Gliding Rope Break
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- Опубліковано 13 сер 2006
- This was a test for a gliding instructor, whereby the tow rope pulling the glider aloft is released at low altitude. The pilot has to drop the nose, maintain speed and return to the field to land. Check out the tight turn right at the end.
- Авто та транспорт
low altitude, low speed maneuvering kills, but this guy nailed it.
at least this time
Whenever a glider is this low after a rope break I'm very sure that the decision should have been to land straight forward without any kind of a turn.
Even though I didn't see what happened before and I can only assume the altitude of the rope break this procedure including a 360° turn looked terribly wrong and dangerous to me.
@@nilsheldenbrot3948 I had an almost identical rope break. I did exactly as this pilot did, except my wing tip might have been closer to the ground during the 180 turn to land. If I had landed straight ahead there was a fence and uneven surface to land on. I am sure the pilot shown knew his options and
His ability to carry them out.
@@nilsheldenbrot3948 Right!
@@howardtucker7958 If there are no safe options in case of a rope break you should not take off at all!
wow no way I'd try make that turn! straight out!
I'm pretty sure straight out was trees
I saw the same landing done in an Interstate Cadet just the other day, engine sputtered 40 feet after takeoff, he made the turn, landed diagonally to the runway and smacked into a ditch, writing off the plane, and throwing himself through the instrument panel and partially through the windshield.
If it weren't for the ditch it would have been a "superb landing" also.
Love the approach.. Very tight! I've had the cable come off but at about 2 seconds after rotation. Hit the ground before I had time to think about it lol. That was my first ever glider flight it just got better from then on.
A very well executed low altitude glider landing this, well done to the glider pilot for pulling this off very well.
Compare this landing with what happened at Shoreham air show back in 2010 when a glider pilot released the tow rope at low altitude, went down the crowd line & because of the fairly strong cross wind stalled it by applying too much rudder to the left & as a result lost control & crashed onto the runway.
The pilot sustained serious injuries but I believe he made a full recovery & the glider sadly was beyond economical repair & believed to be scrapped if my memory serves me correctly!
Apparently, UA-cam thought I should watch this 14 years later.
very original
17 years 🎉
Attempting to such a sharp turn in that situation could lead to disaster but the pilot managed to control the beautiful glider very well.
DO NOT TRY THE TURN on a rope break under 200 feet! It is correctly called the "DEATH TURN!" You will not have the airspeed to avoid the stall and spin and your nose will be high. I know this from personal experience because I saw two men (pilot and passenger) killed when the pilot attempted the turn after an unexpected release from a winch launch. Under 200 you MUST land straight in. From leaving the ground you should be choosing the place to go straight in if you need it. Do not make the "this glider can make it" mistake. Is it worth your life?
I think there is a video on UA-cam of a B-52 at an air show that tried to turn too low and too tight and slow and crashed, killing all. I was thinking the same thing when I saw that turn....too dangerous.
Ok, calling it the "death turn" is a bit much.
Of course you ALWAYS have to land straight ahead if possible, but if not, you can still go around at 150-200 feet, a glider does NOT lose 150 feet when u turn, unless u don't know how to fly of course :).
I saw an instructor once (he is not an instructor anymore after he got investigated i think) do a turn on a 200 feet winch failure, we all thought they were going to die because of the sudden turn, but it appears that the instructor was in a hurry, therefor he turned it around at 200 feet, and he did land safely, even though it looked REALLY uncomfortable
Not always, Bonnie, definitely. It all depends on your personal skills, your position, your air speed and the ground ahead, to your sides and behind you. Taking the right decision requires reading and judging theses factors and NOT just using a pre-conceived procedure...
15 years later...
UA-cam: "You've missed this one"
17 now.
i love adventureres like you :D making that fancy turn in that attitude :D
Oh damn, I always hated those tests! All the sandy dirt on the floor came flying right into my face when the rope was released and I had to push the stick forward to regain speed.
Perhaps I should also mention that as a professional winch driver with over 15,000 launches I spent a lot of time watching the decisions being made, some of them totally toe curling!! Another aspect was simulated power failures, when the winch quits during the climb... getting this wrong can be serious. I've also done stupid things myself, fortunately not fatal. Approaching the fortieth anniversary of my first flight, I suppose I'm lucky to get this far - my instructors will certainly agree.
