Perfecting my spot landings

A few days ago I took the 1-26 out for a couple of more flights. I've got about 10 flights in it now and am really starting to like it. It is very responsive and keeps you on top of coordinating the ailerons and rudder.

On one day, I circled at about 45 degrees in light lift for 10 minutes or so neither gaining or losing but just holding my own. If you've never done this before, 45 degrees feels like you are practically laying over on your side but in fact you can bank over quite a bit farther, although you have to fly faster to keep from stalling.

The purpose of circling tightly is to stay inside small columns of lift. If they are larger, you don't have to bank quite so steeply. My circles were good practice for trying to circle at a steady airspeed while keeping all of the controls coordinated.

I'm feeling more confident in the 1-26 as well. I've been concentrating on putting the glider down at a spot of my choosing, at the right airspeed, and then stopping it before a preset point. This is a useful skill at all times, but particularly if you have to land off airport. You want to be able to pick a spot and put it down without rolling too far.

I've experimented with opening the spoilers full as I round out for the flare. As one of the more experienced pilots predicted, it works quite well. The glider slows down and sets down, but not too firmly.

I've been traveling on business quite a bit lately and am hoping to get more time in the 1-26 in the next few days.

Flying a new glider

Yesterday I did something I'd never done before, I transitioned to a new glider type.  I've been flying the Schweizer 2-33, a high wing training glider with two seats and struts that keep the wings attached when you do stupid things, like students sometimes do.

At Harris Hill, after you solo, but often before you get your license, students begin flying the Schweizer 1-26 glider.  They have very similar performance, I'm told, but the 1-26 is a single seat aircraft with the wings at about shoulder height, right through the middle of the fuselage.

Our model is the 1-26E, which means that it is constructed of all aluminum except for the horizontal stabilizer and the ailerons.  It looks a little less clumsy than the 2-33, which feels like an old friend, and you sit down with your legs pretty much straight out in front of you.  Not exactly semi-reclined like the more modern ships, but it's a step in the right direction.

I prepared for the transition by reading Bob Wander's "Transition to Single Seat Gliders - Made Easy!" book and took the transition checklist he provides with me out to the field.  It was not a good soaring day, meaning there weren't many thermals, but the smooth and stable atmosphere reduced the number of variables I needed to deal with to fly the 1-26 for the first time.  Very little wind and almost no turbulence.

After an overview by my instructor, Sean Murphy, I sat in the cockpit for the first time and familiarized myself with the location and function of the controls.  I'd read the aircraft handbook already, and everything looked pretty straightforward.  The main things to watch out for, I was told, were the sensitivity in pitch and inability of the glider to penetrate into the wind.

Since wind wasn't much of a factor, I concentrated on not causing Pilot Induced Oscillations (PIO's).  PIO's happen when the pilot makes the situation worse through a control correction.  It can often amplify itself as the pilot chases the aircraft's position by making control inputs that, because they are late, only make the situation worse.  A small pitch up is overcorrected into a nose down, is overcorrected into a nose up and so on.  Obviously, on takeoff, this can cause a crash.

Fortunately, the 1-26 is designed to be a 'step 2' glider and I was watching out for this issue.  We hooked up, I gave my thumbs up, and off we went for my first flight.

Turns out they are right about the pitch sensitivity.  I didn't have any trouble controlling it and I braced my arm on my leg to provide stability.  The light weight of the 1-26 without the size of the 2-33 put me in the air almost immediately and the towplane pulled me up to altitude very quickly.

After release, I ran through a couple of the test points that Bob suggests you do with any new glider.  I stalled it straight ahead and found that the nose drops more sharply than the 2-33 and that the 1-26 accelerates much quicker when you point the nose down.  I tried a couple of steep turns and found that the ailerons are much more sensitive than the 2-33 and also the rudder.  That was good, I think, because it made it much easier to coordinate the turns.  

