IDAHO FATALITY

On Aug 22, 8:47*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
A little rudder
to help the turn along, a little back stick because we're not as high
as we thought, and in the glider goes.

I can't help but wonder how many fewer people would ever have the idea
to try the above if it hadn't been suggested to them by their
instructor's patter during training.

On Aug 21, 10:27*pm, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Aug 22, 8:47*am, John Cochrane
wrote:

A little rudder
to help the turn along, a little back stick because we're not as high
as we thought, and in the glider goes.

I can't help but wonder how many fewer people would ever have the idea
to try the above if it hadn't been suggested to them by their
instructor's patter during training.

What!!! Are you ou are suggesting that there are instructors out
there who advocate raising the nose and over ruddering in the
pattern! ?

Cookie

On Aug 23, 12:10*am, Cookie wrote:
On Aug 21, 10:27*pm, Bruce Hoult wrote:

On Aug 22, 8:47*am, John Cochrane
wrote:

A little rudder
to help the turn along, a little back stick because we're not as high
as we thought, and in the glider goes.

I can't help but wonder how many fewer people would ever have the idea
to try the above if it hadn't been suggested to them by their
instructor's patter during training.

What!!! *Are you ou are suggesting that there are instructors out
there who advocate raising the nose and over ruddering in the
pattern! * ?

"suggesting" is literally "putting the thought into your mind"

It is not the same as advocating.

Someone can be saying "don't do this" while you're thinking "wtf? I'd
have never thought of trying to 'help' a turn with rudder!"

And there it is. The thought is now in your mind, ready to recall
goodness knows when under stress, when that thought would never
otherwise have entered your head.

On Aug 21, 9:27*pm, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Aug 22, 8:47*am, John Cochrane
wrote:

A little rudder
to help the turn along, a little back stick because we're not as high
as we thought, and in the glider goes.

I can't help but wonder how many fewer people would ever have the idea
to try the above if it hadn't been suggested to them by their
instructor's patter during training.

I don't think any instructor suggests this sort of thing actively.
Instructors try to remove these bad thoughts and unconscious habits,
and sometimes are not able completely to do so.

Becoming an instructor has been a great learning experience, as I have
been able to see these things happen. You can have a student with
great coordination and glidepath control at altitude, and who can
explain everything perfectly on oral quizzing. Then, things get a
little tight in the pattern, like he's too close and too low. His
attention gets focused elsewhere and stress goes up, and next thing
you know the yaw string is right over to the side on base to final and
he wants to pull the stick back. Instructing makes you a better
pilot: If he can do this, I can do it too, and helping the student
avoid the bad thought patterns helps the instructor as well

Tom Knauff has been very insightful on this. It's not bad ideas put
there by instructors. It's subconscious bad ideas that only bubble to
the surface in times of stress and attention focused elsewhere. And
detecting these, giving students experiences with high stress
situations, purging the bad thoughts, and all of this safely, is quite
hard.

John Cochrane

On Aug 23, 1:50*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
You can have a student with
great coordination and glidepath control at altitude, and who can
explain everything perfectly on oral quizzing. Then, things get a
little tight in the pattern, like he's too close and too low. His
attention gets focused elsewhere and stress goes up, and next thing
you know the yaw string is right over to the side on base to final and
he wants to pull the stick back.

That's another one which I've asked about here before, but no one has
ever answered.

Around here we have ridges and students are very likely to have quite
a bit of practice at doing well-banked coordinated turns while a lot
closer to the ground than normal base-to-final turns, in the presence
of considerable wind drift, groundspeed higher than airspeed
(approaching the ridge from upwind) etc.

Is there correlation between screwed-up base to final turns and
flatland fliers?

On Aug 22, 8:34*pm, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Aug 23, 1:50*am, John Cochrane
wrote:

You can have a student with
great coordination and glidepath control at altitude, and who can
explain everything perfectly on oral quizzing. Then, things get a
little tight in the pattern, like he's too close and too low. His
attention gets focused elsewhere and stress goes up, and next thing
you know the yaw string is right over to the side on base to final and
he wants to pull the stick back.

That's another one which I've asked about here before, but no one has
ever answered.

Around here we have ridges and students are very likely to have quite
a bit of practice at doing well-banked coordinated turns while a lot
closer to the ground than normal base-to-final turns, in the presence
of considerable wind drift, groundspeed higher than airspeed
(approaching the ridge from upwind) etc.

Is there correlation between screwed-up base to final turns and
flatland fliers?

Quite possibly. Mountain pilots know they can't trust the horizon so
they learn to control pitch attitude with airspeed and bank with rate
of turn. Mountain flying requires a bit of instrument skills. I've
ridden with pilots who were trying to keep their wings parallel to
sloping ground and point their nose at mountain peaks. Airports like
Leadville and Teluride in Colorado are notorious for inducing false
attitude illusions.

