Man flying is my instructor, great guy and pilot, really nice of him letting everybody learn from his mistakes including me. Also really helpful getting another instructor's opinion.
Thanks Jonas, agreed I think it’s really important for people to show their mistakes. We all make them. We all do things we think are ok but actually might not be a great idea! Sharing means we can discuss and learn from these things. So thanks to Domas for sharing
The gliding community is extraordinary - sharing mistakes so openly and allowing others to learn from their errors. It's a very good way to keep the sport safe and flourishing.
I very much appreciate the instructor pilot sharing this video. I know tons of pompous pilots watching this video right now will be making public criticisms at the hangar like "what a dumb ass!" and "I would never do anything like that". Reality is we all make mistakes, sometimes drastic ones, that are not captured on video. It takes 100x more guts to distribute a mistake of this magnitude than it does to criticize the pilot. One additional thing I've learned from the video: it's extremely hard to combat the fight or flight instinct once it takes over. I believe prematurely opening the dive brakes, which made this scenario that much more dangerous, occurred because the pilot was task saturated and tensed up. At this most stressful point his flying skills had been boiled down to performing the spoiler ritual like he's done successfully hundreds of times in the past... except in this case it's hardly appropriate. In my opinion opening the dive brakes was an instinctual reaction to an unbelievably tense situation and here we see it on video. If you think of your flying career you can probably remember a scenario where your instincts took over and maybe even saved the day or made things worse. Everyone already trains to avoid scenarios highlighted in this video, but if s**t happens and we end up in such a scenario how can we train our instinctual reactions to respond appropriately? Thanks for sharing Tim and instructor D.
I agree completely. It is critical we share our mistakes and as you say, we all make them. And I agree with your suggestion, it’s likely the pilots natural instincts to open the brakes like normal took over. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Very well stated. We train so we react to the appropriate conditions despite our "instincts", which usually lead us into poor decision matrices. I feel like i pushed it too far when I've had to perform abbreviated landings or gotten off too low in massive lift, only to have it disappear and turn into massive sink on the turn-around. I'm glad I leave myself that margin, as I'd rather one less flight hour than encounter this type of low, negative margins return.
The only mistakes I made in competition is finnishing 300m to high . It's a matter of choice. I made another one we I was jounger . I got lost on the final leg then realised I was way too high . I opened the air brakes and finished crossing the line at 150 m and 130km/h with a Ka6. I then realised they had change the direction of landing . In place of making a 180° turn and land , I had to take the downwing leg . And on the downwind there was a dune higher than the landing strip and it was full of caravans and tents . I made a very scary low pass above the campground and was lucky ,after a 180° turn, to land safely with no airbrakes .
I think you're exactly right. In stressful situations our brains tell us we should be doing *something* and that may be true in a lot of circumstances, but with many modern problems and especially in very simple aircraft, sometimes you just have to put in the most efficient input and hold and hope it works out. Has caused a few serious accidents where it seems the pilot just wants to do...stuff. Very understandable and an easy place to see yourself. It worked out here fortunately.
I find the two most useful numbers when final gliding are the required glide ratio and the achieved glide ratio and have them displayed next to each other. Many pilots concentrate on the numerical margin (+800’ or whatever) but a constant margin provides a decreasing level of safety the further away you are. 800’ over a 0kt glide is OK at 20km but very marginal at 50km: 0.3kt of airmass sink will put you on the ground short of your goal.
Yeah exactly, the current glide ratio is nice, but changes too quickly to be useful for knowing if the whole glide is going as planned. The required glide ratio changes slowly over time to indicate how the whole glide is going. You could also just keep an eye on your height above or below final glide, but this is nice because it works on even the most basic instruments
Hello, oh, a bit of surprise! Mixed feelings. Actually I have processed all this by myself many times and made my own conclusion also. Great analysis ! I bet all of you find most "dangerous" moment in this video and it differs from mine. As always you just can't judge some things from a video. It is a bit different to me because I've been there had this feeling of a day , also I know this region and surroundings and how the wind blows and where to expect sink, not to mention obstacles on my approach. Always had energy and plan B. Thank You for Your video, thoughts and comments about a flight! Stay safe, keep speed and always have a plan B !
Hello, thanks for commenting Domas. And agreed we don’t know the full story from the video, but it did look too close for me. I’ve done my share of low glides too between trees, but make a real effort to identify when I’m pushing too close to the edge, and try to avoid doing it. Stay safe out there! And thanks for sharing the video.
@@PureGlide Actually in video it looks a bit closer than it was. Of course it was unnecessary risk, but at that moment I felt like I have too much energy and knew that I am landing opposite direction from others gliders and must be short.
Me and a couple of other pilots with the same kind of gliders (Jantar Standard 3) did our final glide just behind Domas. We were flying at about 150-160km/h, but still finished just a few metres higher, so flying slower didn't really help in this situation. Also the video makes it look really scary, he had more clearance than it seems.
Although I am a paraglider I follow you to look into the world of the big white birds we share the air space with, it’s so nice to see other or similar techniques and or (sometimes not obvious) rules and just think it over and broaden my understanding and actions in these wonderful sports we’re into. Thank you for the content and your work!
My first thermal flight. I'd flown the site 6-8 time before and a high launch over a beautiful valley. I figured it'd be another sled-ride but got to goofing around in some lift and gained 500'. I was so jazzed that I was maybe figuring out thermals and added a few more minutes to the flight! Just loving it for a a couple minutes and then looked at the rock column I'd soared up beside and I was WAY below its top and looking at a couple mile glide to the LZ and it became instantly serious. Maybe an 8:1 hang glider. And I tucked my shoulders in and kept my head down and hoped. Over the trees by 10' on an abbreviated base-to-final and just cleared a barbed wire fence to land 500' short but on their property. My first thermal flight--it was awesome :-)
Another great video and thanks for the tip on monitoring the required glide ratio. Really surprising that he didn’t back off on the speed to get best L/D which would have given him a few more meters at the end
Yeah it gets complicated Sid, because as Domas said sink will drag you down. You don't want to be caught going slowly in sink (which is what you find after hitting lift). Also depending on the wind and current air, there is an optimum 'speed to fly' which our computers can tell us.
SeeYou Mobile anD CAI 302 & 303 display takes the wind into consideration on /final glidesAND very very good at this See You Mobile also has 2 nav boxs: 1 LD required 2 Current LD VERY HANDY AND THEY WORK
Thanks again Tim. Always useful insight and reviews. And good comments too! A reminder also to do your “sneakers on the ground” Land-out checks during no lift (winter) season.
I've done at least three landouts within 3 km of a glider field. Do remember that headwind requires a higher airspeed for an optimal glide. The Air Glide S can show height above or below glideslope based on polar. The early software did not incorporate a safety height. Trees and buildings getting too big too soon finally clued me in and I promptly picked a field.
This is a great example. However, I noticed you said you enter a safety altitude into the final glide computer. I think it´s better to instead see your arrival altitude in plain numbers. The reason is that in case you forgot to set the safety altitude and you are doing a final glide aiming for zero, it can be very hard to realize that you have the wrong parameters. Especially if you are in the stress cone.
I usually start my glide conservatively and increase speed & MC as I get closer to goal. Say I have a 40km glide at MC3, I would start at MC1 or 1.5 watching arrival height. If that improves consistently, then maybe at 30km increase to MC1.5 or 2, then at 20km with increasing arrival height increase again. In this way, i'm always above the glide and speed increasing so energy increasing as I get lower. May end up with a few km at 100+ kts and low BUT with enough energy to either cct or land straight in depending on routing. Great Video and commentary once again, huge thanks for your analysis.
