Flying Emergency - Stick Breaks Off in Glider Pilot's Hand Story Retold
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- Опубліковано 13 жов 2024
- An 18 year old newer pilot was flying in a glider competition in a Zuni sailplane and the stick broke off in his hand at around 10,000 ft! I retell the story of what happened while flying my ASW27 out of Utah. When this event happened, I was on the ground at the El Tiro glider port visiting the soaring competition and listened to the young pilot going through this crazy actual emergency. Watch the video to find out what happens. Did he bail out of the damaged glider with his parachute or did he somehow stay in the aircraft and do an emergency landing? I try to refly what this pilot ended up doing on this video and quickly chicken out. Thanks for watching. Bruno - B4
** UPDATE ** It has been a little over 24 hours since I posted this video and it already has been watched over 20k times. Cool! So glad many of you have enjoyed it. I was contacted by Eric - the pilot in this story and it was great to catch up and talk about this amazing flight again. He thinks this flight happened around 2009 when he was 19. He had about 200 hours flying gliders at that time. He now flies for a regional airliner. :) I would totally feel comfortable with him flying my family around!
When the stick broke we was around 12k feet up. He made a hard deck for himself to bail out if he didn't feel comfortable continuing to fly. That gave him 10+ minutes of flying to really get a feel for what he could and couldn't do with the ship. He decided to stay with the ship because he figured he would break his legs if he bailed out into the desert, or he could break his legs if he landed hard at an airport that had emergency services there on the field. That might be considered right or wrong now, but that was his thinking and why he made the decisions he made.
He flew over the airport mid field and then did a traditional downwind, base and final. When he was on final he hit some strong sink and was afraid he might not make it to the runway. He eventually touched down around mid field so this was not a problem. His airspeed was pretty hot at touchdown. Eric remembered it being around 70-80 knots with partial landing flaps (not full landing flaps) and he said it was actually a nice light touch down. Good thing because at those speeds, he could have easily bounced and lost control. His right wing tip dropped and he did go off the side of the runway ripping off a gear door with a runway light. No other damage to the plane.
Emergency crews got there within seconds and were demanding to know where the fuel was and where was the engine. They had a hard time understanding it was a glider.
What I got out of talking with Eric on the phone tonight was that first, the dude is still a total stud! Nice flying and working through the problem man. Second, he spent a good amount of time working through the problem when he was still up high and had time to make the choice to stay in or bail out. I asked him if he would do it differently today if he had to fly that flight again, and he said no - he would do the same thing again. It wasn't to save the aircraft or insurance money, it was thinking that bailing out over the Arizona desert in an unsteerable emergency chute that drops like a ton of rocks would likely get him hurt in the middle of nowhere. I'm just glad the whole thing worked out. Thanks again Eric for filling in the holes in my memory and thanks everyone for watching! Bruno - B4
IMO this is definitely something everyone routinely flying gliders should practice on a fairly regular basis. My instructors implemented this as a training exercise, and made you fly a regular flight (within reason) on pedals alone. After getting the hang of it, it became way more manageable to sustain a flight. It also worked wonders for fresher trainees learning to coordinate their inputs and helped them explain what was going on when a glider entered a turn.
Thank you for the story and the demo Bruno. Was quite a joy!
LooneyJuice ei
LooneyJuice totally agree... I msde comment above about flying Cessna with no stick and no rudder..... You open the doors push the Paar get door out with your foot and pilot side with your hand this gives yaw control.... Trim can be used to fly the elevator you may have to take it easy and know that it takes time to get Control Imput..... Basically work the trim and throttle to get speed reduced to above landing speed and nice neutral trim.... Then from there out slight changes in throttle will cause altitude changes and speed will remain the same... Now if you set up a long straight approach put a spot on the canopy over a spot on the ground.... If the ground spot climbs the canopy you are going to land short of the ground spot is going below the canopy spot you are long..... There is always a spot on the canopy that the background and canopy stay the same.... That is where the airplane is going if you are landing the airplane will come to that spot where it will enter ground effect and Ballon landing down range of the spot on the ground.... Everyone that flies should be able to land with loss of all but one control surface
to be honest; ai first I thought you were making fun of the story by saying you could control a cessna's steering by kcicking open the doors - but thinking about it, it may be possible...- has anybody tried it (and filmed it, of course) ?
I don't know whether It is viable to demand the ability to do a landing w/o any of the proper controls as an obligatory skill for every pilot, but as a plus in your piloting-profile it's surly welcome !
