Glider Crash Landing: Instructor Reacts! 

I cant fly but it looks to me like he's mixing up some cement with that stick

This video demonstrates the saying that the accident doesn’t happen at the point of impact ... it happens well before that.

I guess the guy was scared shitless at having to land out. That is where everything started going wrong. It is understandable at first but you do not go on cross country unless you are comfortable and good at landing in all sorts of situations. He panicked and completely forgot his training and just focused on being on the ground at all cost. That death grip on the control says it all. Glad he did not get hurt.

Thank you to the man who shared this footage

As my instructor drummed into me, “a good circuit will make a good landing”, I kinda use it for many scenarios in life. Once they make it easy to get back to NZ I’ll come for a fly.

Thanks to the pilot for bravely sharing this! Good analysis of what happened and on the mental overload aspect of human performance. I find the situation of under performing due to mental overload rather familiar... currency, practice and proper training is probably the best way to do something about it.

Great video, loved how you focus on solutions instead of blame. It's very easy to comment "he was to fast" or "guy was to stressed", but your way of analyzing the multitude of issues present and their possible remedies seems a lot more constructive. It's an approach i think we all could learn from.

I am an instructor: From my point of view, the pilot was completely overstressed with a situation he was not prepared for. Simply look to his handling of the stick...

Not using the rudder and creating a lot of adverse yaw during the round out. And I hope the cake he was mixing turned out well!

You are right. I have over 700 hrs and the thing pounded into my brain during training and check flights was Rule #1- "Fly the bloody ship" an extension of what you were saying in commentary.

What helped me prepare for outlandings is lessons in field selection and approaches to random fields in a motorized glider, so you can try something, pull up, do it again, do it again at a different field, continuously. Really helps internalize the lessons.

Thank you, Tim - very precious analyse and remarks about this incident we just saw in this video. I hope only that this pilot from this video is feeling well now and was not seriously injured during this hard landing. I wish you and other glider pilots all the best in this soaring season - and to stay high and save in every single flight!

I am very glad when pilots share situations like this. We can all learn from this. Thanks to the instructor for verbalising and go through the phases. Fly safe out there.

Well, I think that one of the main reasons this happened is that he doesn't let the glider fly. He is using very aggressive steering input all the way to the landing and he seems to fight the glider all the time.

That was very educational. A good thing that the pilot shared this. This teaches us more about human factors than the actual flying mistakes that were made. When stress takes over rationality, you fall back on your instincts if you lack sufficient experience. Procedures are thrown overboard which were designed to keep you out of trouble. Pilots need to be aware this can happen and recognise it, because it can happen to even very experienced pilots. Easier said than done, I know.

Tim - EXCELLENT analysis and professional debrief of this unfortunate accident. Thanks for the channel!

I glide in the UK and we have to have a minimum of a hour every year in a motor-glider practicing field landings and every scenario that could arise, To check for size of the field, shape of the field, slope, crops, cattle and obstructions ie phone poles or power lines. You have to satisfy the CFI before he/she allows you to try cross country.

Monday morning quarterbacking is always easy. This looked to me to be a rushed landing. He looked to be forcing the aircraft down, and started a short approach from too high an altitude. Compounding the speed created from being too high and diving to reduce altitude he created even more energy by landing downwind. Maybe he was overloaded mentally due to lack of confidence or fear. The cascade can be fully observed here. I salute this pilot for posting this so the rest of us can learn from his mistakes, and I am glad he wasn't physically injured, although I am sure his psyche took a beating and this likely left a mark for a long time on his confidence.

