SN-10 user

I had a nasty land-out the other day, hit heavy sink while deep in the
mountains east of Williams, Ca. I lost 2500 feet in no time and found
myself below the mountain tops. Went to the 'Alternates' page on my
trusty SN-10 only to find I wasn't within gliding distance of any
listed alternates. I ran east following a canyon that lead to the
totally unlandable terrain east of Red Bluff. Down, down ,down I sank
maintaining about 1000 feet above the slope as I looked at nothing but
trees! Finally I flew over a small pasture that looked to be landable.
It had all my favorite attributes, short, bumpy, fenced, up hill with
trees on the approach end, but at the time, it looked lovely. Popped
the gear and turned down-wind at what looked to be about 800 feet,
pulled full spoiler just before the trees and cleared them by a good
10 feet. Flared with half spoiler and rolled about 10 feet when I hit
a mound that put the nose down hard (Genesis 2). I heard something pop
and then we were flying again. Pulled full spoiler and touched down
again and slid to a stop about 100 feet short of the fence. WOW, glad
that's over!
A few days later I checked my trace and found I was within easy
gliding distance of an airport (Ruth, Ca) when I hit all that sink.
Why didn't the SN-10 direct me to Ruth? Reading the manual, on page 21
it says; The 'A' attribute does not cause a point to appear in the
list of landable fields on the alternates page! Only points marked
with an 'L' for landable will be shown. Ruth was marked with an 'A'
only. Checking the local data bases I find Montague, Air Sailing,
Logan, Avenal, Hobbs and Parowan are all using 'A' without the 'L'
for landable airports.
Recommend everyone check to make sure the data base you are using with
the SN-10 has airports identified with an 'L' for landable attribure.
Cheers,
JJ
PS;The pop I heard on landing was a shear pin that fails when heavy
loads are placed on the nose wheel thereby preventing retraction loads
from being applied to the main gear. An easy fix after I located the
shear pin which is deep inside the nose wheel -well.

On Sep 28, 2:02*pm, JJ Sinclair wrote:
I had a nasty land-out the other day, hit heavy sink while deep in the
mountains east of Williams, Ca. I lost 2500 feet in no time and found
myself below the mountain tops. Went to the 'Alternates' page on my
trusty SN-10 only to find I wasn't within gliding distance of any
listed alternates. I ran east following a canyon that lead to the
totally unlandable terrain east of Red Bluff. Down, down ,down I sank
maintaining about 1000 feet above the slope as I looked at nothing but
trees! Finally I flew over a small pasture that looked to be landable.
It had all my favorite attributes, short, bumpy, fenced, up hill with
trees on the approach end, but at the time, it looked lovely. Popped
the gear and turned down-wind at what looked to be about 800 feet,
pulled full spoiler just before the trees and cleared them by a good
10 feet. Flared with half spoiler and rolled about 10 feet when I hit
a mound that put the nose down hard (Genesis 2). I heard something pop
and then we were flying again. Pulled full spoiler and touched down
again and slid to a stop about 100 feet short of the fence. WOW, glad
that's over!
A few days later I checked my trace and found I was within easy
gliding distance of an airport (Ruth, Ca) when I hit all that sink.
Why didn't the SN-10 direct me to Ruth? Reading the manual, on page 21
it says; The 'A' attribute does not cause a point to appear in the
list of landable fields on the alternates page! Only points marked
with an 'L' for landable will be shown. Ruth was marked with an 'A'
only. Checking the local data bases I find Montague, Air Sailing,
Logan, Avenal, Hobbs and Parowan are all using *'A' without the 'L'
for landable airports.
Recommend everyone check to make sure the data base you are using with
the SN-10 has airports identified with an 'L' for landable attribure.
Cheers,
JJ
PS;The pop I heard on landing was a shear pin that fails when heavy
loads are placed on the nose wheel thereby preventing retraction loads
from being applied to the main gear. An easy fix after I located the
shear pin which is deep inside the nose wheel -well.

RTFM, JJ!

Seriously, glad it was an easy fix - for both you and the glider.

By the way, that's why I have a PDA (SYM) in addition to my SN10 - All
my PDA shows is the task and landable airports, so I don't have to do
any page swapping when it starts to get sweaty...

Of course, the requirement to QC the database still applies.

