Flying gliders

[busdriver]

14 hours ago, JonRedcorn said:

I find that with computer joysticks stirring the stick is almost impossible, either the stick is far too resistant to such maneuvers or it's too sensitive.

 

That is certainly an important point.   A player might have a sensitivity curve that allows "stirring." I could stir the stick when I used a floor mounted Warthog stick, not so much when it was set up like the RL F-16. I recently switched to the Logitech X-56 with no sensitivity curve, there is some play in the stick, but I find just using a three finger grip with a light touch works for me (without the need to stir). 

 

9 hours ago, 56RAF_Roblex said:

One last tip that may not be recommended by RL instructors is that if I see I am about to overshoot my leader when rejoining,  I use large left & right rudder inputs to wag my tail which kills speed fast.

 

I like that technique except I just stand on and hold the rudder pedal that yaws my nose away from the flight path (not across). Your technique is a very good RL signal whilst towing gliders telling the glider pilot that he has his speedbrakes deployed. 

[56RAF_Roblex]

1 hour ago, busdriver said:

I like that technique except I just stand on and hold the rudder pedal that yaws my nose away from the flight path (not across). Your technique is a very good RL signal whilst towing gliders telling the glider pilot that he has his speedbrakes deployed. 

 

I used to fly gliders myself and that was the signal from the glider pilot on a winch launch to tell the winch operator to slow it down.

[busdriver]

1 hour ago, 56RAF_Roblex said:

 

I used to fly gliders myself and that was the signal from the glider pilot on a winch launch to tell the winch operator to slow it down.

 

Indeed same signal you'd give me your tow pilot.

 

[Bremspropeller]

On 2/28/2019 at 8:03 PM, 56RAF_Roblex said:

I used to fly gliders myself and that was the signal from the glider pilot on a winch launch to tell the winch operator to slow it down.

 

Our signal was to scream at the top of our lungs into the R/T to slow the winch the eff down.

Like me, soloing - at age 14 - in a completely different airplane than on which I had trained. Flying a Ka8 with the to horizon-picture of an ASK21 makes for several interesting moments after tow-release. I guess I adapted quickly enough to not kill myself. The landing was cool, though - the airplane wouldn't want to touch-down and only settled onto the ground when all but the faintest wind-noise had bled off...

 

Then I moved and changed clubs and there, it sort of was accepted to overspeed the lightest aircraft by 20-40% above max winch speed...

Oh, and they would use a much too strong predeterminded break in the cable with the light Ka8, while using a much too weak break for the Twin Astir. So on one airplane, you could almost snap-off the wings, while on the other, you were lucky making release altitude...

 

 

Anyways, back to topic:

It may sound funny, but what I found out for myself is that "looking through" the lead airplane and having one's mind wander off does a lot to relax oneself and easing up the whole formation-excercise. Kind of like driving "on autopilot" on the freeway.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Bremspropeller

[mazex]

On 6/10/2020 at 11:32 PM, Bremspropeller said:

 

Our signal was to scream at the top of our lungs into the R/T to slow the winch the eff down.

Like me, soloing - at age 14 - in a completely different airplane than on which I had trained. Flying a Ka8 with the to horizon-picture of an ASK21 makes for several interesting moments after tow-release. I guess I adapted quickly enough to not kill myself. The landing was cool, though - the airplane wouldn't want to touch-down and only settled onto the ground when all but the faintest wind-noise had bled off...

 

On 2/28/2019 at 9:14 PM, busdriver said:

 

Indeed same signal you'd give me your tow pilot.

 

 

Well - off topic here as well with old memories after these two posts. I did go from soloing in a Bergfalke II/55 to my first flight in a single seater that was a Pilatus B4-PC11AF. And I think that the Bergfalke is the least pitch sensitive aircraft I have flown and the Pilatus the most pitch sensitive. If you just looked at the stick in the Pilatus it would go up or down with almost completely stiff wings. We used it as the first single seater as it was the cheapest and sturdiest single seater but our DG-101 would have been a much better choice as it was a lot easier to fly...