Tim, good to see you providing an experienced perspective here. I'm someone who has also cramped his circuit for an outlanding, leading to a half second of pure terror when I realised that I was not going to be able to get into the field in front of me before I decided to land further ahead; across the road & the first field, over the cattle race and into a small triangular field. I crossed the fence at about 2 metres with half spoiler, then pulled full spoiler and full back stick, giving a firm but not too hard arrival. I was stopped within 100 paces from the fence, though there was only a mark from the tail skid for 30 paces. Gliders want to stay in the air! I know, from translating the French "blue book", that they recommend a final of 30 seconds: at least 15 seconds is desirable in my experience. Count one-elephant, two-elephant to see how long your usual final is. As you turn final, pull full spoiler and see if the field rises in your view. If it does, you won't overshoot - but then close the spoilers to whatever level you think appropriate to put you mid-point in the ideal approach cone. The fact the cockpit is structurally intact is no guarantee of no injury to the pilot, as the load is likely to have simply been transferred to the pilot's spine. There is a very useful BGA video (play it at 1.5x speed, as the English presenter talks slowly though accurately), which recommends the use of Confor energy-absorbing foam. I know, Tim, that your club for example has bought some of this foam and uses it for cushions. The presentation is at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3z-LfU38lMY.html The glider should not have been flying, as it was simply not airworthy - something the pilot knew about and had chosen to continue flights with the glider in that condition. "One more thing: stick had at that time an annoying slack of ~2cm, which partially got me into the habit of frantic left-right inputs when I got nervous" I admire the pilot for his openness. He himself says in one of his replies "That clip was almost 7 yrs ago. Long enough distance for my wounded ego to withstand public self-humiliation"

I've watched a few of your videos and these glider crash analysis videos are pretty interesting.

As a sailing instructor and a Scuba instructor the exact same applies. Agree 100%. I am also a pilot with a few hours of gliding. You are right on. Thanks for the great and instructive video.

Thanks for the educational video. This reminds me to take up some outlanding instruction on a motorglider, to learn about the visual illusions and field selection.

Excellent video with a great analysis. Thank you for sharing your point of view as an instructor!

I’m applying to get my license and find your video extremely useful. I discussed this with my instructor who 100% agrees with your analysis about the combination of several factors, “poor training “ / bad estimation/panicking/overrruling the aircraft. Tks for your useful videos and suggestions. Mauro

One of my old instructors, often repeated the mantra, "any landing, no matter how bad it seems, that you walk away from is a good one", this bloke was damn lucky to have done that. Everyone had offered their thoughts about what went wrong, so I won't compound the theories by offering my thoughts. I'll just say many years ago, while flying out of Waikerie in South Australia, I saw one of Australia's most experienced gliding instructors do exactly that, walk away from an on-tow crash landing, and it wasn't pretty to watch. The reason this happened was later to be found that a mounting affixed to the elevator had cracked, and broke away from the rest of the fixture, the pilot had no option but to try and land as best he could without the aid of the elevator, and subsequently flat-bottomed to the ground from 200 meters. I know this has nothing to do with the video, I'm just saying any situation can and does arise, and no matter how good or bad you are, you'll often get caught out, unless you let your training take over.

A fair analysis. I remember that in older generation gliders, slowing down was more effective for losing height with poor airbrakes. What type of glider was it and did it have spoilers or airbrakes? I'm just glad that there weren't go-pros and SM when I started. Looking at the sky, it might have been easier to find a thermal and climb away :-) Very good of the pilot to share his mistakes with the rest of us.

Thanks for a very good article, it raised many good issues. Thanks to the pilot who bared all so we can learn. His acceptance of fault is a fabulous sign that he can progress to a high standard of flying. He was clearly flummoxed by his situation, being faced with an unavoidable outlanding. He did seem inexperienced but at least chose a good landing place. Landing downwind not only extends the roll distance but can also reverse controls at some point on the ground roll. I hope this pilot continued to fly.

Thanks mate. Stuff to learn here, and grateful your analysis!

Thanks to Pilot for sharing

I love your commentary and analysis on these accidents. I was surprised that you said that you didn't think that the downwind landing had much influence on the account. Having done a downwind landing myself in a powered aircraft in very light breeze I was surprised at how much it changed the dynamics of the whole maneuver. The aircraft drifted further, tending to float rather than touching down and it burnt up a lot more runway than normal which seemed to be in evidence in this video. It makes me think that it could well be a primary contributing factor to the accident, especially if the pilot was relatively new and inexperienced. I also agree with your comments about inexperience being a factor to consider. A lack of experience would have resulted in an increase in the amount of stress as a result of having to perform the out-landing which might explain why he was overhead the airfield and didn't take into account the windsock direction when choosing the runway. It's almost as if he was so focused on getting the aircraft back onto the ground that he would have done so irrespective of the prevailing conditions and the consequences. My comment are pure speculation and the pilots experience is a great chance for us all to learn from.