Been there. Done that. Learnt the lesson. NEVER REPEATED IT. In my case I misread the altimeter and was 1,000ft lower than I thought. Fortunately I was close to the landing end of the runway. My instructor was going to make me do an approach from a difficult place - she didn't have to do that as I did it to myself. I learnt to read the altimeter properly that day. A couple of weeks later I went solo.
It's also very important to not use the altimeter for landing. Judge it by the angle to your aiming point instead. After all if you outland at a random field, you won't know what the elevation is!
@@PureGlide my error wasn't in the circuit. And yes, I was taught to judge the circuit by looking at it. I only did three landings away from my home field 2 at other gliding clubs and 1 in a field less than 2 km from home. Those 2 km could have been 200 km with the progress I was making on that flight so I put down in a field as it was safer.
Interesting the effect competition has on judgement! And Tim, you're an instructor-might think again about posting (let alone flying) these final glides directly to landing. Arriving home at pattern altitude could save a lot of drama ; )
Yeah during our contests we have a minimum finish height, so that you have time to land nicely. Plus pilots usually have their own finish height padding. Of course you could still get stuck on the way home and need to land out!
I am not an instructor , but I used to fly as a "backup pilot" for licensed pilot with little experience in a mountain field of southern Alps. This time, there was a strong lateral wind, but the "pilot in charge" do it almost well, very good speed control, good drift control. A little low on the downwind leg, specially with the strong wind, but still in the acceptable range. He turns at the right place for the base leg regarding his heigth, thus it was a little too close to the airfield. I decided to let him go. The final turn was correctly placed, and things went wrong ... because he stick to the pattern he was used to, forgetting the need for the drift correction, and did a full 90° turn, so he overshoot the runway axis. And he was too close the field, then he did not know how to correct his position. (I took back the stick and recover the runway axis with a steep bank, then another steep bank turn to recover the correct drift correction). My points are : - increase the height of the landing pattern when wind is strong and sideway - always manage to keep a final leg of at least 30 second in order to recover from possible errors and to fine tune position, speed, ... - when you perform a not totally standard landing pattern, stick to it, don't go back to the pattern you are used to.
600m above ground check the first time which field is best for landing. 400m above ground pick the field you want to land on. 400m - 200m above ground deside from which side you want to land on the field. I would not have done that "trip" across the forest at that altitude.
Officially the hardest thing in the world of gliding: mentioning speed to fly, glide ratio required, MacCready etc without going down that rabbit hole. Pro save though!
If you are able to radio the Airfield, they should tell you the wind and pressure settings so you could enter that into your computers for a more accurate final glide.
In the mid 80,s I was fortunate enough to go for a flight out of RAAF Richmond in a Blanik glider & it had an artificial horizon. I just thought it a bit odd considering it is one of the main instrument in a powered aircraft is a artificial horizon. Thanks for the knowledge
As far as I understand the description text of the original video, the pilot somehow messed up the settings on his navigator. But what really puzzles me is the speed: why fly so much faster than best glide, even when running out of altitude, and why not convert the 200 km/h into altitude, that would have made the last bit much less precarious - but of course yours is solid advice: have a clear abort altitude: no lift at, e.g., 300m AGL => land near-by. 🛬
Yes, You are correct, the reason I find myself in that situation - my flight computer was very "optimistic" with arrival altitude (400m on 2.5MC) and I needed to burn that altitude. But It was set not to a center of a ring. The moment I've realised the situation there was very few options left and I was competing. Slowing down means go straight to an outlanding, as I was already going fast the best seemed to keep speed as I've expected sink between woods. Always had fields on my right side and the relief there is going down. After my wheel Is down - I knew that I am home already.
Thanks for that, yes we have been caught by a big circle before too :) our contests have a min finish height about 500 feet/150m so we still have height to get to the airfield!
@@PureGlide after that I’ve changed a size of a circle to 1km from 3km before. In sone scenarios Finish altitude doesnt mean that you gonna come back if you are flying 0.0MC
In the hang gliding world some of us would call that stretching the harness (because nerves/stress has us pushing on the back of our harness with our feet) or pucker factor (we all know what puckers) when you barely squeak into an LZ. Obviously, vastly different glide ability but bottomline a similar decision making process. We do have the last-ditch option to deploy our chute to snag a tree if landing in trees is eminent. That final glide was a bit nerve-racking just watching...
Well covered Tim. The pilot in question would have had a much more comfortable margin if he had started slower and done his 200Km/h airspeed at the end.
Man this gave me anxiety. I would have stopped at the point where he had 100m and flying over that forest. At that point it would have decided to land in the field.
If I were to be in the final part of the final glide (just imagining the fields were not there, or just behind), wouldn‘t it have been a (better) option to a) fly a bit slower, keep some precious height, b) if needed get higher speed only just before the trees to jump over them c) lower the wheel later (behind the trees), d) only use the airbrakes when over any obstacle, being over the airfield boundaries.
This is clearly an experienced RC pilot who knows better than to rely on timers and other electronic gizmos. Good practice is you fly until you run completely out of fuel or battery, preferably inverted one metre above the ground, and then try to pull off a decent landing. Admiration and applause guaranteed.
@@PureGlide Another one from the same source, just FYI :-) th-cam.com/video/OULQ1yMVclE/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=Domas%C5%BDostautas Pretty good learning what I ever don't want to do. :-)
Now you have confused me! I always thought the best glide angle was a higher speed than a low sink rate speed? (best glide speed) Why did he put his gear down while over the trees and increase drag?
What made me most nervous about this flight is that it felt "normal". My concern would be of a pilot who is becoming complacent in his decision making. As a glider pilot I had to always consider that I was 3 decisions away from safety, 2 decisions away from danger and 1 decision away from death. In a sport that often doesn't take prisoners it is prudent to fly with a healthy respect for nature and the unexpected. It is fortunate that the tug and another plane where not lined up for an end of day flight.
"It will be fine until it's not" is a saying of mine that fits here. I am a powered GA pilot and when the first landing spot turned out to not be the landing spot I got really concerned. Wow, what a nail-biter!!
Doubly scary as that looks the inside of a Jantar, which means you have very poor forward viz due to the reclined seating position, so when he stretched the glide he must have been flying blind.
I don’t program in a specific “safety height” either; it just means I am doing more mental maths in the cockpit when I should be thinking about flying. What I do is set MC3 or more in the last thermal, and then set off when arrival alt is sufficient for a safe landing. This means I’m flying a faster glide, so if I hit sink I can slow it down a bit once clear, and if I hit lift I can speed it up a bit.
Yeah I would suggest safety maccready is a great idea too. I think it’s worth putting in a small safety margin as well, small enough to ignore it so you don’t try to do maths around it!
Forgive my ignorance on the subject (I am a heli pilot, Commercial, Instrument and CFI) but what happens if he puts the glider down in a field? What is the procedure for getting back to base?
Hi it’s a great question. What we do is: - phone someone back at base with our coordinates (or radio relay if needed) - they come get us with our vehicle and trailer - we find the farmer and obtain permission to drive onto their property! - wait around for ages - pull the glider apart and put it in the trailer when the crew arrives - tell tall tales about what went wrong on the drive home :)
That was certainly sketchy. and I agree he should have landed out. He got lucky. My only close call was a downwind landing after my final glide brought me in below my pattern altitude. Like him, I had options, but I discarded them because of the length of the field, the winds (light) and my height at the border of the field. For the down wind landing, I had excess altitude, which I used to keep from being low AND slow. We had a pilot stall on his turn to final in a similar situation. Impacted the ground and did some extensive damage to the plane but minor damage to himself. From that point forward, I decided to add the altitude buffer you mentioned and changed my decision process to reach a decision early enough and commit before events overtook me.