Cheers,

Kirk
66

On Sep 28, 5:02*pm, JJ Sinclair wrote:
I had a nasty land-out the other day, hit heavy sink while deep in the
mountains east of Williams, Ca. I lost 2500 feet in no time and found
myself below the mountain tops. Went to the 'Alternates' page on my
trusty SN-10 only to find I wasn't within gliding distance of any
listed alternates. I ran east following a canyon that lead to the
totally unlandable terrain east of Red Bluff. Down, down ,down I sank
maintaining about 1000 feet above the slope as I looked at nothing but
trees! Finally I flew over a small pasture that looked to be landable.
It had all my favorite attributes, short, bumpy, fenced, up hill with
trees on the approach end, but at the time, it looked lovely. Popped
the gear and turned down-wind at what looked to be about 800 feet,
pulled full spoiler just before the trees and cleared them by a good
10 feet. Flared with half spoiler and rolled about 10 feet when I hit
a mound that put the nose down hard (Genesis 2). I heard something pop
and then we were flying again. Pulled full spoiler and touched down
again and slid to a stop about 100 feet short of the fence. WOW, glad
that's over!
A few days later I checked my trace and found I was within easy
gliding distance of an airport (Ruth, Ca) when I hit all that sink.
Why didn't the SN-10 direct me to Ruth? Reading the manual, on page 21
it says; The 'A' attribute does not cause a point to appear in the
list of landable fields on the alternates page! Only points marked
with an 'L' for landable will be shown. Ruth was marked with an 'A'
only. Checking the local data bases I find Montague, Air Sailing,
Logan, Avenal, Hobbs and Parowan are all using *'A' without the 'L'
for landable airports.
Recommend everyone check to make sure the data base you are using with
the SN-10 has airports identified with an 'L' for landable attribure.
Cheers,
JJ
PS;The pop I heard on landing was a shear pin that fails when heavy
loads are placed on the nose wheel thereby preventing retraction loads
from being applied to the main gear. An easy fix after I located the
shear pin which is deep inside the nose wheel -well.

The "L" attribute is normally set by default for airports in the
databases I've seen - something funny is going on here.

HOWEVER: "L" is separate from "A" because:
- not all airports are landable, certainly not in larger-span gliders,
and
- other non-airport points in the DB can be landable.

You do need to check any database you load - whether into
an SN10, a PDA, or an electronic-picture-frame...

There are often errors in "official" databases.
Locally we have a listed airport that hasn't existed for a decade.
Bad news if you final-glide to this one.

Be careful out there,
Best Regards, Dave "YO electric"

On Sep 28, 4:01*pm, Dave Nadler wrote:
On Sep 28, 5:02*pm, JJ Sinclair wrote:



I had a nasty land-out the other day, hit heavy sink while deep in the
mountains east of Williams, Ca. I lost 2500 feet in no time and found
myself below the mountain tops. Went to the 'Alternates' page on my
trusty SN-10 only to find I wasn't within gliding distance of any
listed alternates. I ran east following a canyon that lead to the
totally unlandable terrain east of Red Bluff. Down, down ,down I sank
maintaining about 1000 feet above the slope as I looked at nothing but
trees! Finally I flew over a small pasture that looked to be landable.
It had all my favorite attributes, short, bumpy, fenced, up hill with
trees on the approach end, but at the time, it looked lovely. Popped
the gear and turned down-wind at what looked to be about 800 feet,
pulled full spoiler just before the trees and cleared them by a good
10 feet. Flared with half spoiler and rolled about 10 feet when I hit
a mound that put the nose down hard (Genesis 2). I heard something pop
and then we were flying again. Pulled full spoiler and touched down
again and slid to a stop about 100 feet short of the fence. WOW, glad
that's over!
A few days later I checked my trace and found I was within easy
gliding distance of an airport (Ruth, Ca) when I hit all that sink.
Why didn't the SN-10 direct me to Ruth? Reading the manual, on page 21
it says; The 'A' attribute does not cause a point to appear in the
list of landable fields on the alternates page! Only points marked
with an 'L' for landable will be shown. Ruth was marked with an 'A'
only. Checking the local data bases I find Montague, Air Sailing,
Logan, Avenal, Hobbs and Parowan are all using *'A' without the 'L'
for landable airports.
Recommend everyone check to make sure the data base you are using with
the SN-10 has airports identified with an 'L' for landable attribure.
Cheers,
JJ
PS;The pop I heard on landing was a shear pin that fails when heavy
loads are placed on the nose wheel thereby preventing retraction loads
from being applied to the main gear. An easy fix after I located the
shear pin which is deep inside the nose wheel -well.

