I'm reminded of an old aviation adage which says a superior pilot uses his superior judgement to stay out of situations which require his superior skills. Luckily for this guy, his skills saved the day! And he also made a deliberate choice to share his video, and that is always appreciated. Well done Rafal!
What went wrong? He took off!! Probably on a trip and was running out of flying days so he forced it. Watched a few pilots take off and thought "if they can do it I can do it". Kudos to the pilot for sharing this video to help other pilots
I know this flying region well, as I work providing assistance to those who wish to fly here. The main recommendation would be to avoid taking off with such strong wind coming from the mountain, especially since towed flight is a viable alternative in these conditions. However, if the pilot has already taken off and is being pushed backward, the ideal approach is to fly in a straight line or look for a route with less sink, moving away from the mountain as quickly as possible. In the video, it seems he is flying laterally along the mountain, constantly staying in the turbulence zone. Perhaps he tried to move away, but the turbulence may have made it difficult to fly in the desired direction.
@FlyWithGreg the first comment is spot on - it might be unrealistic to reach double the hill height in Sertao in those early hours, but leaving far lower than your more experienced friends is definitely a red flag and a no-go. Unfortunately this is a common pattern - you come to the take off late, or just unsure, wait for the other guys to take off to see the conditions, decide to go, but than it's already too late. Also some days out there have little or no margin as the wind picks up even before the thermals really start. As for what happened next - that thermal might have been the safe exit and definitely worth having a check, but to be fair, with the whole airmass going down and so much turbulences it was likely to be just a messy bubble and possibly quite a ride on its own. The overreaction on brakes could have been lethal, but fortunately Zeolite is bomber at those min speeds. My biggest complaint would be the lack of direction control and planning for the landing. It could have ended up much worse. Still, a decent save, no injuries, kept the wing open, will be a long memory =D
I think I would have seen that I was in the rotor, something UK pilots are very aware of flying small hills with sometimes high winds. At that time, I would have hightailed it down wind as fast as possible to avoid the worst of the rotor. There is no hope of lee-side thermals with the wind being that strong, only bad air. The further away down wind of the source of the rotor the better. Note also this is how wave is setup which may be some km from the source, so the affects of rotor can also be felt some Km down wind. I was it a similar position last year in the SRS in St Andre, France. The task was cancelled due to the high wind. I found myself on the ridge of the le Cheval Blanc. There are mountains in front of the ridge where I can land but there was a high likely hood of rotor in that area so I got as high as possible and hightailed down wind hoping to avoid the worst of the rotor. Luckly it worked. Note: I was unable to acknowledge the task was stopped because some guy was transmitting on the comp frequency. This is very irritating when this happens and dangerous.
I also like the idea of turning 90 degrees to wind, so even if we aren't into the wind we are at least not fully downwind. When I didn't understand air going katabatic in the evening in valleys I got caught low into downwind and turning 90 degrees before landing helped a lot, because it was essentially like a nil wind landing with side movement. I thought his wing handling was fine. I probably wouldn't have tried to hook into a thermal in that gnarly air with a broken wing either.
The side of the lake often a termal trigger, it doesnt good for landing...and i saw many times earlier sting problem with the glider right tip (little cravat?)?
He knew what he was doing. The more you f*ck around the more you find out. Personally I prefer early evening flights with light wind. -11m sinkrate and landing at 70km/h is beyond crazy.
Interesting, I wouldn't have thought of using the thermal either. My thought in that situation would have been to land ASAP, not get back up into that mess 😅
I fly in mountains all the time and one thing I wouldn't have done is take off if going through mountain rotor was the landing option, no thanks! I remember being in a similar situation and using thermals to stay up over the LZ, but eventually I had to go through the washing machine to land. It's not good! Great skills here though, thanks Greg!
I don't think this landing was intended. There's indeed a landing on the windward side for this flying site. The pilot probably wanted to go XC downwind flying over the rotor, but underestimated the height needed for that. In XC, it's quite a common practice to fly over the lee sides & rotors, but the pilot needs good judgement skills.
Bruce Forsyth would say “Didn’t he do well!”…… except for taking off in a gale……also I think there is some video on line of this from someone filming the ‘action’ from the ground.
EN D wings often have long brakes :P also it's not only about how much you pull, but also when and for how long, he did stall it here and there but apparently never far enough... although a bit more lift and a turbulence could finish the job, makes you think.
