Trying to Avoid Arrivals
Number 8,472 student is trying to kill you. I have a phrase I repeat on landing, "Am I high? Am I low? Is my speed ok?" These are 3 separate questions requiring 3 different things to be done to resolve them. If I am high I need to use more spoilers. If I am slow I need to lower the nose.
But my student this morning tried to stay on glide by slowing down. This could be very subtle at first. But the next thing you know you are going to be 3 trees short of the airport. The fix is lowering the nose and closing the spoilers.
Re-establish the approach and land normally (on the runway, not the trees). Many times the pilot is watching their aim-point and very subtly pulling the nose up to keep it on the same place on the horizon. On one of the landings, he noticed that he was slow and got the nose down then realizing he was low and closed the spoilers. That delay got us even closer to the point where the tree squirrels were jumping for cover.
The next time he didn't want to make that mistake again and closed the spoilers as soon as he realized he fell below glide, however, our speed was nowhere near an acceptable speed. At the point when I take over, I do them both together, both hands moving forward, moving the elevator and spoilers simultaneously.
This quick movement together is important because you do not have much time to recover. It comes in handy when the student attempts number 348, and balloons the landing and you can no longer see the horizon from the back seat. Probably the view in the front is not much better really. Shove the stick forward, close the spoilers, then re-flair and spoilers if practical. They are not practical when you are below stall speed with them open, but above stall speed with them closed.
We had a private owner have a similar experience a few weeks ago. When he encountered the wind-sheer the glider decided that it did not want to fly anymore. He got the nose down immediately and started his round-out, however had forgotten about the spoilers, which were nearly full open.
A good lesson for demonstration this is in a Grob 103 with full spoilers on landing. You can do it with enough speed, however, if you are slow it will result in something resembling an arrival, not a landing.
We encounter and train for stalls and pushing the stick forward was second nature. That was great because when he went through the windsheer the glider dropped. His quick reflexes saved him. However, if his left hand was quicker it would have been even better. Possibly not resulting in a winter involving gel coat.
When you go practice your stall series play around with the approach to landing stall. When it stalls and you are pushing the stick forward you should be pushing the spoilers closed also. Also, know how your glider behaves with the spoilers open.
Photo: Hans Georg Werner
Garret Willat holds a flight instructor rating with over 8000 hours in sailplanes. His parents have owned Sky Sailing Inc. since 1979. He started instructing the day after his 18th birthday. Since then, Garret has represented the US Junior team in 2003 and 2005. He graduated from Embry-Riddle with a bachelor's degree in Professional Aeronautics. Garret represented the US Open Class team in 2008 and 2010 and the Club Class team in 2014. Garret has won 3 US National Championships.