Im afraid

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robin00795
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Im afraid

Post by robin00795 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:24 am

Hello everyone , Im currently reading the blue book, because I want to get my gliding license (thanks to condor soaring and vr ) , Im living in france
and I heard the mountains are calling me , I never had a flight in a glider, but im convinced i'll love it and pursue the license, but one thing get me slightly mad those times , I cant stop thinking about unpredictable event , like stalling while being towed , or doing a "cheval de bois" in french , is when your wing touch the ground then you go inverted.. by the way , apologize for my lack of understanding , but how can those kind of accidents be fatal ? I've seen photo of aftermath , glider looked ok , but pilot ... Well you get it , im getting paranoid, how to react fast enough if my cable break ?? will it change anything even if I react fast enough?? what if the cable dont want to release ... and .. the thing im the most afraid of hahaha is winch towing , oh my f* god this thing look horrible, how can any pilot be so confident pulling that silly angle up in the sky , im really starting to question if this is for me , or maybe only plane towing haha,
Im used to fear, this is me : (see photo attached)
but this feel quite different to me, like to many unpredictable events.. pls send help <3
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Rotareneg
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Re: Im afraid

Post by Rotareneg » Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:38 am

https://chessintheair.com/risks-and-risk-mitigation/

In particular: https://chessintheair.com/the-risk-of-d ... t-we-love/

And: https://chessintheair.com/does-soaring- ... dangerous/

Statistically there's a 2% chance of dying from 1000 hours of gliding compared to a 12% chance of dying from 1000 hours of mountain climbing.
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wickid
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Re: Im afraid

Post by wickid » Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:28 am

Rotareneg wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:38 am
Statistically there's a 2% chance of dying from 1000 hours of gliding compared to a 12% chance of dying from 1000 hours of mountain climbing.
2% seems rather high to me. Our clubs pilots fly about 4000 flights and 1500 hours combined each year. And I've been flying at my club for 16 years. No fatalities here. In that time we had 2 hard landing incidents where the plane got some damage to the landing gear but the pilot walked away with some bruises. And 3 gliders hitting a fence or a pole on landing with some damage to the wing. But no harm to the pilots.

We almost exclusively winch launch and it is very safe. We regularly practice rope breaks at various altitudes. If you do a winchlaunch properly you are never in a position where you can't safely land if there is a problem with the winch or cable.
PH-1504, KOE

Hennconn
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Re: Im afraid

Post by Hennconn » Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:49 am

What others have said. If you are brave enough to do the stuff in your picture, i think you will manage gliding. All the things you listed (wing touching ground, stall, rope break) are
1) most of the time pilot error
and
2) most of the time recovereble

I personly find a bit of peace in the risk of gliding,in that (apart of ypur wings falling of) everything that can happen to me will be my own fault and i will at least have a chance to do something about it.

Its not like in a powered plane, where my engine might just quit for reasons outsode of my control.
All rope breaks i have suffered where caised by me and all of them were recovereble. Same as that all stalls i got into were on purpose and recovereble.
Very few things can happen, that are out of your control. You yourself will determine the outcome of your flight. If im not confident that day, or in those conditions or in that plane, i will simply not fly.
Thus i have nothing unforseeable to fear in gliding and neither do you.

Edit: I dont mean with the last statement, that there is no risk, but i mean that the risk is manageble enough to live with it.
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MrHerisson
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Re: Im afraid

Post by MrHerisson » Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:21 pm

In my paramotor adventures, the only thing that I never was confortable with was the weather....(and the "good conditons to fly" window in paramotor is quite narrow)

as in:
before flight....this weather looks ok to me but am I right, am I missing something
in flight....weather is getting rougher...is it beacause of that hill, is it going to pass, is it going to get worse....should I go back...

This only comes with experience, so while waiting to get your own experience, borrow from others...listen to what old(er) pilots say, tell them what you intend to do and ask if they think it is wise.

Also, your instructor will never put you in a plane and say "off you go"if he does not think you're ready
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timbaeyens
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Re: Im afraid

Post by timbaeyens » Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:19 pm

Soaring is dangerous by statistics:
https://chessintheair.com/the-risk-of-d ... t-we-love/
More so in the mountains than in flat lands, but still.

Before I read more about statistics, I deemed soaring to be in the same league of being dangerous as motorbike riding. Similarly once own actions, precautions, training, etc has an impact.
TT

robin00795
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Location: France , Lyon

Re: Im afraid

Post by robin00795 » Sun Jun 07, 2020 9:10 pm

thanks everyone for your answers, Im defo looking forward starting gliding on the 22 june , will keep you updated

be_adairing
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Re: Im afraid

Post by be_adairing » Thu Jun 11, 2020 2:45 pm

i'm told that most accidents are in competitions where experienced pilots push themselves too hard - therefore non-competition soaring is safer than the overall stats would suggest.