Very nice commentary. A good, squared off pattern with proper distances from the runway is a skill worth developing. The final leg in the video reminds me of a moment in my glider training. In one instance I was struggling to get out of a poor position on tow which I thought was due to insufficient control authority. I mentioned this to the instructor in the back seat. He explained that he had seen the poor position developing for some time. One needs to develop good planning and habits and not count on being able to manhandle the controls to cover for poor setup. I’m sure that landing wasn’t the pilot’s proudest moment. I’m thankful he posted the video for others to learn from. Hopefully he didn’t get banged up too badly.

Great to watch and learn from unfortunate mistakes made by someone else. Love this channel.

Two things come to mind that my original instructor said when I was learning to fly in gliders 35 years ago: 1. "The base leg is the most important leg" -- this is true, it's where you can see the headwind you're dealing with because of the crosswind, and it's also where you can see where you have to hit the final approach. 2. "Airspeed control is crucial; if you are 5 knots over the 50 knot target approach speed, you have 1.1 squared or 21% more energy, and you land way down the runway" -- this guy picked up 10 knots over his 50 knot target speed so he had 44% too much energy. My textbook I used at the time said two things too -- you have to recover a side slip one wingspan above the ground. It also listed "ignore the altimeter" as the last step on the landing checklist. My students ask me what altitude I turn base or final, and I honestly don't really know (I've got 700 hours in gliders, >1400 flights, 285 hours instructing). As an instructor I don't know why this guy is even flying solo, let alone licensed and flying cross country alone. This looks like an attempt a student would make on their first try at judging an approach, especially if I didn't do a decent job on the ground instruction ahead of time. It could well be that he's never landed anywhere except at his home field, so wasn't ready for a different look of the runway. Our Club Libelle was recently wrecked by a low time pilot who got lost and attempted a field landing unsuccessfully. I will comment about getting off field landing instruction. It's very difficult to get that in the US. I tried very hard to get some before I would do any cross country flying, but there just aren't motorgliders available for that kind of instruction. As a student pilot I was made to land in a small field right next to the gliderport before I got signed off for the flight test. It's not typical to have something like that available, although at a lot of airports an alternative landing area can be used. We've been discussing using some nearby strips for similar purposes lately in our club. In any case, I managed to damage a glider after picking a field with a high crop, mainly because noone ever really taught me field selection properly. In any case, my first real off field landing depended on a certain amount of luck that it went well. I wasn't really very far from the field but hit a lot of sink, and found myself parked in zero sink over a plowed field at 1000 feet AGL. After a few times around, not gaining anything, and 5 miles from home, it occurred to me that the next field looked a lot better. It turned out to be a turf farm, with a better surface than the spot we usually landed at home! The plowed field I'd originally picked ("In the dirt, you won't get hurt") was actually a picked tobacco field, and certainly would have resulted in a damaged glider. Since then I like to discuss field selection with students anytime there's spare time.

at my gliding club we are use cones to set out a landing field to land in, its about 30 by 30 and with in that you need to touch down that's the goal of it. also to be able to control a side slip its a good skill in my opinion. i enjoy a nice side slip time to time to land with you can have so much control while in a side slip. love toe vids and keep it up. would love to fly same day in NZ when able to

I learn to fly gliders myself. Your videos are very good to understand what not to do and how to do better👍🏻good job

That first 14 seconds was like watching the first 14 minutes of Saving Private Ryan...harrowing.

Amazing that the guy try to do cross country with that landing skil. People are brave.

Kudos to the pilot for posting this as a lesson to new pilots. I must say I'm a little surprised at his having to land out as the conditions looked quite buoyant - flat bottom cumulus and cloud streets all around. A little more experience should help him avoid the downwind high speed final and tense over-control in the future 👍. Almost had to land out at California City over 30 years ago. Was setting up on final for a dirt road landing when I caught a thermal at 500 feet. I stayed in that thing till I was 10,000 AGL!! Breathed a sigh of relief and made it back easily, thank goodness 😉

first thing to recommand to novice glider pilots, turn the vario beeper off once you have decided to land, it's a distraction, creates stress and add to mental overload, and it has no whatsoever benefit if you are landing. And as i have seen many times, no proper base is the most efficient way for a terrible landing. Thanks for sharing, requires lot of courage to post such an experience, all the best to the pilot as he probably has saved many people from making the same mistakes.

@Pure Glide It’s worth mentioning the pilots comments in the original video. He said that the ‘controls had 2cm of slack’ which caused him to develop a habit of moving the stick frenetically. In my mind the aircraft is unserviceable in this condition. Add a poorly planned circuit from 750ft Agl, lack of base leg and unexpected tailwind and you get what you see. I applaud the pilot for sharing the video so others learn. It shows how quickly everything can go wrong.