Damn; you got me curious - I'll have to find "how to steer your cessna w/o controls"-video - subito ! ;-)
jolllyroger1 I forgot about opening the doors 😆. That does work too
If he’s not joking, he’s an odd bird. I’d bet he’s joking. All the emphasis on determining his glide slope. And the doors for yaw. But in this flying club I was in, we had a Grumman Tiger. No doors!! Entering and exiting was by a sliding a hatch. But I’d just unbuckle myself, and figuring hands and arms wouldn’t provide enough yaw authority, I’d just stick as much of my body as I dared out into the wind on either the right or left side. That would probably work. I wouldn’t even be that nervous. ROTFL.
Every pilot should practice this. In fact you should practice going without all axis controls one at a time of course. First, no stick, then no rudder, then as you progress try landing without flaps, landing without gear down and practice flying with no axis controls at all. Jettison the canopy and lean out of the cockpit, forward, back, left and right and fly with weight shift alone and body drag like a hang glider pilot. Heck do some wing walking if you have to. What if you lost your brakes? you can unzip your jacket and use it like a drag chute. Advanced glider pilots can even take off without a tow plane.
If you had done all of that you could probably use your balls for flaps, landing gear and weight distrubution.
Now that was funny. lol.
Thank you
Feet as landing gear and also practice bailing out without parachute, you never know when that could fail.
Not sure if you are a troll or legit serious! 😂
Great job Bruno! With my luck, I probably would have just bailed out, had my parachute fail to open and the empty glider land itself a few miles away in a field like the "Cornfield Bomber."
f47lbx3 I definitely know what you mean... sometimes feels like if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have none at all. lol. guess the kid was grossly over weight landing from the giant testicles he was flying with.
i would only bail out if i was gonna burn to death!
I've flown a Cessna using the doors for directional authority. Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do!
I remember being shown this on an trial flight ... and yes it does work! A Cessna can do this and to me it's yet another failsafe redundancy as you can't do that with a Piper ;-) [still love Pipers as well]
And when did you gotta do that? And why? Playing with doors on a plane is an easy way to get yourself into trouble. People including CFI’s don’t realize those doors can and will block off the airflow to the elevator especially if you have them forced open with full flaps and slip it. The older Cessna’s with 40 degrees flap extension are more prone to it. However low wing planes like Pipers and Beechcraft are the absolute worst. Back in the eighties a young lady lost her life in a Bonanza when the door popped open and blocked the airflow off the V-tail. The plane came straight down into a residential swimming pool. Very sad and needless. I had a door pop open while flying a Piper Seneca and when the right seat pilot tried popping it further open in order to slam it shut, the moment he pushed it out just a bit I lost elevator control. We landed and closed it properly.
Sonny Burnett
It was during a training flight and done in a fashion not to upset the dynamics, of the aircraft’s horizontal stabiliser. Yes I agree it’s probably not recommended by the manufacturer but if all else fails, it would certainly be good to know.
I can’t imagine the instructor ever opening the door anymore than 6 inches to demonstrate so safe enough.
@@acward2007 On the old 150s you can do this with just the windows. I am NOT recommending that anyone try this but.... Get some altitude, throttle back and trim to about 80, let go of the yoke and reach over with right hand to operate the passenger side window and use left hand on the pilot's window. By really careful trim and throttle setting you can get to where the gust lock holes in the yoke even line up and you can stick the gust lock in there to "freeze" the yoke. With a little practice you can control both roll and pitch by opening and closing the windows. I do believe that one could actually land a 150 like this... but I'm not going to try it and nor should anyone reading this. And no I don't know if it will work in a later 152 etc.
I’ve had a door pop on a piper while flying single pilot and was able to close it with no problems. I had plenty of altitude and no threat of traffic so I sped up a bit in level flight then pitched up similar to what you would do if flying zero g parabola. At the top of the arc I was at a super slow airspeed and less than one g and was able to easily close and lock the door. I would never have been able to close the door in just slow flight as the aerodynamic forces on the door sucking it open were still too high. No one had ever shown me that before and I’d never heard of doing that. Sometimes you just have to think outside the box to problem solve while flying. There isn’t always a procedure for every possible situation.
Good on that young glider pilot for not panicking and thinking his way through the situation. 👍
When I was training in a Piper, my instructor had me do a power off stall. Then he illustrated how the ailerons are ineffective in a stall, and how you can still use the rudder to control the plane. I thought that was really good to know, and that would have been useful had I lost my ailerons. In an emergency, sometimes you have to improvise. I remember hearing of a student and instructor getting into a spin in a plane that wouldn’t recover due to CG too far aft. The two guys put their noses against the windscreen and were able to recover.