I agree. I'm a student private pilot and we are taught to pick a suitable field +/- 30 degrees from runway heading for simulated take off engine failures at less than 500ft AGL. :)
I downloaded the clip, and using super slow motion, I can just make out that the glider was heading towards the camera when the video starts. So it looks like the glider was taking off left to right, and when the rope was released, the pilot did an S Turn. We can't really see how high the glider was at rope release since it was before the video started. In this case the glider had already recovered sufficient high speed and the low altitude final turn is not as scary as it would have been if the video started at the moment of rope release.
He landed upwind so I suspect the rope break was at significant altitude. The rule is up to 200ft land straight ahead otherwise nose down, spoilers out, turn with rudder and ailerons into the cross wind, PULL THE ROPE RELEASE, and land downwind.
this is a perfect example of how not to land a glider (my instructor would have killed me)
Why? Seemed fine to me
@@pedrof9471 low altitude turns are extremly dangerous. you shouldn´t fly turns below ~300 feet.
@@pedrof9471 because it's just uselessly risky, low speed, low altitude is the perfect combination for crashes, an as you can see if there were any downwinds the plane wouldn't have landed so "fine" and that is something no one can see, sl the landing wasn't fine, it was far more a near crash
I would probably kill myself, trying to make that turn.
Just missed the other bloke before touch down.
Smoove move Exlax!!!
This clip is part of an instructor test, it might be that the examiner playing the student role Bloggs having turned when he should have landed ahead, is asking the instructor student, now how do we get out of that.
From the start the glider appears to be well flown, good speed control, well banked turn, air brakes opened after wings level.
Good practice back on the ground is that the examiner declares: we were just checking that if you get it wrong the instructor can fix it.
Nice recovery.
@m1leswilliams adding another 1000m of steel cable would just add to the strain on the glider as they weigh 200 kilos or so , so the glider would have to lift an extra 200 kilos and would not be able to get as high on the launch and would be a pig to manage as they would tangle on the release
Thats hard work with such long wings!!!
i think he may have been referring to the fact that a tight turn at low altitude with long wings can be difficult due to a slower turn, but yes long wings do have advantages - hence their use on gliders.
Looked like he dropped her down just in time on that turn to gain a bit of speed and level his wings. But Damn that looked a bit sketchy. The pilot was probably like yep no problem
I've witnessed two rope brakes at my club . one at about 40 meters the pilot put the glider at normal speed and then landed it and another at about 160 meter in witch the pilot was able to make a very short runway tour .
I had the same experience in old RAF wood glider. Everything was under control until we're twenty to thirty feet in the air, rope snapped we had no air speed. It should have been a crash landing, thank the Lord the pilot had just enough room to bring it safely down. It was back in Eighties.
Was it the T21 glider?
nice landing. . .gripping all the way till the final correction. I wonder if the pilot was breathing for the last 15 seconds of that.
@DrRClavan he wouldn't have made the turn unless it was absolutely necessary so i assume there wasnt enough field left to land safley, but he did a very tight turn which is the safest thing to do at low altitude so it was all good.
Wow! The impossible turn done right.
Broken tow line training/testing. At 200' AGL, you should be able to make it back to the takeoff runway. That was a fine job.
@m1leswilliams A lot of things can cause a launch failure. It could be that the cable has broken, it could be that the weak link safety device has broken either due to age or because it was overstressed in some way. If the weak link has broken there would be no sense at all in being attached to a second cable which could continue to overstress situation.
The fact is that there are a number of reasons for launch failures, and these eventualities need to be trained for just in case
KR-03 Puchatek, Polish metal glider used for training. Flew it some years ago in Krosno, Poland. Very nice handling and responsive.
Commercial glider final test, had a rope break at 200 feet in a Schweitzer 2-33. Had to land and stop past and within 100' of a marker. I was ready. But if I'd done a 180 the examiner would have flunked me and probably demanded retraining. And rightly so too!
I would have told him ‚shove it‘ and report him to the FAA for demanding life threatening manoeuvres.
I know of a case here in Germany where the examiner demanded from a flight student a full spin after winc release, I.e. from less than 1000ft. Same attitude there.
