Blown Launch Oct 6th

[Steve90266]

We had a pilot experience a blown launch on Sunday, Oct 6th. Little or no injuries were incurred. Pilot had this to say about his launch:

"Simply and concisely, I screwed-up. While setting up the glider I felt winds from the south that were weak, but steady. But after going to launch the winds were almost nil. I waited at launch for what seemed like about 10 minutes watching the streamer occasionally indicate a few mph from the S/W while hearing reports that the windsock showed northerly winds. I saw the streamers begin to slightly blow straight in and heard persons I had been listening to for the windsock direction yell, "Go, Go, Go." I began my run and thought that I was not going to clear the bushes below launch, so I let up to rise over them. At that time I experienced a sharp right turn towards the mountain. With my lack of speed I did not believe I could clear the hill by pulling in hard left, so I chose to slide sideways with my left wing into the hill and let the glider impact with my arms relaxed to avoid stiff arm injuries. As the left glider wheel impacted with the ground, my left shoulder hit the left downtube and my chest hit the ground, knocking the wind out of me.

My injuries were limited to a few brush scratches. So far the only damage to the glider that has been discovered is the left downtube. I plan to do a more thorough inspection when I replace the downtube.

In retrospect I should have waited for more favorable launch conditions and been more aggressive doing it. What I heard people telling me to go was actually pilots saying, " Don't go," warning me of a westerly dust devil coming at launch. And possibly if I had just pulled in hard to the left I could have cleared the hill.

Many thanks to all those who rescued me and my glider."

Posted by Steve Murillo
Safety Director
SHGA

[Steve90266]

Yesterday was an extremely unpredictable day. There was convergence, and the resulting tempest made for quite a challenging day.

Aside from the blown launch, we had at least four pilots break downtubes on landing. As our pilot indicates in the account above, winds were switching from blowing up to slightly blowing down and back again. Down in the LZ, it was even more pronounced, and many pilots had to shoot northerly approaches. At least two pilots opted for a normal southerly approach and unfortunately paid the price.

Two very experienced pilots recognized the unpredictable conditions early on in their flights and opted to land early, before the winds switched. Their landings were uneventful. These guys get a BZ each for good head work.

Have you ever had to shoot a northerly approach? What would you do? Where would you set up? What direction would you turn? Where would your numbers be? Would you go long and accept the wash? How long is that wash anyway? A quarter mile? A half mile? A football field?

Next time you are in the LZ you might make a note to walk the LZ, rehearsing a northerly approach in your mind as you go. Hey, at the worst it could save a downtube!

Posted by Steve Murillo
Safety Director, SHGA

[JD]

I was in line directly was behind the pilot who had the launch mishap and would like to offer a few observations:

1 - It was hot! While I was waiting, hooked-in I had to remove my helmet before sweat got into my eyes after just a few minutes.

2 - There appeared to be too many people (distractions) standing around on the ramp.

3 - The pilot was on the ramp for a long time in the heat and nil wind. I assured him there was no line and no hurry whatsoever. He is an experienced pilot and I was certainly confident of his judgement.

4 - Now the bad part: The glider's Angle of Attack before, during and after the brief launch run was noticeably too high and probably contributed to shortening the launch run as well as what followed. I could see the glider suddenly drop from sight w/ nose still too high and yelled out, "Blown launch!" so people would be ready for what was likely to follow. I was relieved to hear it was minor and could see from behind the ramp the glider resting in the bushes below the PG ramp.

Some comments:

It is possible to launch a fully stalled glider and not crash but as the pilot himself observed, he was unsure about clearing the bushes below the ramp. It takes a lot more altitude to get a stalled glider flying so that it clears the hillside than to simply throw yourself into the air and go into free-fall with a correct angle of attack. Some launches from Towers in more thermic weather than yesterday result in very long drops of up to 150' in semi-free-fall before there is enough airspeed to lift the loaded glider.

As long as AoA is correct and a glider is not stalled but airspeed is still too low to lift the loaded wing, there will be full lateral control however the glider will be dropping until it gains the needed airspeed. This is something few pilots mothers ever told them but is worth noting. It takes getting used to as this requires running and jumping into the air but not really flying. A leap of faith.

Landings:

I came in to land around 4:20 PM and didn't notice anything unusual until the glider ahead of me came in from the wash South of the LZ and skimmed over the overshoot ramp. I noticed that the wind on the deck was from the WNW or cross the LZ runway about 20 degrees North of perpendicular and switchy. Since I was flying 305# on 144 sq Feet I was cautious of a sudden shift N or S so I set up over the wash ready to come in from either side. I split Salomon's baby and came in perpendicular trying to clear the berm as low as possible. I dragged my feet across the grass and ran it to a stop in the parking lot. I dropped the control bar onto my over-sized Delrin skids. No harm done.

later I found out about another topless glider that came in from North to South with what I assume was a tailwind as it resulted in an overshoot into the wash and a broken arm (humerus). I also heard about another topless wing that was damaged and the pilot aggravated an old injury. Lots of whack stories. It sounds like the safest topless landing was in the field next to Olive View Hospital where is was strong out of the West on the deck and the pilot just floated in.

Kendall demonstrated the wisest tactic as I have learned from Phill: stay in the air until the surface wind is clearly organized then quickly dive in and land. He did a very nice landing from the South over the overshoot hill while the wind was much more North than West.

There are a few videos out there of past switch days...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsVcwAI7rTQ[/youtube]
Chad makes it look easy here: http://youtu.be/feS2c71WnSY?t=2m42s

Keep in mind that it was more West than North yesterday which was great for floaters which could be landed across the runway without fear of overshoot but for heavy wings it was problematic.

