Glider Outlanding Near Crash 💥: Instructor Reacts 

As a active glider pilot I' am happy that the pilot shared his experience through this video!

Your videos are the primary reason I even started looking into getting my gliders license. Here's to learning from others mistakes so we don't make the same ones and suffering the consequences.

Damn that was close !!! Classical stall in the last turn while overshooting.... Every pilot should watch this !

Impressive recovery. Also thanks to the pilot for sharing.

At 2:00/7:00, pilot steps into left rudder. The yaw string follows the rudder, rudder gets stuck a bit (can be scary if not trained), a few seconds later gets unstuck, helped by a little, not very decisive right rudder input (visible in the reflection of the left pedal in the canopy). Looks like a badly executed (too low, late, wrong side, indecisive) side slip, but maybe not a stall? Did he remember his airspeed at the point of the nose drop? It seems to me that close to stall speed, the wing would've dropped after the rudder input + he wouldn't flare for 500m afterwards nor be able to tell us the story... Great videos! I hope to come to NZ sometimes to fly again...

An effective way of picking bad fields and making bad outlandings is waiting until you need a field before picking one. Put in another way: if you always have a field picked out in your head, you can get on with the business of flying. This becomes critical when flying in mountains.

What i did not hear you mention here, is his decision (or lack of) to land with the wind. His chances of encountering some kind of obstacle increases dramatically with the extra meters needed to land safely and come to a stop. This was a lucky day in multiple ways.

This series of videos with incidents analysis is priceless. Great job Tim!

Thank you, Tim, for this flying situation analysis and this glider pilot for sharing this recording, that other glider pilots could learn from it. Yeap, it was a close call - this pilot was evidently lucky this day. I've noted one thing - just a second before stall pilot pressed too much left rudder/pedal, what could initiate a stall here. Not well coordinated turn on a 4th (final) turn - well-known and very dangerous pilotage mistake, which we know from many glider accident reports.

Amazing video! Two days back, a glider crashed infront of my eyes, and the pilot didn't survive that one, was just about to fly. Had my parachute on, my instructor was getting something, and then saw the glider crashing... You inspired me to go gliding, and to continue with gliding, what I'll always do!

Lucky to be just high enough to recover. A method I use to teach students an easy way to know if you are skidding or slipping in a turn is: String up toward high wing is thumbs up, good, string down toward low wing is thumbs down, bad. Coordinated is best.

Yes, I sometimes circle below 1000' AFTER I have picked my field. PS. Don't expect lift over wet ground.

The ground speed illusion is such a big factor in these situations and means he had no business thermalling at that height above The ground. Great instructional video Tim, and a very lucky pilot.

I'm learning to fly a paraglider and I find your lessons useful and informative.

Respect to the pilots who send these videos in. Thank you so much for making these videos. I'm a new student and constantly trying to learn the best practices (for decision making especially).

Mindeth thine airspeed, lest the ground cometh up and smite thee. One of the commandments of flying. Glad the pilot was ok. They are not going to make that mistake again, but what a scary lesson! Kudos for letting you share that for a teachable moment.

Great that they shared the video to help reinforce some basic XC skills. First up, more than you mentioned, I'd question their spatial awareness, specifically how the wind was already affecting this flight. As they broke off to land, they flew upwind, the direction they should have known they were going to want to land. Being aware of that would have allowed them to better orient a paddock for landing. Also, they would have been more aware of the state of those fields (lovely and muddy) and with greater spatial awareness they may not have descended to such a low decision height that would have still afforded them greater flexibility in choosing a paddock. Given the altitude they broke off at, did they even have a decent chance to do their checks? Looks like they landed with the gear down otherwise it would likely have stopped quicker, but that wasn't great management... But thankful that they got the opportunity to walk away from it and learn. It could have ended so much differently at so many points in those few minutes.

'Took a bit to get the glider out' 😃 I don't think he'd need much wheel brake !

