Landing with one spoiler

I landed our ASW22A with one brake deployed. It had
been flown previously that day by my syndicate partner,
without problem. Luckily I usually pop the brakes on
the downwind or base leg just to check all is well.
In this instance (at Dunstable) after a bang, the
LHS brake deployed OK, but the RHS stayed down. There
was a roll and yaw. I shut the brake(s) quickly looked
again and the RHS was now open and LHS closed, with
the opposite affect. Gulp, panic at thought of landing
Open class without brakes, etc. Landing was just OK
with a slight groundloop (stick forward and lots of
brake (tail lifts, so no probs).
The Hotelier for the brake had popped off after a previous
flight. We used safetys after that with no further
problems.

1) I still pop the brakes to check on base or final
(and often just after settled into first climb). Cheap
insurance.
2) On the assembly, I always give the Hoteliers a good
tug to ensure they're WELL AND TRUELY connected.
Stay safe.
Pete.


At 15:48 22 September 2005, Chris Rollings wrote:
I recollect once watching someone land an ASW20 with
only one brake deployed. The pilot didn't even notice
there was a problem, just wondered why one wing dropped
a little earlier than usual. Lucky, I would agree.

At 04:12 22 September 2005, wrote:
I committed one of the worst errors - an incomplete
preflight check.
I did not check the hotelier locks to the spoiler rods
with enough care
before takeoff. Coming into the pattern I extended
the spoilers and
noticed immediately that something was wrong. The glider
(SparrowHawk)
was pulling to one side and the rate of descent was
not as much as I
expected. However the glider was easily controllable.
A few seconds and
I saw that the right spoiler was not deploying. What
to do? A couple of
attempts to close and open the spoilers did not actuate
the right
spoiler. Then, oh well, lets check and see the effect
of landing with
only one spoiler. The situation was less dramatic than
expected.
Maximum sink rate was halved and the SparrowHawk needed
some cross
control to fly straight but no problem. The landing
was easy and
controllable. The lessons to be learnt from this are
2 fold: 1) landing
a glider with only one spoiler should be easy for most
pilots and 2) do
a serious preflight inspection especially after assembly.
Dave