You have to set up your final glide acording to the performance of the glider you are flying. The "imagine if scenario" you are setting up has very little relevans to the actual case. It is not an ASK13 and hence it should not be flown like such a thing. That being said, I think his margins were way to low, as he should not have encountered much sink before he had ended in those trees. Furthermore I see no reason to pull the airbrakes and thereby reduce the margin even more in order to land as short as he did, when he already was close to the trees and had plenty of runway infront of him
Tim, can you comment on 1) the configuration of his altimeter with zero on the bottom rather than the top 2) him having the altimeter set to AGL rather than ASL Thanks...I really enjoy your flying videos, they're great!!
I sure can: - Altimeters - not sure why it's a different starting position. Airspeeds can also be starting different positions. - AGL instead of ASL: Don't! You might land at another airfield so it's irrelevant. You need the ASL to be able to tell other pilots from other fields what height you are.
No better example of "get homeitis" I wasn't as concerned for his left wing as the chances of him disrupting the daily pattern of those in the big grey building on the right. He was defo overloaded as he crossed the treeline (beyond rational thought) as he went into auto and pulled brakes when everything was screaming, especially me! leave everything, fly level, protect your energy and fly it onto the ground. Great learning video, thanks
Looking at this I think all glider pilots should have to fly a slingby swallow, it will give you a new perspective on knowing how high you have to be to get back, like 300m you could just do a circuit.
I agree on a dive brake deploying a bit early but otherwise I don't see anything wrong for the contest flight, but not for the training flight. Did many of those or, even worse, clipped two pine trees once with both wings close to the wing root, flew around a birch tree to alight with landing.. but this flight looks quite normal to me. This is a Jantar Std.-3 as I understand. Had many hours logged in Jantars. Great glider once you get to know it.
Hi when you see how fast my glider motor goes when I run it, I'd suggest no that probably won't work :) plenty of electric and petrol based engines on gliders that will help
Agree with not putting the gear down !" He should have kept the gear up till the last second . Ground effect can help stretch a glide if the trees weren't there but not something I would rely on . He may have run into more sink earlier reason for flying faster ? I've heard the term "Target Acquisition " looks like he got so focused on the field his judgment failed .
I never putting gear down If I am not sure that I am safe, same with spoilers... But yeah, some adrenaline kicked in and and I felt like on the ground too early
Sounds like just holding optimal glide speed would have been plenty. Was he close to a stall or was it just bad flying? it was flying 120km/h? is that near stall for a bird like that? I would think not.
They cost a lot of money, use a lot of power, and most gliders don't ever fly in cloud. Only daytime VFR. Many countries you aren't allowed to. In New Zealand and the UK we are allowed to, so some gliders do have them here.
I can’t eyeball a final glide in our EB28, it’s simply too alarming. We also use the glide angle required to judge final glides, however to be honest unlike my youth, when VNE ground level finishes were the done thing, muscling a very large glider around the circuit is more demanding, so it feels so much safer to arrive at 800’ plus with 90 knots rather than 130 knots avoiding mole hills…. Or is it simply old age talking?
Liking your videos, I always find something useful I can I apply to paragliding even though it is very different to sailplanes in many regards but there is still a lot of useful crossover info particularly regarding mind set, discipline, airmanship as well as your insights in to thermal flying :) Btw, my sympathies for having such an abysmal PM leading your country.....
Thanks! I actually support our PM, we just don’t have enough hospital capacity to let Covid run loose yet. So what would you do? Let the country’s health system be overwhelmed? Or keep up the lockdowns?
@@PureGlide ... your reply surprises me, the dear leaders have made the same claims in my own country which upon closer scrutiny have turned out to be overblown and misleading at best if not outright untrue. It's as though "they" have no confidence in the vaccines working, the claim that you can't pass on the wuflu if you're vaccinated is demonstrably false and the fact that the elites don't follow their own dictates is extremely telling. They seem very keen on expounding the rise in cases whilst saying nothing about the fall in number of deaths. Something is not adding up here, especially when you consider how restrictive they are when it comes to opposing arguments, why are so many medical staff refusing the jab ? How come we can't talk about it openly and honestly online ? But more than that it's the gleeful manner with which she delivers the bad news of introducing a two tier system for the plebs. I find that deeply unsettling and much else besides. For anyone who is a student of history it becomes readily apparent such dictates will do more harm than good as the ever decreasing death rates certainly do not justify the measures taken..... and of course any voices of concern or dissent are branded purveyors of mis-information and conspiracy theories. Naturally my favourite conspiracy theory is of course that the elites and the state would never lie or manipulate us as a means of gaining more power.... as has happened many times throughout history ;) Anyhow, I look forward to more flying videos from you even if we do agree to differ on this topic :)
Yeah may have been, but you do have to choose an out-landing without anything in the way of the approach path. Often you are looking out to the side rather than what's directly ahead when choosing a field. You can't see what's directly in front and under you. And then you can at least do a right or left base circuit into the field.
do you have a link what is best glide to take. Because some times i see my self did not push enough i did not make it and if i pushed to much thats why i sank. i get confused. i look at my glade ratio and use my speed with that, but some times in confusing.
You need to use a glide computer to work out the optimum glide, but as a rough glide 50 knots or so is best glide, but going a bit faster say 60-70 knots should be fine! But it depends on a LOT of factors, that’s why we use glide computers to help
This is a great video Tim. Thank you for discussing the different concepts of the final glide. One method I've been using is safety finish height and safety MC. So I have a 1000' finish setup, period. I want to check the wind sock and make a legitimate pattern. Then I setup the MacCready to MC3 and fly MC1 depending on the day. Basically I give myself a 2kt MC speed buffer. If it says I'm good at MC5 and I have been flying MC3; then it *should* continue to work to my benefit. The additional benefit is flying a higher MC final gives you the option to "throttle back" and set a lower MC if it isn't working out as planned. If an MC5 setting (flying MC3) isn't working so well: set MC3 and fly MC1 speed. Again this gives you another chance to slow back a bit more if needing to stretch it, and hopefully by then you've made it home anyways, assuming it isn't a huge final.
Many years ago I picked a guy out of a nearby field, who had a bit of a reputation for not making it back. On the short drive home I enquired as to what had happened and he had hit a bit of bad air; he said he always set up the glide at Mc0 “to be on the safe side”. Problem identified!
Seems to me that rather than dialing back the MC setting if things aren't going well, making a decision to find another climb would be a better alternative, if that option is available.
Holding a constant attitude (speed) you will make any point that moves down in your canopy and you won't make any point that moves up. In this situation he probably should have slowed down to best L/D speed to conserve every inch of altitude (except while in the strong sink). Of course landing out was the safest choice but easy won out over safe in this case.
Hope dies last. Regarding the thermals, hope must die first. Otherwise you can get into serious trouble. Very often the thermals set in again during the landing approach, which tempts you to make dangerous decisions.
I have had something simular. I was on downwind and I knew another glider with an not experiants pilot was behind me and also a little lower than me. There were already 2 gliders landed on the airfield. So I dicided to give him extra space to land before me. I did my downwind longer than normaly to give him extra space to land before me. Wind was 4 a 5 beaufort. When I turnded to crosswind I saw It was a long way to the airfield and also strong wind against. I put my landingwheel inside. I remembered something I read before with someone. DO NOT PULL THE JOKE in this situation. Becouse that is a nature thing to do. So I kept my normal landingspeed on final and I just came over the last trees of the forest wich was near our airlfield. Put out lhe landingwheel and landed save. Anyway it was not very relaxed that final wich I still remember from some 20 years ago.