I think it would have made it worse. The wing is mostly flying great here so it has ~ 1m/s sink relative to air - the rescue would be 4-6m/s if all goes well (which is according to stats 50% chances) So in the best scenario with rescue it would have lead to a ~15m/s sink instead of 10. Keep in mind that with rescue if you don't stall your wing properly and/or with turbulence the sink rate can be even greater. Also recues are in general not steerable, so if there is a post/fence/power lines you're just screwed The best outcome would have been as Greg said to land facing the wind to at least not have much (if at all) horizontal ground speed In general if the wing is flying, it's almost never a good idea to throw the rescue
It would only accelerate the downward speed. Also hard to control after landing with such strong wind. He had a chance to nagate 30-40 km/h if he faced the other direction. But his words in Polish in the video were "Please not in the lake" So he chose rocks instead I guess.
Given it was his first week, I think he managed the flight enough to be able to walk away - the decision to launch - not so much LOL. There seems to be some pressure to launch - I wonder what the back story was? Not flown? Peer pressure? Glad he's OK
This is an easy one: He simply needs to pull his strings more violently and look up at his wing more like he's a puppeteer and his wing is a Chuckie Doll trying to attack him.
I'm reminded of an old aviation adage which says a superior pilot uses his superior judgement to stay out of situations which require his superior skills. Luckily for this guy, his skills saved the day! And he also made a deliberate choice to share his video, and that is always appreciated. Well done Rafal!
Seeing -11 m/s on the vario is a bit terrifying, especially when your glider is open and seems to fly, and there's a lake below.
What went wrong? He took off!!
Probably on a trip and was running out of flying days so he forced it. Watched a few pilots take off and thought "if they can do it I can do it". Kudos to the pilot for sharing this video to help other pilots
Great analysis, thank you
I know this flying region well, as I work providing assistance to those who wish to fly here. The main recommendation would be to avoid taking off with such strong wind coming from the mountain, especially since towed flight is a viable alternative in these conditions. However, if the pilot has already taken off and is being pushed backward, the ideal approach is to fly in a straight line or look for a route with less sink, moving away from the mountain as quickly as possible.
In the video, it seems he is flying laterally along the mountain, constantly staying in the turbulence zone. Perhaps he tried to move away, but the turbulence may have made it difficult to fly in the desired direction.
Outch! Bad place to be. Made my hands sweaty, especially after watching the takeoff. Great analysis, thank you Greg
Thanks Greg, as always very helpful& inspiring. Love the structured, analytic guide and lessons.
Top notch as always Greg! Thanks!
@FlyWithGreg the first comment is spot on - it might be unrealistic to reach double the hill height in Sertao in those early hours, but leaving far lower than your more experienced friends is definitely a red flag and a no-go. Unfortunately this is a common pattern - you come to the take off late, or just unsure, wait for the other guys to take off to see the conditions, decide to go, but than it's already too late. Also some days out there have little or no margin as the wind picks up even before the thermals really start.
As for what happened next - that thermal might have been the safe exit and definitely worth having a check, but to be fair, with the whole airmass going down and so much turbulences it was likely to be just a messy bubble and possibly quite a ride on its own. The overreaction on brakes could have been lethal, but fortunately Zeolite is bomber at those min speeds. My biggest complaint would be the lack of direction control and planning for the landing. It could have ended up much worse. Still, a decent save, no injuries, kept the wing open, will be a long memory =D
Man that beeping would have pished me off 😂
I think I would have seen that I was in the rotor, something UK pilots are very aware of flying small hills with sometimes high winds. At that time, I would have hightailed it down wind as fast as possible to avoid the worst of the rotor. There is no hope of lee-side thermals with the wind being that strong, only bad air. The further away down wind of the source of the rotor the better. Note also this is how wave is setup which may be some km from the source, so the affects of rotor can also be felt some Km down wind.
I was it a similar position last year in the SRS in St Andre, France. The task was cancelled due to the high wind. I found myself on the ridge of the le Cheval Blanc. There are mountains in front of the ridge where I can land but there was a high likely hood of rotor in that area so I got as high as possible and hightailed down wind hoping to avoid the worst of the rotor. Luckly it worked.
Note: I was unable to acknowledge the task was stopped because some guy was transmitting on the comp frequency. This is very irritating when this happens and dangerous.