So, many years ago, myself and 2 others bought a used homebuilt HP11 glider. We took it home and each tried a flight to see how it did. The first guy flew it -- no trouble. Pitch was very steep on final because it had only flaps for glideslope control (no spoilers). I flew it next, no trouble. The 3rd guy got in and launched. About the time the towplane broke ground, the glider suddenly pitched up steeply! On the rest of the tow the glider was all over. When he came in to land he landed very long without the steep pitch.
When we caught up to him, he explained that the handle on the end of the control stick came loose! He was dragging the control stick around by the wires to the PTT switch!
Old pilot saying: when the plane breaks, the insurance company owns it. No point in the kid taking a risk with his life in order to **maybe** save the insurance company some bucks.
I posted this story yesterday - today I was able to get in touch with Eric, the pilot this story is about and fill in some of the missing facts we all want to know about the flight. Please read about this in the expanded description. Thanks everyone for watching and for the comments! Bruno - B4
Amazing story Bruno, love your videos. I’m curious to know, what type of parachute training or qualifications do glider pilots need to attain ? Also, if a pilot does indeed need to bail, what’s the procedure with where the craft should be pointed towards when they depart ? I guess it’s very hard to predict how far it will go before crashing.
glider pilots are the best pilots because they are most prepared for any and all emergencies, and have a much greater "feel" for what they can, and cannot do. (if scully wasn't glider rated the miricle on the hudson would have been the disaster in downtown newark) now having said that, this is a 1 in a gazilion emergency that nobody could ever expect to happen (sure you break a control rod or cable and lose ailerons or elevator or any other control surface effectiveness) but to have the stick fall off?
however when we go over "what would you do if' thought exercises the 1st and foremost answer is "just fly the plane" this kid reacted perfectly, he continued to fly the plane while evaluating its ability te be flown.. he had altitude, he could lose thousands of feet and still bail out without issues.. so he continued to fly the plane as long as he was certain it was flyable..
Well the air force needs this kid , if he can land a plane no stick and throttle . i cant imagine what he can do with a 28000 lbs thrust fighter.
Eject, because they fly like bricks when they have no engine
The Flying Gasmask Are* They Are bricks when they have no engines 😂😂😂
Not exactly accurate. Many, many jet fighters have glided in with zero engine power. Better yet; ever see a 747 fully loaded glide?
I flew gilders and we where told the wing on the B747 was so efficient it was better then most gliders .
Even B747 may be a glider, with nasty glide ratio, but still manageable. Especially when engines fail at FL30 or so, from that altitude they have reasonable range to find some place to land. Other words - simultaneously fail for 4 engines... Hm, bad fuel calculation. Watch movie about Gimli Glider. (Pilot had glider training and probably well know what deal this situation).
Your videos are very pleasant. I like the sound of the rushing wind over the canopy. Great flying skill is apparent......even with NO ENGINE. I watch these videos while I work to keep me calm.
As a skydiver I was advised to practice all sorts of emergency moves in high opening solo jumps by a very experienced jumper. I did so over dozens and that payed off one day when I lost my break toggles. No problem as I'd practiced using the rear risers many times.
Looking back I flew some really ratty equipment. I recall a 1956 Cessna 172 Sky Hawk that I loved to fly that the starboard door would pop open on rotation during takeoff. Especially on a steep pull out rotation! This never presented a worry unless my favorite copilot a cocker spaniel was with me. She loved to travel in the car, PU truck, fly, boat ride and fish! She loved to help me take off and land. After we would get to altitude she would jump in the back and go to sleep. She would wakeup when I would start my landing descent, jump into her copilot position and put her paws on the yoke and help me land. Then I would hold the door handle to make sure the door didn't pop open during takeoff and landings. I'm sure she had enough since not to jump out of a perfectly good machine. This was just a known characteristic of this particular aircraft. I loved the 40 degrees manual flap lever that made expedited approaches fun and simple. My business kept me flying into B, C & D busy airspaces where expedited approaches because of commuter and airliner traffic was common. When the tower asked me if I could expedite I looked forward to coming in hot, chopping power at the last moment, pointing the nose up for stall attitude to bleed off excess air speed and simultaneously using the flaps as a parachute, pushing forward on the yoke touching down and making the first runway exit with out touching the brakes. 40 degrees flaps are amazing but there are hazards; such as not to enter a full slip to bleed energy while landing and snap rolling. Nor dump the flaps without sufficient airspeed as the aircraft will drop like a sinking rock 300 feet. Except for rough short soft field takeoff, I was trained not to have flaps in initial ground rotation then to accelerate in ground effect to 80 then pull 10 degrees flaps to avoid obstacles on the departing end of the airstrip. When practicing these maneuvers do it at altitude with the CG forward so if you enter a spin or a snap roll there is enough AGL to recover. To me spin awareness is paramount and understanding CG loading will keep you from auguring in. Understanding flaps with gliders is obviously the centerpiece and practicing missing controls is a good idea. Something else I will offer to consider during a missing control emergency situation. While making the pavement on an airport environment is the best. Sometimes just good smooth landing spot within the airport environment might prove a better decision to avoid hitting markers and other obstacles on a landing configuration. When I was learning many asphalt runways weren't but 35' wide and some pilots cut the grass so to speak without damaging property or the aircraft. Looking back at another 172 I flew the flaps were adjusted with just a touch of negative flap and flew several knots faster. A good pilot is always learning! Thanks Bruno I'm learning about sailplanes!
