Leading Turns With Rudder

all this was on an ASK 13, which does very nice spins. Of course
this junk was rationalized with a large infusion of crappy theories
about adverse yaw or whatever, when it is very clear that flying

I've heard a similiar theory: When flying along a ridge, always keep the
glider slightly slipping (keep the wing which points to the ridge
slightly leading), because like this, if you happen to fall in a spin,
it will turn away from the ridge...

As the instructor was in his seventies, I decided it wasn't worth a dispute.

On Jul 22, 11:57 am, sisu1a wrote:

Well, it makes instruction with him about as much fun as it sounds

[...]

My concern comes from building this
technique by rote as a reflex in students because it translates poorly
to most other gliders, and seems like it could potentially lead to
disaster down the road, from my limited perspective. Honest, this
stuff actually gets written on a board and drilled into students
heads, I'm not making this up.

Got a real peach there :-).

Obviously, I think your concern is valid. Primacy is real.

sisu1a wrote:

An SSA 'Master' CFIG I know is perpetually hammering it into his
students that to initiate a turn in a glider, the FIRST thing you do
is feed in rudder.
-Paul

I fly mostly Std. class 15m glass planes (sometimes Duo Discus) and I've
found that I feel it is the rate of rudder application that differs to make a
coodinated turn. I tend to move my hands and feet simulaneously but find how
quickly I get the rudder out to an optimum deflection for a turn is the
difference in the planes I fly.

Thats my sense of things.

--
Message posted via AviationKB.com
http://www.aviationkb.com/Uwe/Forums...aring/200807/1

On Jul 22, 11:27*am, PMSC Member wrote:
On Jul 22, 11:57 am, sisu1a wrote:

Well, it makes instruction with him about as much fun as it sounds

[...]

My concern comes from building this
technique by rote as a reflex in students because it translates poorly
to most other gliders, and seems like it could potentially lead to
disaster down the road, from my limited perspective. Honest, this
stuff actually gets written on a board and drilled into students
heads, I'm not making this up.

Got a real peach there :-).

Obviously, I think your concern is valid. *Primacy is real.

It is just my opinion but I don't think that teaching to "Lead with
the Rudder" is a bad thing and actually has some positives.
True intially adding rudder might initiate a spin when just above
stall, But the next thing you do is add aileron that reduces AOA on
the inboard wing which reduces the chance of it spinning or
continuing to Spin.
Even if it does enter a Spin, the Correct recover proceedure is a form
of "Lead with the Rudder" i.e. opposite rudder.

I find the instructing to "lead with the rudder" in many gliders is
just anticiping the adverse yaw and produces a more coordinated turn,
especially with new students.

Brian

At 09:41 22 July 2008, Don Johnstone wrote:
I have never
found it necessary on a ASW glider of any type.


It may not be necessary Don, but it is effective. How many competitions
have you won in your ASWs (of any type)?

At 09:41 22 July 2008, Don Johnstone wrote:
I have never
found it necessary on a ASW glider of any type.


It may not be necessary Don, but it is effective. How many competitions
have you won in your ASWs (of any type)?

At 20:56 22 July 2008, Jim White wrote:
At 09:41 22 July 2008, Don Johnstone wrote:
I have never
found it necessary on a ASW glider of any type.


It may not be necessary Don, but it is effective. How many competitions
have you won in your ASWs (of any type)?

What has that got to do with anything. I was commenting on the handling
properties. Gliders designed by Weber, the W of ASW tend to be very well
co-ordinated and do not require any strange rudder input. This was
certainly true of the ASW17 and all the smaller ASWs, sadly I cannot
comment on the ASW22. I would say that leading with rudder where it is not
necessary is in-efficient and could delay achieving a constant turn rate.
On the other hand flying a Grob 103 and avoiding adverse yaw with large
aileron inputs was a different matter, leading with rudder led to a much
more clean entry. The other two main types I have flown a lot the Discus
and LS8 did not require leading with rudder, and in my experience neither
did the ASK21.

I might not have won any comps but I have been an instructor for over 40
years and I am still walking about, must have done something right.