 

But anyway - me in my first single seater solo and the tow pilot doing his first tow flight in Sweden after living in Australia for 20 years. And in Australia they tow UNDER the slip stream of the tow plane as opposed to in Sweden where we tow above it. So looking in your rear mirror as a tow pilot you have the glider in a completely different position. And when taking off I was warned to not end up in a pitch wobble by correcting too much with the sensitive stick in the Pilatus compared to the Bergfalke. So after take off I gently pulled the stick and got too high. And following the advice I gently tried to get "down" as I was to high from a Swedish position. But for the tow pilot I was completely out of place - WAY too high and he feared that I would pull his tail up so he would go nose down in the ground. So at less than 100 meters height he pulld his handle and released the line from his side... So there I was at 100 meters just passing the end of the field. The training naturally says that you should land straight ahead in the best possible available field but in a tenth of a second my 16 year old brain decided to turn hard back and land (really stupid). But I managed the hard 70 degree turn without stalling and got back to the field at 20-30 meters landing downwind... My instructor who had been a volonteer pilot in the Finnish Winter War told them to turn my plane around without me getting out. No problem - lets do it again he said. He got up to the tow plane and I heard him scream something and waving. Then we took off and I had a lovely flight in the Pilatus.

 

In the evening I asked him why I did not even got a chance to catch my breath before going up again but he just smiled and said: "if you fall off the horse you got to get up in the saddle imediately - otherwise you might start thinking and get scared of riding". I'm pretty sure it worked for me but I do not think this is how you would do it today This was in 1986....

 

And I did fly the Ka-8 as well. Interesting aircraft. It felt like a Bergfalke on the ground but very harmonic controls and I think the easiest plane to fly I have ever flown... And like you said - it never wanted to land  We had a tradition that your first 5-hour had to be done in that plane to honour all stiff backs that had done it before you (you sat like in a kitchen chair). So I did my first 5-hour in that. A good thing it needs almost no thermals to stay in the air. Unless you have to cover some distance to get to the next one. And no - we did not have that in 1986 when I did my first solo in the Pilatus, otherwise that would have been a nice transition from the Bergfalke.

 

Sorry for going way off topic...

 

Edited June 15, 2020 by mazex

[busdriver]

1 hour ago, mazex said:

But for the tow pilot I was completely out of place - WAY too high and he feared that I would pull his tail up so he would go nose down in the ground.

 

Our club prohibited tow pilots from trying to thermal with a glider on tow, but some glider pilots have specifically asked for more maneuvering to find and stay near "lift."  By that I mean rather than simply flying lots of straight line and hoping for the best, actually turning back if you find some nice lumpy air. Last year I was towing the club ASK-21 crewed by two active tow pilots. The frontseater briefed me to "take me to the lift." Long story short...the frontseat glider/tow pilot is fond of long straight lines and shallow banked turns in rectangular (box) patterns to get to altitude. I discovered any degree of course reversal exceeded his abilities and comfort level pretty soon after getting above traffic pattern altitude (300 meters). At one point he found himself dealing with significant slack line. Rather than yawing his glider to remove the slack his technique was to zoom to the outside of the turn and raise his nose (yes he was trying to high yo-yo). You can imagine my surprise when I found myself instantly in a 30+ degree nosedown attitude, bent forward chest on thigh grappling to find the emergency release, grabbing the flap handle by mistake while simultaneously thumbing the push-to-talk button on the stick yelling...RELEASE RELEASE RELEASE. Turns out the backseater (club president & chief tow pilot) was yelling RELEASE RELEASE RELEASE while pulling the release at the same time. The chief tow pilot helped me clean the bugs off and put the tow plane to bed, he remarked that the other guy was going to get a little dual with an instructor.  I replied, "Yeah that's probably a pretty good idea." 

[Bremspropeller]

That's the problem with flying clubs - too many people out to kill you.

