Landing with broken rudder cable

As an instructor, I practice this scenario in a Grob 103. Choose a direction and nail the rudder to the floor. We practice holding a heading and use of spoilers. Pretty much everyone agrees you could probably crash land and with good timing and luck everything will get to the ground unharmed. Maintaining airspeed prevents hint of a stall spin.

I also practice no ailerons or elevator using only the rudders and trim. Most are surprised how much control you have.

I highly recommend practicing with your own glider starting from a safe altitude. It will mentally prepare you for options that you might not want to explore for the first time in a real situation.

Other hands off things to practice is going into a cloud, letting go of the controls and see what your glider does. most will oscillate on pitch and quite a few will enter a spiral dive.

Bailing out you save yourself, while putting the rest of the world at risk. Plenty of stories of pilots landing in urban areas that have had these thoughts and did the right thing saving countless lives and property on the ground. Better to crash land in a field, than to have your plane fall to the ground while you float down in your chute.

BG



On Thursday, August 29, 2019 at 9:36:02 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Long time ago I landed glider with broken rudder. Rudder cable broke during stopping spin rotation in aerobatic flight on 3000 feet, decided not to bail out to see if flying and landing is possible and to save the glider. Flying with "hardover rudder" (full deflection) was interesting experience. Broken rudder cable will cause a severe yaw and roll with the resulting sideslip. Glider keeps turning, spiraling or circling in one direction (of unbroken cable) weather you like it or not it wants to spin or spiral all the time. You need much higher speed about 140 km/h or more, or whatever it takes to control it to stop turning and to go into steep sideslip to fly straight with 30-50 degree of bank. Forget your legs, you don’t need rudder pedals any more. High speed and ailerons are your only friends. Keep your speed high because glider wants to spiral and stall at slower speeds. I landed that "sucker" perfectly by flying high speed in deep "grave" sideslip all the way to the ground to middle of airport leveling wings moment before touchdown with full air brakes. I'm probably one of very few pilots that pulled this off with success, and I was 22 at that time, had 130 flying hours in 220 flights.
I remember that in situation like this you think very fast, you even have time to think that a few months earlier there was the same type of accident in other part of the country and pilot bailed out and glider went through the roof of the house. Also tighten your belts and keep your feet off rudder pedals, just in case. Keep your speed high, wings level, expect severe yaw, circles become wider, it takes time before you can fly straight with one wing low. If you slow down glider will start turning again so keep your speed up to go straight. This flight was 9 minutes including 6 minutes tow to 3300 feet when several other “normal� aerobatic flights were 16 minutes.
Andre