I love how some pilots are so bull-headed and opinionated about exact
procedures. The whole point of receiving training is to develop
skills and JUDGEMENT about the best course of action under different
circumstances! As a glider pilot who flies a landing-pattern full of
semi-subjective criteria, you ought to KNOW that each case is unique.

All of these people huffing and puffing about what you "must" do or
"can't" do or what's "always" right or wrong are missing the whole
point. You have to remain flexible and treat each situation as a
unique one - giving it full consideration and taking into account all
of the variables (no matter how they come at you).

Here's a recent situation in my club that illustrates how poorly
blanket rules work:

I acquired a DG-300. I've never flown one, but I love them and have
sat in a few on the ground. I owned a Russia for a year before
upgrading. This year I put nearly 20 hours into flying an LS-4 at
Minden, plus some time in a Discus, SZD-55, and even a couple of short
flights in a Mini-Nimbus. I studied hard but was flatly REFUSED the
chance to fly with my club the first week I had the glider, because
the club was operating out of a remote airfield. A CFIG at the field
swore it was unsafe for me (a "low time" pilot) to fly a new aircraft
the first time at a "dangerous" airfield (even though I'd flown there
several times before). He would not take into account my preparation,
judgement, or the currency of my skills - he relied on blanket rules
and judged me on my total time.

So what happened the very next week? An extremely skilled former
airline pilot with thousands of hours was allowed to take up a club
ship. He's a friendly and helpful person who I like very much - but
he's been out of the area for most of a year. It is questionable
whether our club guidelines on currency were checked before he flew.
He landed a club glider short of the field and twisted it up
(thankfully no injuries) - AT OUR HOME AIRFIELD. Meanwhile, I was in
the desert at another remote strip that I'd flown at only once
before. I put almost 10 hours on my new glider in 1 weekend, racking
up a lot of safe miles.

Bottom line: Blanket rules don't work, and no one is immune from bad
judgement or poor preparation no matter their location, age, or past
experience.

You MUST be prepared and you MUST exercise good judgement in ALL
phases of your flying (pre-flight preparation through post-flight
storage) - and those are the ONLY criteria that matter in the end.
GOOD instructors (of which there are far too few) need to be teaching
those things, not hard-and-fast rules or robotic procedures to be
followed to the letter. Good instructors should also be judging
pilots NOT just on how they follow a checklist or repeat a set of
steps they've been shown; but rather how the pilot reacts to different
circumstances and exercises good judgement and decision-making.

If a pilot (be it a student or a veteran) can't show good judgement
and timely decision-making, they have no business being Pilot In
Command.

I would argue that by the time you take your check-ride, you should
understand the aerodynamics and physics of your aircraft well enough
to know safe inputs from unsafe control inputs. How ONE particular
aircraft responds to those inputs and what makes it fly best is a set
of judgements (...there's that word again...) that you can only
develop with understanding and experience.

--Noel
[rant over]

At 20:56 22 July 2008, Jim White wrote:
At 09:41 22 July 2008, Don Johnstone wrote:
I have never
found it necessary on a ASW glider of any type.


It may not be necessary Don, but it is effective. How many competitions
have you won in your ASWs (of any type)?

Jim, what's this got to do with argument? A BGA National Coach said of
one top UK competition glider pilot "The only time the slip ball is ever
in the middle is as it crashes from one side to the other!" Top
competition pilots are very good at knowing WHERE to fly to find the best
lift and do not necessarily have to have perfect handling skills.

Del Copeland

Nonsense...if you don't fly the glider efficiently you won't climb or
glide well and you certainly won't win. Accurate flying is fundamental to
XC speed.

btw Don, the W in ASW is Waibel. duh

At 06:11 23 July 2008, Derek Copeland wrote:

Jim, what's this got to do with argument? A BGA National Coach said of
one top UK competition glider pilot "The only time the slip ball is
ever
in the middle is as it crashes from one side to the other!" Top
competition pilots are very good at knowing WHERE to fly to find the
best
lift and do not necessarily have to have perfect handling skills.

Del Copeland