I would say that that guy will end up crashing into some trees in the future with the potential of a broken neck. Very dangerous to be playing with such little height.
Flight computers can also indicate height of arrival at the selected airfield (above safety height which is a setting). Seems less counter intuitive than using glide ratio because that is dependent on wind also. Or does this box also take wind into account?
Hi yeah so the glide ratio box doesn't take into account wind at all, it's just pure geometry to your target, except it does take into account your safety height. But the arrival height and glide computer boxes takes into account lots of factors including: - Your current McCready setting i.e. how fast you're going to fly and how much drag you're going to induce. - The estimated wind strength and direction. - How dirty your wings are. - Your water ballast and weight. - Safety McCready or Safety height added. BUT your instrument doesn't know what the wind is actually doing up ahead potentially, unless you've flown through that area recently. So no guarantees that it'll be right. However the dumb glide ratio boxes are still useful. What you can do is compare your actual current glide ratio to the required glide ratio. The 'current' glide ratio does change quite a lot depending if you hit good air or not, so it's really only useful in still air. HOWEVER what does work all the time is looking at the required glide ratio, and comparing that over time. If it starts off at 40:1, and slowly gets worse over time e.g. 42:1, then 45:1, you know your glide is going badly. If it improves over time, then you're likely to make it! So I tend to use that as a rough guide of 'are things going as expected' on my glide. The actual glide ratio number doesn't matter. Hope that helps! Might make a video about it one day...
Curious about this distinction as well. Private pilot here with no glider rating but some time spent soaring. I think of sink as a level pitch decent that occurs when lift component drops below a certain threshold due to airspeed. In a powered aircraft I reduce descent rate by adding power. But I could also change the descent rate by altering the glide slope and pitching down to convert altitude into airspeed/energy. Is it correct to use "sink" and "descent rate" interchangeably as in the intro? If he was hot on final could he not just pitch up a little to reconvert airspeed to glide distance? The energy gives you options but if you're truly sinking it means low on airspeed and lift generation. I ask humbly because the gliding world may use different lexicon and I'm just a spectator.
@@PureGlide all the (~6) glider types i have flown kept roughly their speed when extending the airbrakes. They are designed to pitch down by shifting the center of aerodynamic forces on the foil. So for me it was surprising that an airbrake can cause a stall.
Yeah I don’t think that was anything to do with the air brakes, he simply slowed down by letting the nose come up. Almost as if he flared too early. He put the brakes away when he realised but it was too late…
Isn't there a optimal glide speed. There's the region of reversed command as they call it. If you are slower than the optimal glide speed then it can it will cause sink just like being higher speeds.
I bet he could not do it again even if he tried. I dropped a water ski tow once and came in to the beach at a rate of knots wondering how many people who were watching I would take out.. The people of course thought all was normal and luckily I stopped with inches to spare In Inches of water.. I was not of course as honest with my mistake as the guy in the vid and instead bagged a load of cool points😎 - If only they knew. 🤪
Lacking true glider experience (only hang gliders and turboprops) I really shouldn't be commenting here, but this is the weirdest case "get-home-itis" that I have seen. Just riding along watching a computer screen had me seriously arse-puckered for the entire ride. This guy is either an idiot or someone that is so on top of his game that he can get away with such narrow margins (I suspect the latter, an idiot would not have shared his near-miss online to educate others).
@@PureGlide, right - after planting my "shouldn't-have" comment I skimmed through the previous comments and saw that, by pure blind luck, I happened to lean towards the correct 'expert' explanation. Thank you for your content, it allows me a glimpse into the world of high-performance gliding , something I was never in a position to enter (except via Hang Gliding).
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Man flying is my instructor, great guy and pilot, really nice of him letting everybody learn from his mistakes including me. Also really helpful getting another instructor's opinion.
Thanks Jonas, agreed I think it’s really important for people to show their mistakes. We all make them. We all do things we think are ok but actually might not be a great idea! Sharing means we can discuss and learn from these things. So thanks to Domas for sharing
The best instructors will always put their mistakes out there for people to learn from.
You have to respect his decision to share. It is a mark of a good pilot.
lietuvis?
@@thewafen763 tikrai taip
The gliding community is extraordinary - sharing mistakes so openly and allowing others to learn from their errors. It's a very good way to keep the sport safe and flourishing.
Well said!
I very much appreciate the instructor pilot sharing this video. I know tons of pompous pilots watching this video right now will be making public criticisms at the hangar like "what a dumb ass!" and "I would never do anything like that". Reality is we all make mistakes, sometimes drastic ones, that are not captured on video. It takes 100x more guts to distribute a mistake of this magnitude than it does to criticize the pilot.
One additional thing I've learned from the video: it's extremely hard to combat the fight or flight instinct once it takes over. I believe prematurely opening the dive brakes, which made this scenario that much more dangerous, occurred because the pilot was task saturated and tensed up. At this most stressful point his flying skills had been boiled down to performing the spoiler ritual like he's done successfully hundreds of times in the past... except in this case it's hardly appropriate. In my opinion opening the dive brakes was an instinctual reaction to an unbelievably tense situation and here we see it on video. If you think of your flying career you can probably remember a scenario where your instincts took over and maybe even saved the day or made things worse.
Everyone already trains to avoid scenarios highlighted in this video, but if s**t happens and we end up in such a scenario how can we train our instinctual reactions to respond appropriately?
Thanks for sharing Tim and instructor D.
I agree completely. It is critical we share our mistakes and as you say, we all make them. And I agree with your suggestion, it’s likely the pilots natural instincts to open the brakes like normal took over. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Thank You for comment !
Very well stated. We train so we react to the appropriate conditions despite our "instincts", which usually lead us into poor decision matrices.
I feel like i pushed it too far when I've had to perform abbreviated landings or gotten off too low in massive lift, only to have it disappear and turn into massive sink on the turn-around. I'm glad I leave myself that margin, as I'd rather one less flight hour than encounter this type of low, negative margins return.
The only mistakes I made in competition is finnishing 300m to high . It's a matter of choice.
I made another one we I was jounger . I got lost on the final leg then realised I was way too high . I opened the air brakes and finished crossing the line at 150 m and 130km/h with a Ka6. I then realised they had change the direction of landing . In place of making a 180° turn and land , I had to take the downwing leg . And on the downwind there was a dune higher than the landing strip and it was full of caravans and tents . I made a very scary low pass above the campground and was lucky ,after a 180° turn, to land safely with no airbrakes .
I think you're exactly right. In stressful situations our brains tell us we should be doing *something* and that may be true in a lot of circumstances, but with many modern problems and especially in very simple aircraft, sometimes you just have to put in the most efficient input and hold and hope it works out. Has caused a few serious accidents where it seems the pilot just wants to do...stuff. Very understandable and an easy place to see yourself. It worked out here fortunately.
The glide ratio bit (8:00) confused me until I realised you were talking about required glide ratio and not actual glide ratio. Thanks for the vid
I find the two most useful numbers when final gliding are the required glide ratio and the achieved glide ratio and have them displayed next to each other. Many pilots concentrate on the numerical margin (+800’ or whatever) but a constant margin provides a decreasing level of safety the further away you are. 800’ over a 0kt glide is OK at 20km but very marginal at 50km: 0.3kt of airmass sink will put you on the ground short of your goal.