Fun fact, you can't actually multitask, that is to say you can't think about more than one task at a time. You can switch really quickly between tasks, but the brain is just not capable of think about two things at the same time. This is not to be mistaken with doing tasks automatically like driving and thinking about something else.

Great review of a difficult situation and a good learning experience for all of us. How well do glass ships slide slip? The old Slingsby Swallow dropped like a rock in a slide slip but I think it is far less useful in the modern glass gliders. The tail chute saved me on several occasions out landing in the Cirrus.

Great video. I am learning a lot about gliding from these videos. One of the smartest people I flew with explained something similar, but they explained it as carrying a bunch of plates or something. When one too many is added you don't just drop one, you can drop them all in a cascade. Fixation is probably more typical in the control aspects you describe, but you covered a close call where a pilot deployed spoilers very close to some trees as they tried to reach the field and that's what came to mind. Even experienced pilots should be careful that as a situation increases in complexity they don't forget to take a breath and focus on what they know, which is fly the glider.

I am an airplane pilot and some of the pictures resonate in me. 1. “Good circuits (‘pattern’ in powered aviation in the U.S.) make good landings. Upon arriving at an unfamiliar or short runway, I would sometimes execute a low approach to inspect the runway and established myself in a good pattern. I know gliders may not enjoy the same capability. 2. The aileron correction during the last seconds has led to many lose of control and stall-spin accidents during the base-to-final turn when the pilot overshoots the runway centerline. Airplane instructors would often teach and remind newer pilots to use rudder for directional AND roll control at low airspeed. If gliders work similarly to powered airplanes on this regard, adequate right rudder may be more helpful leveling the wings and aligning the glider against the runway. Fly safe folks :)

I haven't had an outlanding yet... but damn, if I ever got there and there was an airstrip as beautiful as this under me, I'd probably be as calm as when I am landing on my home airfield.

He's over controlling

Congratulations, Tim! Over 5k subscribers now! 👍 😀

In my youth, I also made a few outlandings where it was tbh just a good portion of luck that kept the airplane and me intact. In my opinion, the 4 lessons are: 1. accept at a safe altitude that the flight/flying-day is over and that from this moment on you only have one, but extremely important task: land safely - no more searching for thermals, no more tactical analysis, no more checking the gnns recorder or final glide computer while you take care of the landing 2. don't invent new approach and landing procedures, especially not when landing outside, keep your distance from the landing field and fly as you would at your home airfield 3. approach the runway straight and stable, you need a stable approach, especially if you are under stress. In my opinion, this point is also the core problem in the video. At no time there was a stable approach to the runway, but an angled approach with a half-hearted slip.

Probably an "Outlanding" with instructor on an airfield in the neighbourhood is a good training. Better still 'without announcement' ;-). The instructor can avoid bad things happen and with an aerotow you're back home quickly afterwards. In my mind, an unknown airfield is (nearly) not different from an unknown outlanding field. Except for the better infrastructure afterwards... ;-)

I have never flown myself. But it seems he was going waaay too fast. I am going for an ultralight license soon. And i hope to make it as an instructor eventually as well.

Thanks for this review. We are working on XC training for our new pilots and discussing “Safe Land-out Skills & Assessment” w our CFI. And just did a “sneaker check” (boots on ground) of potential land-outs for XC flights. Hope the pilot was not injured!! Also..You need to be able to stop in 500 ft! Another critical skill for XC flying!

There was a tragic glider accident in America a few years ago, I don't know if it's already been analysed in a vid, but it took off under tow with the small trolley under the tail still accidentally attached. The controller on the ground radioed "Abort", so either the glider pilot or tow pilot released the cable and the glider nosed into the ground killing the pilot and a woman passenger and a toddler on her lap. I've not been able to find an accident report to find out exactly what happened.

My instructor always reminded me, never land with a tailwind. If the wind is straight behind you, you will have to land at a faster ground speed to avoid stalling, and you will float and land long. If the tailwind has a crosswind component, it can push the tail sideways. That's what looks like one of the things that happened here to me. if he landed more into the wind, he wouldn't have had so many factors working against him. Avoid landing with a tailwind and your glider will thank you.

