Chukar's own account

On Thursday, April 23, 2015 at 4:15:24 PM UTC-4, kirk.stant wrote:

I suggest Son_of_Flubber get some education on how the Brits practice cloud flying before calling them "reckless".

A subscription to "Sailplane and Gliding" (The BGA's magazine) would be a good start to his education....

Kirk,

You overlooked the sarcastic intent of my earlier post. I'd rather not come right out and say what I really think about the USA approach to Spin and Cloud Flying training (because I'm not a CFI-G or an elite pilot.)

But I think that the same USA mindset comes into play for both sorts of training. The UK mindset seems starkly different. I take it from Martin's comments that most UK glider pilots are confident about spin recovery and quite a few are confident about cloud flying. If you step outside the ranks of elite USA glider pilots, there are quite a few pilots that are not confident about spin recovery, and emergency cloud flying capability is rare, much rarer than glider pilots flying in wave.

I expect that quite a few glider pilots like me get ****ed off when another pilot enters a spin at a recoverable altitude but dies. If I fly into IMC and die from lacking of training/instruments... I'm going to be really ****ed off.

Sure. I can take the initiative to train IFR in a SEL and add instruments to my panel (but I can't practice in 'easy clouds', gain proficiency and stay current). Some individuals will do that. But if I lived in the UK, the training culture would have me ready to fly in clouds by now. The USA safety culture is broken wrt spins and cloud flying (and perhaps other scenarios are treated likewise).

I have given a lot of thought as to what I would do in my Ventus b given such circumstances and my conclusion is one that I have tried in the ventus but not in any other glider. I would ask Kirk to try it in his ls6 and report back.

Thinking of what breaks gliders up and it always comes down to speed. Over speed and something breaks off. So for the Ventus B the only way to be able to control only the speed, I would say here that the other two axis have to be at the stops so that the only thing I am controlling is pitch and therefore speed, BEFORE losing spacial awareness, I get it as dirty as I can. Full dive brakes, gear down. I don't have to worry about flaps as when the dive brakes our fully open the flaps are down, but if I have time I would put then down as well as it puts the ailerons down a bit as well. Then cross control to full deflection of the stick and depression of the rudder, doesn't matter which direction as long as you go to full deflection. Once the stick is at the aileron stop the only movement is pitch and that I focus on the airspeed indicator and keep it between 60-90 knots.

Now in the ventus this gives me a slow turning (30-45 second) spiral dive that is fairly stable and even in turbulence is easy enough to maintain 60-90 kts. This allows me to concentrate on only one thing airspeed. This is also giving me about a 2000 fpm descent rate usually enough to come out the bottom of most any cloud.

Any way, I would like to see if that would work in almost any glider or is it unique to the ventus. Flame shields on!

CH

On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 at 5:52:42 AM UTC-7, Bob Pasker wrote:
This came from the SoarNV mailing list:

-----

On Easter Sunday, Bob Spielman, known as Chukar, was caught in clouds on a very lively wave day and had to bail out of his wingless glider. He visited us today. He is in good spirits and flying once again. He has his 1-26 and his Sparrow Hawk to keep him in the sky.

This is his first person account of what happened, reprinted here with his permission.

Oh, and we now call him Lucky Chukar.

Here is his account:



to my friends
i was going to fly my biggest flight in my ASW 27 today, aiming for 12 hours. i took off at minden at 7:30
and went north to Stead and turned back for clouds ad flew south to Mammoth and then went north almost to Susanville.
it was slow and as i was passing over Reno i went between 2 clouds which filled in suddenly. I should have had a neat attitude indicater like Gordo has and i tried to fly my Garmin but it was so rough that things went to hell in a hurry.
I was IFR at 14000' and i felt a stall and then the airspeed increased fast thru 160k and i heard 2 pops and the canopy broke
i shortly came out the bottom of the clouds in a spin at maybe 9-10000' and tried to break the spin but it didn't work and i looked and saw the left wing wasn't there so i knew that wouldn't work.
I unlocked the emerg canopy release, open my harness and went over the side. i saw stuff flying thru the air (2 nanos,handheld radio. lunch etc) and couln't find my ripcord and thought it was gone but looked lower and found it and pulled it and it wasn't a very long ride down and i saw the glider fuselage going down below me.
i thought i was going to land on the CIRCUS CIRCUS roof but missed it an then i landed on the st mary hospital
roof but hoped my chute would snag the light pole. i hit the light and the chute snagged it and i ended up 10'
in the air. a reno cop pushed up on my feet so i could release my chute and slide down the pole.
HOW LUCKY I WAS.

I didn't go to the hospital but my son and daughter in law doctor told me i had to and they found a broken collar bone
and my right lung was collapsed so they had that fixed in an hour by 2 doctors who are in our air guard hospital.

i lost my phone so no service.

LUCKY CHUKAR
that ASW 27 was a beautiful glider.

