In Flight Emergency

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