Thank you for your expertise and to this pilot for sharing his experience. My instructor told me "experience is what you get right after you needed it." Experience may be the best teacher, but it's far better to learn from other people's experience. A minor quibble with how you phrased one thing: "By a thousand feet above the ground, you should have a specific paddock or field picked out that you can land in safely." That's a good statement except you should add *"and have a plan* for your circuit into it. You should be planning how to get to the Initial Point of the circuit." You continued: "At around 8 - 700 feet above the ground you should have your paddock in sight and be beginning your circuit into that paddock." This is another way of saying "at 8 - 700 feet above the ground you should be *at the IP and going the right direction* to make your circuit." I apologize if that's what you already mean, but it's why the quibble. For you maybe "in mind" means "with a plan" but someone could hear it and think "well I have a paddock in mind" but if it's behind them, or upwind, or unreachable for any other reason, they're not in the right place and have already failed. They are now trying to fix a problem caused by lack of planning. The whole object is to be *at the IP at the right altitude going the right direction.* This is where trying to catch a thermal close to the ground gets tricky. Suppose your intended IP is 700' above the ground, offset 1000' from the center line, entering the downwind leg at mid-field. You are at 1000' across the field. Just as you turn toward the IP you feel a thermal, so you make a few of circles. Suppose you don't make any net gain but drift downwind a several thousand feet. You can no longer get to your IP at the right altitude. You are now modifying your circuit "on the fly" to get where you intended and not on the stabilized approach you need. I have no argument with anything you said about speeds. There are other cues besides the airspeed indicator and it's good to be aware of them in case a bug decides to climb into your pitot tube. The obvious one is where the horizon intersects the canopy but close to the ground this gets tricky because hills, trees, and buildings can mask the actual horizon. Second is sound; quiet means slow. When transitioning into a new glider, pay attention to the wind noise at various speeds. Listen to what an incipient stall sounds like, and stay aware of the wind noise when close to the ground, downwind leg in particular. A third clue is how the controls feel. The controls get loose and sloppy when slow, and stiffen when airspeeds are higher. When practicing stalls in a new glider, pay attention to how "stiff" the ailerons feel at different speeds. If they are getting "loose" you are getting slow and near a stall. The caveat (of course there is one): loading up the wing in a steep bank makes the stall happen at a higher airspeed, so practice and be aware of these other cues when thermalling so you have real world experience close to the ground. So when in the pattern (outlanding or not), first have a plan and keep an eye on the airspeed indicator, but also be aware of the horizon, listen to the air, and feel the controls.

At 2:01 the pilot pushes the left rudder hard that is the "last straw" that immediately precipitates the wing drop. Earlier there is the comment that the pilot was trying to do a slip and got the rudders mixed up. Apart from the various judgement errors there are serious deficiencies in the flying skills.

Great video. The skidded turn stall is one of my critical emphasis items with students. Sharing this video with all of them.

Many good remarks have been made below. I'd like to add that circling in an attempt to find the lift that close to the ground brings significant risk of stalling and spinning up with little chance to recover before hitting the ground (happy to see the pilot to recover, though) . Especially on a gusty day like this one. So in my opinion main mistake was for them to allow for circling so low, followed by lack of awareness about wind direction and strenght (probably caused by the attempt to circle so low ) . Another thing is - I can't understand the decision of doing 180 turn for final, but I suppose it's the result of previous mistakes.

I think we need to give more praise to pilots that share these videos. Instead of being fully ashamed and trying to hide the situation, they share these videos so we can learn from their mistakes. On the other note, great analysis!

Excellent analysis, I could not expect less. For pilots who are starting, it helps them a lot. Thank you for so much professionalism.

I think that why the pilot seems to be wandering around instead of choosing a specific field to land is that he is still looking for the "crop duster strip" that is mentioned at 2:47 in the video.

Not even a glider pilot but a hang glider pilot. Your analyses and presentation is so very useful and constructive. Thanks.

Thanks Tim for a very very useful videeo.

Super scary! Glad the pilot made it! The string was pointing towards the right rudder pedal as she made that turn. At the 7:00 mark she pushes in the left pedal and the sailplane starts to bank hard left. Immediately after she let it off, as the wing started losing more lift (it seems to me) and then the string flew over to the the right pedal screaming for a correction with a hard right pedal input. But I can't see if her right foot pushes onto the right rudder, right after that, or if she just made a small right rudder correction and only pushed the nose down. Regardless, that glider seems like a forgiving machine and easy to fly. I'm a student pilot (or was) so I'm starting to forget things, but I do remember Sarah (my instructor) told me to keep an eye on the string and imagine it's an arrow pointing which pedal needs more input. Thanks for the instruction and to the pilot for sharing the video.

