Super fast assembly and launch...

snip
four of us pulled a Libelle out of the factory trailer, rigged it and
it was rolling on
tow in 4 minutes 5 seconds.
/snip

Two questions:
(1) what do you mean by "out of the factory trailer"? (I hope it's not
the first thing that comes to mind
(2) Who thought to have a stop watch running on the first go?!

snip
He took 12 or 13 tows that day
/snip

Oh my. That's got to be the record by a long shot. Anyone else come
close?

When I was a student (solo) pilot I tried to kill a December Saturday
by just taking pattern tows all day. I was just warming up when the
instructor asked me how many flights I'd had. A dozen, I replied. He
said "That's more than enough. Call it a day."

I didn't argue but I was a little miffed driving home!

~ted/2NO

Ralph, that is too funny! I'm going to have to add a third
corollary ...

And if it's a dozen club members out to assemble the club two seater,
it'll take the whole day,

Maybe it's not such a good idea to add more help to put my ship
together.

Kevin

Many years ago, the fast assembly was sometimes done during off days at
the 1-26 Championships. Note that this is a glider with no automatic
hookups, and you were only allowed to use two guys to do the assembly. I
don't know what the record was, but it was a couple of minutes or so.
And the assembly ended when the guys stood back and said, "It's ready to
fly." Then somebody else did a complete pre-flight and PCC to confirm
that it was indeed flyable.

The fact that this crew omitted the control check is really kind of dumb.
If something had gone wrong, it would have spoiled their whole day.

Jim Beckman

It's a Discus with self connecting controls, so fairly hard to get wrong.
The most important things are remembering to fix the tailplane and put the
main pin in.

Some years ago a pilot at our club forget to do the latter. The glider
amazingly survived a launch, a short flight and a circuit, with the wings
being held on only by friction, but they fell off shortly after touchdown.
The pilot wasn't hurt, but quite a lot of damage was caused to the glider.


Del Copeland


At 12:30 15 November 2008, Jim Beckman wrote:


The fact that this crew omitted the control check is really kind of dumb.

If something had gone wrong, it would have spoiled their whole day.

Jim Beckman

absolutely no purpose for that exercise in fact it's an irresponsible act
that shows total disregard for safe operating procedure. The organisation
who made the film should be ashamed. This is the way moronic clubs
operate.




At 12:30 15 November 2008, Jim Beckman wrote:


The fact that this crew omitted the control check is really kind of
dumb.

If something had gone wrong, it would have spoiled their whole day.

Jim Beckman

On Nov 15, 6:00*am, P Ilatus
wrote:

...absolutely...

...irresponsible...

...total disregard...

...ashamed...

...moronic...

I am so pleased with the restraint you demonstate. The last thing we
need here is an excess of hyperbole.

Thanks, Bob K.

absolutely no purpose for that exercise in fact it's an irresponsible act
that shows total disregard for safe operating procedure. The organisation
who made the film should be ashamed. This is the way moronic clubs
operate.




At 12:30 15 November 2008, Jim Beckman wrote:


The fact that this crew omitted the control check is really kind of
dumb.

If something had gone wrong, it would have spoiled their whole day.

Jim Beckman

At 14:00 15 November 2008, P Ilatus wrote:

absolutely no purpose for that exercise in fact it's an irresponsible
act
that shows total disregard for safe operating procedure. The
organisation
who made the film should be ashamed. This is the way moronic clubs
operate.

Do I detect the smell of methane in the air?

On Nov 15, 10:15*am, Z Goudie wrote:
At 14:00 15 November 2008, P Ilatus wrote:



absolutely no purpose for that exercise in fact it's an irresponsible
act
that shows total disregard for safe operating procedure. *The
organisation
who made the film should be ashamed. This is the way moronic clubs
operate.

Do I detect the smell of methane in the air?

ancient methane...

P Ilatus wrote:
absolutely no purpose for that exercise in fact it's an irresponsible act
that shows total disregard for safe operating procedure. The organisation
who made the film should be ashamed. This is the way moronic clubs
operate.




At 12:30 15 November 2008, Jim Beckman wrote:

The fact that this crew omitted the control check is really kind of
dumb.
If something had gone wrong, it would have spoiled their whole day.

Jim Beckman



OK - I am one of the safety primates.
Would I approve of doing this?

Probably - it would raise the competence of club members substantially.
I see lots of planning, and absolute adherence to an operating plan.

There is risk inherent in everything we do - One assumes they did this
with an airframe they had checked very carefully, and then practised
getting it right, many times. Risk known, managed and minimised much
more than many of the things that happen at airfields.

Personally I would put the risk of mis-assembly on this one at way lower
than the glider assembled by a few amiable chaps collected randomly by
the guy with a trailer...

As to whether they proved anything meaningful - that is for them to
know. I know many people wonder what meaning I find in getting into a
little glass fibre enclosure with long skinny wings and going and doing
something that appears to an external observer to be high risk,
uncomfortable and pointless. Point is I find it meaningful and enjoyable
flying my glider - they found it meaningful to demonstrate how fast they
could safely assemble a Discus. Each to his own, but lets stay away from
name calling.

As an exercise - consider whether there really was no control check. I
can see there was no "normal" positive control check. But I can't see
from the video whether the controls were moved deliberately during
assembly with someone observing a specific sequence of stick movements.
Or maybe there was an agreed quick control movement sequence from the
pilot with observers for each surface. I don't know if they did, and I
am not convinced it would make a huge difference if they had, but we
can't be sure there was no check. There is an awful lot going on in the
video - Ask any magician how they get people to not see things...

Similarly I have more than once seen things that were "postively
checked" fail to be in the state that more than one person had only
moments before been prepared to swear that they had confirmed.

The biggest problem with safety is the complacency arising from the
mistaken assumption that our actions have ensured it.

In this case I expect everyone involved was very aware of the real and
immediate possibility of things going wrong. That is much better for
safety than lots complacency.

Would I do this myself? - probably not - but not because I think it unsafe.

Maybe a little more than 2c worth, so I'll get off the soap box now.

Bruce