Yeah exactly, the current glide ratio is nice, but changes too quickly to be useful for knowing if the whole glide is going as planned. The required glide ratio changes slowly over time to indicate how the whole glide is going. You could also just keep an eye on your height above or below final glide, but this is nice because it works on even the most basic instruments
Hello, oh, a bit of surprise! Mixed feelings. Actually I have processed all this by myself many times and made my own conclusion also. Great analysis ! I bet all of you find most "dangerous" moment in this video and it differs from mine. As always you just can't judge some things from a video. It is a bit different to me because I've been there had this feeling of a day , also I know this region and surroundings and how the wind blows and where to expect sink, not to mention obstacles on my approach. Always had energy and plan B. Thank You for Your video, thoughts and comments about a flight! Stay safe, keep speed and always have a plan B !
Hello, thanks for commenting Domas. And agreed we don’t know the full story from the video, but it did look too close for me. I’ve done my share of low glides too between trees, but make a real effort to identify when I’m pushing too close to the edge, and try to avoid doing it. Stay safe out there! And thanks for sharing the video.
Oh one question, why did you pull the brakes while you were over the trees still? Instead of waiting until you’re clear over the field?
@@PureGlide Actually in video it looks a bit closer than it was. Of course it was unnecessary risk, but at that moment I felt like I have too much energy and knew that I am landing opposite direction from others gliders and must be short.
Thanks I was wondering if you were trying to land short for some reason. Cheers
@@MrBerzulis I think you're in denial dude. Thank you for sharing.
Me and a couple of other pilots with the same kind of gliders (Jantar Standard 3) did our final glide just behind Domas. We were flying at about 150-160km/h, but still finished just a few metres higher, so flying slower didn't really help in this situation. Also the video makes it look really scary, he had more clearance than it seems.
Thanks for sharing!
Although I am a paraglider I follow you to look into the world of the big white birds we share the air space with, it’s so nice to see other or similar techniques and or (sometimes not obvious) rules and just think it over and broaden my understanding and actions in these wonderful sports we’re into. Thank you for the content and your work!
Thanks mate! Appreciate it
My first thermal flight. I'd flown the site 6-8 time before and a high launch over a beautiful valley. I figured it'd be another sled-ride but got to goofing around in some lift and gained 500'. I was so jazzed that I was maybe figuring out thermals and added a few more minutes to the flight! Just loving it for a a couple minutes and then looked at the rock column I'd soared up beside and I was WAY below its top and looking at a couple mile glide to the LZ and it became instantly serious. Maybe an 8:1 hang glider. And I tucked my shoulders in and kept my head down and hoped. Over the trees by 10' on an abbreviated base-to-final and just cleared a barbed wire fence to land 500' short but on their property. My first thermal flight--it was awesome :-)
I appreciate calling out mistakes even when they don't cause disasters
Yeah exactly, for every disaster there will be a lot of mistakes we can learn from...
So interesting! Happy to be back.
Thanks T!
Another great video and thanks for the tip on monitoring the required glide ratio. Really surprising that he didn’t back off on the speed to get best L/D which would have given him a few more meters at the end
I find best L/D speed is good in non thermal or weak conditions. After a great lift heavy sink will drag you down. More loss than gain.
Yeah it gets complicated Sid, because as Domas said sink will drag you down. You don't want to be caught going slowly in sink (which is what you find after hitting lift). Also depending on the wind and current air, there is an optimum 'speed to fly' which our computers can tell us.
SeeYou Mobile anD CAI 302 & 303 display takes the wind into consideration on /final glidesAND very very good at this
See You Mobile also has 2 nav boxs: 1 LD required 2 Current LD VERY HANDY AND THEY WORK
Thanks again Tim. Always useful insight and reviews. And good comments too! A reminder also to do your “sneakers on the ground” Land-out checks during no lift (winter) season.
I've done at least three landouts within 3 km of a glider field.
Do remember that headwind requires a higher airspeed for an optimal glide. The Air Glide S can show height above or below glideslope based on polar. The early software did not incorporate a safety height. Trees and buildings getting too big too soon finally clued me in and I promptly picked a field.
Great points, thanks!
Some good tips on how to get home safely, thanks Tim.
Thanks Johan!
This is a great example. However, I noticed you said you enter a safety altitude into the final glide computer. I think it´s better to instead see your arrival altitude in plain numbers. The reason is that in case you forgot to set the safety altitude and you are doing a final glide aiming for zero, it can be very hard to realize that you have the wrong parameters. Especially if you are in the stress cone.
Yeah I don’t disagree, decide which you prefer and stick to it
Guys I had my first solo today!
congrats!
Congrats! I hope you fly safe!
Congratulation. You will never forget this date.
Awesome well done!
Congrats!
Would love to see a video on the MacCready speed ring. I had the pleasure of meeting him a few times in the 90’s
Yeah it’s definitely a whole topic! Cheers
Hopefully an upcoming topic, Tim! Hint, hint.
I usually start my glide conservatively and increase speed & MC as I get closer to goal. Say I have a 40km glide at MC3, I would start at MC1 or 1.5 watching arrival height. If that improves consistently, then maybe at 30km increase to MC1.5 or 2, then at 20km with increasing arrival height increase again. In this way, i'm always above the glide and speed increasing so energy increasing as I get lower. May end up with a few km at 100+ kts and low BUT with enough energy to either cct or land straight in depending on routing. Great Video and commentary once again, huge thanks for your analysis.
Thanks Alterbbott! Yeah always good to be a bit conservative. You can always burn it off once you know you’re going to make it. Cheers!
Been there. Done that. Learnt the lesson. NEVER REPEATED IT. In my case I misread the altimeter and was 1,000ft lower than I thought. Fortunately I was close to the landing end of the runway. My instructor was going to make me do an approach from a difficult place - she didn't have to do that as I did it to myself. I learnt to read the altimeter properly that day. A couple of weeks later I went solo.
It's also very important to not use the altimeter for landing. Judge it by the angle to your aiming point instead. After all if you outland at a random field, you won't know what the elevation is!
@@PureGlide my error wasn't in the circuit. And yes, I was taught to judge the circuit by looking at it. I only did three landings away from my home field 2 at other gliding clubs and 1 in a field less than 2 km from home. Those 2 km could have been 200 km with the progress I was making on that flight so I put down in a field as it was safer.
Interesting the effect competition has on judgement! And Tim, you're an instructor-might think again about posting (let alone flying) these final glides directly to landing. Arriving home at pattern altitude could save a lot of drama ; )
Yeah during our contests we have a minimum finish height, so that you have time to land nicely. Plus pilots usually have their own finish height padding. Of course you could still get stuck on the way home and need to land out!
I am not an instructor , but I used to fly as a "backup pilot" for licensed pilot with little experience in a mountain field of southern Alps. This time, there was a strong lateral wind, but the "pilot in charge" do it almost well, very good speed control, good drift control. A little low on the downwind leg, specially with the strong wind, but still in the acceptable range. He turns at the right place for the base leg regarding his heigth, thus it was a little too close to the airfield. I decided to let him go. The final turn was correctly placed, and things went wrong ... because he stick to the pattern he was used to, forgetting the need for the drift correction, and did a full 90° turn, so he overshoot the runway axis. And he was too close the field, then he did not know how to correct his position.
(I took back the stick and recover the runway axis with a steep bank, then another steep bank turn to recover the correct drift correction).
My points are :
- increase the height of the landing pattern when wind is strong and sideway
- always manage to keep a final leg of at least 30 second in order to recover from possible errors and to fine tune position, speed, ...
- when you perform a not totally standard landing pattern, stick to it, don't go back to the pattern you are used to.
