Sunday, May 27 I had my second mountain flight which I ended in a crash
landing at the end of the "runaway" runway.
Some background info:
Started HG 12 years ago. Have mostly been active, topless since '04.
Just back to the sport after 1.5 year long hiatus. Went trough some
"rehabilitation" before flying Kagel again.
First, I went to the beach training site and did number of hops on a Falcon
to check and refresh my muscle memory.
The second stage of "rehabilitation" was the "Big O Loop" training session
at AJX, Crestline club in San Bernardino http://bigoloop.com/.
There I did 2 flights from a 500' hill on a Falcon and 5 on my Litespeed.
Everything went smooth, and I went on to take a late flight from Kagel
last week, May 20th. After 1.5 hours I decided it was enough for the first
mountain flight and landed uneventfully.
Sunday, May 27 had my second flight from Kagel. Some 2.5 hours of
good ole exhilarating flying.
Before heading out to land, mentally went through my landing routine and
decided to land on the top flat area rather than on the upslope beginning
part, where I usually used to end up always. The air in that part tend to
be tricky due to being a merging point for 2 different air masses coming
from upper LZ and lower river bed.
The air was very buoyant, despite being late in the day. I had to look for
a "sinkhole" to get down.
Went to downwind leg a bit higher, to make it to the upper LZ. I must
have been climbing going downwind, but did not adjust accordingly, and
turned into base even higher.
Having been able to deal with extra altitude before, I decided to proceed
onto final without worrying much about it.
If you stuff the bar on a Litespeed far enough, it will point the nose to the
ground and dive like a Falcon, maybe even better. Both hands on the
bar, pushed all the way back to my toes I went for it. At the beginning of
the "runaway" runway I was already skimming low and fast, but I knew I
had too much energy to bleed before I reach the end of it. Still trying to
round up , I managed to shift my right hand into flare position, but lost
the control, trying too transition the left hand. There was so much energy,
that the bar just popped up immediately, and I missed the left downtube,
in a vain and desperate attempt to grab it. Twice. The glider turned right
sharply, I knew I lost it, and I am going to break something.
Ended up hitting the dirt pile on the right side of the runway. Broken
downtube, some minor bruises on my leg and some serious
humiliation (would feel differently if it wasn't my second flight).
On a hind side, there seems to be some entertainment value too this
incident, judging by the overly exited reaction of spectators. Later, over
beer and laughters it was suggested to call it a "dishonorable landing".
On a more serious note, here is my brief analysis:
*In general, I am not a great lander to begin with. I should take
concrete steps and get better at it, period.
*I should have done my "regular" landing, instead of attempting a
different approach for some time, until I am all comfortable with my
landings again.
*Arriving too high, easily could have done a 360 before final, or,
*Once in a frozen state of mind and soo preoccupied with a single goal
of getting down no matter what, could have jumped onto control bar
(monkey flying), which would've got me down much faster (I've done
"monkey flying", I know how), or,
*Just forget the upper LZ, fly the glider and land in the wash.
Apparently, there were other landing incidents before mine, I heard talks
about difficult landing conditions of that particular day, but I attribute my
bad landing solely to my bad execution.
Happy flying!
Vrezh.