Kawa rough landing?

On Wednesday, September 18, 2019 at 9:03:08 PM UTC-7, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Maybe this qualifies as prevention rather than recovery but I practice spins all the time - particularly spin entries (all at altitude of course). If you know how your glider behaves when it departs, can recognize a departure quickly and act promptly I've found it's possible to recover in 1/4 turn or so. Obviously that can vary by glider type and configuration. Even 1/4 turn is too much altitude loss at 150' AGL but maybe not at 350'. A surprise departure is likely to take longer to recognize and respond to than practice but longer still without any practice.

In any case I'd rather have some practice at it than not.

Similarly, I think landing where you are rapidly bleeding energy such as on an uphill field is a good skill and you can work your way up to a reasonable simulation by landing on the flat with increasing deployment of flaps and spoilers - all the way up to full if you're comfortable. Kawa's description of his landing seemed less about obstacles than rapid bleeding of speed before and following a bounce. Hitting a hidden obstacle truly is a "Fate is the Hunter" moment and an inherent hazard of committing to field landings if they aren't cultivated. I've only landed on a steep uphill once and it definitely is something that you could do better with practice.

Here again, I'd rather have some practice at it than not. Every landing is an opportunity to practice something before you have to do it under pressure.

Andy Blackburn
9B


On Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 7:45:52 PM UTC-5, 2G wrote:

It does absolutely no good to practice something you will never use, which is a spin recovery from low altitude. The only solution is prevention - if a particular mistake is going to kill you, you can't do it. Most low altitude spins are due to uncoordinated flight - mostly misuse of the rudder because the pilot fears the visual image he gets by a steep bank.

No amount of landout practice is going to prepare you to landing in a field with unseen obstacles, which is what apparently happened to Kawa. If you push into an area with poor landing options you should not be surprised when things turn out badly.

Tom

Andy,

When you are down low (in the pattern) practice COORDINATED flight - that is what will save your ass, not a low-altitude spin recovery. This is just plain, simple common sense. Pilots, lots of them, who don't do this are getting killed, this is fact. Can you produce a SINGLE pilot who has done such a low altitude save?

Tom


Tom

Tom you just dont get it. NASA, and the military both learned DECADES ago that their pilots need to be exposed to as many and as real as can be safely created, the exact sensations of an event.

Why? To give the pilot the experience of that event. Why? To sensitise the pilot to what that event will be like, and to help create the proper response, and to get that proper response instantaneously.

Yes, a guy entering a spin at 100ft agl is in **** creek, but as Andy says, at 350ft, he has a chance of survival IF he instantaneously acts and acts correctly. Not to mention inadvertently entering a spin in a gaggle and endangering others.

Secondly, its the instantaneous RECOGNITION of whats happening and intantaneous preemptive corrective action that saves a guy, NOT the "suppossed" "coordinated flight". THAT IS THE DIRTY JOKE THATS BEEN KiLLING GUYS FOR YEARS ! How many guys over the years have flown COORDINATED right into a stall/spin? ! ! ! I dare say most guys entering a spin don't realise their entering one till its already way late. Their first response is not..."spin spin stick forward!". No, their first and wrong response is ...."oh **** ...whats that?....." One can also crab or slip all the way thru a pattern and NEVER be in any danger of a spin. Jeeesus 2G you ever heard of a slip dude? We teach this **** and many of us depend on it daily. Guys like you would call a slip an "uncoordinated" manouver, "ohh **** the yaw string is way over!!!" This is the crap that many times gets subconciously passed on to our students who don't delve into the intricacies like us who are flight fanatics do. They falsely concentrate in the string and not the energy. You just inadvertantly "instructed" your student into a fatality!

It's situational awareness of energy management and angle of attack that matters, not the continual bull**** of so called coordinated flight.

Should we teach and practice proper coordinated flight? Of course. But we need to go and practice way way beyond that mantra and safely expose ourselves and our students to situational awareness of whats going, how to intantly recognise it and not be afraid of what their bird is doing, and how it reacts.

Like Andy and others have stated, safe actual practice and simulation of each possible flight situation is what is needed. With the rash of fatal accidents this year I think this fact needs to be pressed hard. Guys get high performance birds and NEVER trully explore their idiocyncracies before venturing off, putting their trust in technology (L/D and engines) and forget the "pilotage" part. Its the pilotage that keeps us alive!

2g to answer your question, I can recover from a 1/2 turn spin within 150ft but my response has to be instinctive and instantaneous, which it has gotten thru lots of practice.
You never answered my querry, when is the last time you practiced spins, spin entry, and recovery? Do you intimately know the subtleties of your birds behavior when super slow? Whens the last time you've taken 10 pattern tows and seen how steep you can approach a landing spot and stop short? Do you know how short you can stop? Do you practice very very minimum energy landings to be able to fly the ragged edges of control when you really need to?

These are things every xc pilot should do yearly and definitely when in a new bird.

To paraphrase advice from Wolfgang Langewiesche in Stick and Rudder: if *anything* surprising ever happens in a turn immediately unload (i.e aerodynamically) the wing.