A slip increases drag, _and_ shortens the effective length of the wings, decreasing lift force. In my opinion, you should always use slip and spoilers in landing, and if you are likely not to have someone fly under you in final, start high and come down fast. Excess altitude is never a problem if you have practiced this on every landing. I haven't flown for several years though.

Thinking back about the first off field landing. Remember getting drawn in to close trying to determine what was planted in the field along with wires, fences, ditches and a road out. Story one of my first tow pilots didn't return one evening from a glider flight. The next morning they found his plane in a field setup for what appeared to be a tow out. When they approached the plane they found him dead inside. The wires had come right though the canopy and set the plane down almost undamaged. Off field landings need all of your attention.

I’ve found it’s always helpful to fix alignment and altitude issues as far out as possible so all you have to focus on short final is the flare and touchdown. He seemed to save alignment and altitude correction to coincide with the flare. That can overload any skill level.

That cell phone on his leg was the Least of his worries.. SMH

It would be interesting to know the experience of the pilot and in particular, his recent experience on the type.

Great explanation.

I was too high (1000' , recommended 600') approaching final turn, so flew .5 - 1 km over the town (Benalla). When I turned onto final the airfield was a long way away. Set the speed to best glide slope and hoped for the best. I was so low near the end of the airfield I considered going UNDER the power lines. Luckily cleared them by 10-20' and no-one commented when I landed. That was about mid 1965, in a Kookaburra, I think.

Tailwind played its part here. It might be light on the ground, but what was it doing at altitude during his circuit and approach? As evident with the need for full speedbrake and a low altitude sideslip, it wasn't doing him any favour. Accepting (or being oblivious of) tailwinds can introduce a complex set of human factors and handling issues. They can bite pilots real hard.

Regardless of the outlanding planning here, he would have made it if he was profitient enough at least getting the glider to fly a straight line!

Great video, good to see in the video and comments it isn’t just pilot bashing, we all make mistakes, not always on video and it much better to learn from someone else’s

One other thing to consider: Because the right turn to base was early the pilot was flying at an angle to the runway throughout final. When the pilot established a slip the nose lined up with the runway, but because the direction of flight was unchanged (slips don't change the direction of flight), the pilot drifted to the left while in the slip, and was at risk of hitting the brush. The correction to stop the left drift required a turn to the right, which is unsafe to do that close to the ground. A better course of action would have been for the pilot to make a correcting move toward the left early in the final, so as to fly final aimed straight at the runway direction. (CFI-G 29 years experience)

“The human brain isn’t very good at multitasking” You haven’t seen me rolling a joint, while overtaking on the motorway, while I’m posting on Facebook, while eating cookies all at once.

His attempts at last-seconds slips appear unneeded. Looks like with full spoilers, and breaking applied he would have had enough runway remaining for a safe landing. Maybe would have impacted a couple bushes at the end at a low speed. Am I right?

Thank-you for walking us through this. My home airfield has a 3000 ft runway we use (the first 25% of) for gliders and a 6400ft runway that the power guys use. For my checkride the wind was 12kts across the "glider" runway and so I made the decision to use the big runway (for the first time) rather than take off in a cross wind outside of the capability published in the glider manual. That screwed up all my aiming points and I ended up landing just beyond the threshold of the big runway and I stopped before I made it past the first bar of white paint. Needless to say I was not popular with the ground guys when they had to drive 1/2 a mile to fetch me. The learning there was to really think carefully about scale when looking at the place you want to land. When I did the same stupid thing on the next flight, the examiner asked me to lock the brakes and float in the ground effect. It was amazing how far we went just a few ft above the ground. The learning from that was not to worry about landing short. Close the brakes and float forever.....

I was learning to fly gliders in Derbyshire before I retired in 1995 when I had money but little time but, once I did retire, it was the other way round :) However I did have a flight in New Zealand at Omarara on S Island when I was on a cycle tour there in 1999 and it was a great experience. Sadly, that was the last time I piloted a full-size aircraft but I satisfy my aviation enthusiasm with radio control models. Much safer to walk towards my (thankfully few) crashes than struggle to climb out of one! Here, it was quite obvious things were going wrong quite early on, as is explained so well. It shows that good landings follow good approaches (with models as well as full-size). What did surprise me was that the attempt was made downwind, especially as there was a windsock to see. That's not usually the case when landing out. My instructor once landed out on a schoo lplaying field between the goal posts by side slipping - but he used to fly powered aircraft that serviced the Scottish islands - often using beaches, so he was used to tricky landings. Excellent video and kudos to the 'guilty' pilot for publishing the original video

