Random Thoughts From The Back Seat By Jeff Orchard

"What goes up, must come down."

Those of you who have known me for a long time have probably seen me at one time or another get out of a glider after a flight and bend down to kiss the ground. Sometimes I do it as a joke for the benefit of the student who is sitting in a puddle of sweat, sometimes it is for real. The abbreviated flight into the teeth of a squall line at Salem comes to mind, so do a couple of others in West Texas. Just last year, I had someone I was trying to impress with my prowess at silent flight on board and released into strong sink....right to the ground 4 minutes later, just barely on the runway, complete with a turn to final at the windsock halfway down the runway. I kissed the ground after that one.

This past weekend at Franconia, I was talking to an experienced power pilot who told me that she loved flying the tow and the flight itself, but was very anxious to give the controls back when it was time to land the glider. That is a common sentiment among "bug smashers".  Landing a sailplane seems to have a mysterious quality to those who love the sound of an engine as they line up on final. And sometimes, getting it on the ground has mystical qualities even to high time glider pilots. Usually, though, a landing is a very routine operation. You start at this altitude, turn over that house, keep the wings level and wait for the ground to rise up to you, right at the windsock.

To me, the challenge of flight is not getting into the air or being in the air or staying in the air. It is getting back on the ground. To be sure, it is a challenge to stay up for an hour or six hours by your wits alone, but the transition from flight to earth is a time where changes are rapid and frequent, requiring not only your skills as a pilot, but your judgment as well.  A landing on a light and variable day with little traffic around you is usually very routine. The challenging  landings  often occur when there are other variables inserted into the equation. Wind, rain, unexpected sink or traffic, a wasp coming at you from the air vent or a queasy passenger about ready to paint the inside of the canopy can all add stress to landings.

It can be said that in a glider, you are always 10 minutes away from a forced landing. That is not strictly true, but it is not a bad way to look at glider flight. Most power pilots are taught to keep an eye on the terrain around them in case of an engine failure or other emergency, but glider pilots are always looking for places to land, or should be. More than once I have been sitting at several thousand feet in strong lift only to be standing on the ground minutes later in awe of the gigantic area of sink that swallowed me up and spit me out much closer to sea level.

I often will fly with a student for the first time after they have had several flights and will sometimes see them looking at the altimeter and at the ground in the pattern and back at the altimeter. I usually ask what they are looking for when they stare at the altimeter and invariably they will say something like "I want to make the turn to base at 500 feet over that hill right there." Admittedly it is easy for a student on a nice day to be at 500 feet over that hill and make the runway in grand style. But there are days when the wind is strong right down the runway where the 500 feet over the hill will just barely allow them to get to the threshold. Or conversely, a strong tailwind might make them very high over the runway. The worst scenario for this is when a takeoff is made with the wind down the runway from behind you and the landing is made with the wind exactly opposite. This happens more frequently in the summer, usually late in the afternoon as a sea breeze comes inland from the coast, turning a strong westerly day into a strong easterly day. The change can be dramatic and quick.

The most important thing you can do as a pilot after you commit to the pattern at the IP is to look closely at the wind sock. The rest of your traffic pattern is dictated by what you see when you look at it. Ask yourself if the wind has changed direction or strength during your flight. I might also add that a single quick glance is not enough. You should look at the windsock more than once to be sure that you are not seeing just a small piece of what is really happening. When you are hanging out at the airport on a brisk day, spend a few minutes just watching the windsock. See how it shows the gusts and the steady wind. See how it is standing straight out in a breeze while where you are standing there is little or no wind.  That is the nature of air. It swirls around trees, hills and other obstructions and what the windsock shows is how it is affecting the windsock at that very moment. At an airport with more than one windsock, see how different they can read at exactly the same time. If you are just outside on a breezy day, look at flags or smoke rising or how trees are swaying to get a feel for how changeable the wind can be from moment to moment.