600m above ground check the first time which field is best for landing. 400m above ground pick the field you want to land on. 400m - 200m above ground deside from which side you want to land on the field. I would not have done that "trip" across the forest at that altitude.
Agreed!
Officially the hardest thing in the world of gliding: mentioning speed to fly, glide ratio required, MacCready etc without going down that rabbit hole. Pro save though!
If you are able to radio the Airfield, they should tell you the wind and pressure settings so you could enter that into your computers for a more accurate final glide.
Yes great point!
Discovered this channel thanks to Mentour Pilot. Love it! Subscribed! 🤙
Welcome aboard! Glad you like it. Cheers
A lot to learn for every pilot.
Agreed! Cheers
In the mid 80,s I was fortunate enough to go for a flight out of RAAF Richmond in a Blanik glider & it had an artificial horizon. I just thought it a bit odd considering it is one of the main instrument in a powered aircraft is a artificial horizon. Thanks for the knowledge
As far as I understand the description text of the original video, the pilot somehow messed up the settings on his navigator. But what really puzzles me is the speed: why fly so much faster than best glide, even when running out of altitude, and why not convert the 200 km/h into altitude, that would have made the last bit much less precarious - but of course yours is solid advice: have a clear abort altitude: no lift at, e.g., 300m AGL => land near-by. 🛬
Yeah not sure! Hopefully he comments here and gives some more details. Cheers
@@PureGlide more comments about my "miscalculation" is in my video description.
Yes, You are correct, the reason I find myself in that situation - my flight computer was very "optimistic" with arrival altitude (400m on 2.5MC) and I needed to burn that altitude. But It was set not to a center of a ring. The moment I've realised the situation there was very few options left and I was competing. Slowing down means go straight to an outlanding, as I was already going fast the best seemed to keep speed as I've expected sink between woods. Always had fields on my right side and the relief there is going down. After my wheel Is down - I knew that I am home already.
Thanks for that, yes we have been caught by a big circle before too :) our contests have a min finish height about 500 feet/150m so we still have height to get to the airfield!
@@PureGlide after that I’ve changed a size of a circle to 1km from 3km before. In sone scenarios Finish altitude doesnt mean that you gonna come back if you are flying 0.0MC
😬 wow that was close 👍 tanks for sharing
Cheers
In the hang gliding world some of us would call that stretching the harness (because nerves/stress has us pushing on the back of our harness with our feet) or pucker factor (we all know what puckers) when you barely squeak into an LZ. Obviously, vastly different glide ability but bottomline a similar decision making process. We do have the last-ditch option to deploy our chute to snag a tree if landing in trees is eminent. That final glide was a bit nerve-racking just watching...
Well covered Tim. The pilot in question would have had a much more comfortable margin if he had started slower and done his 200Km/h airspeed at the end.
Yeah exactly cheers Brett!
You can cut your hair short, but you can’t cut it long.
Agreed! Save it for a safer dramatic ending.
I couldn't help thinking of my solo in a Kirby Cadet in 1975. You needed a 45 degree angle to the airlield to be certain of getting back.
Man this gave me anxiety. I would have stopped at the point where he had 100m and flying over that forest. At that point it would have decided to land in the field.
If I were to be in the final part of the final glide (just imagining the fields were not there, or just behind), wouldn‘t it have been a (better) option to a) fly a bit slower, keep some precious height, b) if needed get higher speed only just before the trees to jump over them c) lower the wheel later (behind the trees), d) only use the airbrakes when over any obstacle, being over the airfield boundaries.
Yeah agreed
Severe case of get it home itis... I got sweaty hands just watching it..
Yeah pretty much :)
Thank you for the tips! Another good video.👏
Cheers!
This is clearly an experienced RC pilot who knows better than to rely on timers and other electronic gizmos.
Good practice is you fly until you run completely out of fuel or battery, preferably inverted one metre above the ground, and then try to pull off a decent landing.
Admiration and applause guaranteed.
Haha
Good pilot.
Thanks :)
great video, thank you so much
You are welcome!
excellent training
Cheers!
It happens sometimes to arrive on 4 limbs to the AF entering it under the doormat.
LOL
Thanks for this!
Cheers!
@@PureGlide Another one from the same source, just FYI :-) th-cam.com/video/OULQ1yMVclE/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=Domas%C5%BDostautas
Pretty good learning what I ever don't want to do. :-)
Now you have confused me! I always thought the best glide angle was a higher speed than a low sink rate speed? (best glide speed) Why did he put his gear down while over the trees and increase drag?
Well you have to put your gear down at some stage before landing :)
What made me most nervous about this flight is that it felt "normal". My concern would be of a pilot who is becoming complacent in his decision making. As a glider pilot I had to always consider that I was 3 decisions away from safety, 2 decisions away from danger and 1 decision away from death. In a sport that often doesn't take prisoners it is prudent to fly with a healthy respect for nature and the unexpected. It is fortunate that the tug and another plane where not lined up for an end of day flight.
"It will be fine until it's not" is a saying of mine that fits here. I am a powered GA pilot and when the first landing spot turned out to not be the landing spot I got really concerned. Wow, what a nail-biter!!
Doubly scary as that looks the inside of a Jantar, which means you have very poor forward viz due to the reclined seating position, so when he stretched the glide he must have been flying blind.
True!
I don’t program in a specific “safety height” either; it just means I am doing more mental maths in the cockpit when I should be thinking about flying.
What I do is set MC3 or more in the last thermal, and then set off when arrival alt is sufficient for a safe landing. This means I’m flying a faster glide, so if I hit sink I can slow it down a bit once clear, and if I hit lift I can speed it up a bit.
Yeah I would suggest safety maccready is a great idea too. I think it’s worth putting in a small safety margin as well, small enough to ignore it so you don’t try to do maths around it!
Forgive my ignorance on the subject (I am a heli pilot, Commercial, Instrument and CFI) but what happens if he puts the glider down in a field? What is the procedure for getting back to base?
Hi it’s a great question. What we do is:
- phone someone back at base with our coordinates (or radio relay if needed)
- they come get us with our vehicle and trailer
- we find the farmer and obtain permission to drive onto their property!
- wait around for ages
- pull the glider apart and put it in the trailer when the crew arrives
- tell tall tales about what went wrong on the drive home :)
looking forward to your discussion on polar curves :-)
::evil grin::
Haha eek
Also GoPro 10 is now available looking at your description :) Bit outdated.
Thanks Glen, yeah I should update it! I would love to get one…
That was certainly sketchy. and I agree he should have landed out. He got lucky. My only close call was a downwind landing after my final glide brought me in below my pattern altitude. Like him, I had options, but I discarded them because of the length of the field, the winds (light) and my height at the border of the field. For the down wind landing, I had excess altitude, which I used to keep from being low AND slow. We had a pilot stall on his turn to final in a similar situation. Impacted the ground and did some extensive damage to the plane but minor damage to himself. From that point forward, I decided to add the altitude buffer you mentioned and changed my decision process to reach a decision early enough and commit before events overtook me.
now imagine he wouldve been in an ask13 or similar with a worse glide ratio.. can be very scary
Yeah although you probably wouldn’t try this in that case!
You have to set up your final glide acording to the performance of the glider you are flying. The "imagine if scenario" you are setting up has very little relevans to the actual case. It is not an ASK13 and hence it should not be flown like such a thing. That being said, I think his margins were way to low, as he should not have encountered much sink before he had ended in those trees. Furthermore I see no reason to pull the airbrakes and thereby reduce the margin even more in order to land as short as he did, when he already was close to the trees and had plenty of runway infront of him
Tim, can you comment on 1) the configuration of his altimeter with zero on the bottom rather than the top 2) him having the altimeter set to AGL rather than ASL Thanks...I really enjoy your flying videos, they're great!!
