Video of glider crash landing in neighborhood

The good thing about gliders is that they go very slow, and don't have much energy. Up until the end, I thought it was going to be a normal off-airport landing, although he really shouldn't have put himself in the position where his only field choice was a road-- that is asking for trouble.

 

Imagine his frustration with the constant blaring of "Terrain... PULL UP! Terrain... PULL UP!"



Jedi


[glad all seems to have ended well for him, glider not so much]

 

I can feel my instructor slapping me as i watch this

 

He landed way too hot, but at least he didn't stall and then auger it in. He'll have to repair a couple of mailboxes and pick up some trash though... and spend a couple of grand on the old Schweizer.

 

When you look at the yellow lines pass by..it looks to me like he was doing at least 60. What do you think? It would be interesting to see a picture after the crash.

 

It's been a long time since I flew a 1-26, but I would guess over 50. They stall at around 30, so if he was landing at 60 he was carrying about 4 times the energy he needed to.

Here's a slower landing.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i4bpgSF69E[/ame]

 

I know 0 about planes.

How do you stall a glider?

 

One must pull back on the stick until the angle of attack is high enough to cause the separation of the air flowing over the wing at the leading edge. Enter the separation, exit lift, and down goes the sailplane. After viewing this sequence I wondered why the pilot didn't circle at least once to make use of two open fields that I could see. I wasn't there so it is unfair to criticize his approach and landing but I could see some good candidates for a landing. I have flown sailplanes and I know that they pick up speed quickly when the nose is lowered and also slow down controllably when you raise the nose a bit and then "spoon and bottle" the angle of attack to maintain minimum speed and maximum control. Sailplanes are the best flying experience you can have.

 

I did some flying back in the day and understand the concept of stalling. I don't, however, understand what makes a glider have to make an emergency landing. Did it run out of thermals at too low of an altitude?

 

An off-airport landing is not the same thing as an emergency landing, or as a "crash" landing. Gliders make off-airport landings all the time-- there is a whole subculture of cross-country glider flying, where off-airport landings are the norm.

In this case, the guy made an odd choice-- which makes me wonder if he wanted to land on the road. Maybe it was a "watch this" or it was closer to his house or something?

 

I used to run into this with student pilots. Somehow people believe that a "stall" is when the engine quits (true enough in a car, I suppose) but in an airplane it has nothing to do with the engine. Rather, it is as Bob describes above.

 

More of the real story:

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/hockensmith_glider_video_off_airport_landing_206968-1.html

 

Flying around in the Pacific Northwest mountains one learns quickly that rotors and down drafts on the lee side of a ridge are bad news and can be deadly in a light plane. I have been caught in one or two and a friend of mine was killed in a Cub when he got caught in one. Flying on the weather side and experiencing the lift in a sailplane is a marvelous event but getting in the lee ," down side" assumes a double meaning. My flying partner and I were able to stretch our dwindling fuel by riding thermals and ridge lift on the weather sides in the Sacramento River canyon going down into Redding, Ca.from Dunsmuir. My engine quit on the runout after touching down. Sounds stupid but there were unavoidable circumstances that contributed to it.

 

Tell us more! I just saw the meet Bob Parks thread about Oshkosh, will you be going?

 

Sorry, but I am unable to meet with everyone at Oshkosh. It would be " the most" to meet with everyone and anyone who is involved in aviation but I have been advised that I should limit that sort of thing and I feel that I should obey. I'm not comfortable in using the time and funds from sources other than my own. I really don't feel that I am anything but an old guy with a lot of stories anyway.
Bob

 

I got to thinking about that incident when we were flying down to the 1970 Merced Antique Fly In. We were being filmed on our flight down to California by a TV channel in Seattle for a feature called " Exploration Northwest". They wanted to film us flying in formation with Mt. Shasta in the background. So, when we took off for the leg to Redding we had to gather up and climb another 2-3000 feet. We had to run the L-3 at full power for more than 30 minutes to do what they wanted and it was a successful with the Pietenpol, FlyBaby, and L-3 making a grand fly by in close formation at an altitude that required a lot of stick work and Fuel. Film sequence over, the three of us started down the canyon and half way down I checked fuel and it was lower than 1/2 tank. Not good. Too late to turn back so we throttled back to either above or below the critical RPM and looked for help. It was hot, 88 deg. at 2500 feet, and getting hotter as we went down the canyon so we started to seek thermals. Since the wind was coming up the canyon, we slid over to the weather sides of the ridges and man, the ridge lift was literally a kick in the butt. Up ahead I could see that I wasn't the only one in trouble, the Pietenpol was doing the same thing so we zigzagged down through the canyon riding thermals and ridge lift at a bit over idle speed. Crossing Lake Shasta I stayed over the bridge expecting the engine to quit any time because the fuel gage float was dead still at the bottom of the sight gage Sighting Enterprise Airport dead ahead, I made a straight in and when I flared the header tank ran dry and all the noise quit up front. Charley in the Pietenpol made a stab at the golf course to the right of Enterprise but changed his mind and came in to Enterprise dead stick and almost passed out in the 110 degree heat. He landed nose down and broke the prop. I think that I posted the story of finding a workable prop behind the bar in a tavern that enabled us to continue the trip. Made great footage for the TV crew.