Hello Bruno,
I think you did a great job, presenting this video. I remember an event which occurred some 30 years ago in Samedan (Switzerland) when a young pilot managed to land his Salto without stick control on glacier (Morteratsch glacier) beneath the Bernina massif.
Flying without rudder or w/out stick working was included as a lesson in my third week of initial glider training. Its interesting experience no doubt.
Thanx B4!
When i was learning to fly in the 80`s my instructor would insist on learning to fly the 172 using secondary effects... great video Bruno.....
RW when I learn to fly I'll remember to ask to train using secondary effects once appropriate. Thanks for the comment
Your airplanes controls failed at 12,000 feet and you still landed it. Congratulations. You're a hero.
I broke the opener tab off off a beer can once. The situation become critical when I realized it was my last beer. No shit! It was the LAST one and I couldn't open it.
I remained as calm as possible, considering the circumstances, and made the effort to focus my blurry eyes and my soggy mind on the problem. Yes sir, in a critical emergency I was able to stay with the problem to find a solution.
I grabbed the chainsaw, cranked 'er up on the third pull and sliced into that beer can with every ounce of determination I possessed.
Well, the beer can didn't survive and I woke up the next morning laying on my garage floor with a terrific headache and a certainty that the wifes cat had shit in my mouth.
That was many years ago and I stopped drinking at about the same time. I'm still not sure just what happened but I do know that beer cans just do not fight fair.
I kept the story of this epic and heroic struggle to myself. Until now, no one knew about it except me and the cat. I'm modest that way.
Polpol,
And you would be right.
Actually, I have wondered if, with no training at all, and with only what I have picked up here and there, I couldn't fly a small plane.
It would be a interesting experiment, with a qualified pilot sitting beside me but offering no assistance whatever, to do a takeoff and fly a pattern and land. I think I could do it.
why didn't you just ram a pencil into the top of it? I've done that loads, it opens up fine
Ki
Because the chainsaw was right beside my beer cooler and the danged pencil was in the glovebox of my truck. What do you think I am; stupud?
Bob Sullivan all pilots never waste beer. Just stab it with a screwdriver. 🙌
Good point. In hindsight, my poor judgement seems apparent. I think the cat had something to do with it. Never did trust that sneaky little bastard.
Sounds like an incredible job dealing with something that would cause many pilots to panic. My question is how in the hell can a modern day aircraft have a stick made so thin, that it breaks off from "fatigue" , seriously ? That's the equivalent to using cotton rope for aileron cables. Great video !
Great story and some nice flying on your part recreating the incident - I don't blame you for using the stick at the end - lol.
Man! that does look super sketchy... excellent demonstrating that!! and kudos to the pilot who actually landed in that condition. crazy stuff lol
My only question is, how the heck do you lose a stick?
The base broke off due to metal fatigue.
Do they exam that joint on annual with dye penetrant (PT) now? Fatigue in aluminum is highly u predictable. Could have been a manufacturing defect or even material defect. I'm sure the FAA is all over this, have to look up Zuni
they do now !
they recently issued an airworthiness directive for the SZD 50-3 puchacz over here in Oz after a similar stick failure.
Metal fatigue the culprit.
Funny story, supposedly true, from before WW2. There was an army instructor who would throw out his stick and tell his student to land using his. One day a student brought along a spare stick and when the instructor threw out his he did the same. After that the teacher stopped doing that trick.
Keeping the nose up on landing is a key point. Due to drag caused by air brakes the nose always wants to go down. Using the air brakes at some altitude (until the last 300 ft) may be necessary but i don't think i will use them on final. I guess the flaps makes huge difference and he is very lucky that he had a long runaway. That guy is awesome. Nice as always Bruno !
Bravo! Bruno...how about simulating a "Denzel (Wahington) Inverted" approach, like in the movie Flight, Lol!
Bluewater Sailor Made my day XD
Bruno, you are correct... El Tiro glider port is the one you speak of and from what you describe, he landed at Pinal Airpark a few miles North. (I live in Tucson). Great story and I learned a lot from watching this. The kid had guts!