IMO it should be ingrained in every pilot's mind that the instant he is surprised during a turn the he should move the stick forward - only after that should he analyse the situation.

Well said jpg. I forgot that wolfgang quote. Thats more of a lifesaver than any "fly coordinated" mantra. Thanks
Dan

On Thursday, September 19, 2019 at 6:25:24 AM UTC-5, wrote:
To paraphrase advice from Wolfgang Langewiesche in Stick and Rudder: if *anything* surprising ever happens in a turn immediately unload (i.e aerodynamically) the wing.

IMO it should be ingrained in every pilot's mind that the instant he is surprised during a turn the he should move the stick forward - only after that should he analyse the situation.

I try to teach myself to respond to a wing drop with stick forward and slightly into the wing drop (to reduce the AOA) and opposite (usually top) rudder. It's a good reflex to build.

Andy Blackburn
9B

Many gliders are not approved for deliberate spinning. Do you guys recommend spinning them anyway? My approach to spin avoidance is to monitor the airspeed, and to teach that if the nose ever goes down uncommanded to push the stick forwards.

On 9/20/2019 1:21 AM, waremark wrote:
Many gliders are not approved for deliberate spinning. Do you guys
recommend spinning them anyway? My approach to spin avoidance is to monitor
the airspeed, and to teach that if the nose ever goes down uncommanded to
push the stick forwards.

Practice, practce, practice.

Leads to (immediate) reaction(s), reaction(s), reaction(s). Good and useful
stuff...at many levels IMO.

Most of my flight time is in 3 ship types: 1-26; (V-tailed) HP-14; Zuni. The
latter two both registered in the (USA's) Experimental category.

The only one I spun was the 1-26.Seventeen turns max one direction; 6 turns
max the other (after which it always self recovered in [as I recall] a
slipping, spiraling, dive...which I never let continue very long). Difficult
(in the asleep at the switch sense of things) to induce any sort of departure
from controlled flight at my (light) weight, much less a spin...but a great
ship in which to practice inadvertent departures...and fun to spin, too.
Difficult to imagine a safer/better glider in which to "practice spinning."
SN105, and - as always, when dealing with spinning - YMMV!

I intentionally never spun the HP because I was unconvinced it had sufficient
tail-feather power to break a fully-developed spin, and, no one was paying me
to be a test pilot. Nor did my uncommanded-departure-practice suggest 'instant
spinning' was in my immediate future. Like the 1-26 it, too, required
serious/continuing inattention to induce even a hint of wing drop, and
'instantaneous' forward stick and opposite rudder quickly set things right
within 90-degree of heading change (the most I ever let it go).

The Zuni (as shown in the ship logs) *was* spun by a(n unpaid, I think, and
intentional) test pilot, but never by me beyond the departure-related wing
drop/initial rotation because of personal-skill-related concerns associated
with overspeeding the diving recovery...buttressed by my personal
rationale/concerns about the 'guaranteed repeatability' of fully-developed
spin behavior in any bird. That said, it too was docility personified in its
'asleep at the switch' departure-related behaviors (which varied with flap
settings). How do I know? Practice, practice, practice...

And so...just to be explicit, *I* certainly don't recommend anyone play Joe
Test Pilot in the spinning sense - *especially* if the ship's POH explicitly
prohibits spins. There's a continuum of ship-behavior (and time) between an
uncommanded departure from controlled flight, and a fully-developed spin, and
'practicing sensibly' along that continuum is what I seriously recommend.
Readers are free to interpret such free advice as they wish...or misinterpret
it, too.

Memory, and muscle memory, are your friends when it comes to the unavoidable,
ever-thin(ning) margin patterns and the (should be, dry chuckle) dreaded
uncommanded departure from controlled flight...which continues to be a common
source of pilot fatalities...a good 80+ years after general pilot knollich of
spins, their causes, recommended-recovery-methodology therefrom (or not,
sigh...) were 'essentially understood.'

Practice - and common sense - can be your friends. :-)

Bob W.

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On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 2:21:19 AM UTC-5, waremark wrote:
Many gliders are not approved for deliberate spinning. Do you guys recommend spinning them anyway? My approach to spin avoidance is to monitor the airspeed, and to teach that if the nose ever goes down uncommanded to push the stick forwards.

Is it about their age or design? I'm curious if there are any modern gliders (not motorgliders) not approved for spinning by design - which ones? Thanks.

On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 4:31:25 AM UTC+1, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Thursday, September 19, 2019 at 6:25:24 AM UTC-5, wrote:
To paraphrase advice from Wolfgang Langewiesche in Stick and Rudder: if *anything* surprising ever happens in a turn immediately unload (i.e aerodynamically) the wing.

IMO it should be ingrained in every pilot's mind that the instant he is surprised during a turn the he should move the stick forward - only after that should he analyse the situation.

I try to teach myself to respond to a wing drop with stick forward and slightly into the wing drop (to reduce the AOA) and opposite (usually top) rudder. It's a good reflex to build.

Andy Blackburn
9B

I completely agree with that Andy. And you don't always have to be flying to do that, the reflex can be reinforced sitting at home repeatedly rehearsing it in your mind.