Understand, though that is within legal test limits. Instructors here in the U.S. routinely test students and refreshing pilots by releasing on tow from 200 feet (61 meters) up to maybe 300. I find it safe enough if one is careful to maintain air speed. The one time I was concerned was when the wind was from the left. I turned into it but the tow plane also broke to the left. But I also watched out for it!@@kaihorstmann2783
If the turn is executed correctly, glider axis is a tangent line of the circular course. This means at the very moment the nose was pointing at the camera (0:08), the plane's apparent movement relative to the ground must have shifted to your right. Nonetheless, its relative position against the ground continued moving leftward even after that point until 0:10 because the bank was insufficient to cancel out the centrifugal force. Therefore, I have concluded that the plane was sideslipping then.
There's a lot of criticism of this pilot and I know it's drummed into us glider pilots to land straight in a launch failure; however landing straight ahead sometimes is not possible.
From this clip we can't see what was ahead of him and although he was low, still had the speed to make his manoeuvre. Experienced pilots will tell you safety is not about altitude, it is about management of energy.
Although this is not how you would teach someone else, the pilot did made a skilful safe landing!
That happened to me (well, I was a passenger, not the pilot) on my very first glider flight.
Thanks for your comment. If you read my previous comments, you will see I have admitted that I was misunderstanding the relative movement of the sailplane and wind direction, so that I no longer talk about the slipping and I agree with your opinion.
@CDeWeerdt I shouldn't have concluded whatsoever. Nonetheless, I still suspect the possible sideslip. If the glider had flown the normal downwind leg, some side wind can be coming from left (viewpoint pilot) during the following base & final turns. On the other hand, at a simulated low altitude rope break, the glider must be released into the head wind in order to replicate a take-off incident. Then, the wind should come from right (viewpoint pilot) at the turns.
There are only two people in the glider tow pilot business. Those that have had a rope break and those that are about to.
@DrRClavan you must look at the wind.
@okaponkoji How can you see that sideslip on this video ?
Very well done, good speed control and perfect maneuvers...
Waaay too low to have completed a compressed circuit to the field. They were lucky. Hard to judge from a short clip, but this instructor sez they should have landed on their initial heading or downwind. The wind sounds high in the clip which begs the question, what were they doing practicing a low-level (?) rope break on a windy day. The glider looks like a KR-03 "Krosno"
where was this?i have a glider club near my house and i just watched them launch a glider...but it took half an hour to launch one!
So what if you are at 65 meters?
I don’t really know why is this video recommended for me 14 years after, but could someone please briefly explain what am I looking at
The tow rope snapped before the aircraft attained proper altitude. It then turned and landed.
@@logoseven3365 It didn't actually break, it's a drill.
@@emrebaskocak
That is an intense drill
Why the hell did he turn that low?! I am not sure if that was needed?
Last second....GROUND EFFECT!! Superb landing!!
nice landing
I fly that exact model aircraft (Krosno KR-03A) and I know it is capable but that was still really hairy...he had no energy left and could easily have stalled right into the ground. In any other glider he probably would have but it is damn near impossible in the Krosno.
Good save.
Usually 200 feet is considered the minimum return altitude. Didn’t look like he had anywhere near this, but hard to argue with success!
From here, it looks like he had a whole lot more than 200’, since he returned downwind, then turned upwind again to land.
@@PostcardsfromAlaska So, you're saying there was a 180° turn before the video even started?
Bill P Unless he took off downwind, which isn’t likely.
@@PostcardsfromAlaska My home glide port takes off downwind when the wind is from the east due to inland able conditions that way. So not necessarily a crazy idea.
The theory that we already missed the first 180 but he overflow the landing area an now is going to make a very low altitude 180 to land makes a lot of sense. I don’t recommend a base leg at 50 feet though.
Bill P I’m heading from AK to AZ in a week to get commercial add-on. Pretty psyched. Fun way to re-instate expired CFI rating. That’s a lot of wind to be taking off downwind, so I pretty much assumed he took off in the same direction the grounded glider is pointing.
great flying skills!
Only the pilot can make the call on what to do, when I learnt to glide the instructions for the field were below 350 feet land straight ahead, 350-500 perform a left handed S turn and land ahead and anything above 500 perform a normal low circuit. The airframe was very old in design and a gliding ratio of something like 1:4 although we operated around the airfield as though it was 1:1 - oh and I was 16..... ;-)
holy shit whoever that did this is fucking crazy! thats probably the most insane landing ive ever seen a glider preform
lol i went today with air cadets it was great fun i love it when it starts getting bumpy lol
what squadron did you go to?
