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#1
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How Low to Spin??
How Low to Spin??
I was proudly shown a IGC file this weekend. This file show the aero tow thru a thermal and a release into sink. Our proud pilot was unable to find the thermal and started a downwind leg for a landing. As he turned base leg, he flew into a 2-5 kt thermal. Instead of completing the pattern and landing, he turned and climbed in this thermal. The IGC file showed that his altitude at the time of encountering lift was 300 ft. I asked him 1 question as he displayed this flight on See You. How Low do you want to spin? His response scared me silly&&..My glider does not spin and there was no wind. He then continued to display the same flight where he bragged of spending a considerable amount of time in the mountains within 500 feet of the terrain. I am doubtful as to his ability to reach a landable area during this portion of the flight. This pilot is in his first year of private ownership, cross county soaring and may have almost 200 hours of total time. He has embraced soaring completely. I left the gliderport feeling that my suggestions as to his safety practices were just hollow words. I know that he reads RAS and would hope that the response to this post may give him some food for thought. |
#2
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He definitely sounds like an accident waiting to happen.
Not so much the fact that he did some questionable things, but the fact that he brags about them. Eventually he will hit some big sink while over the mountains, and realize he doesn't have an escape route. Hopefully the sink will let up before he crashes, and it will cause him to reevaluate his risk taking practices. Of course, it might just be occasion for him to brag again about what he got away with. |
#3
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"Paul M. Cordell" wrote in message ... How Low to Spin?? I was proudly shown a IGC file this weekend. This file show the aero tow thru a thermal and a release into sink. Our proud pilot was unable to find the thermal and started a downwind leg for a landing. As he turned base leg, he flew into a 2-5 kt thermal. Instead of completing the pattern and landing, he turned and climbed in this thermal. The IGC file showed that his altitude at the time of encountering lift was 300 ft. I asked him 1 question as he displayed this flight on See You. How Low do you want to spin? His response scared me silly&&..My glider does not spin and there was no wind. He then continued to display the same flight where he bragged of spending a considerable amount of time in the mountains within 500 feet of the terrain. I am doubtful as to his ability to reach a landable area during this portion of the flight. This pilot is in his first year of private ownership, cross county soaring and may have almost 200 hours of total time. He has embraced soaring completely. I left the gliderport feeling that my suggestions as to his safety practices were just hollow words. I know that he reads RAS and would hope that the response to this post may give him some food for thought. I heard the following comment at an informal gathering of older pilots: "We old, cautious pilots were once young, bold pilots who scared ourselves badly enough to engender some wisdom before the youth and boldness killed us." And, "Good judgement is the distillation of bad experiences." Perhaps your pilot simply hasn't experienced the silent, deadly spin departure that can result from a turning stall in turbulent air. Maybe we just have to hope that he scares himself into wisdom. Maybe he needs a flight with a good instructor in an easily spinable trainer like a Blanik L-23 or most any eastern European two-seater. Practicing cross-controlled stalls in rough, mid-afternoon thermals will usually do the trick. By way of setting some perspective, I won't universally condemn low altitude saves. Sometimes thermalling away is the best option available. However, they are almost always the result of earlier bad decisions that placed the pilot in that situation. Getting low is the most common way of losing a contest day. Still, there are many pilots with whom I would feel comfortable as a passenger riding in the back seat as they thermalled up from 300 feet. They are good enough at sensing the early symptoms of a stall/spin that they would relax the backpressure for a moment and then continue the thermal turn without anyone but the most perceptive noticing what had happened. Usually, these are not pilots trained in 2-33's. Bill Daniels |
#4
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Well 300'agl sounds about right for a proper base leg,
and if he had landable fields in all directions....so that if he circled in sink on the outside of the thermal...then in theory he might have been able to land even if he had not centered it and could not make the runway. I have experimented thermalling low right next to a runway when conditions and traffic permit...and u can burn 300' in one orbit. IMHO 600'-800'agl gives you more leeway, take another tow if u get below that...it is cheaper then funeral expenses. And never thermal in the pattern without thorough knowledge of the field and traffic procedures, and with a working radio I would think |
#5
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Part 2 of response-
