When gliders fail in flight, but pilots manage to land

If a rudder cable should break in flight, what can you try, before hitting the silk? First off, fly the sailplane. You should be able to keep the wings level by fighting the uncommanded rudder input with opposite aileron. Let's assume the right rudder cable broke and the left pedal spring has pulled in full left rudder. If you can get hold of the rudder cable, you may be able to pull on the broken cable and cause the rudder to come back to center.. Pull forward on the right rudder cable or aft on the left rudder cable. I don't believe this is a viable solution in most ships because the rudder cables are inside a nylon sleeve and not accessible in flight. What else could you try (while holding right aileron to keep the wings level)? The problem is the left rudder pedal spring is pulling in unwanted rudder, so how can we get it to stop doing that? Try and get your left foot over the left rudder pedal and pull aft on the top of the pedal with the heal of your left foot............not likely, I hear you saying, but what if you pull the rudder pedal adjustment all the way back? That might get the pedal close enough to get the heal of your left foot over the pedal? If successful, pull it all the way back, this will relieve the spring tension that is applying the unwanted rudder input. Home free, right? Well, maybe just pretend your Joe Cessna driver who doesn't use the rudder much, anyway!
What do you think?
JJ

One more little 'tid-bit while we're talking about the rudder cables..........if you don't like the angle of your pedals (most stand too straight up for my liking) you can lean them both forward by simply adjusting the length of both cables. Install a 1" steel carabiner where the cables end forward of the rudder pedals. Sound crazy, but it's true!
Be sure to check that your new pedal position, still giver full rudder throw!

Not picking......just commenting.

While I hate to think of a control failure in flight, a thread like this may prompt others to try "stupid stuff" at altitude.
I don't know who said it first (maybe one of the Wrights?), don't stop flying until all motion has ended!
Basically, even if a wrong input, keep trying something until things stop. Keep trying "pilot ****" until things stop moving.
A semi controlled crash is way better than an uncontrolled crash.

Only comment is a pilot (decades ago in NJ) that landed a SEL powered plane (on a golf fairway) and drove it between 2 trees. His comment, "I heard shedding the wings was a good thing in a crash".
They could have refueled, taken off, gone to the local airport.
Whatever.

Yes, this is a good thread, may make peeps think a bit.
May.

My only in-flight glider failure happened back when I was a 'baby level pilot'. Fortunately, it was a baby level glider failure, but at the time, I thought I needed a yaw string to fly coordinated with confidence. During aerotow, my yaw string departed the canopy. 'Oh s***!'

I heard my instructor's voice echo, 'stay on tow, altitude is your friend, give yourself some time to work things out, stay calm.' I softly vocalized 'stay calm'.

I knew about 'spin on turn to base', but I had also practiced 'slip on turn to base'. Slip good, skid bad.

I added 5 knots to my pattern speed, and kept the rudder neutral.

Many years ago, a friend of mine had the linkage to both ailerons in his 1-26 come disconnected in flight. The pins in the linkage fell out inside the fuselage, and we never did find the safety pin to see what happened to it.

Anyway, the 1-26 has quite a bit of wing dihedral, and he managed to bring it back to the field and land it, using rudder for slow gradual turns. The glider is still flying today.

Jim Beckman in NJ

Two years ago, on my first flight of the year I saw that the airspeed indicator was not working (read zero). Feeling comfortable with approximate airspeeds I did a refresh on where close to stall was and went off on a 2 1/2 hour cross country flight with no problems. Kept the speed up and nose down a bit on pattern and landing. Looking into the nose area I found that the plastic tubing had slipped off the Pitot tube in the nose, probably from a long trailer ride. It is now secured with a Ty-wrap.

Decades ago, I did a "first flight of the season" in a ASW-20. Normal preflight of, "cup hand around tail probe and blow" yielded sorta normal needle movement.
At about 200', airspeed was low (glider felt solid), so continued flight.
Flew for a couple hours, landed fine, derigged.
Found a rodent had chewed through a pressure tube. A quick blow looked fine, steady state had a leak.
I had reverted to, "does it look good, does it feel good, does it sound good?".
Decent short cross country, woulda sucked for a competition.

So, unless IFR, revert to basics, hopefully you were taught the basics...... IFR stresses, "believe the instruments, verify what is correct".