Last year, after 45 hours on a Falcon 2, I had my first flight on a double surface. I thought I knew what to expect from the user-friendly Eagle. I intended to land in the Hang 2 runway zone, and wound up with a foot-dragging belly-scraping adventure that came to rest halfway up the woodchip mountain on the grass LZ. What happened?
The Eagle flew just as advertised. I was prepped for a longer glide in ground effect, and planned on it. I thought thats what they meant by "energy retention."
What I didnt realize was that I was setting up a landing pattern for a Falcon, not a double-surface. I began the downwind far too high. When I pulled in to go down, I just went faster'. True, it was hot and there was big lift over the LZ. But on a falcon I wouldnve just pulled in and "rode the rock" down, down, down. Instead, on the EAgle, I went long, long, long. .
Thanks to Phill and Joe Greblo for helping me piece together what went wrong, step by step. I quickly got used to lower approaches, and for restricted landing zones, a base turn at 100 feet.
Double surface: not harder, just different.
Incident: advancing pilot lands long in LZ
Follow-up:
Twenty hours later, on my Saturn 167 ( an intermediate double surface glider), I begin to understand the reality, or at least what I should be trying to do.
The single most important decision in making an accurate and successful landing is where to begin the landing approach. That is, at what altitude and what angle from the runway threshhold you begin the downwind.
This can vary (if returning low for instance), but the goal is to make it the same each time. Beginning the approach perfectly is the whole ball game.
If you get the starting point right, you can pull in and fly a straight downwind, a gentle turn to base, a gentle turn to final, and the threshhold will appear just where you want it. A good feeling. Few adjustments. Going fast and true into ground effect.
I conclude that improvisation sucks. We are trained to know how to improvise--widen the downwind, shorten the base, even turn back to the starting point if lifted in a big thermal--but the trick is not to have to do it. Improvisation and compensation means you are not where you want to be at the moment, and are trying to get back to where you were supposed to be.
Of course, lift and sink and crosswinds do require compensating changes in the standard pattern . But most of the time we are BSing ourselves. Most ragged patterns are flown simply because we started too high or low or far away, and all the rest is catch-up, often ending with entering ground effect unprepared and gyrating and popping and wondering when to flare. It's not the Sylmar Triangle that got us, its bad approach.
The good topless pilots dont do any of this S-turns crap. They fly aggressive, efficient high speed patterns--sorta like Hang 2s who are trying to get a signoff with three instructors watching. I asked Phill and Andy about this.
"Well,"Andy said, "that's because a topless will kill you if you dont get it right."
Twenty hours later, on my Saturn 167 ( an intermediate double surface glider), I begin to understand the reality, or at least what I should be trying to do.
The single most important decision in making an accurate and successful landing is where to begin the landing approach. That is, at what altitude and what angle from the runway threshhold you begin the downwind.
This can vary (if returning low for instance), but the goal is to make it the same each time. Beginning the approach perfectly is the whole ball game.
If you get the starting point right, you can pull in and fly a straight downwind, a gentle turn to base, a gentle turn to final, and the threshhold will appear just where you want it. A good feeling. Few adjustments. Going fast and true into ground effect.
I conclude that improvisation sucks. We are trained to know how to improvise--widen the downwind, shorten the base, even turn back to the starting point if lifted in a big thermal--but the trick is not to have to do it. Improvisation and compensation means you are not where you want to be at the moment, and are trying to get back to where you were supposed to be.
Of course, lift and sink and crosswinds do require compensating changes in the standard pattern . But most of the time we are BSing ourselves. Most ragged patterns are flown simply because we started too high or low or far away, and all the rest is catch-up, often ending with entering ground effect unprepared and gyrating and popping and wondering when to flare. It's not the Sylmar Triangle that got us, its bad approach.
The good topless pilots dont do any of this S-turns crap. They fly aggressive, efficient high speed patterns--sorta like Hang 2s who are trying to get a signoff with three instructors watching. I asked Phill and Andy about this.
"Well,"Andy said, "that's because a topless will kill you if you dont get it right."