Pushing limits safely is one of the appealing aspects of our sport...once one can actually stay up, this progression seems to be... 1.) How long(duration) 2.) How high 3.) How far 4.) How fast (How low) seems to fit in there somewhere...but it can bite harder then the others. One drill I was taught..figure out what the sink rate might be for a particular day if you hit the wrong part of a thermal...at a safe altitude pop your spoilers to that sink rate...then start circling to learn how much altitude you loose. As with many learning guidelines...the best instructors/mentors can relay this sort of information in a non-confrontional tone...which may aid learning. Sometimes RAS is lacking in this area |
#6
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Paul M. Cordell wrote:
How Low to Spin?? I was proudly shown a IGC file this weekend. This file show the aero tow thru a thermal and a release into sink. Our proud pilot was unable to find the thermal and started a downwind leg for a landing. As he turned base leg, he flew into a 2-5 kt thermal. Instead of completing the pattern and landing, he turned and climbed in this thermal. The IGC file showed that his altitude at the time of encountering lift was 300 ft. I asked him 1 question as he displayed this flight on See You. How Low do you want to spin? His response scared me silly&&..My glider does not spin and there was no wind. He then continued to display the same flight where he bragged of spending a considerable amount of time in the mountains within 500 feet of the terrain. I am doubtful as to his ability to reach a landable area during this portion of the flight. This pilot is in his first year of private ownership, cross county soaring and may have almost 200 hours of total time. He has embraced soaring completely. I left the gliderport feeling that my suggestions as to his safety practices were just hollow words. I know that he reads RAS and would hope that the response to this post may give him some food for thought. While getting shot down west of Boulder the other day, I was contemplating the "How low to circle?" equation. While always within EASY glide of the airport, I was low over the foothills. It wasn't a particularly "sinky" day, but down low the thermals were really just narrow threads of lift coming off the rocks. I realized that I'd need 500' or so to recover from a spin in a panic situation, and still need glide to the airport once I recovered my composure. If I got into a spin I'd also better have room to maneuver on the heading I recovered with. How many of us practice spin recovery to a heading, low, over rocks? =0 Circling down low whether over hills or flat ground presents complications in visual perspective that have been thoroughly addressed here in the past (Google some or Eric June's posts about his crash for a start) As Stu said, 600-800 feet of air underneath is a pretty good recommendation to *live* by. Interesting thing about the flight; By following the ridge lines keeping wind and sun in mind, I was able to run out of the hills at 300-400 feet over the ridges, maintaining my altitude until I had enough altitude to circle comfortably (which, remember includes the thermals spreading out enough to be useful). Just for good measure, later in the flight I did some practice turning stalls, to make sure my stall warning calibration was reasonable. YMMV, but for recreational pilots like me, these are good guidelines. Shawn |
#7
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Paul,
First and foremost, I was not "proud" of the flight I showed you, and I'm disappointed (in fact, a little shocked) that you took it that way. Maybe I should work on my presentation a little (I know it can be a little eager sometimes). I learn from my experiences (positive and negative) by being honest and open about them, not by pretending they didn't happen, and this was no different (if I couldn't take the slings and arrows, I'd just keep everything to myself). I had already told two other highly experienced pilots (GY and AZ2) that I wondered at the time if I'd made the right decisions. That isn't pride; it's concern about wanting to do it better next time. When I made my statement "My glider doesn't spin", you quickly (and appropriately) noted that they were the famous last words of many a dead pilot. I immediately recognized the ridiculousness of my statement and offered you an honest correction: I haven't been able to get *my* glider to spin (which is certainly not to say that it can't happen). Now, we can argue about the relative safety value of that attitude, but I was maintaining minimum 58 knots AIS, much higher than my normal dry thermaling speed, so the stall/spin risk at that point was no higher than at any point in any normal landing pattern. (My CFIGs were very good at instilling in me the importance of maintaining airspeed close to the ground. I have read all the stories about pilots flying low, looking at the ground and thinking they have lots of airspeed, and learning the hard way they didn't, and of pilots flying low over mountains and getting bit by wind sheer. Not for a second am I so proud to think that these things can't happen to me.) The IGC file shows the lowest point on my downwind leg at 310'. I was up to 400' when I turned onto base. (There is a big difference between 300' and 400'.) At 58 knots AIS, 4 knots up, no traffic anywhere, and no wind, I simply continued the turn as I had