Anyone ever considered a DuckHawk? If you hit 160 knots all you need to worry about is tightening your belts up and keep that enormous smile on your face! 160 knots indicated is Maneuver speed even at Bob's altitude and above.. It's a hard argument to say that all of the extra margin both structurally (+11g/-9g airframe) and in the speed envelope (VNE 200 knots for DuckHawk SV or 225 knots DuckHawk VNX) isn't the best way in the soaring world to buy yourself safety. It doesn't guarantee that you don't have a bad situation still happen here but it sure opens up a lot of other doors for an a potential to escape. Oh yeah not to mention that you would smash the records set that day by Payne.

Bob if you get a chance to read this know that we at Windward love you buddy and we are so glad you made it out of that ok! It brought a huge smile to my face to look up the Reno news link and see a picture of you, the cop, and the EMT all laughing. I thought to myself, "yep that's Bob making even the emergency responders laugh and feel good"
Way to go Lucky Chuckar.

Wade

Not sure about others..... but, I did read your parting remark...

"Sincerely, ****ed Off and Not Serious... "

I understood the intent and did read the "sarcasm" throughout the post.

So, in short, it was not lost on everyone. ;-)

At 19:29 23 April 2015, wrote:
The "let go of the stick" part is probably a souvenir of the period (some
5=
0 years ago) when gliders had airbrakes that kept the speed below Vne
even
=
in a vertical dive (this used to be specified in the standard class
rules,
=
before the Libelle/Cirrus/ASW-15 generation came up - see the Schweizer
sto=
ries about vertical dive test flights). The technique you found in many
gli=
ding (teaching) manuals was indeed: "trim fully forward, airbrakes fully
op=
en, let go of the stick and rudder". At least here in Europe.

With modern gliders, the Vne limit will be reached long before a vertical
d=
ive position even with airbrakes fully deployed (I seem to remember that
a
=
30=B0 dive is sufficient with some open class self launchers or fully
balla=
sted gliders). So it is probably common sense to try to hold the stick
stea=
dy in pitch after trimming forward.

Benign spiral does work in most gliders. It involves trimming the glider to
say 55kts and then making sure that you do NOT move the stick against the
trim, in other words you maintain neutral stick input. It is a technique
that will allow you to descend through cloud if you do not have blind
flying instruments. A few important caveats. It would be difficult if not
impossible to set up while in cloud, the idea is that you set up while
clear of cloud. The original concept was to recover if the cloud gaps
closed beneath you, NOT if you are already in cloud. The other caveat is
that if you have given your airframe a really cold soak, when you descend
into the cloud you will pick up ice, clouds tend to have moisture, which
may be a complete game changer.

On Friday, 24 April 2015 11:45:06 UTC+3, Don Johnstone wrote:
The other caveat is
that if you have given your airframe a really cold soak, when you descend
into the cloud you will pick up ice, clouds tend to have moisture, which
may be a complete game changer.

Gliders fly pretty well with ice. You get ice in pretty much every climb to FL80-FL100 in my latitudes, most of the time there is few centimeters of rime ice on leading edges. You notice this while climbing as the airspeed starts to creep up while maintaining same turn rate and pitch attitude. I have only once noticed unusual friction with controls, and that was actually outside cloud. Cloud was apparently bit warmer and water droplets ran to aileron gap, and then froze outside cu in colder air. TE probe usually is the first to get ice, and if you don't have a variometer with electric compensation you probably loose the thermal soon. Pitot probe icing means it's time to open airbrakes and get out of the cloud asap. But at that point you have ice all over wings. It should be obvious that glider with icy wings glides like a brick, and in cold airmass ice melts sometimes at disturbingly low altitude (bug wipers are very good for wiping melting ice).

On Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:37:12 -0700, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot)
wrote:

Not sure about others..... but, I did read your parting remark...

"Sincerely, ****ed Off and Not Serious... "

I understood the intent and did read the "sarcasm" throughout the post.

So, in short, it was not lost on everyone. ;-)

+1


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Re the full-aileron cross-control suggestion a few posts up:

As I understood it, you were giving full rudder also?

Wow, I've never heard anything like that suggested before.

One thing I'd urge you to further explo how much variation in airspeed can be tolerated before the glider is no longer in a stable spiral? E.g. if the airspeed accidentally increases by X mph, do you the dynamics change enough that you go out of control? The dynamics that keep the various turning forces approximately balanced, and the various roll torques exactly balanced, may be extremely airspeed-sensitive.

I'm not guessing one way or the other, just curious.

S

(Continuing from previous)

Also the initial bank angle might matter. What did you use?

I know at least one glider where a full-deflection cross-control will result in no turn at all, at least at higher airspeeds. In one aircraft (not a glider) I could hold a full-deflection cross-control and would end up banked only slightly toward the high aileron, and going round and round in a turn in the opposite direction, toward the high wingtip, at least at low airspeeds. This situation was very stable.

You've certainly raised an interesting idea. I hope others explore and share.

S

Thank you "Lucky Chukar" Bob Spielman for you account of what happened on this flight.

I will be trying out the benign spiral this weekend or the next.

Chuck Zabinski