I guess any landing you walk away from,er, crawl away from is a good landing.
Butch

Perhaps. But his approach angle was a little steeper than I care for. Good thing he wasn't landing "power on".

Might have given consideration to using that parachute.

quote:

Might have given consideration to using that parachute.

Maybe if he had an zero zero ejection seat to go with it! Looks like a classic low altitude stall/spin accident from what we can see here.

Looks like he's over the end of the runway, how do you get a glider in this attitude? Doesn't really look like a stall to me. Looks like he's going backwards in the first picture because he actually finishes behind the line on the runway.

Ah.

How fast do you reckon the aircraft was moving at impact?

That was ugly.

Very peculiar. The landing gear is down, the spoilers are deployed (top picture) and the elevator is full up and he does appear to be moving backwards. Looking at the weeds behind the glider it looks like a pretty good headwind is present. Looks like he was trying to land when it all went bad. I'm puzzled. would be nice to see pictures of the approach.

Jerry Liles

OK,

I looked it up. This was supposed to be an airshow routine that was cancelled due to low ceiling after a tow launch. according to the report he was too slow on final and went straight in. In other words a classic stall on approach accident.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...es-glider-crash.html

Jerry Liles

quote:

Looks like he's over the end of the runway, how do you get a glider in this attitude?

Clowdis,

You stall and get into a spin entry....

quote:

How fast do you reckon the aircraft was moving at impact?

Very slow as he was fully stalled probably in the neighborhood of 40 to 55 KTS. For an airplane to bounce backward like it did you have to be going pretty slow.

From the article,

"As he turned, I realised the glider was at the wrong angle as its nose went down. He had lost air speed and headed straight into the ground."

A classic laymen's description of a base to final stall.

Landing left to right, stalled it, dropped the left wing?

I don't understand the question. Left to right, what do you mean by that?

If you look at the first photo he's got in full aft stick (elevator) and full right rudder. He obviously just had the aircraft break to the left in a spin entry at low altitude and has the classic panic reaction of pull full aft and has jammed in full opposite rudder trying to counteract the direction of spin.

Whether he was on a left base to final or a right base to final I don't know. But I can tell you this the high wing does NOT always stall first. I've had the bottom wing drop out many times in a steep turning stall entry. It depends on your coordination at the time of the stall.

PS

In reference to the photo he would have been coming from the right side of the photo towards the left. The end of the runway is in view on the right side of the photo. He stalls and the left wing drops off, he contacts the ground at a steep nose down angle just past the threshold of the runway and bounces back past the threshold towards the right IE he had no forward momentum as he was spinning his flight path vector was straight down.

From an accident investigators standpoint there are several factors that simply scream stall spin even without the obvious photo evidence.

These are,

The directional buckling in the tail/fuselage also known as "scorpion tail" caused by the rotational force of a spin at impact. (Note it in picture #2.)

One wing impacting the ground with leading edge damage and that wing being bent or broken towards the aft. The opposite wing being bent or broken forward.

Steep nose down angle and impact damage to the nose of the aircraft.

Occupant injuries usually found in the autopsy in this case in the living patent to include severe spinal compression/brust fractures of the vertebrae indicating a vertical or near vertical flight path at impact.

Yep it looks like a stall spin entry to me too Surestrike. Luck guy to be able to walk after it, or at least form the photo's he did. Anybody know the real story? A little more alt when he went into a stall/spin and he would have been toast.

quote:

A little more alt when he went into a stall/spin and he would have been toast.

Yep if he would have got fully involved in that spin there would have been no crawling away, just a meat wagon and a funeral.

There is a video of the crash on the web. He released form a tow at rather low altitude and immediately turned to a left downwind pattern. It looks like he was paying more attention to groundspeed than airspeed and when he turned base to final he made a very sharp tight turn to final and seemed to almost stop in the strong headwind. Almost immediately the left wing and nose dropped and he went nearly straight in with zero forward momentum.

Jerry Liles

Surestrike's assessment, as usual, looks correct. Something to be said for luck in this case, and the fact that the structure absorbed a lot of the impact force, allowing the pilot to live through the crash.

That B.S. degree in aviation safety with a concentration in accident investigation finally pays off!

BTW

Here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...QVig&feature=related

Deploying his spoilers while still on the downwind leg was his biggest mistake

Lets see an 80-85degree banked turn three wing spans off the ground with your spoilers deployed?

I'm suprised he didn't dump it right there.

And then looks suprised when he runs out of airspeed and slams into the ground?

quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:
I don't understand the question. Left to right, what do you mean by that?

I thought he may have been coming from the left because I didn't think he would hit and bounce backwards in the direction he just came from. You can see the plane sliding from left to right through the series of photos. Possible I guess Anyone have a link to the video?

Clowdis,

What you posted is absolutely not the same crash, notice that in the video that you posted the glider is not the same type as the one in the pictures above. The one I posted above is accident that we are talking about here. In the one you posted the guy simply snags a wing on a to low to final turn.

Video deleted