Tom Knauff's newsletter

Tom,

I've not read your books and have just skimmed some of the posts. In
general I agree with some of your assertions. The stuff I agree with
would have me pulling out my FAR/AIM if/when I hop in a power plane
and fly in to areas where airspace, radio freq's and communication
issues are required. I believe that would fall under the FAR that all
pilots make themselves aware of all aspects of the flight they are
engaging in.

My main flying is done in the foothills of the Cascades, and then when
conditions allow, moving back into the cascades proper. Do you have
specific information written in any of your books about mountain
flying and what to do, not do...........etc?

I would suspect that given the variety of conditions a mountain
sailplane pilot can experience, might not have him worried much about
remembering what are the proper positions the controls must be in, but
more an instinctual and reflexive response/solution to the dynamics of
the situation at hand.

Cheers,
Brad

> be blamed on equipment.  While I'm blundering about I don't want my
> equipment to fail me.

This is exactly what "scares" me the most. Imagine aggresively
thermalling in front of a rock face, only to find out your elevator
circuit fails just as you start your turn away from the granite.
Wonder what the nattering nabobs of negativity in our club would say
about that one?

Brad

On Jul 2, 10:12 am, George Knight <george_kni...@gknight.com> wrote:
> Yes,  I'd like to know what the third one is!
>
> At 02:33 02 July 2008, Mike Schumann wrote:>If you really want to help educate the pilots that need it, why >not
>
> include what the signals are in your post!
>
>
>
>
>
> >Mike Schumann- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

1. Tow plane Wing rock - release immediately
2. Tow plane yawing back and forth - towplane unable to release rope
3. Tow plane rudder waggle (too quickly to significantly yaw the
airplane) - check glider for extended spoilers.

On Jul 1, 8:26 pm, "Bill Daniels" <bildan@comcast-dot-net> wrote:
> Q#3:  Any uniform green color indicates a growing crop.  This could be
> alfalfa, corn or something else.  You can land in freshly cut alfalfa or hay
> but not much else.  Green usually means some form of irrigation which adds
> additional hazards like sprinkler pipes.  Landing in a crop is likely to
> cause some irritation among the farm folk.  Dirt, if it's reasonably smooth,
> level and large enough, is always landable.  (Answer: C)

I agree with most of that but it may be too simple an answer. You need
to know what crop is grown in the area you are flying and how tall it
is likely to be at that particular time of year. You also need to
know how it is watered or irrigated. Landings in siphon irrigated
cotton fields, that are common in Arizona, can be made safely with no
crop damage if you are able to keep both wheels in the same furrow and
if the cotton is still short. On the other hand I know of a glider
that sufferered significant fuselage damage on landing in a recently
plowed field. The dirt clods were as hard as concrete and up to a
foot across.

Of all the landouts I have made I think the best field surfaces were
mown alfapha and wheat stubble. One of the worst was a fallow dirt
field that was so soft it was almost impossible to roll the glider to
the trailer as it sank six inches deep in powder. Nice short landing
roll though!

So I don't know what answer Tom wanted to that question. My answer
would be to make a choice based on size, slope, surface and a
knowledge of local crop conditions. The best choice could be either
green or brown but I'd take a look at the brown one first and hope it
had a thermal.

You can see why I don't like multiple choice tests ;)

Andy

> I should experiment in my LS6. Lord knows that I'm tired of looking up
> at the gaggle :-).
>
> Tony V.

Tony, I've found that my LS6 prefers to thermal with several degrees
of apparent slip as indicated by the yaw string - if I try to center
the yaw string with the rudder, I have to use much more aileron to
control the bankangle and prevent overbanking.

Once established and trimmed, hands off, she will thermal on her own
just fine, maintaining that slight slip.

Pretty much agrees with what Johnson wrote.

Kirk
66

A few years ago I spent the good portion of an afternoon reviewing
NTSB accidents for GA (single engine) aircraft. As has already been
mentioned the find the number of flight hours is the most difficult
and suspect but using the best number I thought I could find here is
what if found.

Actually what initated this project was the phrase "The most dangerous
part of flying is driving to the airport" I wanted to see how true
this phrase was.

He is the summary as I recall it. Unfortunatly I didn't look into
glider accident and I suspect this would be very difficult to
determine the amount of hours flown.

I tried to compare how dangerous spending 1 hour in and Airplane was
compared to spending one hour in a Car or on a Motorcycle.

I determined that overall flying single engine aircraft was more
dangerous than driver hour for hour.

Overall Flying single engine was about equally dangerous to riding a
motorcycle. The point I make to my students is that on a motor cycle
the majority of accidents are not caused by the motorcyclist. Flying
accidents are usually caused by the pilot. So for flying you have a
lot more control over how dangerous it is.

If you eliminated cropdusters (and other intentional low flying) and
flight into IMC conditions then the flying is about equally dangerous
to driving

I dont recall if I did this based on Fatal accident (I think I did) or
on Fatailities or on just reported Accidents.

The issue is there are quite a few ways to measure at how dangerous it
is, and different measurement methods produce significantly different
results.

Wish I had good numbers for Soaring for an hour to hour comparison.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL.