Thoughts on crash/article in Soaring?

Bully for you! You went out and tried it in a cautious
manner and found that it worked. I have done these
approaches in a G-103, an ASK-21, and an L-23.

I'm an Eastern US pilot; I was required to do this
maneuver at two different locations in the Western
US

Again, it works; it is as stable as the 'normal' approach.
The normal approach requires a flare also and the
timing is critical for these, as well.

I can name two abnormal situations in which it would
be highly desirable to get down quickly, let's say
4000fpm.

Suppose you have a passenger who has had a heart attack
or a seizure.

Suppose you, as pilot, have just suffered a beesting
very near your eyes and they are beginning to swell
and you fear they might swell shut.

The High Parasitic-Drag Approach is a Good Trick, but
it has to be learned. I demonstrate it regularly in
BFRs.


At 00:06 14 July 2006, 5z wrote:

MS wrote:
The article should have stated the inherent dangers
with using a high
drag approach, diving at the runway with full spoilers
and then making
all the adjustments. It's not conservative. It's
not stable. It's not
needed.

Just as a data point, I tried the high drag approach
in an ASK-21
(probably what the author had also used) a couple days
ago, and in this
ship it works great, and is not unstable:

We were a bit low, turning final and 1000' short of
the threshold at
600' AGL. I pulled full spoilers and aimed for the
airport fence,
about 500' short of the end of the pavement. Only
managed to get
airspeed up to 75 or so knots before I had to level
out at about 50'
AGL. Then I found myself very quickly slowing to 50
knots and short of
the runway over the grass overrun, so did close the
spoilers until
crossing the pavement, then made a normal 1/2 spoiler
touchdown. If I
were higher, the roundout from the dive would have
occurred over the
runway, and so the only action would have been to level
out, wait for
airspeed to drop, and complete a normal (almost) full
spoiler landing.

So... I was too low to really have a need for this
maneuver. A slip
with full spoilers would have been enough. But...
In the ASK-21 and
quite likely any other sailplane with strong spoilers
and a good habit
of losing speed in level flight with spoilers (my ASH-26E
is not one of
these), this would be a useful way of losing altitude
much faster than
spoileer and slip alone. Next time, I'll try if from
a normal distance
turn to final, but at 1500' or so AGL.

-Tom