How not to land a glider

This glider should have been landing into wind as indicated by the windsock in the foreground. (like birds do)

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• glider
• spinning
• flying
• wind
• accident
• air

[HallaBalla1959]

Many comments misses basic facts: The winch cable braks at 80m, and the unlucky pilot is forced to attempt a 180 deg turn and tailwind landing from very low altitude.

[Serapick]

If it was a cable break at low altitude, the pilot would normally not attempt to return to the airfield for exactly this reason - low, slow, and downwind - with the spin as the finale. However here we don't know if landing ahead would have been possible - obstructions, whatever. he may have had no alternative to turning back, with the result you see.

Hope he/she was OK!

[TheDrivingPete]

Translation from German:

(Woman) Oh, he is yet heading down again...

(Narrator) Sunday afternoon in Magdeburg.

(Man) He is side-slipping.

(Woman) Oh, Crap. Lets go there.

(Narrator) It was a normal start with a winch. But at a height of 80 meters the steel cable breaks. The pilot gets out of the crash with some cuts.

[transdrole]

Hey this is just like that wing walker video; same situation. In that vid, the biplane lost power at around 100ft and he tried to turn tight and go back but got a spin instead.

[YDDES]

@matt4436 When I learned to fly gliders, the cable snapped at low altitude when one of my fellows started. He managed to do a 180 degree turn with the wings almost vertical and made it, despite he was a beginner...

[matt4436]

Am I right? looking on the windsock on the left he was landing with the wind not upwind so he simply stalled his glider and the wind push him into the turn direction?

[Revorob]

@HallaBalla1959 I have had similar things happen with RC gliders and can attest that these situations are nearly unrecoverable.

[eaterofclams]

Setting up a winch launch in which if the cable breaks early in the launch

you cannot land in the launch direction due to obstructions....is basically

asking for trouble. You cannot make a 180 turn from 80 meters just because

'you want to"...magical thinking is trumped by physical laws every time.

[fawas92]

And that is why you cordinate your turns at low altitude.

[TungstenKid]

When the cable snapped he should have carried straight on for an into wind landing instead of turning back. But maybe there were obstructions straight ahead so he had no choice but to turn back?

[7jsm7]

ha ha, see I misread the title. I thought this said How TO land a glider. OOPS

[cobrala]

I tell my students all the time "NEVER" Turn back to the airport without sufficient altitude during an emergency after takeoff. You have to man up and commit to landing straight ahead no matter what. Golf Course, parking lot, Road, farmland whatever is there you must resist the urge to turn back. At low altitude it "ALWAYS" ends in a crash. Its called The Impossible turn in class. I had a great friend that attempted the impossible turn, and it cost him is life