The "L" attribute is normally set by default for airports in the
databases I've seen - something funny is going on here.

HOWEVER: "L" is separate from "A" because:
- not all airports are landable, certainly not in larger-span gliders,
and
- other non-airport points in the DB can be landable.

You do need to check any database you load - whether into
an SN10, a PDA, or an electronic-picture-frame...

There are often errors in "official" databases.
Locally we have a listed airport that hasn't existed for a decade.
Bad news if you final-glide to this one.

Be careful out there,
Best Regards, Dave "YO electric"

I never fly anywhere without knowing beforehand the location of enough
landable fields or strips - a habit that goes way back before flight
computers and PDAs.

I guess flying a ship than can be cheerfully ground-looped without
breaking the tail off gives you a wider selection of non-landable
fields!

Mike

On Sep 28, 4:01*pm, Dave Nadler wrote:
On Sep 28, 5:02*pm, JJ Sinclair wrote:



I had a nasty land-out the other day, hit heavy sink while deep in the
mountains east of Williams, Ca. I lost 2500 feet in no time and found
myself below the mountain tops. Went to the 'Alternates' page on my
trusty SN-10 only to find I wasn't within gliding distance of any
listed alternates. I ran east following a canyon that lead to the
totally unlandable terrain east of Red Bluff. Down, down ,down I sank
maintaining about 1000 feet above the slope as I looked at nothing but
trees! Finally I flew over a small pasture that looked to be landable.
It had all my favorite attributes, short, bumpy, fenced, up hill with
trees on the approach end, but at the time, it looked lovely. Popped
the gear and turned down-wind at what looked to be about 800 feet,
pulled full spoiler just before the trees and cleared them by a good
10 feet. Flared with half spoiler and rolled about 10 feet when I hit
a mound that put the nose down hard (Genesis 2). I heard something pop
and then we were flying again. Pulled full spoiler and touched down
again and slid to a stop about 100 feet short of the fence. WOW, glad
that's over!
A few days later I checked my trace and found I was within easy
gliding distance of an airport (Ruth, Ca) when I hit all that sink.
Why didn't the SN-10 direct me to Ruth? Reading the manual, on page 21
it says; The 'A' attribute does not cause a point to appear in the
list of landable fields on the alternates page! Only points marked
with an 'L' for landable will be shown. Ruth was marked with an 'A'
only. Checking the local data bases I find Montague, Air Sailing,
Logan, Avenal, Hobbs and Parowan are all using *'A' without the 'L'
for landable airports.
Recommend everyone check to make sure the data base you are using with
the SN-10 has airports identified with an 'L' for landable attribure.
Cheers,
JJ
PS;The pop I heard on landing was a shear pin that fails when heavy
loads are placed on the nose wheel thereby preventing retraction loads
from being applied to the main gear. An easy fix after I located the
shear pin which is deep inside the nose wheel -well.

The "L" attribute is normally set by default for airports in the
databases I've seen - something funny is going on here.

HOWEVER: "L" is separate from "A" because:
- not all airports are landable, certainly not in larger-span gliders,
and
- other non-airport points in the DB can be landable.

You do need to check any database you load - whether into
an SN10, a PDA, or an electronic-picture-frame...

There are often errors in "official" databases.
Locally we have a listed airport that hasn't existed for a decade.
Bad news if you final-glide to this one.

Be careful out there,
Best Regards, Dave "YO electric"

Dave - Good luck trying to convince people this was a good decision.
It just appears to be contrary to how others interpret the meaning of
"L" and "A". This is not how I believe all Cambridge products have
used an "L" and "A" attributes, certainly not the C302/303 and I think
older Cambridge devices. With Cambridge effectively defining the
standard for this why was if felt necessary to use the reverse
interpretation that "A" does not imply "L"?