started it. If it turned into sink, there was still plenty of altitude to finish the turn and land. Did I make the right decision? I will eagerly absorb any and all constructive feedback I get on that question, positive and negative (the "you-stupid-idiot" lectures some people so enjoy giving are more entertaining than they are useful). As far as I'm concerned, the most glaring mistake I made was allowing myself to get into the position of being at 300' AGL halfway through my downwind leg. Now *that* was dumb, and I need no feedback on that count. About the mountain flying: at no point in my flight was I not within easy gliding distance of at least two safe landing areas (one dirt strip and one airport). If you had a question about that, I wish you would have asked. If there's anything I consistently do right in my flying, it's staying within safe distance of good landing areas (see previous paragraph); I always have the nearest landing spot dialed in on my flight computer, maintaining a positive arrival at MC 3. I am particularly satisfied with this aspect of my x/c flying -- I can even call myself "proud" on this count, though it usually puts a damper on my contest speeds Paul, the next time I say something that scares you silly, just call me on it, *especially* if it looks like my pride is in the way. I have a tremoundous amount of respect for the feedback I get from guys like you and GY and you will NOT hurt my feelings by speaking up in person. That I promise, my friend -- -ted P.s. At the time of the flight I had 232 hours total time in the glider and 340 total PIC. |
#8
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Ted Wagner wrote:
Paul, Snip 1st hand account. I can understand the temptation to keep turning. Its *safe* to say everyone should land in under same circumstances. Doesn't mean it can't be done, just that IMHO (and most everyone else's too) it shouldn't. The trail of blood is pretty compelling in this case, Ted. Scroll to the bottom for a survivor's account. http://tinyurl.com/3jw2w Shawn |
#9
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Ted,
in my humble opinion you are doing one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself for your long term survival as a sailplane pilot. Expose your mistakes and share them. As a cross over hang glider pilot, I have made all sorts of small mistakes, I like to think I learned from most of them. What I am completely convinced of is the need to not evaluate your successes or failures at this early point in your soaring by the "how high, how far, how fast" methodology, but instead, to evaluate your process...download your flights and determine how many of your decisions were ones that could have had bad conclusions, and then use those as a means to improve your decision making with each subsequent flight...I generally don't say much here, it's more fun to simply watch the banter, but on this front I do feel compelled to suggest that ALL cross country soaring pilots should be trying to share more of the information we use in our own process. To me, 300 feet is WAY too low to be trying to climb back up...once in awhile you'll get away with it...but not every time. And the one time it kills you, the pundits here will have more fodder for the tireless " Well anyone could see it was gonna happen sooner or later"'s...My two cents worth ain't worth what it used to be, but keep sharing those flights...if you aren't sure if it was dumb...ask somebody.."Hey would YOU have done this..?" and then be prepared for the outcome. In this case you got away with something. We've probably ALL gotten away with something ourselves...but if we share a bit more of what was going through our head, we can hopefully relegate some of the future visits to funerals... Steve DG-400 4-93 |
#10
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Thanks Shawn, I'll take a look.
Btw, so say "It's *safe* to say everyone should land (blah blah blah)" is, well, stating the obvious (kinda like saying "It's safe to stay on the ground"). The pertinent question is whether it was *unsafe* for me to continue the turn in the precise circumstances in which I found myself. I remain open to the possibility that it was not, but in the same spirit, being over tiger country out of reach of landable points is questionably unsafe, yet I hear regularly of pilots doing this as a matter of routine, especially in contests, and if I continue flying contests long enough (and I hope to be doing them for many years), I will have to take that step many times myself. I want to err on the side of safety, but at the same time, I want to be reasonable and competitive. I treat my flights like I do my skydives (4500 safe ones and counting, knock on wood) -- from the time the plane leaves the ground, I am a dead man, until my feet are safely back upon it; it is my responsibility to make the right decisions and pull the right handles at the right times to avert that fate. -ted "scurry" wrote in message ... Ted Wagner wrote: Paul, Snip 1st hand account. I can understand the temptation to keep turning. Its *safe* to say everyone should land in under same circumstances. Doesn't mean it can't be done, just that IMHO (and most everyone else's too) it shouldn't. The trail of blood is pretty compelling in this case, Ted. Scroll to the bottom for a survivor's account. http://tinyurl.com/3jw2w Shawn |
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