I love your videos for the learning - even when you are just cross coun trying, I always learn something. Many thanks

Thanks for the excellent analysis and tips. I was surprised how forgiving and quickly the sailplane recovered. No doubt some major pucker-factor on that flight, which can impede situational awareness and decision making. After having studied and practiced meditation for self-awareness, I was better able to perceive how anxiety and (Pucker Factor) effected my situational awareness, and use meditative take me to two circumvent the anxiety and improve situational awareness. Perhaps for pilots meditation might be practice worth considering.

Another important consideration is that going from into the wind to with the wind involves a turn which means the lift vector is working to both turn the aircraft and keep it in the air. Because of that, it requires more airspeed to demand a greater lift vector than if you were straight and level and just lost a 10kt headwind. You could be at 1.5x Vs (speed of stall) for straight and level flight, and still stall the aircraft if you demand more than 1.5 G's. If you pitch to maintain 1.5x Vs in the turn but demand 1.4 G's to turn, your vertical lift vector depending on the bank angle may only provide half or a third of that 1.4G's directly up and when that happens close to the ground, you get 'ground rush.' Ground rush instinctively makes you want to pull up harder which, since you're so close to your Vs speed at that level of wing loading, can easily cause you to demand more than what the wings are capable of giving you at that airspeed causing you to exceed the critical angle of attack and thus stalling the (nearly always) inside wing.

Are you a Glider Instructor? Your experience sure shows through! Thanks for the tips!!

The realisation of your position is delayed by denial as well as inadequate training. Great video.😊

I'm surprised he wasnt swearing more! Thanks for sharing, it helps to learn from other's mistakes before I get into cross country flying.

There is another affect that could have played a roll that an instructor once told me about. When you look at your wings in a turn, above about 500ft (but dependant on some other factors), the inside wing appears to be moving backward and the outside wing looks like it's moving forwards. This is an optical illusion of course. Below 500ft or so this affect changes so that both wings look like they are moving forward. Now, a pilot can mistake this for the glider not turning and one way to give you back the illusion, of the inside wing moving backwards, is to use the rudder...you see the danger here. As we often are looking out to the side of the glider at our reference point we notice this optical illusion, maybe just subconsciously, but it's there. As our final turn is usually above the altitude where the optical illusion changes, we don't have the experience the inside wing moving forward in this way.

I rhink there is also the denial factor, where people don't want to land out. Instead of committing to a landing by 500 feet agl.

There's another illusion which I have heard people describe as a reason for flying too slow close to the ground. Normally, when flying high enough above the ground in a turn, the lower wing appears to move backwards across the ground, as the ground is far away. However, when you get much closer to the ground at shallow enough bank angle, the wing now appears to move forward across the ground, which makes your brain think you are flying way too fast, and so you slow down to make the picture look normal. I'm not sure if this is a real effect or a convenient excuse...

I fly RC models and airspeed is often difficult to assess when your feet are on the ground and the aeroplane is in the air. There's a myth about the downwind turn that's all down to the fact that, though the model appears to be whizzing along (as it is - over the ground) the airspeed could be such as to induce a tip stall as you turn onto the cross wind part of a landing circuit. It's happened to me a few times but, fortunately, I'm able to walk towards the wreckage rather than struggle to get out of it - at best! I did a gliding course in Derbyshire a few years back and had a glorious flight in the morning with the instructor. In the afternoon he couldn't make it back to the field and had to land out. Unfortunately the usual filed were full of parked cars belonging to people spectating to watch a Lancaster fly over the Derwent dams in tribute to the WW2 Dambusters so he chose a school football pitch and side-slipped the glider down between the goal posts. I know I'm not your target audience but I really enjoy your analysis. The last time I flew in a glider was in NZ when I was on a cycle tour of SI back in 1999.

Some very good lessons here, Tim. Thanks for sharing. This looks like it was just north of Williams in California, but I may be wrong?

This is a fantastic video - thank you. That stall shows how easy it can happen. . I am thinking of putting a tell-tale on the side of my canopy to show my angle of attack (as a constant reminder particularly for landing). Also I have just bought the lxNav AirSpeed errr (they don't call it an indicator). You can set the true stall speed (at altitude, stall the glider and then press a button). In this way it knows your glider's specific stall speed and as you near the stall speed there will be a voice call out, "Stall, stall, stall". . I have this belief that we are all capable of making a "brain fart" and it could kill us. I believe I should have a few more belts and braces (in the form of electronics) for the moment I may make a 'brain fart'.

