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#1
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Interesting flight
Had some fun with a banging gear door last Friday and made a
precautionary landing. Learned a great deal. Check out the write up on my blog at the SSA website. Reed |
#2
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Interesting flight
No link?
On May 16, 2:40*am, Reed von Gal wrote: Had some fun with a banging gear door last Friday and made a precautionary landing. Learned a great deal. Check out the write up on my blog at the SSA website. Reed |
#3
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Interesting flight
On May 16, 5:34*am, GARY BOGGS wrote:
No link? On May 16, 2:40*am, Reed von Gal wrote: Had some fun with a banging gear door last Friday and made a precautionary landing. Learned a great deal. Check out the write up on my blog at the SSA website. Reed- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - http://ssa.org/myhome.asp?mbr=309520...w=blog&id=2500 Does that work? |
#4
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Interesting flight
On May 17, 1:40*am, Grider Pirate wrote:
On May 16, 5:34*am, GARY BOGGS wrote: No link? On May 16, 2:40*am, Reed von Gal wrote: Had some fun with a banging gear door last Friday and made a precautionary landing. Learned a great deal. Check out the write up on my blog at the SSA website. Reed- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - http://ssa.org/myhome.asp?mbr=309520...w=blog&id=2500 Does that work? It's a pity that these blogs are restricted to SSA members... |
#5
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Interesting flight
On May 16, 3:15*pm, smithcorp wrote:
On May 17, 1:40*am, Grider Pirate wrote: On May 16, 5:34*am, GARY BOGGS wrote: No link? On May 16, 2:40*am, Reed von Gal wrote: Had some fun with a banging gear door last Friday and made a precautionary landing. Learned a great deal. Check out the write up on my blog at the SSA website. Reed- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - http://ssa.org/myhome.asp?mbr=309520...w=blog&id=2500 SSA Home About Soaring The SSA News & Information Sailplane Racing Soaring Achievement SSA Partners Soaring Magazine SSA Store Classifieds Annual Convention Contact Us Welcome, Gary Log Out MyHome First Emergency Hello everyone, The weekend initially looked good for possible cross country soaring. Forecasts were for high cloudbases and light winds out of the east. Unfortunately, a system blew in and shut down soaring for most of the weekend. I was, however, able to make two flights, and one of them proved rather eventful. On friday, I preflighted our Grob 102 and prepared to fly. XXC in his good looking Discus B had a nice thermal just north of the field, and although an inversion was capping lift at around 9500 feet, the prospects for a nice local soaring flight looked promising. After a thorough preflight and required positive control check, I towed the glider out to the runway to start the flight. Takeoff was fairly uneventful except for a slight crosswind correction to maintain position behind the towplane. Winds were out of the northeast at around 5 to 9 knots. At around 50 feet, I heard it! A loud bang seemed to come from underneath and behind me. I kept tow position and then heard it again a few times. Hearing an unknown noise at a critical point (or any!) in the flight is especially unnerving and after taking a second to process the information, I elected to keep flying the airplane and worry about getting to a safe height. My first instinct was to pull the release at 200 feet and make a left turn back to land downwind on Runway 26. I quickly discounted that when I realized the airplane was flying fine, and there would be no need to make what could be a small problem into a much larger one. At around 400 feet, I radioed the towpilot to let him know I was encountering a strange noise, and to turn left crosswind to set me up for a downwind on Runway 8. I had the towpilot climb up to our pattern altitude of 6100 feet MSL and released abeam midfield on a left downwind for Runway 8. We normally enter on a midfield crosswind, but due to the abnormal situation, I had the towpilot put me straight on a downwind to the runway. With plenty of altitude to play with, I sped up to around 80 knots and then slowed down to just above minimum controllable airspeed. I noted no control problems and I felt I would have no problems landing the glider. I declared a Pan Pan on the CTAF as well, and voiced aloud what the problem was. After a safe landing and pushing the glider back to her bay, I met up with my CFIs to discus what the problem might have been and how I could have reacted differently. The consensus was that it was the landing gear door banging into the fuselage. Looking at the springs, they were fairly shot. When I crabbed into the wind on takeoff, the slipstream must have banged the gear door into the fuselage. The banging stopped shortly after takeoff when the wind dictated I end the crab. Made perfect sense on the ground, although a fairly unnerving noise while I was airborne. What could I have done differently? A few things, for sure. First thing I was told, which makes perfect sense in hindsight, would be to continue the tow normally up to a higher altitude. If the glider is flying fine, there is no reason to release at a fairly low height when something might be wrong. I could have flown east toward open fields, with plenty of altitude to work the problem and potentially bail out if needed be.* Secondly, I could have had the towpilot fly next to me and check out the glider after release to see if there was anything amiss and flapping around. This would be accomplished at a higher altitude and east of the field. What did I do right? Safely land the aircraft! Aviate Navigate Communicate was drilled into me from day one. I never stopped flying the airplane, flew where I needed to fly, and communicated my difficulties over the radio in perfect order.* What I took away from this was to have a more open mind when something goes wrong. Don't think the first course of action should be to immediately get the plane on the ground. Keep flying, think of what the problem might be, and climb to a higher altitude if you can in order to liken your chances of a successful bailout if necessary. On another note, I had my first flight in our new DG 505 that I recently drove to Wisconsin to get with my CFI. Low ceilings and rain were pushing their way east off the foothills, and I knew a short flight was going to be in order. Towed to about 6500 (MSL) feet in drizzle and less than excellent visibility (about 6sm I would say). Ceilings were at around 7500 feet (MSL). The glider flew great! I had my first experience with rain on the canopy and the wings as well. I was noticing about 4 knots of sink, and realized it was not due to normal sink, but the rain disturbing the laminar flow on the wings. It was also a bit harder to see out of the canopy due to the light drizzle, but not bad by any means. After a nice short field landing, the field went IFR about 20 minutes later as I got to have the fun of drying off the glider while putting the covers back on. While no great flights were had, I learned a hell of a lot this weekend. Not about cross country soaring, but about general airmanship and glider performance in marginal conditions. It just goes to show you that with aviation, there is always new knowledge to gain and decisions to make. Fly safe everyone, Reed Posted: 5/16/2011 | Rank It! Does that work? It's a pity that these blogs are restricted to SSA members... |