@okaponkoji Because the plane is turning its base-leg, it 's possible that it had to face some side wind coming from left (viewpoint pilot). Never conclude a sideslip when you're on the ground, because you can't see the wind!:) The only person who knows it, is the pilot. I think the pilot did a good job!
Turning at low altitude is never a good idea
@DrRClavan Yeah,.. But maybe the runway was to short to land??
He took a risc and he had luck ;)
I read that in earlier days of aviation a lot of pilots were killed by trying to make it back to the field when the engine failed on takeoff because they weren't gliders.
It's easier with gliders because gliders are meant to glide..:)
@DrRClavan That's what you do when your cable snaps.You turn 180 and back to the airport
Krosnos ?
Looks like training for a rope break
good pilot)
A very lucky fool.
When you realise your forgot your sandwiches.
That’s why the E is on CBSIFTBEC checks
Alternatively if the field was long enough and the wind not too strong he could have landed downwind without having to make that turn into wind,
Incidentally I like that Krosno's straight untapered wings giving more lift area, it must be light as a feather to fly.
You cant tell from the video what the gliders airspeed is, but if it has enough airspeed above a safe minimum then the turn is not dangerous at all, the pilot is obviously skilled and completed a perfect landing. Don't forget glider pilots, unlike powered aircraft pilots spend most of their time going round in circles in thermals, they get bloody good at judging tight turns at low speed.
Yet still it's uselessly dangerous, and what if there were turbulences in the flight path, it's not a perfect landing and i don't know how skilled that pilot is, but i don't think a skilled glider pilot would never even consider flying that close, i just think he did some mistakes and that's something everyone can do, but you can't call that a perfect landing
on my 4th day of flying the rope broke just before the takeoff... if it waited few more seconds then I would have this training already done :D
I agree wholeheartedly with the danger of the low altitude turn, but I can't see anything that would indicate a sideslip in the video. The wind is coming from the right of the camera, and a turn in that direction would cause the illusion of a skid to the outside of the turn, which is present. Not knowing the wind on the day or being able to see the control surfaces I don't think anyone can comment on how coordinated the turn was.
what a pilot
A stupid one.
@@kardRatzinger Looking again, yes, I see what you mean.
@@jflow5601 One thing to keep in mind is the Puchatek has killer airbrakes. You deploy them and it literally falls out of the sky. This makes me doubt there wasn't enough airfield left to land straight ahead, without resorting to the dubious low turn. The airfield looks huge anyway.
That guy has skill... That was a BEAUTIFUL recover right there now.
ah okay, I read them but I was kind of confused to your point.
It appears almost as if the glider has slowed down to turn though; my reasoning for saying that is after the turn he puts the nose down to pick up airspeed. If that's the case, that indicates he was uncomfortable with the height/sink rate, and could easily spell disaster as you said by a stall/spin scenario.
Of course a gust of wind could be the culprit too, but either way, it's all dangerous.
@Pilnowac yeah but he made it
This maneuver is so dangerous that even instructors avoid it!
Damn bro you uploaded this comment 11 years ago...you still there?
@@lostboy5775 lol, yep, still alive ;)
@@optyqus makes me happy to hear that you are still there;)
@@lostboy5775 well thanks, I'm 36 and still counting. Best wishes, take care ;)
Was it a glider? It's hard to tell with the 10 pixel video camera.
Good skills, terrible decision making.
Every instructor I have ever flown with has hammered into my head that low and slow turns are the biggest no-no there is. Crash statistics support this. You just don't do it unless the alternative is a certain crash. There is zero margin for error, you make a mistake and you crash, no amount of skill will help you if you don't have the height, the speed and the time to get yourself out of a bad situation.
For low cable breaks you land ahead. Surely there was enough room for it in this case.
Agree. I cant believe the pilot attempted this, but we also dont know what is to the left in this video. For all we know there is a tree-line right there or a jagged hillside.
It's dangerous because it might lead to a stall? How dangerous would it be if he is low and slow?
@@SirDella It's from glider accident statistics, low turns are a frequent contributor to accidents, so the places I have flown in have adjusted operating procedures to make it so you never have to make them. For example in case of a low cable break like here, provided you have enough runway - you are supposed to land straight ahead. It means walking the glider back to launch point, which can be rather annoying, but safety first.
