In Flight Emergency

On Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 12:57:58 PM UTC+13, Martin Gregorie wrote:
By the time I joined a gliding club and started learning to fly in 2000,
almost exactly a year after that lightning strike, nobody flew or was
flown at my club without a parachute, a discipline that we still follow.
I've always heard that is a direct result of the accident.

If you assume it takes 2 minutes to put on and take off parachutes, and that each of the pilots gained 50 years of life as a result, then parachutes are worth it if needed once in every 26 million flights.

How many glider flights are there in the world in a year? I'd wild-ass-guess 15000 in NZ with about 1000 pilots. Is it 80k pilots in Europe and maybe 10k in USA? Let's say 100k world-wide. So maybe 1.5 million glider flights a year world wide.

Is there such a lightning strike every 16 years? No. It's the only one ever.

Of course that's not the only risk parachutes protect against. The main other one is mid-air collision. How often do those happen with students/rides?

The only mid-airs I've heard of either involved cross country and contest pilots, or were at low level in the airfield vicinity where a chute is not going to help.

There are lies, there are 'wild-ass lies' and THEN.....there are statistics :P

I listened to G Dale speak of his midair and how his parachute saved his life, the G forces experienced, the threat of the canopy knocking you out, his loss of consciousness during the event and his current strategies should the devil knock twice.

I now practice my bailout technique at regular intervals, only release my harness outside the glider (seatbelt only within) and strap my Spot to the chute, no longer the shelf behind my head.

Alan Silver put out a good vid on practicing emergency egress, techniques when hanging under the silk & landing as well as poignantly noting that any "survival equipment" not tethered to you or your rig is actually "camping equipment" for an outlanding - cos it's not going to be with you when you bail out.

My humble opinion.

CJ

I know of at least 3 Swedes that is still alive thanks to the chute. On jumped back in the old days (70-ish) and two jumped in the 00-ich. The two first was in competition but the last was in the local of the airfield. We have also experience of some mid-air where the pilots have been able to fly home with only minor damages.

And yes, it is mandatory to use parachute when gliding in Sweden, the only exception is the flight instructor in back-seat during training. However is that based in the non-comfortable backseat in the Scheibe Bergfalke, today when almost all training is done in glassglider would I guess that 90% on the instructors also uses parachute for the comfort and for the educational argument to the requirement for the student to use it but not the instructor.

I would keep the parachute even if it was not mandatory, it is an not to expensive life saving device.

Originally Posted by Bruce Hoult

On Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 12:57:58 PM UTC+13, Martin Gregorie wrote:
By the time I joined a gliding club and started learning to fly in 2000,
almost exactly a year after that lightning strike, nobody flew or was
flown at my club without a parachute, a discipline that we still follow.
I've always heard that is a direct result of the accident.

If you assume it takes 2 minutes to put on and take off parachutes, and that each of the pilots gained 50 years of life as a result, then parachutes are worth it if needed once in every 26 million flights.

How many glider flights are there in the world in a year? I'd wild-ass-guess 15000 in NZ with about 1000 pilots. Is it 80k pilots in Europe and maybe 10k in USA? Let's say 100k world-wide. So maybe 1.5 million glider flights a year world wide.

Is there such a lightning strike every 16 years? No. It's the only one ever.

Of course that's not the only risk parachutes protect against. The main other one is mid-air collision. How often do those happen with students/rides?

The only mid-airs I've heard of either involved cross country and contest pilots, or were at low level in the airfield vicinity where a chute is not going to help.

Hi Bruce

We had a bailout from a Discus CS in February at the Auckland Gliding Club as a result of aileron controls becoming jammed. The pilot is pretty happy he was wearing the expensive seat cushion. He departed the CS at about 1600' AGL

:-) Colin

Originally Posted by Bruce Hoult

On Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 12:57:58 PM UTC+13, Martin Gregorie wrote:
By the time I joined a gliding club and started learning to fly in 2000,
almost exactly a year after that lightning strike, nobody flew or was
flown at my club without a parachute, a discipline that we still follow.
I've always heard that is a direct result of the accident.