But JJ - the waypoint file for Williams on the Soaring Turnpoint
Exchange for the SN10 *does* have Ruth marked with an "L" attribute.
So why did it not show up for you? If you have been hand-editing the
file and removing the "L" or not working with the Turnpoint Exchange
SN10 file as a starting point then ya kinda burnt yourself (even if
the behavior is a bad design decision)

This can be one "interesting" area of the Mendocinos where we can be
flying in not over the mountains.

Darryl

But JJ - the waypoint file for Williams on the Soaring Turnpoint
Exchange for the SN10 *does* have Ruth marked with an "L" attribute.
So why did it not show up for you? If you have been hand-editing the
file and removing the "L" or not working with the Turnpoint Exchange
SN10 file as a starting point then ya kinda burnt yourself (even if
the behavior is a bad design decision)

Yeah, I didn't like the Williams file, so I made up my own where an
airport is given an 'A' designator. That tells me to be looking for a
large complex as apposed to something with an 'L' which might be a
duster strip that looks more like a road. All (most) of these files
are based on Cambride where an A or L will do the same
thing.............see my proposed new Williams file where every
possible landing spot is given a big 'L'.
Cheers,
JJ

Oops, I stand corrected the world-wide turnpoint exchange does show an
'L' for airports when downloading Ilec files. I was looking at my
Cambridge file for the local turnpoints. So there is no problem if one
uses the files from the turnpoint exchange, but keep this in mind when
making your own files.
Sorry,
JJ

Thanks for the "heads up" JJ
--
Hartley Falbaum
USA "KF"



"JJ Sinclair" wrote in message
...
Oops, I stand corrected the world-wide turnpoint exchange does show an
'L' for airports when downloading Ilec files. I was looking at my
Cambridge file for the local turnpoints. So there is no problem if one
uses the files from the turnpoint exchange, but keep this in mind when
making your own files.
Sorry,
JJ

Dave - Good luck trying to convince people this was a good decision.
It just appears to be contrary to how others interpret the meaning of
"L" and "A". This is not how I believe all Cambridge products have
used an "L" and "A" attributes, certainly not the C302/303 and I think
older Cambridge devices. With Cambridge effectively defining the
standard for this why was if felt necessary to use the reverse
interpretation that "A" does not imply "L"?

What makes you think Cambridge is defining the standard? I find the
SN10 format easy and simple to use. As far as using the A or L to
figure out what kind of airport/landing area the waypoint is - all you
have to do is hit the help button and call up the waypoint description
- then you get all the data about it, including runway length, width,
freqs, etc! Take a look at the data contained in the CAI format
compared to the NDB format, and you will see the advantage of the
SN10s format.

Kirk
66

Happy SN10 user - who wouldn't use a Cambridge to fill an empty hole
in my panel!

On Sep 29, 10:49*am, "
wrote:
Dave - Good luck trying to convince people this was a good decision.
It just appears to be contrary to how others interpret the meaning of
"L" and "A". This is not how I believe all Cambridge products have
used an "L" and "A" attributes, certainly not the C302/303 and I think
older Cambridge devices. With Cambridge effectively defining the
standard for this why was if felt necessary to use the reverse
interpretation that "A" does not imply "L"?

What makes you think Cambridge is defining the standard? *I find the
SN10 format easy and simple to use. *As far as using the A or L to
figure out what kind of airport/landing area the waypoint is - all you
have to do is hit the help button and call up the waypoint description
- then you get all the data about it, including runway length, width,
freqs, etc! *Take a look at the data contained in the CAI format
compared to the NDB format, and you will see the advantage of the
SN10s format.

Kirk
66

Happy SN10 user - who wouldn't use a Cambridge to fill an empty hole
in my panel!

It has nothing to do with whether you like one instrument over
another. Cambridge was here first, and they provided a data format for
their instrument which have widely been used by others. Dave Ellis et
al. got the whole IGC recorder business started, they proved (in World
level contests) that it was workable, etc. The Cambridge .DAT format
consequently *is* the defacto standard, e.g. it is kind of intrinsic
to Winscore in the USA. Cambridge have an "L" and an "A" waypoint (err
"landpoint") attribute with specific meaning. To change that was not a
good choice, at least use a different letter code to avoid the obvious
confusion. While the soaring turnpoint exchange does a good job hiding
differences, this is just the kind of incompatibility that will bite
sooner or later.


Darryl