
where the obstacles were and chose to land rather than push on with an
approach taking him under power lines and into a fence. Looks to me like
he weighed the risks, acted accordingly, and had a successful outcome.

Interesting memory of the opposite behavior: I was in a Region 9 at
Las Vegas NM years ago, and the USAFA cadets were there with their
1-34, Sierra Hotel.

They had a rigid rule: At 500 AGL, land. Period.

A cadet reported the IP on a straight-in final. She was on a perfect
glide slope to the runway -- and at 500 feet, she peeled off and
landed in the boonies.

rj

Giggle, Snort...

When I was an Air Force student pilot back in '73 they told us that landing
between two trees would absorb a lot of energy during a forced landing. So
the story goes, a pilot experiencing a forced landing saw a large field with
two trees in it...


"Ralph Jones" wrote in message
...
Interesting memory of the opposite behavior: I was in a Region 9 at
Las Vegas NM years ago, and the USAFA cadets were there with their
1-34, Sierra Hotel.

They had a rigid rule: At 500 AGL, land. Period.

A cadet reported the IP on a straight-in final. She was on a perfect
glide slope to the runway -- and at 500 feet, she peeled off and
landed in the boonies.

rj

On 9/9/2013 5:06 PM, Dan Marotta wrote:
Giggle, Snort...

When I was an Air Force student pilot back in '73 they told us that landing
between two trees would absorb a lot of energy during a forced landing. So
the story goes, a pilot experiencing a forced landing saw a large field with
two trees in it...


"Ralph Jones" wrote in message
...
Interesting memory of the opposite behavior: I was in a Region 9 at
Las Vegas NM years ago, and the USAFA cadets were there with their
1-34, Sierra Hotel.

They had a rigid rule: At 500 AGL, land. Period.

A cadet reported the IP on a straight-in final. She was on a perfect
glide slope to the runway -- and at 500 feet, she peeled off and
landed in the boonies.

rj


More recently (late '80s or early '90s), a "more money than experience" type
of glider pilot from the Boulder area bought a DG-400 and began flying XC
(gold distance+) hammer and tongs. I paid attention because I suspected he'd
never learned the basics of OFLs, and mighta been using the engine as his
"OFL-avoidance out." Dunno the full story, but he destroyed the ship by
hitting the (only) tree in a huge (according to the FBO who'd trained him and
saw the scene), good-to-land pasture, and - get this - within a few miles of
two (three if you count the one he almost certainly overflew on the way to his
crash) paved airports. The FBO was convinced he'd been messing with the engine
(trying to avoid the OFL) "for way too long." The FBO had no idea how or why
the guy hit the tree.

Big surprise, the erring pilot quit the sport after that...

Bob W.