Brave pilot for not bailing ... think about the straight in approach and trying get the glide slope right for that runway. By the time you realize your too high or too low to make the runway, it's probably too late to bail out. Scary! Visualizing the slope is easy enough, but you know that crazy booming thermal you always get in the patten!?
amazing story, lots of learnings.. from student pilots like me.. a big thank. Juan from Argentina.
Well done ! I'm not a pilot although I've been interested in the topic and like doing flight simulators although the real deal is much different from a simulator .
Not cheap to go through flight school . Became a parent and decided not to go that route . I respect the fact that this kid didn't abandon his craft or risk anyone's life or property leaving his craft . Glad you decided not to try landing without your control stick . If something had happened there would have been "questions" . I often get annoyed whenever I see certain pilots out on sunny days going for a joy ride and then doing risky stunts above areas that have a population . One time one of those pilots had his engine cut out on an old WW2 plane while doing a loop . Luckily it kicked back in before he hit a barn . Where I live theres rough terrain and not too many nice landing spots to choose from . So whenever I see these people attempting risky flying I get pretty upset seeing this . Anyway cool story ,thanks for sharing this one .Brave kid and a damn good pilot obviously .
What an excellent video.. and hats off to the young man who did the deed...
thank Bruno for sharing this valuable story / experience
That's my good friend, Eric!! Dude is a machine under ANY kind of pressure!!
If you’re talking about the Evergreen operation storage and salvage operation for commercial jets at Pinal AirPark MZJ (35 miles north of Tucson) or Marana Airpsrk AVQ 25 miles northwest. Both nowhere near Tucson does have a commercial airport TUS as well as DMA Davis-Mouthan Air Force base. TUS has 150’ wide runways, DMA has the only 200’ wide runways I know of in the state. The two Airparks top out at 100’ in width which must be tricky given they have 50-100 747’s on site.
Do any gliders come with a yoke?
Not sure how the trim system works in the glider he was flying, but would he have been able to use it to control pitch?
The_flyer I asked the pilot about it after he landed and made it back to the airport and he said that he frankly never even thought about the trim.
Bruno Vassel I bet he felt a little stupid, because with the spring trim he would have had effective pitch control.
In the glider that Bruno was flying (ASW-27) the trim is on the stick. Did that also get disconnected? If not, then this might have helped! But for Bruno that would have been cheating!
I don't think the glider in question has a trigger trim on the stick, but anyway I was not criticising Bruno, I just find it strange that a pilot did not check if the trim worked, it would been one of the first I would have tried, along with getting the pen out the cockpit pocket I signed the DI book with and seeing if that fitted in what was remaining of the tube.
I found out after making this video that the weld broke under the seat and not just the stick breaking. The stick tube disconnected from the other control tubes under the seat so it was not possible to jimmy rig a new stick.
Eric was our club president last year, he now flies for the airlines. Eric is a good guy! He landed at Pinal Airpark.
As an A&P I know of one case where the pilot of a 152 aerobat lost aileron control when the control yoke broke, he also had limited elevator control. He managed to pull out of a loop he was doing and fly back to the airport and landed successfully.
As a former full time parachutist; I'd have bailed in a heartbeat. Also though, them pilot rigs are scary and hold rounds for the most part. He made the right call for his skill set, it's a lot more difficult to fall straight down and not out of control, than people think.
My instructor and I used to practice using the trim tab and rudder only (Powered aircraft) just to enhance my skills. It was a challenge and a lot of fun.
I would have whimped out too!! Just the thought of losing the control stick. . . Adrenalin! Followed by a large brown cloud visible from hundreds of miles away. . .
So, that young pilot who stuck that one years ago, saving the glider and himself: huge cajones!!
So scary, stopping only feet from the end of the runway.
I don't fly gliders, just powered, but when you were turning final and I saw how high you were, the hair stood up on my neck knowing a go around was not possible.
Warhawker what this shows is how much control you have putting a glider down and stopping exactly where you want to stop. This kind of control allows us to land in a small farmer's field without much concern.
I saw, the spoilers were quite effective. This video is also the first time I've ever heard of positive flaps.
He k of a long runway for a glider.
Cool story bro! I'm thinking, Bruno's glider it probably WAY nicer and more expensive than the 18yr olds, this will not end well. Mrs. Bruno is gonna be upset!
Great démonstration 👍😉
A young dude at my place was in a glider, first solo flight, when a towing rope broke off at around 180 feet altitude. The default instruction was to keep it straight and land on the remaining part of the runway, if possible. If not. to continue straight and land in the field. Dude made a perfect U-turn and landed perfectly well and safely on the runway.