#6
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Interesting flight
On May 16, 7:20*pm, GARY BOGGS wrote:
On May 16, 3:15*pm, smithcorp wrote: On May 17, 1:40*am, Grider Pirate wrote: On May 16, 5:34*am, GARY BOGGS wrote: No link? On May 16, 2:40*am, Reed von Gal wrote: Had some fun with a banging gear door last Friday and made a precautionary landing. Learned a great deal. Check out the write up on my blog at the SSA website. Reed- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - http://ssa.org/myhome.asp?mbr=309520...w=blog&id=2500 SSA Home About Soaring The SSA News & Information Sailplane Racing Soaring Achievement SSA Partners Soaring Magazine SSA Store Classifieds Annual Convention Contact Us Welcome, Gary Log Out MyHome First Emergency Hello everyone, The weekend initially looked good for possible cross country soaring. Forecasts were for high cloudbases and light winds out of the east. Unfortunately, a system blew in and shut down soaring for most of the weekend. I was, however, able to make two flights, and one of them proved rather eventful. On friday, I preflighted our Grob 102 and prepared to fly. XXC in his good looking Discus B had a nice thermal just north of the field, and although an inversion was capping lift at around 9500 feet, the prospects for a nice local soaring flight looked promising. After a thorough preflight and required positive control check, I towed the glider out to the runway to start the flight. Takeoff was fairly uneventful except for a slight crosswind correction to maintain position behind the towplane. Winds were out of the northeast at around 5 to 9 knots. At around 50 feet, I heard it! A loud bang seemed to come from underneath and behind me. I kept tow position and then heard it again a few times. Hearing an unknown noise at a critical point (or any!) in the flight is especially unnerving and after taking a second to process the information, I elected to keep flying the airplane and worry about getting to a safe height. My first instinct was to pull the release at 200 feet and make a left turn back to land downwind on Runway 26. I quickly discounted that when I realized the airplane was flying fine, and there would be no need to make what could be a small problem into a much larger one. At around 400 feet, I radioed the towpilot to let him know I was encountering a strange noise, and to turn left crosswind to set me up for a downwind on Runway 8. I had the towpilot climb up to our pattern altitude of 6100 feet MSL and released abeam midfield on a left downwind for Runway 8. We normally enter on a midfield crosswind, but due to the abnormal situation, I had the towpilot put me straight on a downwind to the runway. With plenty of altitude to play with, I sped up to around 80 knots and then slowed down to just above minimum controllable airspeed. I noted no control problems and I felt I would have no problems landing the glider. I declared a Pan Pan on the CTAF as well, and voiced aloud what the problem was. After a safe landing and pushing the glider back to her bay, I met up with my CFIs to discus what the problem might have been and how I could have reacted differently. The consensus was that it was the landing gear door banging into the fuselage. Looking at the springs, they were fairly shot. When I crabbed into the wind on takeoff, the slipstream must have banged the gear door into the fuselage. The banging stopped shortly after takeoff when the wind dictated I end the crab. Made perfect sense on the ground, although a fairly unnerving noise while I was airborne. What could I have done differently? A few things, for sure. First thing I was told, which makes perfect sense in hindsight, would be to continue the tow normally up to a higher altitude. If the glider is flying fine, there is no reason to release at a fairly low height when something might be wrong. I could have flown east toward open fields, with plenty of altitude to work the problem and potentially bail out if needed be.* Secondly, I could have had the towpilot fly next to me and check out the glider after release to see if there was anything amiss and flapping around. This would be accomplished at a higher altitude and east of the field. What did I do right? Safely land the aircraft! Aviate Navigate Communicate was drilled into me from day one. I never stopped flying the airplane, flew where I needed to fly, and communicated my difficulties over the radio in perfect order.* What I took away from this was to have a more open mind when something goes wrong. Don't think the first course of action should be to immediately get the plane on the ground. Keep flying, think of what the problem might be, and climb to a higher altitude if you can in order to liken your chances of a successful bailout if necessary. On another note, I had my first flight in our new DG 505 that I recently drove to Wisconsin to get with my CFI. Low ceilings and rain were pushing their way east off the foothills, and I knew a short flight was going to be in order. Towed to about 6500 (MSL) feet in drizzle and less than excellent visibility (about 6sm I would say). Ceilings were at around 7500 feet (MSL). The glider flew great! I had my first experience with rain on the canopy and the wings as well. I was noticing about 4 knots of sink, and realized it was not due to normal sink, but the rain disturbing the laminar flow on the wings. It was also a bit harder to see out of the canopy due to the light drizzle, but not bad by any means. After a nice short field landing, the field went IFR about 20 minutes later as I got to have the fun of drying off the glider while putting the covers back on. While no great flights were had, I learned a hell of a lot this weekend. Not about cross country soaring, but about general airmanship and glider performance in marginal conditions. It just goes to show you that with aviation, there is always new knowledge to gain and decisions to make. Fly safe everyone, Reed Posted: 5/16/2011 | Rank It! Does that work? It's a pity that these blogs are restricted to SSA members... I appreciate that Gary. I meant to do that myself. Reed |
#7
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Interesting flight
Wow, thanks a million for that Gary!
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