Downwind to final turns

On Thursday, June 4, 2015 at 7:36:07 AM UTC-7, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:

On the open bird I put in flaps on downwind and leave them alone, schempp,
on the 18 AS, with larger flap deflection I only put in landing flap on final when
landing is assured,Thoughts comments, different way of doing things?

And why is a landing not assured while on downwind?

I fly a ASH-26E and try to fly a steep pattern, so will often apply full flap on downwind or base, and rarely on final if for some reason the pattern was flown lower than normal.

A classic airplane pattern is to chop the throttle abeam the numbers and the steep approach makes it very easy to judge a precision touchdown.

5Z

I guess "landing assured" was a bad choice of words, should have said short final. I am asking because I wanted know what other pi,it's were doing. The Schempp gliders I had flown do not have nearly as much flap/ drag in landing configuration. I used to fly a Cessna 340 with huge split flaps, and the way to fly that bird was to put on the last bit of flap on short final (landing assured).

To say that there is only one safe way to land is ludicrous.

The stall/spin in the pattern issue isn't the type of landing pattern, it's poor judgment (eg misjudging the wind gradient, arriving short, etc) that exposes poor skills (inside rudder, pulling elevator, failure to maintain 1..5Vso, improper spoiler use, etc)

if you can't do 45, downwinds, base, 180s, 270s, overhead/Racetrack, crosswinds and tailwinds, and land where you want you're a machine and not a pilot, no matter how many 500km days you've had this week.

The issue for glider pilots is that the sport and community rewards competitions and OLC points, not doing pattern work. Pattern work is for students. And doing pattern work is what improves landing skill.

Next time your the only one in the pattern at your home field on a calmer day, try some thing different

With 343 OLC flights logged this season, I agree that most pilots could use more landing practice.

Boggs