This person has not established co-ordinated control of the glider, he is crossing controls. Timings, 1.53, left rudder, right stick. 2.36 far too much left rudder whilst apparently flying straight. Turn 3.06 nose has come up-left stick (he's turning right) + right rudder. It's a poorly coordinated turn, the nose at one point stops tracking across the horizon. 3.33, huge right rudder, left stick s adverse yaw. 3.39 over ruddering to the right. It's horrible to watch because he does not have basic control of the glider and is so uncoordinated he can't line it up with the runway. This is not a 2 seater, so he has been allowed to fly solo in a single seater. To me this looks like a supervision issue. Glad he wasn't hurt. I'm a full rated instructor, current DCFI, former Chief Flying Instructor

A nice review of this accident, glad pilot is ok. Pilots need to take soaring much more seriously in general. It requires ongoing serious training & practice, a constant brutally honest assessment and re-assessment of ones true abilities, taking others advice on ones abilities (instructor and peers), and carefully planning for maintenance of land-out skills. The USA is generally trying to avoid land outs at all costs in competition with all area tasks, and under-calling tasks in general, and not opening any tasks if any sign of risk in weather. Attendance is not increasing, it’s falling. This practice results in a less prepared herd, not increased safety as sailplanes with always need to land out. All contest and cross country pilots should be fully trained and signed off with an instructor, and reassessed every two years, by an experienced cross country and contest instructor for land outs. Sadly, that won’t happen.

Ouch.. In the end once again the main set-up factor is not flying a proper approach. One of the best pieces of advice an instructor gave me was "even in deep, never leave out the crosswind leg" that is really really good advice when outlanding, I´ve found, because it gives so much control over energy state and looking at the field from a another perspective to spot fences and hidden stuff.

This was not an outlanding. It was a landing at an airfield. The crunch is with out landings to give yourself time. Scout the field for slope, obstacles, wind, diversion options, etc first.. I remember once realising that I couldn’t stop before a fence during the flare and was able to close the brakes, hop over the fence and get stopped in the next field; not a greaser but it was safe. This field even had a wind sock. I suspect that he was trying to turn the other runway that he crossed to give himself more space, which probably would have been doable if he made the decision a little earlier. The guy was already in a very stressed state and the panic just increased when he found himself hot and high. Give yourself time and do not keep going until you run out of options, only to allow panic to set in

Looking at windsock. He was landing with a tailwind! 😉

Pilot said that there was over 2cm yes CM play on ailerons. Jeeeeesus...

Very insightful. Thank you.

I think he really wanted to hit that point at the end of the runway and totally forgot that direction mattered, too. Not aligning the path over ground with the runway made the situation even more unstructured and harder. He had to change alignment last second and screwed it up because of overwhelm. I suppose alignment was too much effort for him to take care about early and then was even more so in the end. Confusing rudder and aleron function seems a typical panic reaction. I'm not sure if he intended to slip.

5:57 see the airspeed rising as he descends to a short runway on final he can't bleed it off in ground effect in that short distance he can't run off the end.

seems like he is in pure panic and has lost proper control early on

Heya! Glad to see the content! A good club friend my family knows is taking their CFIG soon. I hope in the end I'll solo my Cirrus.

If that had been powered flight the landing would have been binned for a go around, but he was committed, too high, too fast, landing with the wind, poor circuit discipline, over controlling etc. I'm not a glider pilot my father and his buddies were and all of that flight looked scary and rushed - and I agree the guy's phone and kneepad seemed in the way. I wonder how many hours the poor guy had had and how many times he had landed out with an instructor? The blessing was that he walked away, even though he scratched the paint - thank goodness. I hope that he learned from it and such didn't put him off. Very brave of him to post it all/allow you to publish and comment etc.

Good video Tim with lots of lessons. When I first watched the flare it looked to be tipstall related roll rates especially given the nose attitude and control inputs unless a thermal was triggered in the vicinity of the right wing that caused the uncommanded left roll to begin with. Keep up the good work.

That fin art tho... mind you STR8 wouldn't have looked any better in the 'after' photo.