The 1-26, due to its light weight and short wing feel like driving a sports car after flying the 2-33!  I had to concentrate on making very small movements to keep from over-controlling it.  Supposedly, this light control effort is more prevalent on higher performance gliders and I definitely liked it.

One thing that took a flight or two to adjust to was the feeling that I was nose-down when, in fact, I wasn't.  I noticed that my speed kept slowing up to 40 mph because I was pulling the nose up to where I 'thought' it should be.  When I focused on making the aircraft fly at 48 mph, the nose would be quite a bit lower than I was used to.  By the end of the night, I felt like I had gotten used to this position.

Landing was a snap, but I need to work on pinpointing it.  Although I flew the 1-26 four times, it was only on the last flight that I felt I had the proper airspeed control all the way around the pattern.  Even so, I would arrive at my aim point at the right altitude but then float quite a ways down the runway.  One of the pilots told me that if I'm flying 55 upon round out and the dive brakes aren't all the way open, go ahead and open them all the way.

I was worried that would dump all the lift and slam the glider onto the ground but he said, no, that might happen only if you are flying much slower.  He's right and I'm looking forward to sharpening up my spot landing skills in the 1-26.

So that's it, another milestone in my glider life.  The second type of glider I've ever flown and the first that was a single seater.  I'd been told that the 1-26 was fun to fly and it sure was!  I'm hoping to find some thermals next time out and test my steep turn skills.

Transition path

Flying is a continuous learning experience.  While you can get pretty good at it after awhile, you simply never will know everything.

For us newbies, our learning curve is both steep and long.  Most of my non-pilot friends and relatives are happy that I've gotten my rating and ask me if I'm relieved that it's over.  Actually, I'm on pins and needles.  I have a pretty good idea  of what I don't know and it definitely worries me.

The only way to fix that is to fly, of course.  And make good decisions about when the conditions are not right for you to fly or when you don't have the skills to accomplish what you need to.

One way that new pilots gain experience is to fly new aircraft types.  You fly progressively more sophisticated or higher performance aircraft in order to widen your skills.  Each aircraft will teach you something new about flight as they all handle a little different, fly at different speeds, or perform differently.

Right now, I'm on the bottom rung.  The Schweizer 2-33 that I have learned to fly is a basic trainer and that means that it is as docile and idiot-proof as it is possible to build a trainer.  This is a good thing, but it does bring a number of compromises with it.  Namely, it doesn't cover much distance when the wind is blowing.  You better stay near the field or a suitable farmer's field when the wind is blowing very hard.

Higher performance gliders can fly quite a bit faster than the 2-33, which will go

 22 feet forward for every foot of altitude it loses.  While that may sound good, when you add in some wind, that is easily cut in half or more.  If you are 2,000 feet above ground and the wind is blowing, you'll be very lucky to cover more than 3 or 4 miles before you come back down.

My transition path for the next year or so covers some familiar and not

so familiar aircraft.  Up next for me is the Schweizer 1-26, my first single seat glider, but supposedly one that flies very much like the 2-33.  That's good because even though the 2-33 is on the lower end of the performance spectrum I've come to appreciate its ruggedness, predictable handling qualities, and simplicity. 

The 1-26, they tell me, is a blast to fly.  It operates pretty much at the same speeds the 2-33 does but the controls are very light, like a sports car.  The dive brakes allow spectacular rates of descent without gaining airspeed.  The short wings allow you to rack it around into a 60 degree bank with little effort so you can circle in the tightest thermals.

After I become friends with the 1-26, it will be time to move up to the 1-34, also a Schweizer product.  This is a glider that I don't know much about other than it has higher performance than the 1-26.  According to my instructor it is a great flying glider and it flies great.  This one will be my bridge to higher performance flying and is made of aluminum.  Right now, the 2-33 and 1-26 have fabric fuselage and tail feathers.  The 1-34 is all metal. 

