Another glider crash?

And, I think, the '3 and '3a.

On 9/22/2015 7:28 PM, 3j wrote:
The LS gear is even better as it will shred
your knuckles if you pull spoilers with the
gear up.


I believe that this is true for the LS4, LS4a and LS4b only.

Jim


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Dan, 5J

You are correct.

Before ever flying as PIC in a military aircraft, I and my
contemporaries were subjected to a blindfold cockpit check. It was
mandatory to know where every control and switch was located without
looking. Grabbing the wrong handle is, in my opinion, simply evidence
of poor knowledge of the aircraft.

In gliders there's no doubt that the aircraft will land (no go-around)
and the pilot needs to be comfortable with that and not get fixated on
why it won't land where he expects it to. Know where the controls are
and when and how to use them. Have no doubts and you won't have
difficulty. You may not land where you want, but you WILL land.

On 9/22/2015 9:39 PM, son_of_flubber wrote:
A few people have mentioned 'tunnel vision'.

I've heard of 'tunnel vision' associated with hypoxia, and also with the 'fight or flight adrenaline response' where vision is literally narrowed to the center of the visual field. Tunnel vision is like you're looking through a tube. The field of vision is narrowed to a few degrees.

But in this case, are people actually suggesting 'mental fixation' where the mind is unable to switch to an alternate course of action or alternate explanation for what is happening? For example, pilot becomes fixated on the idea that the spoilers are malfunctioning and fails to realize that he is holding the gear lever? This metaphoric, but not literal 'tunnel vision'.

My reason for asking is that I'm wondering whether 'mental fixation' is more likely during the 'fight or flight adrenaline response'? Is there any training or habits of mind that will reduce the tendency to mental fixation. Is a tendency to 'mentally fixate' a part of the normal aging process? Does fatigue increase the tendency to mentally fixate?

These questions have general medical/technical answers, but it would be useful hear anecdotes of how individuals have been tripped up by mental fixation in the context of soaring. I'd like to think about how I might find myself fixating while piloting and how I might spot that when it is happening and 'snap out of it'. Knowing about the case of 'grabbing the gear handle and thinking it is the spoiler handle' might pop into my mind if I'm ever in that situation. It would be useful to know of other common cases of fixation in piloting gliders.




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Dan, 5J

I would think someone would switch to a sideslip if they perceived the spoilers not to be working. Might end up scraping the belly anyway, but thats better than a fence at the end of the runway...

Matt H

Round means roll, square doesn't roll. The space for a marking is limited hense a symbol. Anyway this is how I will change my glider. I never did figure out why I had such a bad day, but I assume somehow I was not getting O2 flow. I had a terrible headache. Checked the O2 system after I landed, realizing how many mistakes I made, and all was working. Flew the next day no problem. It was this same day that I had the wrong airport set for my final glide and even when I could see the airport I was aiming for way below me and my computer was telling me I was below final glide, I believed the computer until I had to decent for 4,000 AGL to land. Never had a stupid day in anything else I flew, but this was enough to get my attention and to constantly look for ways to improve my glider and anything that will make it safer.


On Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 12:19:48 AM UTC-7, Surge wrote:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 08:14:15 UTC+2, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
I fresh idea. I shall paint a half dollar size green dot in the wheel down and locked position and a red square in the wheel retracted position. Less confusing than arrows or just color, square does not roll.

What happens when you forget what a square shape represents during the heat of the moment or someone else flies your glider?

The words UP and DOWN (or EXTENDED and RETRACTED) cannot be confused and since language is usually one of the last things one loses when your brain starts failing, it's probably the safest bet.
If my brain can't interpret UP/DOWN then in all likely hood I've already lost all my motor skills and a crash is inevitable.

On 9/23/2015 08:29, wrote:
My training was the USTALL checklist and once you've visually checked the spoilers don't take your hand off the handle. I'd like to think that I always do it that way. I'd also like to think that I've never started a take-off roll with the spoilers unlocked but I know I have. Also, as an ASW 15 driver, I find it difficult to imagine confusing the spoiler and gear handles. But, like I just said, I also find it difficult to believe that I would start a take off roll with spoilers unlocked.


As was mine and the method was the same.

Pre-launch checklist was CBSIFTCB - with the final B being brakes:closed
and locked.

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On Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 11:36:39 AM UTC-5, Fred Bear wrote:

As was mine and the method was the same.

Pre-launch checklist was CBSIFTCB - with the final B being brakes:closed
and locked.