And low and slow doesn't mean there is less danger, only less room for error, an accident in such a situation is still quite likely to kill you.
@@aleksandersuur9475 Thank you
@Tom Lilli Yeah, but not from 50 feet!
Appears to be a rather foolhardy 180 on that incident - dangerous - and the wind seemed to be gusting pretty good. Fail even though it looks like they brought it in for a safe landing. I know - any safe landing is a success - but I'll say that maneuver had a < 50% chance of success. That said, I admit I do not know what the straight-ahead alternatives are at that airfield.
You must manage your airspeed. If you can do that, you are probably going to be good.
ps If it was a cable break or a test the decision to immediately turn downwind would have been wrong.Should have been a landing straight ahead or if insufficient room an S turn.Attempts to return to the launch point after a cable break at low level are definetly not to be recommended & likely to break the glider.Not the way student pilots are ever taught.Checkout the glider crash in a demo flight at Shoreham Airfield if you want to see how it can go badly wrong for an experienced glider pilot.
if there is a rope brake below 50 meters you should fly straight, but if you are above 80 meters then you can make one safe turn
I think I know that glider from the long, constant chord wings. It has flaps for glide control and looks like he kept good speed all the way until he needed to slow for the actual landing. Then he applied the flaps for a steep final approach to touchdown.
Jim
@deimos2k6 If you take a careful look at the turn (around 0:08-12), you will notice the glider was side slipping. The pilot was not very skilled, because of the wrong decision to turn at that altitude and poor execution of the turn. He/she could have spun the glider and smashed into the ground.
crooked wings... hard landing
@m1leswilliams Because you WANT the the rope to break in some cases.. rather than pull you into the ground, damage, the plane, or if you are flying tow, ripping the tail off the tow plane, or having both planes out of control because the rope didn't break, etc. Tow rope is 80-200% of the glider gross weight.
Brilliantly done I would think. Thought that the turn at the final was a tad daring but I was not there to decide for myself. Happy flying gentlemen and ladies
The impossible turn is possible in a glider
@CDeWeerdt I may be wrong. The other gliders on the ground seem to be awaiting their takeoffs. So that the landing should have been executed into the head wind. My guessing induced a poor conclusion, I must confess. Even so, overall danger of the turn at that low altitude must be blamed. The pilot could have turned earlier while high enough or when already too low he/she could have landed tailwind. That's a poor and too late decision for a prospective instructor. I wonder he/she passed the test.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - You're welcome!
What type of glider, it looks like a T53/YS53?
It's a KR-03 Puchatek
Tough low turn.
Final turn at 60ft? Well executed. But.. definitely not the safest option available
sure, aircraft with long wings... gliders fly better, but stick forces (force required to move the stick around) are considerably higher. In a schweizer SGS 2-33, in tow, it can take up to 10-15 lbs of force to move the ailerons, if your doing a 3000 ft. tow, it can be REALLY exhuasting, trust me, i fly a 2-33 and a Blanic L-13
you h ave to be below 300 feet to do a u turn above it you land in front of you and above 1000 you enter circuit
Please for get about what I have said. I myself was confused, too. Sorry! The dangerous point is that the pilot had to maintain the bank until the wing tip came too close to the ground at the same time he/she needed to lower the nose for airspeed, which is worth blamed not praised.
Excellant flying!
Back? Students sit in the front. And it's part of normal training...
This is why gliders are much safer than power planes just watch this video over and over and you'll get that gasoline out of your mind......😂e😂e😂😂
2020...
Did you even bother to think about why he did that?
talent?? turning this low is suicidal
And yet the plane landed safely. Weird.
First be a pilot and then comment...
JG Mendes I am a glider Pilot snd it‘s safe to say that that could have ended deadly
JG Mendes if he would have turned a little bit more the planes wing would have caught the ground and rolled it over
Typical glider has something like 4-5 times better glide ratio than a typical small aircraft. Imagine small aircraft being 4-5 times higher for comparable situation.
Now, the real danger in this maneuver is trying to bank too much at low speed which could cause lower wing to stall. I am not a pilot and I cannot estimate how close the lower wing was to stalling but I can only assume that the maneuver was well planned ahead. Still, gliders have very long wings which in a tight turn means the inside wing will travel much, much slower than the outside.