If you assume it takes 2 minutes to put on and take off parachutes, and that each of the pilots gained 50 years of life as a result, then parachutes are worth it if needed once in every 26 million flights.

How many glider flights are there in the world in a year? I'd wild-ass-guess 15000 in NZ with about 1000 pilots. Is it 80k pilots in Europe and maybe 10k in USA? Let's say 100k world-wide. So maybe 1.5 million glider flights a year world wide.

Is there such a lightning strike every 16 years? No. It's the only one ever.

Of course that's not the only risk parachutes protect against. The main other one is mid-air collision. How often do those happen with students/rides?

The only mid-airs I've heard of either involved cross country and contest pilots, or were at low level in the airfield vicinity where a chute is not going to help.

Hi Bruce

I'm aware of 2 midairs at circuit height, one in the UK and one in Australia, where the pilots of the disabled gliders (2) were saved by using the chute

Colin

On Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 8:43:03 PM UTC+13, Ventus_a wrote:
We had a bailout from a Discus CS in February at the Auckland Gliding
Club as a result of aileron controls becoming jammed. The pilot is
pretty happy he was wearing the expensive seat cushion. He departed the
CS at about 1600' AGL

Wow that's pretty low. Prior experience?

Originally Posted by Bruce Hoult

On Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 8:43:03 PM UTC+13, Ventus_a wrote:
We had a bailout from a Discus CS in February at the Auckland Gliding
Club as a result of aileron controls becoming jammed. The pilot is
pretty happy he was wearing the expensive seat cushion. He departed the
CS at about 1600' AGL

Wow that's pretty low. Prior experience?

It is Bruce.

The UK one was a gentleman who if I recall correctly was 80 or so and he was in a K8. Was quite a few years ago now and he had experience back in WW2.

The Australian one was quite some time ago as well and once again relying on an aging memory the pilot was in his mid to late 60s. It was a Discus of some description. Saw the fuse years ago back when Sandy Shields was still the owner of Sailplane Services

As an aside Theo Newfield had a midair many years ago in a comp in Australia. He was hit from behind and the other pilot didn't survive

Colin

What caused the aileron jam, if known?

Hi Bruce

We had a bailout from a Discus CS in February at the Auckland Gliding
Club as a result of aileron controls becoming jammed. The pilot is
pretty happy he was wearing the expensive seat cushion. He departed the
CS at about 1600' AGL

:-) Colin

Originally Posted by

What caused the aileron jam, if known?

Hi Bruce

We had a bailout from a Discus CS in February at the Auckland Gliding
Club as a result of aileron controls becoming jammed. The pilot is
pretty happy he was wearing the expensive seat cushion. He departed the
CS at about 1600' AGL

:-) Colin

Hi

The parcel shelf was incorrectly installed and it allowed some pickets to fall into the controls. It's alleged that the pilot had some concerns before launching over full and free movement of the controls but launched anyway.

What is not alleged but proven in this case is that the expensive seat cushion can at times save a persons life when all other things have failed

The link is to a New Zealand CAA airworthiness notice. (It initiates a download)

https://www.caa.govt.nz/Airworthines...7-008_Rev1.pdf

Colin

Hi Bruce

We had a bailout from a Discus CS in February at the Auckland Gliding
Club as a result of aileron controls becoming jammed. The pilot is
pretty happy he was wearing the expensive seat cushion. He departed the
CS at about 1600' AGL

:-) Colin



I nearly had a similar incident in my Discus 2A a couple of years ago. The baggage compartment fiberglass shelf that slides in above and behind the spar was not installed properly. It slides into two slots and it's quite easy to miss one of them. After loading all my "stuff" into the baggage compartment, the shelf sagged down and interfered with the controls. Just before takeoff, I did a control check... moving stick in all directions while operating the dive break. Moving the dive brake caused the ailerons to move. I quickly released and moved off the take off line to resolve the problem. Now... I extremely careful above installing that baggage shelf. I hate to think what would have happened without the pre-take off full control check.

Walt Rogers WX