[greblo]

I've been asked to contribute to this topic by providing my opinions on how to make safe landings in turbulent flying conditions.
There are a half a dozen topics in hang gliding that rank very high in importance and this subject is one of them.

I believe, every pilot will get his/her share of surprises and things going wrong on approach. Some pilots seem to come out of these situations in good shape and for others, it's everything from scary, to a trip to the hospital.

I also believe the way to best insure good landings in bad conditions is through disciplining myself to perform nearly each and every landing approach in the manner that's most forgiving of change ie: most tolerant of sudden turbulence, lift, sink, or surprises.

Low approaches, slow approaches, S-turn approaches, approaches needing hand and body position changes, all can be dangerous when something begins to go wrong. So what are the most forgiving approach techniques.

Most instructors agree that in general the aircraft pattern approach (downwind, base, and final) is the approach most forgiving to surprises. Let's look at the aircraft approach itself. Does a very low approach allow for things to go wrong? How about a very high approach with a real long final glide? The long straight final might be good for preventing unwanted turns, but when done in lift and sink it's not possible to maintain a perfect glide angle without speeding up or slowing down. Speeding up creates its own unique problems, but not as many as slowing down. A conservative landing approach is best for all but short runways or small fields where the RLF approach can be safer.

So what's the solution to landing in turbulence? Here's a list of things that can help.

1. Accept the fact that you can't land precisely where you want to, but where you end up, and you may end up much shorter or much longer than you planned.
2. Minimize turns on final. Purposeful turns in turbulence while on final are dangerous and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
3. Assuming that you have a long runway, try to enter ground effect about 1/3 up the runway. This leaves ample room to land short and plenty of runway ahead to land long.
4. Choose a "target airspeed" for your approach that is right for the amount of turbulence that you think might be present in and above the landing zone. The stronger the turbulence, the faster the "target airspeed".
5. Minimize the need to change hand and body positions during the approach as it's difficult to change a hand position at any other speed than trim speed
6. Don't try to flare to a full stop. Just like in flight, "airspeed is your friend and stall is your enemy". Your glider cannot be aerodynamically steered once it stalls, and flaring always stalls the glider.
That's also why it's important to stay practiced at both "full-flare" and "run-out" landings.

Here's 4 things to consider for a simple landing approach checklist. I say them out loud during downwind, on base, and again during final.
ABLE
A= Is my ANGLE of attack low enough for the expected turbulence?
B= Is my BODY upright with my feet under me (not behind me)?
L= Are my hands LOW?
E= Are my EYES on target? - flying precisely on my imaginary runway centerline. If I don't have one, I should. If I have one, I can tell the moment the glider begins to deviate. This quick recognition of an impending turn, helps me react quicker to keep the glider going straight.


I hope this helps.

joe

[jcflies]

Thanks, Joe, for clear and concise advice! Nice to see it laid out!

[gregangsten]

I began my run and thought that I was not going to clear the bushes below launch, so I let up to rise over them. At that time I experienced a sharp right turn towards the mountain.

In the interest of accuracy, I have to say that this is not what I saw. I was hooked in directly behind launch but back near the flag mound. I looked up just as the wing was going down and out of sight in front of me at probably the second step of the run. I saw the wing at about a 30 deg. turn to the right as it went down. This is far before any push out to get over bushes as it would have been far out of my sight long before that.

[Steve90266]

This came in from another pilot who observed the attempted launch:

"Sunday was a wild one, as you've heard. This is what I saw from directly behind the pilot as he launched:
1. Wind was light and switching at the main flag. I was reporting to the pilot what was going on behind him from just to the right and behind his control frame. I think Don was doing the same from the nose. Afterward, the pilot thanked me for the help but I heard him mention to someone else that he was getting it from Don (at the nose) so I'm not sure who he was listening to.
2. He waited and there was no pressure from pilots behind, as Jonathon states.
3. I began to tell him that the flag had just turned down again.
4. I heard someone say "there's a dust devil by your right wing." Someone else at launch said something like, don't go... * (see summary)
5. At that, I turned toward the front and watched the pilot begin his run.
6. From my view, it appeared he lunged forward, pitching up the nose.
7. The right wing dropped immediately in the swirling dust devil and the glider left the ground in a right turn.
8. It looked recoverable but the pilot did not speed up. You've heard that he felt he wouldn't clear.
9. Brush caught the right wing tip and the glider spun in below the base of the saddle in heavy growth.

*Here's the really important part. There were a lot (best guess, 8-10) people standing on launch, many very close to the pilot. Another pilot was heard by others to say "it's your time, [pilot name], go!" or something close. Bottom line, too many people coaching and the pilot can't hear everyone clearly with a helmet on and radio checks in progress. AND, no one should ever tell a pilot to "go".

This happened before, to another skilled pilot, a few years years ago. Hint: this message is designed to inspire you for your next safety posting.
This pilot's launches are usually good. But usually, there aren't so many people trying to impart information on a twitchy-direction day. Just as a wire crew shouldn't do anything except at the direction of the pilot, everyone at launch should watch and be quiet except at the request of the pilot; I would suggest one person only."

[stebbins]

I'm not going to jump in to this in general, not having been there, and not being all that current myself. But I do have an observation:

"Go" and "No" sound too much alike. Perhaps "Stop" is a better word? One of the previous postings notes too much input: noise, helmet, radio, heat etc. Yep. And using easily confused words just makes it worse.

This isn't one of the "big issues" like angle of attack, etc. But it is something to think about.