Just because he didn't make the correct choice doesn't mean he's not going to be successful. But if 200' was chosen as THE decision point, he should not have altered it in the heat of the moment. Barring something weird I don't know about. You can do lots of stuff wrong, and come out OK MOST of the time. But MOST might not be the same as almost always. You know what I mean.
Really enjoyed this video Bruno, thanks.
Very interesting video. Kudos to the pilot who experienced loss of stick. Ah, the joys of being young and fearless :)
Thanks for posting this.
I love the sound of the variometer..its a music to me
Only when climbing! LOL. When I flew hang gliders, my vario sounded like a bird chirping.
A crazy bird when the lift got big, say 1000 ft/min. More of a sad drone in sink. Cheers
Would you consider doing an interview video or skype video or audio call with the guy in the emergency so he could tell his story. Would be great to have this tale out there with some reference to the guy himself. Just a thought.
It might be the most interesting emergency story i’ve ever heard. What a proud for Eric, just wow!
I had a similar case perhaps 20 years ago while flying a T-34 Mentor out of Monterey, CA. While headed towards Golden Gate for sight seeing, I noticed the stick was jammed such that I could not pull back-pressure (nose up), but could use forward pressure (nose down), and control the ailerons without problem. There was enough resistance to back pressure that I didn't want to use force lest I really break something -- no parachutes on a routine sight seeing flight! I found that I could still use trim to control pitch, and so that's what I did. I flew the airplane gingerly back to Monterey as I was confident enough that I could control the plane so as not to need an emergency landing at Watsonville or Fort Ord -- and because Monterey has a much longer runway and I was more familiar with the terrain on approach. (In hindsight, the right thing would have been to land at Fort Ord which has very flat terrain all around.) Luckily the T-34 is one of the sweetest flying airplanes ever built and exhibits almost no pitch change with flaps, gear extension, or speed changes while on final. Landed safely, but did force the stick during the last couple seconds on the landing flair. Felt very squishy! Turns out it was a seat cushion in the rear cockpit that had fallen forward, jamming the stick. There's a checklist item for this that I probably only gave cursory attention to on that and prior flights. Ever since, I take it very seriously to ensure the cushion is secure via the velcro and the seat restraints.
My dad used to volunteer his time flying towplanes, one time the ground crew mistook the glider pilot messing with his seatbelt as a thumbs-up OK and waved him to take off. Glider canopy was completely wide open and after getting waaaaay out of line (like 60 degrees) with the tow he eventually released maybe 100 feet from the treeline. I have seen some strange things at that club.
I am going to have a go at this at the weekend :-) thanks for sharing Bruno...
It's amazing what pilots get up to when they're bored.
That's a good story. Impossible to say whether I would have agreed or disagreed with his strategy without having been there in the seat. But Eric sounds like a Mark Whatney (The Martian) type of problem solver. Well done.
thanks for the story that's incredible! great videos, I watch the gliders get towed over my house all the time and they usually detach from each other near by too and its fun to watch.
Entirely new definition of "dead stick" landing.
That was an interesting demo. It is so stable. Thank you for showing.
At El-Tiro we practice this. I'll fly this again on my club annual flight review. Elevator trim and spoilers for pitch attitude, rudder kicks for wing level, and applied rudder for steering.
That was awesome buddy. Had you no option of stick I feel you would have made it like a champ! Thumb's up for sure!~John
As others have mentioned, if you have control problems airspeed is your ally. If you fly normal approach speed and attitude you are likely to stall and crash on final
Do you have trim in the glider? I've done a few laps in the pattern in a C172 like this but having power and trim give you more flight controls to play with, so it's not very difficult if the winds are nice to you
I've tried flying without touching the stick in my ASW20L and I get the impression I had much better control, but still! Wow!
El Trio gliderport, NW of Tucson and just sout of Marana airport. I've flow there a fewtimes. Very scenic and some of the mountain ranges nearbuy can be really exciting to fly on.
Making my palms sweat just watching you haha.
Should have a shot a straight in approach instead of a pattern approach gives you more time for a lineup on the runway and less need for flight control inputs.
It is much easier to judge an approach from overhead, and all the time not being too far away from the runway. What happens on a long approach if there is more headwind than expected or sink? Nothing you can do except land in an unfriendly place. If you are overhead then you can turn in or out to adjust the approach. And by then he was used to flying the glider with no stick.
I'd say the kid knew what he was doing. He probably didn't worry about the exact size of his pattern though.
