When gliders fail in flight, but pilots manage to land

On Saturday, June 23, 2018 at 2:56:07 PM UTC-7, son_of_flubber wrote:
Bruno Vassel recalls how the control stick broke off in a glider pilot's hand and how that pilot landed the aircraft safely (using rudder to turn and trim to control speed).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF0tTzvU8IM&t=411s

Another favorite scenario is 'one spoiler stuck open'... the pilot opened the other spoiler to match and landed promptly.

Spoilers frozen shut... slip to land.

What else breaks and what if anything could be done about it?

Didn't ASCSC's SZD-50-3 PUCHACZ, lose a rudder at Warner, land and get back in take-off line up before someone noticed a missing rudder?

Someone told me once, that if I sailed a triangle with my boat without touching the tiller I would learn a ton about my boat. Very true. So only trimming sails, I sailed with only the sheets. Tacking without the tiller was very interesting. The boat was a 30ft etchells, monohull. I did, indeed, learn a ton.

So I thought I would try it in my glider. I flew a 50k triangle without touching the stick. Half with rudder and flaps, half with rudder alien. Learned a ton.

With flap, it was almost too easy. The flap is like having a low travel elevator.

Trimmed up slightly to allow a 360 turn I could manage wide thermal turns. Going straight with rudder alone I would need to kick rudder near the top of the phugoid oscillation in pitch, to damp it out. So it was a bit more zig zag than straight line.

But fun figuring it all out, and you will learn a lot about your aircraft.
They are all different in there dynamic stability. Mine at the time was a 304cz...