I also use CBSIFTCB in preference to the Schweizer-specific(?)US-common ABCCCDE (or whatever it is these days ;^)

Once on a race grid launch (i.e. hectic & rushed) in an LS4, I had the spoilers open for roll control, and just when the tug started moving, the wing runner yelled something at me (turns out it was "YOUR SPOILERS ARE OPEN!"). But hearing something yelled in my direction at the start of a takeoff roll got my attention; and I was airborne (still with the spoilers out) before I figured out that there was nothing wrong - except for me forgetting to close the spoilers during the takeoff roll as planned - due to the distraction!

Kirk
66

A mutual friend (thanks, Peter) mentions the DG-300 gear-instead-of-spoilers handle mishap....due to wrong-handle grabbing. There is a great write up in SOARING as a recap of that event. June 2006, Is Conservative Safe? and then July 2006, 525 Extremely Dangerous Flights.

The article(s)address several items that precipitated/contributed to that event: 1) complacence in a 'normal' landing, 2) abrupt choice to alter the approach to practice another technique mid-pattern; 3) failure to look for spoiler extension after acknowledging "this isn't decelerating the way I want", 4) I won't stop on the airport, so I should use an outside-premises-alternative,ie. never thinking that the take-off emergency place could be used in a landing situation.

Jim Skydell would be pleased to know that we are still using his recap of his aircraft loss to add to knowledge and perhaps prevent another repetition.. The big thing?? Seek training that allows you more flexibility in experiences.
Jim comments on the perception of fixation.

The nominal training in emergency procedures in (American) soaring is the source of our accident rate. Being an 'easy' solo or rating sign-off or less than rigorous in flight reviews might get more folks launched.... but it is the landings that are doing the damage. The failed landings.

It can happen to any of us.
Help each other improve. The discussions here are valuable. They urge us to review our own protocols and perhaps review our actions and procedures.

Fly safely, train often.
Cindy

On Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 9:49:50 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Memory fades but I seem to recall the Blanik's (L-13) brake being a
lever on the floor.* I don't remember how the L-23 brake worked.




On 9/23/2015 12:03 AM, BG wrote:



On Sunday, September 20, 2015 at 2:13:54 PM UTC-7, Ron Gleason wrote:


Saratoga NY, news report here

http://wnyt.com/article/stories/s391... dium=twitter


The same thing could happen in a Blanik, except it was the flaps and the spoilers that could be confused. I witnessed two crashes in a blanik, one ended in a ground loop just before a barbed wire fence at El Tiro, and another landed off the end of the runway in the sage brush at AirSailing. Call it tunnel vision or in full panic mode, the pilot kept pulling harder on the flaps as the runway was passing underneath getting shorter all the time.

BG





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Dan, 5J



On Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 9:49:50 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Memory fades but I seem to recall the Blanik's (L-13) brake being a
lever on the floor.* I don't remember how the L-23 brake worked.


Yes it was on the floor in the L13. About the same spot as the door handle on a 1974 Chevy Nova. On my first year of gliding i spent most of my days reliving the previous weekends flights. I was daydreaming about this while driving one day and needed to slow down for an upcoming turn. I pulled up on the door handle to break. Luckily it was a left hand turn!
Kerry

I am sorry to say I happened to confuse diverse levers in diverse types of gliders in the past.
* I once pulled back on the release lever (it's not a knob, it really looks like an airbrake lever) instead of opening the spoilers in a Rhönlerche;
* I did the same with the flaps instead of the airbrakes in a L-13 Blanik;
* I put the flaps from positive to negative instead of closing the airbrakes on a Janus during finals when the airspeed became too low (that one allmost crashed the glider, I corrected my mistake at the very last moment; the situation arose while my pupil in front was making an approach with braking parachute, full positive flaps and full airbrakes, and was slow in closing the airbrakes when I asked him to do so to maintain airspeed - of course, I should have had the left hand on one of the levers, but I wasn't ready, being too confident in the abilities of my pupil).

The levers I wrongly used had a common characteristic: they were the upper, what you could call the "most obvious", lever. When under stress, that's where your hand is going automatically.

I really think, from a safety point of view, that the "most critical" lever should also be the "most obvious" lever. In my book, that's the airbrake lever. I don't like the ergonomics of the levers you have to rotate to be able to use.

Having spent a season flying my father’s 27, I flew my Standard Cirrus
(of which I have about 600 hours in) for the first time in a while.

Climbing out of a racing finish at close to VNE I instinctively went to
gently move the flap leaver back…..opening your airbrakes at VNE low down
focussed the mind somewhat. Not something I wish to do again!!