I saw something similar live once in Ely, where they always have glider get-togethers. It's amazing how long these things stay in the air. Must have close to zero drag.....
Title: Re: Glider Crash!
Post by: madpilot44 on September 24, 2010, 05:31:25 AM
Here's a couple of ours. The first one is an orientation ride at the Academy with one of our normal gliders, L-23s. We teach people who've never touched a plane to solo in 10 rides (about .3 each). It's amazing when you think we're probably the least experienced bunch of instructors around (I've got about 150 hours and I'm one of the most experienced non-officer pilots there, most kids don't have enough hours for a PPL). The second one's about the glider acrobatic team. Not as nice as the Hungarian dude, but again, these guys don't have a quarter of the experience of that guy, and they're flying L-13 gliders, not nearly as nice and aerodynamic as the other glider. It's nice to see what these things can do though. The gliders in the videos have a 28:1 and 26:1 glide ratios, and the cross country gliders have a 32:1 and 40:1 glide ratios, and they love to go up on thermals. The cross country team does flights of 5 hours, which is impressive when you consider they don't have an engine....
yeah, its one of the things with gliders.... try going up on an autorotating helicopter! lol
actually, I've done that before you'll need a lot of wind but it can happen....
just a few weeks ago I tried to land on a 9000ft paek to pick up firefighters and the winds were so strong up the hill (on the side of a cliff) that the helo wouldn't land. I was light on fuel and empty.... Had to pick another spot. (you don't wanna be in an auto 30ft off the ground just sitting there because if the wind DOES die down..... ::sick::)
And the Muppet and I had a similar experience during training this spring. I lowered the collective to land but instead went up cause a sudden gust got a hold of us. We must have shot up 500ft before we leveled out.....
Title: Re: Glider Crash!
Post by: madpilot44 on September 25, 2010, 10:20:18 PM
well, I stand corrected. never happened to me, but then again, I didn't do too many autos, nor were they in abnormal weather conditions lol
Title: Re: Glider Crash!
Post by: Jean Loup on October 02, 2010, 12:26:48 AM
Looks like the "experienced champion pilot" stalled the left wing, almost to the spin point! Not enaugh air speed I believe.
Now this guy can say ::whistle:: "any smack you can crawl away from, is a good smack" !!!