What you're missing at 6:45 is ground effect. As he went into ground effect, especially with the high aspect ratio wing of a glider, it would have helped him with his flare
Great story. I have to say that as much as I lothe the idea of jumping out of an airplane I don't think I would have tried this. But I am a fairly new pilot so maybe with experience, and the extra focus that shear terror gives you, I might try.
I fly out of Tucson so here are some details about the fields that you mentioned. The glider club is the Tucson Soaring Club: we fly out of El Tiro glider port . The airport that you mention with the long runway is Pinal (MZJ).
I recall hearing of some story of aircraft being brought in on trim controls. Somehow those still worked even though the main link to that control surface was gone. Definitely sounded like a hairy situation. Not sure if any gliders have that though.
pauljs75 they do
Super video. Why didnt you use the trim as well as the flaps - with your accurate flying I bet you could have flared!
Nice vid Bruno!
I had no idea gliders had flaps that goes up and down. Makes perfect sense that you could combine yaw and pitch to create a normal roll turn though
YIKES! If I was forced to do this I would have definitely made a straight in approach. One less thing to worry about not having to make uncoordinated turns at landing speeds. Double YIKES!
Was there another control that was overlooked?
Could a person shift their body position in the cockpit and affect the direction ?
I have only been in a glider one time and that was a demo ride.
You can have some control with leaning with other things -
bicycle, motorcycle, skis, etc....so what about gliders ?
Wow, amigo. Really cool story, and very educating.
The thing is, if Bruno truly had to land somewhere, like a relatively flat field, without a stick, he probably could.
What I learnt from this video?
The flap system on small, powered, general aviation aircraft should be re-designed to function much like that found on a sailplane as a fallback to a broken stick or yoke.
We had a guy here at Tucson have the stick break off on him too. He managed to land the ship at a large airport using the elevator trim and rudders.
I think maybe you had more positive pitch control when flying faster? So maybe he got low on the really long runway with higher than normal approach speed and then held it off by progressively feeding in more flap. Rather then pulling in landing flap while quite high and not having any real way of being able to flare... Anyway very interesting video Bruno, as per usual. Beautiful Visuals!
So calming watching this
What an interesting story. I suppose if conditions were right, well, I'd rather just say I'll know what to do when the time comes. I admire his patience and determination to make a landing he could walk away from, any landing one can walk away from is a good landing. Thank's for sharing the video and the story, the scenery was great, brings back many fond memories of my times in the air. Happy landings.
The interesting part of a no-stick / dead-stick landing is the short approach and flare. This pilot elected to land with a tailwind, not the choice I would suggest in that you want as slow of a ground speed as possible. This pilot also held the stick when in ground effect, which is the interesting part of the actual situation. I understand that this was done for safety, but it does not show the real situation. Also, the pilot came in high on the approach, with a tailwind. It would be much better to make a normal approach to land.
Hi im Frank Manning from Ireland. I landed my paraglider in a river in Spain after flying backwards in valley winds. Very dangerous landed between high tension power lines and trees then ski down river lifting my legs to avoid boulders. Then into water and had to try and not drown getting pulled under the weight of my water filled glider. Terrifying. Still love the sport.
kid's got king size nuts! I'm going to try and share the link to this story to flight chops. amazing. and nice retelling.
Nice video and a great idea to talk about safety! Unfortunately I don´t have this option with my Std. Libelle :D
This is an awesome video and a great story. It brings to mind the United 232 accident at Sioux City, IA. A DC-10 loses its middle engine and the crew has no flight controls to steer the plane. Using differential thrust from the wing mounted engines, they were able to get lined up with a (albeit closed) runway. There were 100+ fatalities but more than that survived the crash. That's pretty good considering they came in at 200+ knots and normal approach would have been more like 140 kts!
Nevertheless, we should be careful not to invoke some kind of survivorship bias. Like Bruno said, it's really up to the pilot in the seat to make the call. There is something called the impossible turn that claims a lot of lives but some do make it. Bruno's master airmanship comes from a lot of experience. I don't know what I'd do, probably bail out if I could.
So what you’re telling us is an 18-y.o. pilot lost his stick at somewhere between FL100 and FL120, then rudder-steered his way to a half-decent landing at Davis-Monthan AFB?
Damn, that guy had balls of steel!
Interesting. I use to have my students fly the single engine arrivals with trim and power only, and rudder.
I was wondering, do sailplanes have trim?
Also, with that big wing do you get much ground effect ? I have no idea about sailplanes. I have 14,000 hours. yet no sailplane experience. I find the the controls and design on these sailplanes really functionally beautiful. Im thinking if you installed a leaf blower you could do go arounds 😆. Kidding of course. Thanks for your beautiful videos.