 

I my former club, they'd try to take-off a full DR400 (four adults, almost full gas) on a 700m runway at 30°C and snap-stalled the ting into a close-by pond (I kid you not!). Fortunately, everybody lived.

The year before, they'd successfully raised insurance-premiums by taxiing the same airplane into a concrete-filled tyre (used as markers) and totalling prop and engine...

 

We had one Discus bT seriously crash twice and one pilot total two gliders (one of the Discus crashes and one ASW 28).

 

Then again, one of the old hares, who we'd joke would some day "fall dead off the winch" (which is what we imagined would be a happy death for him), did just that...

Edited June 15, 2020 by Bremspropeller

[mazex]

10 hours ago, busdriver said:

 

Our club prohibited tow pilots from trying to thermal with a glider on tow, but some glider pilots have specifically asked for more maneuvering to find and stay near "lift."  By that I mean rather than simply flying lots of straight line and hoping for the best, actually turning back if you find some nice lumpy air. Last year I was towing the club ASK-21 crewed by two active tow pilots. The frontseater briefed me to "take me to the lift." Long story short...the frontseat glider/tow pilot is fond of long straight lines and shallow banked turns in rectangular (box) patterns to get to altitude. I discovered any degree of course reversal exceeded his abilities and comfort level pretty soon after getting above traffic pattern altitude (300 meters). At one point he found himself dealing with significant slack line. Rather than yawing his glider to remove the slack his technique was to zoom to the outside of the turn and raise his nose (yes he was trying to high yo-yo). You can imagine my surprise when I found myself instantly in a 30+ degree nosedown attitude, bent forward chest on thigh grappling to find the emergency release, grabbing the flap handle by mistake while simultaneously thumbing the push-to-talk button on the stick yelling...RELEASE RELEASE RELEASE. Turns out the backseater (club president & chief tow pilot) was yelling RELEASE RELEASE RELEASE while pulling the release at the same time. The chief tow pilot helped me clean the bugs off and put the tow plane to bed, he remarked that the other guy was going to get a little dual with an instructor.  I replied, "Yeah that's probably a pretty good idea." 

 

Scary business, a glider with a 17 meter wing span pulling in the wrong direction is a big kite. I just have to add in defense of 16-year old me that I had a good slack in the tow line when he disconnected me at 80-90 meters, and just tried to get my position down without catching him up. The good thing is that I did not get a speed drop on the disconnect but could initiate the (stupid in retrospect) turn imediately from a flying on my own state.

 

I once saw as DG-500 taking off from the same field in the same direction (I was the runner at the wing) and stood looking when they took off. Just when he got airborne I saw a shadow over the wing and realized the airbrake was getting sucked out when the speed increased after him not locking it properly before take off. It was only me and a non-pilot friend that was going to fly with me in the next flight at the end of the runway so I ran towards the radio to call out that he had forgotten to lock the brakes. Just as I got there I saw them not gaining altitude as they should and the tow pilot had to disconnect as he was about to stall. So when he disconnected the DG stalled over it's left wing and went down in a steep angle. Me and my friend ran the 2000 meters to the crash site with a ravine in between at what must be my 2000 meter record for life, when we got over the last ridge that blocked sight of the wreck until the last 200 meters we saw the plane smashed against a railroad slope. Tail bent over the plane and one wing completely smashed. Got around the plane almost certain to see them dead but instead found the cockpit opened and the seats empty. The shocked pilot and passenger had started walking away from the plane imediately but avoided the closest route through the ravine that we had forced us through. The frame around the cockpit on many gliders is fortunately rather rigid so that saved them. And after 10 minutes or so the police arrived with media trailing them. So me and my friend standing next to the plane smoking ended up on the front page of the local newspaper with the headline "Serious glider crash - pilot and passenger miracoulously unhurt". So then I had to explain for months that it wasn't me crashing that plane

 

 

Edited June 16, 2020 by mazex