I also like the idea of turning 90 degrees to wind, so even if we aren't into the wind we are at least not fully downwind. When I didn't understand air going katabatic in the evening in valleys I got caught low into downwind and turning 90 degrees before landing helped a lot, because it was essentially like a nil wind landing with side movement.
I thought his wing handling was fine. I probably wouldn't have tried to hook into a thermal in that gnarly air with a broken wing either.
Great informational video! I'm a new pilot and love all these videos, learning lots!
The side of the lake often a termal trigger, it doesnt good for landing...and i saw many times earlier
sting problem with the glider right tip (little cravat?)?
whenI grow up, I wanna be just like Greg! nyc
Very informative, thanks Greg. Too poor to rejoin the flock but much appreciate!
He knew what he was doing. The more you f*ck around the more you find out. Personally I prefer early evening flights with light wind. -11m sinkrate and landing at 70km/h is beyond crazy.
landing at 70km/h means you could be landing at close to 0 km/h by simply taking the opposite direction, makes you think
-10 m/s , smart to fly over the water. At the end it seemed to normalize, so heading to the field. Then again -3.5 ...bam...
Interesting, I wouldn't have thought of using the thermal either. My thought in that situation would have been to land ASAP, not get back up into that mess 😅
I fly in mountains all the time and one thing I wouldn't have done is take off if going through mountain rotor was the landing option, no thanks! I remember being in a similar situation and using thermals to stay up over the LZ, but eventually I had to go through the washing machine to land. It's not good! Great skills here though, thanks Greg!
I don't think this landing was intended. There's indeed a landing on the windward side for this flying site. The pilot probably wanted to go XC downwind flying over the rotor, but underestimated the height needed for that. In XC, it's quite a common practice to fly over the lee sides & rotors, but the pilot needs good judgement skills.
Bruce Forsyth would say “Didn’t he do well!”…… except for taking off in a gale……also I think there is some video on line of this from someone filming the ‘action’ from the ground.
A "D" wing lets you pull brakes that hard?!?! He is cranking those brakes.
EN D wings often have long brakes :P also it's not only about how much you pull, but also when and for how long, he did stall it here and there but apparently never far enough... although a bit more lift and a turbulence could finish the job, makes you think.
Go do siv to learn how to use the breakes like this
Main lesson: if the wind is blowing 20mph or greater over the peaks, don’t fly PG in the mountains below the peaks or embrace the suck.
If he was coming down in 10m/s rotor, would it likely lead to a better outcome to throw reserve, or would that make things worse?
I think it would have made it worse. The wing is mostly flying great here so it has ~ 1m/s sink relative to air - the rescue would be 4-6m/s if all goes well (which is according to stats 50% chances)
So in the best scenario with rescue it would have lead to a ~15m/s sink instead of 10.
Keep in mind that with rescue if you don't stall your wing properly and/or with turbulence the sink rate can be even greater.
Also recues are in general not steerable, so if there is a post/fence/power lines you're just screwed
The best outcome would have been as Greg said to land facing the wind to at least not have much (if at all) horizontal ground speed
In general if the wing is flying, it's almost never a good idea to throw the rescue
It would only accelerate the downward speed. Also hard to control after landing with such strong wind. He had a chance to nagate 30-40 km/h if he faced the other direction. But his words in Polish in the video were "Please not in the lake" So he chose rocks instead I guess.
@@TheGrundigg For the lake he is right with that much wind and alone he would be quickly all tangled in his line and drowned
@@NinVisible did you ever get tangled in your glider? and on a two liner there is basically no strings attached lol
I'd have thrown the reserve
Something was wrong with the wing right side.
Did you watch the video?
Given it was his first week, I think he managed the flight enough to be able to walk away - the decision to launch - not so much LOL. There seems to be some pressure to launch - I wonder what the back story was? Not flown? Peer pressure? Glad he's OK
He probably left the take off thermals too low - trying to keep up with the other pilots who were up higher. He definitely was above his limit a bit
Nothing went wrong, his skill saved his ass. Maybe not the most enjoyable landing approach.
Well handled emotions by pilot, KPM (Kurw.. per minute) value is surprisingly low.
What it went wrong??
Go out it bad condition...
You search for it you get it
This is an easy one: He simply needs to pull his strings more violently and look up at his wing more like he's a puppeteer and his wing is a Chuckie Doll trying to attack him.