Glider Fatality in WA

I've been thaught the two methods. In Belgium an instructor told me to make
S-turns when high on final, in France this seems to be illegal and a steep
dive with full spoilers is recommended. About aiming between the trees, this
makes me wonder. In a glider with a span of let's say 15 to 18 m you
probably end up hitting a tree with one or two wings. An article in our club
magazine about outlanding mentioned that stick full forward and
intentionally ground-looping as the method of choice. The stick forward
would bring the tail up and prevent it from snapping off. Speed would be
down and the glider and more importantly yourself would survive. Anyway,
there is no more damage than hitting a tree with a wing.


Joeri.

"Eric Greenwell" schreef in bericht
...
Shawn Curry wrote:


It got me thinking about what I would do in the same situation. It
sounds like he made a reasonable choice by adding some length to his
final by doing some turns. Someone mentioned the field was 2000
feet or so.

Airnav lists the runway length at 2100'. The Terraserver image from
1998 shows it is about 2300'-2400' from the trees at one end to the
trees at the other end. I've never been there, but the lengths and
images suggest a field with very small margins for error.

Being able to loose enough energy to be slow and midfield at 50 feet
sounds like he achieved his goal all too well. 1000 feet to land
from 50 feet sounds tight but doable especially if you're already
slow and need to speed up to do a proper flare. The thing I figured
is that it would *look* tight and maybe impossible especially if the
drill at that field is to land on the numbers (I don't know this). I
do know I've never been drilled with "Fly over most of the runway and
stop with the nose at the far end of the runway." If this was the
situation he was in, I could see how it ended badly.

In the situation described above, I think the only option left is full
spoiler, dive steeply and put it on the ground as soon as possible, then
use full wheel brake and full forward stick. If that didn't stop the
glider in time, aiming between the trees as they approach might avoid
serious injury, as likely the speed would be slow by the time of collsion.

I'm not sure I would think of this if I were in that situation, as the
ground would seem to be going by rapidly with the tailwind, and the
trees would likely look very threatening.


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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA