Thoughts on crash/article in Soaring?

Don Johnstone wrote:

At 19:00 11 July 2006, wrote:

Nor do I believe
that reducing ones
airspeed from 75 to
65 can increase ones
L/D tenfold.

I can assure you that ground effect is real and will
keep you in the air far longer than you might think.
One of the demonstrations that I gave students was
an approach over the runway threshold with 65-70knots
at 5 to 10 ft in a Grob 103 no airbrake. I was able
to show that the glider would still be flying when
the end of the 10000 ft runway was reached. Admittedly
the second half of the runway is slightly downhill
but if the airbrakes were not opened we would 'miss'
the runway.

A worthwhile demonstration, both for those times in the future when the
student may wish to land, and for those times when he may not.

As leisurely as this sport sometimes seems to the outsider or to the
beginner, we don't often enough take the time to improvise new insights
for one another. There ought to be a lot more dual flights in clubs than
there are, and not necessarily with a CFIG in the other seat. There is a
vast reservoir of experience, and finesse, that is not being passed
along to low-time glider pilots.

We don't use the team approach of the fighter community where the
fledgling jock spends a few years on the wing and proves himself ready
before becoming an element lead and later a flight lead. Nor do we have
the virtual apprentice system of airline operations, where the first
officer will see it all, and more than once, from the right seat -- in
daily operations and in the simulator -- before it's time for him to
move to the left seat.

What we do have is the total reliance on sight and touch and sound as a
small quiet and vulnerable guest in these footless halls of air,
living by our wits, yet with a training syllabus too closely related to
the needs of that bull-in-a-china-shop known as an airplane with
hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands of horsepower allowing its
pilot to bluff his way from point A to point B.

It's harder to move forward when every generation has to reinvent the wheel.


Jack