I sure can:
- Altimeters - not sure why it's a different starting position. Airspeeds can also be starting different positions.
- AGL instead of ASL: Don't! You might land at another airfield so it's irrelevant. You need the ASL to be able to tell other pilots from other fields what height you are.
No better example of "get homeitis" I wasn't as concerned for his left wing as the chances of him disrupting the daily pattern of those in the big grey building on the right. He was defo overloaded as he crossed the treeline (beyond rational thought) as he went into auto and pulled brakes when everything was screaming, especially me! leave everything, fly level, protect your energy and fly it onto the ground. Great learning video, thanks
Agreed, Thanks Richard!
Looking at this I think all glider pilots should have to fly a slingby swallow, it will give you a new perspective on knowing how high you have to be to get back, like 300m you could just do a circuit.
you also have a sustainer so if you are low on energy, you can try to gain some more
Yeah, bit dodgy to pull that out low level, check my upcoming video for comment on that!
@@PureGlide I remember watching one of your videos before, you need to dive to get the propeller on the engine spinning to get the engine started
I agree on a dive brake deploying a bit early but otherwise I don't see anything wrong for the contest flight, but not for the training flight.
Did many of those or, even worse, clipped two pine trees once with both wings close to the wing root, flew around a birch tree to alight with landing.. but this flight looks quite normal to me.
This is a Jantar Std.-3 as I understand. Had many hours logged in Jantars. Great glider once you get to know it.
Yeah I’m no expert at clipping trees but I suspect that’s not how you’re meant to do it. Maybe try a hedge trimmer?
@@PureGlide No, that wasn't the intention :-)
How about going to the air field only when you are up very high and burn down that height by doing rounds around the air field?
Wound't that work?
Is this the polish guy who flew to fast on final glide and plowed a field with the glider's nose ?
Not sure sorry! A link to the original video, and thus the pilot's channel is in the description. Cheers
Should gliders have bicycle pedal assist propellers to extend range?
Hi when you see how fast my glider motor goes when I run it, I'd suggest no that probably won't work :) plenty of electric and petrol based engines on gliders that will help
Always be aware of avoiding target fixation
Agreed!
Agree with not putting the gear down !" He should have kept the gear up till the last second . Ground effect can help stretch a glide if the trees weren't there but not something I would rely on . He may have run into more sink earlier reason for flying faster ?
I've heard the term "Target Acquisition " looks like he got so focused on the field his judgment failed .
Yeah probably opening the brakes is the best thing to avoid until you're over the field in this case!
I never putting gear down If I am not sure that I am safe, same with spoilers... But yeah, some adrenaline kicked in and and I felt like on the ground too early
Sounds like just holding optimal glide speed would have been plenty. Was he close to a stall or was it just bad flying? it was flying 120km/h? is that near stall for a bird like that? I would think not.
Yeah would have been a lot less dramatic with less air brake. Speed was ok as he was over the trees. Still should have landed earlier!
Clearly he could have avoided all of this, if he had only had 36 Yaw strings
So true
It almost seems like he was bypassing any potential lift opportunities with all those puffy clouds around.
I have watched a few of your videos & noticed that the gliders don’t have an artificial horizon. Why?
They cost a lot of money, use a lot of power, and most gliders don't ever fly in cloud. Only daytime VFR. Many countries you aren't allowed to. In New Zealand and the UK we are allowed to, so some gliders do have them here.
I can’t eyeball a final glide in our EB28, it’s simply too alarming. We also use the glide angle required to judge final glides, however to be honest unlike my youth, when VNE ground level finishes were the done thing, muscling a very large glider around the circuit is more demanding, so it feels so much safer to arrive at 800’ plus with 90 knots rather than 130 knots avoiding mole hills…. Or is it simply old age talking?
Liking your videos, I always find something useful I can I apply to paragliding even though it is very different to sailplanes in many regards but there is still a lot of useful crossover info particularly regarding mind set, discipline, airmanship as well as your insights in to thermal flying :)
Btw, my sympathies for having such an abysmal PM leading your country.....
Thanks! I actually support our PM, we just don’t have enough hospital capacity to let Covid run loose yet. So what would you do? Let the country’s health system be overwhelmed? Or keep up the lockdowns?
@@PureGlide ... your reply surprises me, the dear leaders have made the same claims in my own country which upon closer scrutiny have turned out to be overblown and misleading at best if not outright untrue.
It's as though "they" have no confidence in the vaccines working, the claim that you can't pass on the wuflu if you're vaccinated is demonstrably false and the fact that the elites don't follow their own dictates is extremely telling. They seem very keen on expounding the rise in cases whilst saying nothing about the fall in number of deaths. Something is not adding up here, especially when you consider how restrictive they are when it comes to opposing arguments, why are so many medical staff refusing the jab ? How come we can't talk about it openly and honestly online ?
But more than that it's the gleeful manner with which she delivers the bad news of introducing a two tier system for the plebs. I find that deeply unsettling and much else besides. For anyone who is a student of history it becomes readily apparent such dictates will do more harm than good as the ever decreasing death rates certainly do not justify the measures taken..... and of course any voices of concern or dissent are branded purveyors of mis-information and conspiracy theories.
Naturally my favourite conspiracy theory is of course that the elites and the state would never lie or manipulate us as a means of gaining more power.... as has happened many times throughout history ;)
Anyhow, I look forward to more flying videos from you even if we do agree to differ on this topic :)
not trying to look for excuses or whatever, but are there not a number of electrical poles on the second field he's flying over before the wood?
Yeah may have been, but you do have to choose an out-landing without anything in the way of the approach path. Often you are looking out to the side rather than what's directly ahead when choosing a field. You can't see what's directly in front and under you. And then you can at least do a right or left base circuit into the field.
do you have a link what is best glide to take. Because some times i see my self did not push enough i did not make it and if i pushed to much thats why i sank. i get confused. i look at my glade ratio and use my speed with that, but some times in confusing.
You need to use a glide computer to work out the optimum glide, but as a rough glide 50 knots or so is best glide, but going a bit faster say 60-70 knots should be fine! But it depends on a LOT of factors, that’s why we use glide computers to help
What the hell was he doing with the airbrake when he was so low?
He could have sacrificed some speed for height and not needed to use the airbrake.
Yip!
This is a great video Tim. Thank you for discussing the different concepts of the final glide. One method I've been using is safety finish height and safety MC. So I have a 1000' finish setup, period. I want to check the wind sock and make a legitimate pattern.
Then I setup the MacCready to MC3 and fly MC1 depending on the day. Basically I give myself a 2kt MC speed buffer. If it says I'm good at MC5 and I have been flying MC3; then it *should* continue to work to my benefit.
The additional benefit is flying a higher MC final gives you the option to "throttle back" and set a lower MC if it isn't working out as planned. If an MC5 setting (flying MC3) isn't working so well: set MC3 and fly MC1 speed. Again this gives you another chance to slow back a bit more if needing to stretch it, and hopefully by then you've made it home anyways, assuming it isn't a huge final.
Yeah I deliberately didn’t mention safety MacCready, that could use its own video later!
Many years ago I picked a guy out of a nearby field, who had a bit of a reputation for not making it back. On the short drive home I enquired as to what had happened and he had hit a bit of bad air; he said he always set up the glide at Mc0 “to be on the safe side”. Problem identified!