I expect that will be it for this flying season.  By the time I'm circling in the 1-34 it will be getting pretty cold and I'll fly very little, if at all during the winter.  In the Spring, I'll probably fly the 1-34 to get my skills back and then it will be time to move on to the ASK-21, a 2 seat fiberglass airframe and the first modern glass glider I will fly.

I've got a lot of learning ahead of me and I'm looking forward to every minute of it.

My first passenger

Today was the first time I ever I took a passenger for a ride in a glider.  It was my son, Kevin and we couldn't have picked a better day to go.

We arrived at Harris Hill with winds blowing at 10, gusting to 15. My personal crosswind limit is 10 knots (I've flown in more, but only with an instructor) but these were mainly down the centerline of the runway, and no more than 30 degrees off center so I felt good about it.  

After checking with some of the pilots and instructors who were flying, Kevin and I rolled the trusty 2-33 out to the flight line and I briefed him on the controls, seat belts, and so forth.  We did an inspection of the aircraft together and then got in line for a tow.

I was kind of excited because I know the ridge at Harris Hill starts to work when you get 10 knots or so of wind on it from the North, which was the case today.  The other pilots who had been up said the ridge was working off and on during the day.

The tow was a good one and we got a nice push upward as we cleared the ridge on takeoff, which said to me that there might be some good ridge lift.  We continued up to 3,700 feet (sea level), which is just about 2,000 feet above the tops of the ridges around us and is the standard height to get off of tow.  Just before we got to 3,700 we bumped through a nice thermal.  I pulled the release handle and we made an immediate 180 degree turn to see if it was still there.

It was, and we started circling to gain altitude.  In just a few minutes we were up to 4,100 feet - 400 feet higher than we had left the tow plane.  As the thermal died, we headed upwind to see if there were more.  There were and we kept finding lift, but it was all topping out around 4,100.

By then, Kevin was getting quiet and I asked him how he was doing.  It w

as evident that spinning circles was not something we should keep doing.  So, I leveled out and headed upwind of the field, figuring we might find some lift on the way but if not, we could land in awhile.

What a pleasant surprise we got!  Arriving over the western end of the ridge at around 3,000 feet, I had intended to poke around a little bit until we got to 2,500 when I could begin my entry into the pattern for landing.  However, we were descending very slowly, more slowly than in still air and when we got to the far end of the ridge we were greeted with strong 400 foot per minute lift!  I slowed down to maximize my time in it and before I knew

 it, we were at 3,100 feet, a nice 200 foot gain.

Figuring that this was probably ridge lift, I turned back east and followed the ridge and lost very little altitude as I traversed it.  Doubling back to the western end, I was at 2,900 feet when I got that nice boost back up to 3,100.  We repeated the process several times for about 15 minutes or more as we, talked, me pointing out things on the ground, or explaining when we were climbing or descending while he asked me questions about most everything.

For awhile, we were joined by one of the club's 2-33's but it came in lower than we were and only made a couple of passes before turning in to land.  It was one of our solo students and I would have done the same thing if I was lower and not going up.  Better to land and play it safe than get too low to make an approach.

We could have stayed up as long as the wind was blowing, but after a bit I asked Kevin if he'd had enough.  My ulterior motive is to slowly bring him along and get him hooked on becoming a glider pilot and I don't want to wear him out on the first couple of times out.  Then, he'll never come out with me again.  He sounded a little tired, so I told him we'd head back.  Secretly, inside I wanted to stay out for another hour at least!

I told Kevin (he's a little bit of a nervous flier right now, but we'll fix that) that things were going to start happening much more quickly and that it was going to get louder from the wind noise as we started down.  I said, "If you want to know if everything is okay, just ask me: Is this normal?"  We turned downwind and picked up a good 15 miles per hour from the ridge wind while I accelerated to a little over 60 mph for the landing.  Normal approach speed is 55 mph but you add about 1/2 of the wind in case it gusts on you.  I added about 7 mph for the approach.