Definitely a pilot under stress who lacked situational awareness resulting in very late field selection, or complete lack thereof. The stall at that angle could easily have resulted in a spin and we are very lucky these days to be flying modern A/C that are so docile and don’t drop a wing viciously. It’s very fortunate it all ended okay with no more than a hard learned lesson for the pilot. Well done for sharing.

Another top video from my favorite youtooba

👍 AWESOME - very useful video . thanx🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺😁😁😁

Rule of thumb, the closer you land out to your Airfield the harder the retrieve.

Not a glider but a private pilot here with a question.... Is this a scenario where the pilot found himself just running out of thermals and that's why he isn't somewhere near a glider landing field? Or is this a normal thing to just go head out into the beautiful sky and put her down wherever you end up?

That yaw string!

In that turn to the left with the steep bank angle, there are multiple factors that might contribute to a stall. One factor I think could have been that the left (low) wing will be flying with a higher AOA and therefore more likely to be the wing to stall first. This is from the rotation along the longitudinal axis rolling into the left turn and the left wing descending. The stall speed also increases in the banked turn, and as you mentioned turning downwind is likely a factor as well where there was likely a loss of airspeed.

I have a landing screen on my LX 9070. It has only three items from top to bottom: airspeed, AGL , and wind, which includes a wind arrow and wind speed. They are as large as I can make them. Interestingly, the AGL, which is based on GPS altitude and the LX map seems to be very accurate, within 30 or 40 feet. I thought it would be much further off. I still depend on an experienced and a calibrated eyeball for the height. This very simple screen has all you need when landing, perhaps the most stressful few minutes in a flight. (Except perhaps when you push the start button on a motorglider). Your recommended decision altitudes are spot on for a normal glider, a few hundred more for a gas motorglider or jet.

Almost made it back to Williams, CA (CN12).

I wonder if the vast array of landable fields actually confused the pilot as to his final choice. Changing your mind at the last minute is not safe when you have but one go at sticking your airplane back on land in one piece. Like in NZ, in France we have a system for managing Xcountry flying. top third of the day's ceiling : you're golden, race between those clouds. middle third : start thinking about taking the less explosive thermals to get back up to the top. bottom third : you are now trying to survive, find something to get you back up, and have a field selected in advance. Stick with your choice once it's made. I had an outlanding during a competition recently, and while all was safe, it pretty much had to be given that I had just about enough height to fly my base and final legs. I should have picked a field earlier and give myself time to analyse it.

TBH it looked like pilot was doing a quick slip on final and just did not hold the nose up. This is quite natural behaviour of most gliders. Stalling mid slip would have ended badly, I saw no evidence of it. Angle of attack looked way too small IMO.

Does ground effect make big difference, with 10 knots of wind adding or subtracting from your relative velocity?

well said

thx

FES should become a standard for gliders. Like the parachut.

You must never stall. Unless you do it on purple, and be aware stalling and spinning means losing control. You cannot steer away anymore.

Incredibly scary incident! His biggest mistake that Im surprised you didnt mention is the steep turns he decided to make that close to the ground. During flight training its emphasized how angle of bank increases your stall speed substantially. A Cessna 172 that stalls at 48 KT in level flight will stall at 67 KTS at a 60 degree bank. Thats a 41% increase in stalling speed! Once you get that close to the ground and close to the stalling speed of your aircraft (no matter what youre flying) you NEED to avoid sharp turns and put the aircraft on the ground. Of course this whole incident could have been avoided had he realized his sink rate was too high and chose a location to land earlier.

Already 🫶🏾 the channel, God Bless.

A reasonable field selected early is a much better proposition than a better field selected late. Applies to powered aircraft force-landing just as much as gliders. Thermalling under 800' is a mugs game. Yes you may get away with it a few times, but one day it'll lead to late decisions, pressured decision-making, poor-choices and technique and a bent glider - or worse.

I almost stopped watching because of the missing "how's it going?" after the compulsory "Hi RU-vid"... ;) Joke, excellent video as always, Tim - thanks!

How the pilot could evaluate the wind direction from that altitude?

It should be a DG-300, I recognize the canopy attachment and instruments mushroom

Is circleling over wet ground - is that clever? Late descision to land but a lot of luck.