It is impossible in all but dead air to hold the spoilers at one setting all the way through the pattern to touchdown. The sink rate and wind strength and direction will dictate spoiler use. So will the altitude that you enter the pattern and so will your turn points. I prefer to pretend that I am landing on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, using the runway alone as my visual cue. We all know that feeling that comes from being too low or too high in the pattern. It is generally right there in the pit of your stomach.  You know something is wrong. Hopefully we recognize that feeling well before we turn on to final. I prefer the "step-down"  method of spoiler use. If you feel that you are high, open them up. If you feel low, close them. Don't try to guess what is going to happen next, just deal with what you have at hand.

The biggest mistake that glider pilots make is in becoming too familiar with the home field. I will occasionally either cover the altimeter as we enter the traffic pattern or ask the student to give the altimeter knob a few good twists so that it is effectively useless. Why do I do that? The biggest reason is to keep the student from relying on cues inside the cockpit when their attention should be focused on what is going on outside. And it is great training for an off field landing, where you do not know the altitude of the field that you are landing at, or after a very long flight in the local area where the barometric pressure may have changed substantially since take off.

There are a number of remedies for being too high in the pattern, and a few for being low. If you are on base and have had the spoilers open since leaving the IP to lose altitude in strong lift, but still find your self high, you can angle away from the runway to make your final approach longer, giving you more time to lose altitude. Conversely, if you are low you can shorten your base leg or turn directly from downwind to final, aiming at the near end of the runway. There is no Federal Aviation Regulation that says all your turns in the pattern have to be square. Worry about alignment when you get close, but the big thing is to get close. S-turns on base leg are very good altitude eaters too. Rather than turning to final at the "proscribed" spot, angle your base leg slightly away from the runway and fly on past the centerline. When you get to a place on the other side of the runway that seems right, do a 180 degree turn (toward the runway) to a base leg from the opposite side.  On a still day in a 1-26, I once made 6 base legs without touching the spoilers at all, just to belabor the point. There are two things that you need to keep in mind when doing something unusual in the pattern. First, make sure there is no one behind you in the pattern that does not need to lose excess altitude, and second and most important ...... Keep your speed up. A low, slow turn can kill you.

We are taught from day one not to make steep turns near the ground. A nasty scenario can develop when a low turn from base to final is attempted. The pilot remembers not to make a low steep turn, but the shallow angle of bank is not producing a fast enough turn. You are going to line up way to the right of the runway. The tendency is to press on the inside rudder to hasten the turn. But lo and behold, holding that rudder to make the glider turn quicker also increases the bank. So the erstwhile pilot cranks in opposite aileron to keep the bank from getting too steep, all the while slowing down because the ground is coming up. Stop right here for a minute.

You are low and slow and you have your controls crossed. This is not good. Try this very maneuver at altitude some time. If you are in a glider that will spin, you will spin. If you are in a glider that will not spin, you will at least drop a wing and lose about 300 feet fast. If you are at less than 300 feet when you do this....Let's just say it does not take a wetland scientist to figure this one out. The moral of this story is that if for some reason you need to make a steep turn near the ground, the safest way to do it is to consciously lower the nose to maintain speed, and make a coordinated turn that does the job.

The other end of the spectrum is making the turn on to final and having the sudden realization that you are way too high. It is not bad if you have a long final to slip on, but if you are near the threshold and are a few hundred feet up, the options are slim. But there is still one trick left in the bag. It is not pretty, but you will walk away from it.  Open the spoilers all the way and lift the nose slightly to slow down. Then point the nose of the glider at the near end of the runway. This may result in a steep approach and excess speed, but put the glider on the ground. It is far better to use the brakes and nose skid to rid yourself of excess speed on the ground than it is to fly off the far end of the runway in a normal glide.

All of these scenarios are ones that we hope will never be needed, it is far better to recognize a problem earlier in the pattern so you have more options. And I promise that you will recognize the problem earlier in the pattern if you are paying attention to the runway rather than the instruments in the cockpit. Be aware of what is going on with the air you are part of. Be safe. Have fun.

Next article - "Judgement Day"