In a flash, we were ready to turn base leg and I did a nice steep turn, rolling out to correct for the wind.  I was quite high for landing, but with the wind I wasn't worried about going long.  It was going short that is the big mistake.  I opened the dive brakes all the way and started a slip.  Then, from the back came the voice, "Is this normal?!"

If you've never flown a slip before, it can be an unnerving experience.  All pilots learn how to do them and far from being unsafe, they are a great tool for losing lots of altitude while maintaining good control.  There are two types of slips, the side slip and the forward slip.  The forward slip (the one we were flyin

g) is the more dramatic because you yaw the nose off to the side and the aircraft actually flies sideways as it comes down.  By putting that big, draggy fuselage into the breeze, you can lose tons of altitude without speeding up.

However, to keep the airplane following the line you want rather than where you've got the nose pointed, you have to dip the wing low and the result is your are both looking down and out the side window at the runway while the plane is pointed sideways.  In addition, the air burbles off the fuselage and bumps into all parts of the airplane making a lot of thumping noise, which can alarm someone who has never heard it before.  I love doing slips, but they can take the uninitiated by surprise.

I informed Kevin that, yes, everything was normal and we were right on track.  We made a slipping turn onto final and I lined us up with the grass runway.  As we cleared the small hill at approach end of the runway, we hit the rotor.  

At my field, Harris Hill, when you land into a North wind, it can swirl up over the ridge and come crashing down right on your final approach leg.  This is one reason for adding the extra airspeed.  It also can cause quite a bit of turbulence.  The pilots who flew earlier in the day said to expect it, so I did.  It turned out not to be much, actually.  Most of it came not from the ridge but the trees to the left.  Just as we got to treetop height, we got bounced around a little bit but again, nothing too bad.  I'd had much more turbulence in some of my student flights, but that voice came from the back again, "Is this normal?!"

I assured him that yes, we were fine, just a few bumps before landing and it smoothed out nicely as we flared.  I held it off until the energy was gone and we set down right at mid-field and rolled out in a straight line - quite an achievement for me!  As we stopped, the left wing dropped to the ground.  Again, an achievement for me!

Thirty four minutes had passed.  I turned to Kevin and said, "Wow!  What a great flight we had!"  He fully agreed and we high-fived, got out of the glider and rolled it back to the flight line.

We talked all night about how much fun we had on that flight.  It was great to take my son as my first passenger and what a day we picked for it!  THIS is why I started flying again.  Just for the sheer joy.

Welcome to Sink Happens, the Soaring Newbie Blog

I'm a brand new glider pilot and I've got lots of questions and very few answers.  I thought I'd try using this space to post my questions and observations on soaring from a newbie's viewpoint.

First, my name is Tom Berry and I live in upstate New York, very close to Elmira.  Soaring pilots in the United States will recognize Elmira as the self-proclaimed capital of soaring.  The National Soaring Museum is located on the gliderport that I fly out of (Harris Hill - 4NY8) and the Harris Hill Soaring Corporation is my club.  They introduced me to the sport of soaring and taught me how to fly.

I passed my FAA checkride almost two weeks ago and I'm a newly minted glider pilot.  According to FAA statistics for 2007, there are approximately 20,000 glider pilots in the U.S. or about 1 in 15,000 citizens.  Even rarer are glider pilots who are also certified as private pilots - about 4,500.  I happen to be one of them.

I'm writing this blog to record my journey as a new glider pilot.  I've found learning to soar much more challenging than learning to fly a powered aircraft.  I wouldn't say one was necessarily easier than the other, just that as a glider pilot, there's less room for sloppy decision making.  Blow the approach in a Cessna 172 and you just go around until you get it right.  Do the same thing in a glider and the outcome ranges from embarrassing to fatal.

Again, it's not that flying powered aircraft isn't challenging.  It's more that flying and staying up in a glider is an act that tests your wits in a different way.  When you do it right (which for me, at present, is almost never), it is a very satisfying feeling.