[TVHGC Members] Stalling, Turning and Spinning

Dear All,

 

Firstly thankyou to those who have e-mailed me with your tales both directly at safety@tvhgc.co.uk and to the public forum. I won’t bombard you with a constant barrage of e-mails but I do hope you’ll hear from me regularly. Rather than leave the e-mails you’ve seen hanging there I thought I’d quickly bring together the themes we’ve seen:

 

The first theme is stalling and spinning, particularly when low down on our local ridges. In addition to the 2 tales you’ve seen I have personally witnessed 2 people spin their wings at our sites in the last year or so in almost exactly the same circumstances. In each case it was a turn, close to the hill and low down, which was tightened until the inside tip stalled. The feeling given by being close to the ground and downwind gave the false impression of airspeed and the wish to get the turn rate going led to overuse of the inside (or both) brakes (it’s a complicated picture with lots of variables). Thankfully both pilots quickly recognised the developing autorotation and went hands-up to allow the wing to fly but both pilots also ended up with a flightpath they didn’t desire afterwards and fortunately their injuries were superficial after they contacted the hill.

 

I wonder how many others out there have ended up ‘kicking the trees’ on the way round a 360 on a ridge (in the Alps or in a competition?) and taken a little bit of extra room on the next turn round? Your point is very well made, once you’re heading towards a ridge you are pretty much committed to continuing the turn and turning below or low down on any ridge should be considered an advanced manoeuvre and made with knowledge of all the factors involved.

 

And, you can never assume that one brake position will correspond to the stall point on your wing in real live air! We aim to fly in the gusts (we call them thermals) a lot of the time and have to be prepared to modify our flying style to the conditions on any given day.

 

In addition to my previous mention of checks Francis reminded us about Daily Inspections… We rely on our equipment and the state its left in so, when was the last time you checked your carbon fibre seatplate for cracks, the knots in your brakelines or the integrity of the visible stitching in the your wing (a subject close to my own heart)!?

 

Please do e-mail me directly with anything you think may be useful or of interest and thanks again to those who have already done so, I think we can prove that we do not live in a blame culture and that everyone can benefit from all forms of discussion. I’ll mail you all again in the New Year with a little about SIV training, until then have a Merry and Safe Christmas.

 

Cheers,

Nick S

safety@tvhgc.co.uk