Taking this a bit further into the technical - I've set up turn-to-
final stall/spin scenarios while practicing stalls at altitude. The
result is almost always a wing drop followed by a spiral dive. The
glider is designed to resist spinning so it recovers from the
incipient spin on it's own it the first eighth of a turn leading to a
spiral dive.

If the student applies spin recovery control inputs in a spiral dive,
it gets VERY "interesting". This has led me to wonder if some so
called "stall/spin" accidents are really mis-handled spiral dive
recoveries. Maybe we should take a careful look at what we are
teaching.

On Tuesday, August 23, 2011 12:32:43 PM UTC-4, Bill D wrote:
If the student applies spin recovery control inputs in a spiral dive,
it gets VERY "interesting". This has led me to wonder if some so
called "stall/spin" accidents are really mis-handled spiral dive
recoveries. Maybe we should take a careful look at what we are
teaching.

That's how an Eta was destroyed during spin testing IIRC...

On Aug 24, 4:32*am, Bill D wrote:
On Aug 22, 8:34*pm, Bruce Hoult wrote:





On Aug 23, 1:50*am, John Cochrane
wrote:

You can have a student with
great coordination and glidepath control at altitude, and who can
explain everything perfectly on oral quizzing. Then, things get a
little tight in the pattern, like he's too close and too low. His
attention gets focused elsewhere and stress goes up, and next thing
you know the yaw string is right over to the side on base to final and
he wants to pull the stick back.

That's another one which I've asked about here before, but no one has
ever answered.

Around here we have ridges and students are very likely to have quite
a bit of practice at doing well-banked coordinated turns while a lot
closer to the ground than normal base-to-final turns, in the presence
of considerable wind drift, groundspeed higher than airspeed
(approaching the ridge from upwind) etc.

Is there correlation between screwed-up base to final turns and
flatland fliers?

Quite possibly. *Mountain pilots know they can't trust the horizon so
they learn to control pitch attitude with airspeed and bank with rate
of turn. *Mountain flying requires a bit of instrument skills.

Hmm. I don't think that's true, at least for me.

You don't need an actual horizon, all you need is something far enough
away that if it moves in the canopy it's because the aircraft attitude
changed. It doesn't even have to be straight ahead -- well out to the
side is fine.

Even with a true horizon available, you're only using the horizon for
short term attitude stability and cross-referencing it to something
else (wind noise, control feel, airspeed indicator) to calibrate what
attitude you should be holding.

I've had the very interesting experience of flying with a friend doing
overnight freight runs in small turboprops (e.g. Cessna Caravan). When
you're ostensibly flying on instruments and using the artificial
horizon for attitude control, it's quite astounding how much
difference there is between having even two or three external points
of light from stars or farmhouses and not having them. When you're
deep in IMC in the middle of nowhere you are working very very hard.
When you have even the slightest external references that you may not
even be consciously aware of it gets 10x easier.

Your theory sounds more appropriate for people flying in severe haze
or cloud.

On Aug 21, 10:27*pm, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Aug 22, 8:47*am, John Cochrane
wrote:

A little rudder
to help the turn along, a little back stick because we're not as high
as we thought, and in the glider goes.

I can't help but wonder how many fewer people would ever have the idea
to try the above if it hadn't been suggested to them by their
instructor's patter during training.

I'm with JJ on this topic. I find it incredible that just about every
glider with retractable gear has a gear warning alarm to keep from
damaging the gelcoat or a couple of layers of carbon on the belly, but
we don't have an "Open Spoiler" alarm to prevent someone from dying on
tow..

On 8/22/2011 9:12 AM, Mike wrote:
On Aug 21, 10:27 pm, Bruce wrote:
On Aug 22, 8:47 am, John
wrote:

A little rudder
to help the turn along, a little back stick because we're not as high
as we thought, and in the glider goes.

I can't help but wonder how many fewer people would ever have the idea
to try the above if it hadn't been suggested to them by their
instructor's patter during training.

I'm with JJ on this topic. I find it incredible that just about every
glider with retractable gear has a gear warning alarm to keep from
damaging the gelcoat or a couple of layers of carbon on the belly, but
we don't have an "Open Spoiler" alarm to prevent someone from dying on
tow..

I think a "open spoiler on tow" is a great idea, and I've had one for
several years, as do some other people. If you have a Cambridge 302
vario, it's easy to add one, especially if it's already used for your
gear warning.

Operation is simple: if your spoilers are still unlocked as the airspeed
increases past ~25 knots, you get an audible warning. It works for towed
gliders and motorgliders, using the same gear and spoiler switches used
for the gear warning - no changes in wiring needed.

Perhaps even better than a warning device is one that prevents them from
opening in the first place. DG gliders can do a retrofit of the "Piggot
hook" that prevents the spoilers from opening if they are left unlocked.
Get the info from DG. Many gliders (at least experimental licensed ones)
can be easily fitted with a similar device.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what
you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz