Glider crash at Moriarty

On Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 10:56:44 AM UTC-7, danlj wrote:
Let's cut through the fog and quit kvetching about irrelevancies such as CAP arrogance.
406-mHz ELT or PLB: location accuracy 100 meters
ELT cost: $650+
PLB cost: $250+
(If you can afford to fly, you can afford one)
121.5 mHz ELT: location accuracy 12000 meters
ELT cost: your life

If you don't put a GPS-equipped 406 mHz ELT in your aircraft or PLB on your straps, don't complain about the CAP, your spouse, or God when you're lying broken and cold and in pain in the wreckage. Blame yourself.

References:
http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/406vs121.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distress_radiobeacon
http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emerbcns.html

As other are pointing out the "121.5 mHz ELT: location accuracy 12000 meters" comment has no meaning. This is an old accuracy number from SARSAT/COSPAS Doppler ranging. But since SARSAT/COSPAS no longer monitors 121.5 MHz beacons at all the accuracy has no meaning. And the fact that it is not SARSAT/COSPAS monitored it the main reason you don't want to rely on just a 121.5MHz ELT. 121.5 is still monitored by airliners, etc. and can be homed to high precision (but that needs time) by just about every SAR organization. All 406Mhz ELTs and PLBs also include a 121.5Mhz beacon to make detection of and homing by SAR teams easier... which is important to remember, if you think a glider is down and they have any type of ELT or PLB you want to be checking 121.5 Mhz. PLBs (but not ELTs) in the USA also have more code "P" (dit dah dah dit) added to that beacon (that was an FCC idea to try to filter the expected onslaught of idiot consumers activating PLBs, but which did not happen...maybe because idiot (and smart) consumers brought SPOT and InReach devices instead :-)).

The issues with ELTs are they are hard to properly mount in a glider, hard to actually test (you can't drop the glider on the ground from height, break the glider in pieces, tip it on it's side and then see if the ELT actually worked and provided a good RF signal), and just do not reliably activate at all even in GA aircraft, let alone gliders. I think the ELT or PLB is best seen as an important/very useful back-up for InReach or Spot. And I'd do everything I could using modern technology to reduce any reliance on the weekend warriors in CAP... which today would start with InReach, high rate tracking and a savvy/well informed ground crew/club/FBO etc. with an agreed plan in case of concern/distress/loss.

Condolences to Joe's family. It is always grim to hear these reports.

As a Civil Air Patrol pilot, I think I'll weigh in on the search and rescue question. I have been the pilot on two real searches by the Douglas County squadron and participated (not as a CAP pilot, but in a private capacity) in the Steve Fossett search, and I have flown some half dozen S&R exercises as a CAP Mission Pilot. Perhaps my experience will be instructive to fellow glider pilots.

First, CAP is a volunteer organization. When we are called by the local sheriff we try to respond, but it is not always possible to field a team. And we do work as a team. We do not send an individual pilot out to do a search. He is accompanied by two trained observers who can help him operate the GPS so he flies an efficient search (covers the ground completely without overlaps or gaps) and have eyes on the ground as he flies the airplane. And the three people in the plane are not the only members of the team -- there is also an Incident Commander and radio operator, at a bare minimum, to keep track of the search team's flight to help them get a ground team in place quickly if they need one and so on. So it is not a small effort, but it is well planned and staffed, not just some pilot droning over uncharted desert without a clue of where he should be looking.

Secondly, we have well designed search patterns that are programmed into our GPS so we can cover ground thoroughly but without repeating unnecessarily.. To start a search, though, we need to have a sense of where to look. It would be pointless to say "well I think Joe was headed southeast, so just head out that way and see if you see anything." Instead, we try to have a fix on the last known contact -- by SPOT or radar, whatever -- and to design a search based on that fix. If we have some reason to believe the plane we are searching for was last heard from at a given point and was heading south from there, we can perform a line search. If we have no sense of the direction of travel, we can perform an expanding square search from the last known point. And if the terrain is hilly, we can perform a contour search around the area of last contact. IOW, we have good search tools to put into use, but without knowing where to begin it's a huge task for one or two small planes. Oh, and BTW, when we send a plane into a search grid (we divide the US up into "grids" of a quarter section each) we don't assign another plane to the same grid until the first one has reported out of the grid.. There is little to be gained by having two planes in the same block of air, trying to fly a careful pattern but looking out to avoid another plane in the same bit of sky.

So what we really need is a fix on the last known location. I have tracked glider pilots using SPOT, and know the technology has a bad habit of dropping one and sometimes two ten-minute reports. That means a fix from a SPOT tracker could be 10-20 miles away from where we think it stopped. That's a huge error when you're searching blocks of ground that are 5 by 15 miles -- the debris field might be three grids away very easily. So we try to have a pretty decent LKP (last known position) before we launch.

On the Fossett search no one knew which direction he departed or where he intended to go. Since the Hilton Ranch is at the foot of Mt. Grant, just over the hill from Hawthorne and Walker Lake, the search concentrated at first on Mt. Grant. For two days aircraft covered every square inch (and I mean that quite literally -- I looked at the combined GPS tracks of the search aircraft and there was no white space between ground tracks) of Mt. Grant without seeing anything. Since the Citabria he was flying held 4 hours' fuel, we then expanded the search to cover as much territory as we could inside a circle defined by 240 minutes of flight. That was a huge area and there were a lot of gaps in the ground coverage. And when the wreckage was finally found two years later we understood just how difficult our search really was -- the tube-and-fabric plane had crumpled so the largest piece was the engine -- something you could fit in the trunk of most modern cars. If we had known exactly where his A/C impacted the ground it is entirely possible we never would have seen it from 1,000' in the air. I've looked at a wrecked glider from 300' in the air -- a wreck where the wings detached but remained intact -- and it was not easy to spot. Steve's Citabria was vastly smaller.

I hope this gives some perspective on just how hard it is to search from a moving A/C.

Fred

Anyone out there managed to install a 406 ELT on a standard category C of A glider with the proper paperwork from the maintenance shop? Just wondering because they all seem to have specs for ground plane dimensions that are incompatible with non-metal gliders. The Kannad referred to earlier specifies a minimum antenna ground plane radius of 24 inches for example.

On Friday, June 19, 2015 at 12:52:41 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Anyone out there managed to install a 406 ELT on a standard category C of A glider with the proper paperwork from the maintenance shop? Just wondering because they all seem to have specs for ground plane dimensions that are incompatible with non-metal gliders. The Kannad referred to earlier specifies a minimum antenna ground plane radius of 24 inches for example.

OK I'll play along, what would the "proper paperwork" be here? It should usually be a minor modification, installation of stand alone stuff, not required by regulation in a glider, and with installation requirements not provided for by any regulation. AFAIK the usual "required paperwork" would be a note in the maintenance log.

There is nothing really unique about a 406 MHz ELT... it's the 121.5 MHz beacon withing the 406 MHz ELT that gives the large ground plane and/or plane/awkward large antenna mounting requirement. Almost all installs of any type of ELT I've seen in gliders suck, especially the antenna location/distance from obstructions, ground plane etc.

Please give me the reference in the federal regulations that allows for a ELT to be installed as "stand alone stuff". That would be a valuable reference as we have been filing 337's

Lane

I suspect you are one of few A&Ps who would file a 337 for an ELT install in a glider. There is no regulation that I am aware of that controls an ELT install in a glider or clarifies explicitly if an ELT install must be a major or minor install.... You have to make that call. In your case does the FSDO actually look at anything about the ELT performance? Antenna? Ground plane? ELT install orientation? switch location? Look at compliance with the install documentation? (Some of which will be mighty hard to meet).

On Friday, June 19, 2015 at 9:34:03 AM UTC-7, Darryl Ramm wrote:
I suspect you are one of few A&Ps who would file a 337 for an ELT install in a glider. There is no regulation that I am aware of that controls an ELT install in a glider or clarifies explicitly if an ELT install must be a major or minor install.... You have to make that call. In your case does the FSDO actually look at anything about the ELT performance? Antenna? Ground plane? ELT install orientation? switch location? Look at compliance with the install documentation? (Some of which will be mighty hard to meet).

And to add to that ACK for example promotes the instal of their ELTs being minor installs, e.g. see the FAA letter here http://www.ackavionics.com/pdf/E-04%...all%20Data.pdf Of course there can be cases where it could need a 337.

On Friday, June 19, 2015 at 9:34:03 AM UTC-7, Darryl Ramm wrote:
I suspect you are one of few A&Ps who would file a 337 for an ELT install in a glider. There is no regulation that I am aware of that controls an ELT install in a glider or clarifies explicitly if an ELT install must be a major or minor install.... You have to make that call. In your case does the FSDO actually look at anything about the ELT performance? Antenna? Ground plane? ELT install orientation? switch location? Look at compliance with the install documentation? (Some of which will be mighty hard to meet).

And to add to that ACK for example promotes the instal of their ELTs being minor installs, e.g. see the FAA letter here http://www.ackavionics.com/pdf/E-04%...all%20Data.pdf Of course there can be cases where it could need a 337.

What I mean is a logbook entry stating that the installation was performed using approved data - the ELT manufacturer's installation instructions, AC43-13, aircraft manufacturer's maintenance manual or TN etc. The sorts of things that the document you linked to talks about. I would like to find something like that that states an antenna installation that's practical in a non metal glider is OK. As yet I haven't and as far as I can tell it would be contrary to the ELT manufacturer's installation instructions and the linked AC seems to state that if one does that it is no longer a minor mod. There's a DG TN about 406's but it's not available online so I don't know what's in it.

On Saturday, June 20, 2015 at 1:36:28 AM UTC-7, wrote:
What I mean is a logbook entry stating that the installation was performed using approved data - the ELT manufacturer's installation instructions, AC43-13, aircraft manufacturer's maintenance manual or TN etc. The sorts of things that the document you linked to talks about. I would like to find something like that that states an antenna installation that's practical in a non metal glider is OK. As yet I haven't and as far as I can tell it would be contrary to the ELT manufacturer's installation instructions and the linked AC seems to state that if one does that it is no longer a minor mod. There's a DG TN about 406's but it's not available online so I don't know what's in it.

First just a nitpick, an minor alteration does not need to utilize approved data, it may utilize acceptable data or be performed by elementary operations. There is clearly some gray area here. But to your point, maybe in say a silly case I could imagine an FAA inspector measuring an ELT ground plane and saying you made this 8 inches when the installation manual says it should be a minimum of 12 inches might cause a problem, but I'd hope everybody has better things to worry about that things like that.

I doubt any ELT manufacturer has really looked at what would be needed to get a really good practical ELT install in a glider, let alone wrote this up, there is just no market for them. Several glider manufactures have different documentation that mentions installing ELTs (sometimes just in the pilot/maintenance manuals), most are brief and mostly useless. e.g. Schleicher just says it's possible to install an ELT antenna in my ASK-26E in the luggage space extending into the canopy area.... ah right, totally impractical/useless. I don't know how much effort DG put into theirs, but it sounds at least like more than typical.

I don't understand the reference to "non-metal" part, a pure fiberglass fuselage might in some cases provide be an easier option as you might be able to install an anteena inside the fueslage, but given antenna lenths and desire to keep it away from conductive parts etc. even that may be hard.

Are you really willing to drill a hole in the upper fuselage on any metal or carbon fiber fuselage glider and bung an big ELT antenna there? Most glider owners are not. Which at an extreme results in things like ELT antenna installed somewhere inside the cockpit, or bent under the RF transparent area of a turtledeck etc. often not ideal. Sometimes with no ground plane at all. Installs are trade off and hopefully one the owner and A&P is well aware of. And that is all not a bad thing, working to do the best practically to get an ELT installed is likely better than not having an ELT. But with the poor activation results of ELTs (even if optimally installed in a GA airplane) as well as the difficulty isntalling the antenna in most gliders and the confidnce/testability provided by tracking solutions like InReach or Spot I would hope people are looking at ELTs only as a backup to InReach or SPOT devices used for tracking.

I just thin the bureaucratic process is the wrong thing to to think about here. Discuss that with your A&P. Look with them at what antenna installs may be practical and decide whether it is worth doing at all or not. This all needs some common sense applied to trying to install something that hopefully provides some SAR help. There is no regulatory requirement for gliders to carry ELTs, not requirement that any ELT installed in a glider must be TSO approved, installs in practice are usually not done as major alterations, and there are better options than an ELT in the fist place.

If you really wanted to get a 406MHz ELT installed as well as possible in a glider then it may be ugly and expensive. e.g. maybe cutting holes for an external antenna, and installing a ground plane or maybe going to a high-end ELT with dual-outputs and at least trying to do a really good external mount for a single band 406 MHz whip or blade antenna (therefore a short antenna that needs a small ground plane) and then going with a less optimal 121..5 Mhz antenna mounted in the cockpit or external with a sub optimal ground plane etc. It's only the 406 Mhz signal that is used to alert SARSAT/COSPAS. And keep the ELT solidly mounted in the correct orientation and all the coax cables as short/secure as possible. Think about carrying a collapsible portable antennas where you can remove the ELT and place it on the ground with that antenna (good idea if your glider ends up broken/on it's side etc and you are still alive enough to do so.

I had purchased a nice Artex 406 MHz ELT and spent much of a day trying to work out how it could be realistically/well installed in a new ASH-26E. I decided it was impossible and gave up and returned it and purchased a McMurdo 406MHz PLB (with GPS), I also had a SPOT tracker at that time. If doing this today I'd use an InReach (mounted on the glareshield/panel with good sat view) and a 406 Mhz PLB (on parachute harness). That combination is much better than a 406 MHz ELT. And if you bail out it is nice to have a PLB with you not with the glider. But if you also want/can manage some reasonable install of an ELT as backup beyond that then great.