Better Landings ahead?

Please tell what happened and how it might have been avoided. Names should be ommitted. This forum should help others learn from mistakes that caused or nearly caused a mishap.
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greblo
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Better Landings ahead?

Post by greblo »

Now that the new grass landing strip is completed, we'll be watching carefully to see whether or not the use of this strip actually improves the quality of landings.

Rob Burgiss, Phil and others are beginning to use the entire grass runway, even though it's more cross wind than their previous runway. In a few weeks, they'll be able to tell us if they see any improvement in their landings.

Windsports instructors have believed for some time that well planned and well executed landing approaches make for better landings. We also believe that avoiding low turns to final approach, and lining up early on your runway center line, can do wonders to reduce glider repairs.

If you'd like to see if this works for you, practice turning to final early enough to line yourself up perfectly on the way to the white runway dots leading to the center of the grass strip. You should find that keeping your glider perfectly lined up on the dots gives you the best chance of keeping your wings level and avoiding those last moment, inadvertent turns.
Safety is a book, not a word
Michael Robertson
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JD
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Post by JD »

Joe -

I have already observed several excellent landings from above on the new putting green.

On a related note: what are your thoughts on long, airliner style approaches?

Jonathan
greblo
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Post by greblo »

Long airliner approaches are the best for landing "line accuracy", but not for landing "spot accuracy". This is the reason that we see so many "low approaches" with topless gliders. By turning to final very low, topless glider pilots are much more likely to flare where they want to ("spot accuracy"). At Kagel, this means that they are less likely to undershoot or overshoot the grass circle.

Given ample runway length, line accuracy is much more important to safety than spot accuracy, as inadvertent, low turns on final approach can end with disastrous results.
Safety is a book, not a word
Michael Robertson
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Christian
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Location: Pacific Palisades

Post by Christian »

I'm trying to understand why topless pilots tend to turn final low for spot accuracy.
My guess is that since they're hard to dive in a straight line, being too high on final is a problem to avoid.
And that maybe it's easier to judge your altitude on a descending base leg than a very long final leg.
And that, perhaps, it would be embarrassing to land short of the meadow?
Given the handling characteristics of a topless, is a low turn to final a good idea at Sylmar?
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JD
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Post by JD »

Christian wrote:.............Given the handling characteristics of a topless, is a low turn to final a good idea at Sylmar?
No. It's an iffy proposition at best unless the air is laminar. I have done an number of landings while I was still in my base leg turn. It can be pretty hard on the sail fabric along the curved tips. Now, thanks to Joe's runway I am now doing my base leg turns on my T2C 144 just shy of the naked 220 Volt lines that cross the wash. This gives me perhaps a ~200 yard final approach to his green grass aircraft carrier deck. I really like it as this has taught me better glide path control and I find that moon-walking my landings is fun and an excellent skill when landing in gusty and switchy winds. I had no issues during my 6 landings at the King Mountain meet which included some of the worst landing turbulence I've ever dealt with onto roads and fields I've never seen before.

On one landing I came up about 10 feet short of the clear spot I had picked out and stumbled on the taller weeds and did a short belly slide but the glider remained nose up. Pretty minor considering doing a full flare in the nasty wind conditions could have easily resulted in a tip digging in etc. It was a 5-hour long 97 mile flight and I had to pee really bad so I thought it wasn't too bad considering the state I was in.

Here is the result on Days 1 & 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsgrILjbu-k#t=7m38s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSdRVHEvjGY#t=9m0s
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Christian
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Location: Pacific Palisades

Post by Christian »

Sorta what Hang 2s are taught, then? I think the scariest landings I saw were often steep fast turns very low onto final, often followed by corrections that made the pilot look like a rag doll.

Once guy did such a steep low turn onto final he did a complete uncontrolled 180, flew all the way back across the wash about 10 feet off the rocks, managed to turn into the wind way over there, and then nosed into the bushes.

Nobody even cheered or yelled whack. Too amazed.
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JD
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Post by JD »

Christian wrote:Sorta what Hang 2s are taught, then?............
Exactly!
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