@@edtheduck6219 doh!!! 🤣
Seems to me that rather than dialing back the MC setting if things aren't going well, making a decision to find another climb would be a better alternative, if that option is available.
why would he pull the brake when he is running out of altitude with obstacles to clear?!
ive been gliding for years and i would of landed in the first field before the trees but that just me i air on the side of safety he was lucky
Holding a constant attitude (speed) you will make any point that moves down in your canopy and you won't make any point that moves up. In this situation he probably should have slowed down to best L/D speed to conserve every inch of altitude (except while in the strong sink). Of course landing out was the safest choice but easy won out over safe in this case.
Classic case of get-home-itis!!
Maybe!
Hope dies last. Regarding the thermals, hope must die first. Otherwise you can get into serious trouble. Very often the thermals set in again during the landing approach, which tempts you to make dangerous decisions.
Agreed! once the decision to land has been made, it's critical to stick to it. Cheers
And thats how much margin we have on gliders, and he used all to the last inch...
Why every glider do not small 2 stroke motor - just in case of emergency.
It is very useful! But it costs money, and you can always land in fields instead safely
No mistakes here, the man is a pro and knows what he is doing flying by pure instinct. F the instruments and fly the plane, in this case ,the glider.
I have had something simular. I was on downwind and I knew another glider with an not experiants pilot was behind me and also a little lower than me. There were already 2 gliders landed on the airfield. So I dicided to give him extra space to land before me. I did my downwind longer than normaly to give him extra space to land before me. Wind was 4 a 5 beaufort. When I turnded to crosswind I saw It was a long way to the airfield and also strong wind against. I put my landingwheel inside. I remembered something I read before with someone. DO NOT PULL THE JOKE in this situation. Becouse that is a nature thing to do. So I kept my normal landingspeed on final and I just came over the last trees of the forest wich was near our airlfield. Put out lhe landingwheel and landed save. Anyway it was not very relaxed that final wich I still remember from some 20 years ago.
its a fine landing. arm chair quarter back.
I would say that that guy will end up crashing into some trees in the future with the potential of a broken neck. Very dangerous to be playing with such little height.
Sadly I received a note to say this pilot was killed in a mid air collision :(
Flight computers can also indicate height of arrival at the selected airfield (above safety height which is a setting). Seems less counter intuitive than using glide ratio because that is dependent on wind also. Or does this box also take wind into account?
Hi yeah so the glide ratio box doesn't take into account wind at all, it's just pure geometry to your target, except it does take into account your safety height. But the arrival height and glide computer boxes takes into account lots of factors including:
- Your current McCready setting i.e. how fast you're going to fly and how much drag you're going to induce.
- The estimated wind strength and direction.
- How dirty your wings are.
- Your water ballast and weight.
- Safety McCready or Safety height added.
BUT your instrument doesn't know what the wind is actually doing up ahead potentially, unless you've flown through that area recently. So no guarantees that it'll be right.
However the dumb glide ratio boxes are still useful. What you can do is compare your actual current glide ratio to the required glide ratio. The 'current' glide ratio does change quite a lot depending if you hit good air or not, so it's really only useful in still air. HOWEVER what does work all the time is looking at the required glide ratio, and comparing that over time. If it starts off at 40:1, and slowly gets worse over time e.g. 42:1, then 45:1, you know your glide is going badly. If it improves over time, then you're likely to make it! So I tend to use that as a rough guide of 'are things going as expected' on my glide. The actual glide ratio number doesn't matter. Hope that helps! Might make a video about it one day...
Is it not more correct to say if you fly fast you have the option to sink fast.
The glider generates more drag at higher speeds, I’ll make a separate video about this at some stage soon! Cheers
Curious about this distinction as well. Private pilot here with no glider rating but some time spent soaring. I think of sink as a level pitch decent that occurs when lift component drops below a certain threshold due to airspeed. In a powered aircraft I reduce descent rate by adding power. But I could also change the descent rate by altering the glide slope and pitching down to convert altitude into airspeed/energy. Is it correct to use "sink" and "descent rate" interchangeably as in the intro? If he was hot on final could he not just pitch up a little to reconvert airspeed to glide distance? The energy gives you options but if you're truly sinking it means low on airspeed and lift generation. I ask humbly because the gliding world may use different lexicon and I'm just a spectator.
Are attitude indicators forbidden on gliders?
Next: 'Stall on final glide' with an acrobatic glider.
th-cam.com/video/Em551DIpSv0/w-d-xo.html
Interesting! Not a huge amount to add really except:
Don't get too slow on landing!
@@PureGlide all the (~6) glider types i have flown kept roughly their speed when extending the airbrakes. They are designed to pitch down by shifting the center of aerodynamic forces on the foil. So for me it was surprising that an airbrake can cause a stall.
Yeah I don’t think that was anything to do with the air brakes, he simply slowed down by letting the nose come up. Almost as if he flared too early. He put the brakes away when he realised but it was too late…
Isn't there a optimal glide speed. There's the region of reversed command as they call it. If you are slower than the optimal glide speed then it can it will cause sink just like being higher speeds.
Yeah I didn’t cover it because you get into MacCready theory to cover “best speed to fly” properly! A big rabbit hole to go down :)
@@PureGlide you should cover it sometime with demonstrations
Yeah, that requires planning so might take a while :)
Does he play with the airbrakes with his left hand ? if it's the case this is a bad show .
Should you expect sink below 300 meters ?
Yeah you can expect sink at any altitude. It’s usually not too bad low because it can’t go though the ground :)
He had tail wind.
Any landing you can walk away from is okay ! Cool and lots of guts. Thanks.
Yeah turned out all OK :)
Looking the grip on the stick, it goes from finger and thumb to a full hand grip. That's not a relaxed pilot in total control.
Willy make it . . . . or Willy not?
Congratulations you’re the second person to notice out of five thousand :)
@@PureGlide Maybe his final glide was low because of all the drag after he forgot to stow it away...
Haha, congrats on being number two to notice
As we say in XC paragliding... "Hope" isn't a plan.
Not that bad, he still had to use the airbrakes 😆😆
I’m obviously joking
😂 haha yeah
I bet he could not do it again even if he tried. I dropped a water ski tow once and came in to the beach at a rate of knots wondering how many people who were watching I would take out.. The people of course thought all was normal and luckily I stopped with inches to spare In Inches of water.. I was not of course as honest with my mistake as the guy in the vid and instead bagged a load of cool points😎 - If only they knew. 🤪
Yeah I suspect you’re right!
Lacking true glider experience (only hang gliders and turboprops) I really shouldn't be commenting here, but this is the weirdest case "get-home-itis" that I have seen. Just riding along watching a computer screen had me seriously arse-puckered for the entire ride. This guy is either an idiot or someone that is so on top of his game that he can get away with such narrow margins (I suspect the latter, an idiot would not have shared his near-miss online to educate others).
Yeah, the pilot has added some comments on some comments below, so you can check out his views
@@PureGlide, right - after planting my "shouldn't-have" comment I skimmed through the previous comments and saw that, by pure blind luck, I happened to lean towards the correct 'expert' explanation. Thank you for your content, it allows me a glimpse into the world of high-performance gliding , something I was never in a position to enter (except via Hang Gliding).
Awesome glad you’re finding it interesting! One day we’ll drag you to the dark side
Obviously, he'd rather be Lucky than Good... 'Nuff said!!!... Great stuff thanks for posting. Dwight. Glendale Arizona USA...
Cheers Dwight
@@PureGlide Cheers, mate
The pen is mightier than the sword
That's either flaps or spoilers, no such thing as air brakes.
Hi here in New Zealand we call the things that slide out of the wings "air brakes" and "spoilers" synonymously. Cheers!
@@PureGlide Sure you do