Many thanks. Interesting and informative as ever. I teach alpine skiing for 20 years. We talk about the stages of practice. Rather than intuitive, or second nature, we'd be looking for the student to have reached the autonomous or final stage of practice before signing off on their having acquired the relevant skill. How often do we encounter folk heading up to tackle Red or Black pistes before they have acquired the necessary skills to control line and speed of descent. It's only ever going to end one way and it's never pretty.

Really good analysis thank you. He did so much wrong he was extremely fortunate to get out without serious injury or worse. What he did RIGHT was..... to share this so that in however small a way, someone, somewhere, might avoid doing the same things wrong!

Having watched many gliding videos from the US, I was surprised that often the entry fom crosswind to final seems to be 130 to 170 deg rather than 90 deg. Meaning that there seems to be no regular standard to fly the pattern with 4 times 90 deg. Very often the pilot is flying, like here, way to close to the airfield having to do remarkable efforts to center the landing strip. Other than here, often way too low. Maybe gliding instructors in the US should be more picky in keeping a regular pattern. For flying students as well as for experienced pilots. I was tought to consider any outlanding to be a landing on a regular airflield, flying a regular pattern. That could have helped the pilot here. Inspecting the site from the air, making sure, there are no obstacles, flying a downwind, therewhile confirming the planned point of touchdown, checking the wind and altitude again and finally plan the point of entering the final. No short final, unless there is no other way. Generally speaking, the Marana Ultralight Strip could have been a perfect outlanding site. No trees, no crops, a marked landing strip, what could you ask more?

Student pilots fly very similarly - on their first five flights

He's flying a very high-performance sailplane, yet seems to be quite "ham-handed" - radically over controlling. And you are right about the cell phone on the knee - there also appears to be a notebook of some kind outboard of that left knee. I was surprised by the lack of full spoilers at touchdown and roll-out. That sailplane will fly on a whisper of a wind! Never-the-less, "Any landing you can walk away from..." Always better if the craft can fly again, though!

Great video, and excellent analysis. I am a Mechanical designer and your suggestion for the solution could Work for most of the human machine interactions!

Fear is the mind killer.

I wouldn't be surprised if the plane tried to shake him out on purpose.

Panic mode is right. He got to walk away.Loved flying gliders 80’s. THX for sharing.

Really didactical video. Thanks for it!!

From my experience flying RC, land into the wind.

Hard to believe that a glider with 20mm play in the controls would be cleared to fly, or that a pilot would try to fly it. Probably partly explains the vigorous stick movements. Pressure to fly can be very dangerous. Just recently, I was encouraged to fly my glider with no electrics - no radio, no electric vario, no nav computer - from an airfield where there were several other glider and powered aircraft flying. I pulled the glider off the line - too dangerous.

Excellent comments!

I try to make every landing at my home field a spot landing, displaced a short distance from the threshold as my trailer is usually at the end of the field (predominant wind direction). Even when I reduce spoilers to float down the field my aim point for round out (don't like the term flare) is always the target for the landing should I wish to put it down there. Out landing patterns may have to be modified but my thought is turn base and final at a desired altitudes and location to allow me to initialize/stabilize my airspeed and rate of descent well before short final. Plan the circuit early, if you find a thermal for a low save you still had a plan.

I'm curious as to why he wouldn't have chosen one of the many open fields that were clearly in view instead of such a tight place to land with all the shrubs & such a short distance. I watched his video on it & he described the runway length as 1,800 feet long but there were so many more obsticales compared to the field adjacent. While the video only shows as being shared by him 3 months ago the only other video's he shared are at least 6 years ago so this leas me to believe either he wasn't a novice or this was a much older video as lautoka63 has said.

That was rough landing, lucky he didnt flip!

Thanks Pure Glider for the videos you make. I'm not flying a glider but a paraglider. Paragliders are very similar to fly, but don't have problems with landings in the wild because we have less speed. We are actually a kind of STOL gliders. Nevertheless we follow the same rules for the landing procedures like all the other planes do (or should do). Exept we don't have a big margin to reduce our speed. So we adjust our hight above the ground by making the base leg shorter or longer. While flying the downwind leg we try to estimate the windspeed by checking our speed relative to the ground. When you always follow strictly the same procedure you get the hang to it and things get easier. I' ve got my licence in 1988.

Great analysis! As for practicing spot landings at the home field? My friends and I would have precision landing contests: wheels touch at point A, stop by point B, minimum energy, no mashing the brakes. Roll past the mark and drinks are on you!