Paul

robin00795
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Re: Im afraid

Post by robin00795 » Fri Jun 12, 2020 4:02 am

but how come so many people stall in final ? is it true that a stall can only happen when you have the nose above horizon ? really no other conditions can cause it ? apart of the upand down real quick manever that you obviously dont do in final, how come some glider accident report simply say : glider started nosediving without any reason, oh my... and for the spin , I understand it is caused by a slight drift outside a turn or a stall inside a turn , but how come I cant replicate this in condor , Im really trying to die sometime in final approach , stalling etc .. but never manage to really crash and everytime its quite easy to take control again before a stall /spin

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wickid
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Re: Im afraid

Post by wickid » Fri Jun 12, 2020 7:17 am

Couple of reasons:

- goal fixation. Trying to stretch a glide to where you want to land by pulling the nose up in stead of closing the brakes

- low level turn and being afraid to hit the wingtip on the ground thus using too much rudder

- normally when turning at altitude your inside wing appears to move backwards over the background. At some altitude this reverses (depending on airspeed, altitude and wingspan). The wingtip moving forward with respect to the background gives the impression of flying too fast causing people to try and slow down

- wind gradient in strong winds and not having some overspeed to compensate (I use half the headwind component as additional speed as a rule of thumb)

These are all things that get taught in training. In the pattern you are pretty much only using the sight picture outside and the airspeed indicator. Rest of the instruments become irrelevant.

As for stalling. This is only a factor of angle of attack. That is the angle the "wind" makes with the direction where the aircraft is travelling. If it exceeds the maximum for the wing you stall. This can be at any speed and any attitude. Think about a winchlaunch. Nose is pointed 45 degrees up but you are not stalled. You can also point the nose straight down with little speed and pull hard and you will stall in some planes.

But don't worry. Your instructors will teach you how to recognise a stall and avoid it. And will also teach you how to recover from a stall at a safe altitude so you know what to do when you get into one accidentally.
PH-1504, KOE

MrHerisson
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Re: Im afraid

Post by MrHerisson » Fri Jun 12, 2020 10:38 am

robin00795 wrote:
Fri Jun 12, 2020 4:02 am
but how come so many people stall in final ? is it true that a stall can only happen when you have the nose above horizon ? really no other conditions can cause it ? apart of the upand down real quick manever that you obviously dont do in final, how come some glider accident report simply say : glider started nosediving without any reason, oh my... and for the spin , I understand it is caused by a slight drift outside a turn or a stall inside a turn , but how come I cant replicate this in condor , Im really trying to die sometime in final approach , stalling etc .. but never manage to really crash and everytime its quite easy to take control again before a stall /spin
I was told that, on final, new pilots focus their attention on the rwy and might loose track of their speed and or yaw string.

I also find it hard to maintain a spin in Condor...impossible with autorudder......does require precise conditions without autorudder, conditions that are never met in normal flight......(I can not maintain a spin in the K8 for example).....always easy to get out of one.

This being said, it did happen to me that in a turn close to a mountain, I lost lift on one wing and was to close to the ground to correct in time....but that was only the last thing of a long list of things i did wrong before that....so, now that i can identify the beginning of this list, I can totally avoid dangerous situations
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EDB
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Re: Im afraid

Post by EDB » Fri Jun 12, 2020 3:20 pm

One theory I also heard often was that after a longer flight and staying high, you are more used to a lower horizon. And then when pilots are descending for landing the horizon is coming up and then inexperienced pilots might pull the stig to get to that lower horizon they where used to when they were higher... Thus reducing there airspeed and then when they get busy (and maybe distracted) with the landing preparation things can go wrong... The lower you get, the more dangerous this can be... And most of the time these kind of accidents happen in the last corner to final... At an altitude of about 100m above ground... and sometimes this altitude is too low for a fast enough recovery. In one full spin you drop about 80m, depending on the type of glider... And after recovery you have to pull the glider out of the dive also...

But as is said above. Al these things will be discussed and trained during your quest to become a solo pilot and afterwards with advanced training. And as Wiek said, speed is critical. It is the most important thing in an aircraft and it is this that instructors will check when they fly with you. There is a reason why the ASI is in the top of the dash.

Flying is easy, the training you get is to fly safely. And when instructors think you are experienced enough and you have shown you can handle critical situation, then you can fly solo or get you Glider Pilot License or whatever.

Webby
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Re: Im afraid

Post by Webby » Fri Jun 12, 2020 7:32 pm

A "confidence" stall is one of the first things you are shown in the BGA training syllabus. Pretty sure other countries must be similar. Nothing to worry about.. ;)

Aanne3
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Re: Im afraid

Post by Aanne3 » Sun Jun 14, 2020 2:58 am

Im currently reading the blue book
What is the blue book? Is it some kind of classified?
robin00795 wrote:
Fri Jun 12, 2020 4:02 am
is it true that a stall can only happen when you have the nose above horizon ?
Where are you getting your accident reports and flying advice from?

To a) provide a sense of safety and security by creating a good learning environment, answering your questions, etc., and to b) provide you an intuitive understanding of angle of attack (AoA) are two very important responsibilities for your flight instructor. If you'd like to study beforehand, I recommend the book:

Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying

I have only read small excerpts but it seems to provide a good, basic explanation of angle of attack.
speed is critical. It is the most important thing in an aircraft
Who is Wiek?

Nice slacklining picture, btw.

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EDB
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Re: Im afraid

Post by EDB » Sun Jun 14, 2020 6:28 am

Aanne3 wrote:
Sun Jun 14, 2020 2:58 am

Who is Wiek?

Wiek aka KOE aka wickid...

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