Yea, we do have trim, pitch is basically the only way to control speed, and we get loads of ground effect, its really cool because if you are a bit short, you just retract the brakes and hover a bit. Not sure if you read this after 4 years, if you do, I hope you have a great day!
I was flying a K2 Kestral and I weighed 120 (18 and skinny), and I needed about 40 lbs to be in CG limits. Maybe it was 30. I don't think full forward trim got me neutral stick pressure. Slow it might have been OK, I don't know though. I could do a loop with full forward trim using only forward stick pressure. Less, but still pushing would get me 3Gs and easing forward pressure again at the exit would return me to straight and level.
A similar thing happened to me during final approach into a French meadow at STRONG crosswind after a 470 km free distance flight, when the wires to the rudders quit - and this in unknown terrain and at some 100 ft AGL.
The result was not one of my best landings but it went well.
In a nutshell: ALWAYS have a plan B within a seconds.
just seeing u fly was beautiful, the story was an extra. nevr seen a good flying + landing without cut/edit
You need to sub to my channel then. Plenty of time can be wasted in long uncut soaring. Cheers, Bruno
I've landed a 152 without the yoke, just trim and rudder and power. Rough landing, but it is possible. Scary, but it wasn't an emergency, but a lesson. Without power I can't imagine.
Good demonstration of the effect of controls.
Bruno, as a A&P, the first question I have, was there an AD on the said glider? What caused the control stick to fail? Poor maintenance, poor design which if so there needs to be an AD generated.
Nice video. Just a few questions. What was your speed on final, and when you touch the glider on the runaway? You used full spoilers? Fly safe!!
Speed on final is about 55 knots. Speed touching down is about 42 knots. The spoilers were out only about 1/3 of the way on touchdown. Any more and the brakes would have been applied on touch down which is not good. Thanks for watching.
did he still have trim control? because if so, you can totally control everything you want without the stick! It's not an easy job by any means, not having ailerons makes things way more complex, but as you said, the rudder is able to control both yaw and roll, and a combination of the trim and the flaps can control pitch. I THINK I would also have tried to land. Not saying I would have done a good landing, but I feel like I would have been safe... and maybe, just MAYBE, I could have saved the sailplane... or at least do a lot less damage than if I had just bailed out. Also, the area where we fly is not over a desert lol. I'm not sure it would have been a good idea to bail out of the glider, I'd be scared it would plummet on somebody's house or even worse, head... :S
Moral of the story, buy a good German glider like the ASW 27! lol
ASW27B 27-148 "SQ"
Bruno - I'm sure it could be done... I think you'd have to make it a much more gentler, gradualised/longer cct. You came in over the end of the runway a lot higher than I think you would if you had no control stick?
One unrelated question I do have. The flaps or spoilers lever induces a whining noise... is that thing electric motor driven? What happens if you've no power? It sounds electric from where I sit.
What you hear is wind noise. Airbrakes are meant to be aerodynamically ineffective, therefore no effort is made to quieten them.
Only two sailplanes that I know of have some form of electric controls. The Lange Antares has an electric undercarriage, because they didn't have the room to fit a control rod (it also allows them to fit a taller undercarriage without regard for muscle power, and the Antares is not short on batteries anyway); and the Windward Performance Duckhawk has electric flaps which were meant to be automated for dynamic soaring (I don't know if it went that far), and while they were at it they fit an electric undercarriage too.
I would not want to have found out I COULD NOT control it adequately to land when I was down low, below parachute altitude. Parachutes are quite dependable.
Only one question : what in the world 593 dumb idiots gave you thumb down!!???
Good at what he does. Live with it.
Great video man. Thanks.
I know, what's with some people? This strikes me as rather unobjectionable. Strange.
I’ll never forget a glider who made a emergency landing in the same field while we were bailing hay!
Nice video man!!
I would be inclined to try use of trim lever, if separate from control stick, to control pitch - or maybe that's best left alone. I'll have to try it some time in a K8 or K13.
Do you guys have transponders ? Or some sort of TCAS at all ?
Would ground effect cause somewhat of a flare if the approach was long and straight?
Interesting problem. I guess you should add that to your PreFlight checklist. Always bring a tube of glue with you. :-)
Bruno, if you ever try this no stick landing again, I bet you'd have better luck if you left your brakes off and approach at the higher air speed. This could give you a better pitch control. And just to put the finishing touches on this question, if you don't have aileron control, after touchdown, can you lift a wing through aggressive use of the rudder? Of course too much rudder and you are heading off the runway.
Agreed Scott. When I talked to the pilot after this video was made he said his approach and landing speed was much higher - between 75-80 knots! What is scary about that would be bouncing the landing, heading back up to 50-100 ft and then losing it. Scary all the way around. Thanks for watching.