What's that green stuff in the nose of the glider? Algae?

is that Williams California he was flying from?

Looks like Fenland!

That charecteristic pinched nose and feet right in the nose seem to indicate DG?, did he have flap in that 'slip' turn? Spoilers? I wonder if the design of that ship was a factor negative or positive in this incident.

Not to judge, but inputting the incorrect rudder to slip is so basic of a mistake it begs what this pilot was thinking. Im glad he is alright. But this is like, not even worth discussing other than to say go practice uncoordinated stalls/spin entries and then practice hard slips and stalls, and see how in a slip the stall does not become a spin immediately. Its quite benign.

How are we supposed to take this seriously with those cuts from the yaw string video?

Some wise spirit guided their hands and feet in the last few seconds, phew!

Seems good on the pilot that despite weak decision making, s/he had the presence of mind to dive into the stall, _despite_ the low altitude. I puckered up at that point! Whew- exemplary! The ever-modulated narrator only explained the pilot's behind-the-curve status kind of obliquely near the end. I spent most of the video assuming it was due to inexperience (expectation bias!) so the lesson on this point, while clear might've been stronger if this was mentioned earlier. Not mentioned (and I'll go back and listen better,) but might the pilot have spent more time in the mild thermal just to take the opportunity to make a landing decision? Seems a missed opportunity to catch up with the flight....

Sounds like a skid rather than a slip could also have played into this.

@pure glide: Why did you erase all the comments about the „downwind-turn-myth“ ?

If you're going 50kts IAS in still air and start a turn, you'll be doing 50kts IAS after turning 180°. but if you're doing 50kts IAS into a 10kts headwind and you make the same control inputs, after 180° will your airspeed now be 30kts? I think I need someone with a physics degree to explain how the kinetic energy works in that situation

Speed is life ….

What’s a peddik?

They are all rice fields I reckon looking at the drain network and checks in all of them.

Totally perfect teaching, but ass glider not going to take for granted

A slip was not necessary, if the pilot had done a proper field picking early enough and a proper landing circuit. It was pure luck he did not damage the glider by landing in a ditch between fields.

Possibly too many choices of where to land!

4:55 I'm gonna be honest. An overabundance of paddocks can lead to information overload and inability to choose ONE. 8:25 also, we should always reference inertial energy. When you turn from into the wind to away from the wind the glider is carrying low energy and must trade altitude to return to the required energy state with the tail wind. Think of it as a ball changing direction in flight - it takes energy to make this change in ground speed. If you turn from downwind to upwind you get a small increase in perceived performance because of the high ground speed being traded to a low ground speed. Think of a pendulum being swung. Once we made an approach in a hurricane, winds right down the runway. ATC gave us a vector straight into the wind and 160kts airspeed. Our groundspeed? 20kts. They then gave us a turn down wind - this was a rather exciting maneuver. We had to apply max power to make the turn. Our ground speed went from 20kts to 300kts!!!!! You could feel the incredible acceleration, yet the airspeed decreased as we turned downwind. This was in a much heavier aircraft than a glider (LoL) but the principle applies all the same, as always. The glider airspeed is lost as you turn downwind, this is why birds like to turn into the wind before attempting to flap their wings, as one last lazy shot at not having to work. When they turn downwind they almost always need to flap their wings to account for the lost airspeed and gain of ground speed. Matter of fact - this is how modern airliners can predict windshear. They monitor ground speed vs airspeed trends and apply a factor with the G force of decel or accel. Cool tricky wiz-bang stuff. But it makes sense. If the accelerometer is shower increase in inertial speed, but airspeed is dropping: windshear. Every time we turn downwind is a windshear in terms of total inertial energy.

Wet fields, and no sun no fun.

The video mentions that the pilot tried to slip, but ended up pushing on the wrong rudder. I found this video about slips and skids useful in my powered flying. I hope it translates to gliders ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RKfG3lWCZ80.html

every landing in condor

What could happen on landing the glider that the pilot ran to air pocket and drop to the ground like brick ! Happen to my friend and spent three weeks in hospital ! No fun at all !👎

Below a 1000 ft and still not executing a circuit?! Just plain... how to put it lightly... not smart.

First!

WTF is a 'pidock'?

so long curvces to the right side - - - -too much - - - aaand go away from that buildings - -boah eehh - - - - - - - -- - - so much free area - -