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Years ago I almost got hit by a tow aircraft pulling a glider. He had ignored my calls that I was in the pattern, and several minutes later he finally called back asking if I was still in the air around the field. He was completely unaware that he had almost hit me.

thanks for sharing. I'm a novice glider pilot with about 120 hrs. I fly flatlands and was quite uncomfortable how low you were above the ridge, and how far the paddocks were compared to your position and height. Do you think you could have done a proper circuit for landing? Thanks for sharing, I learnt much from your videos.

Isn’t there a better design where you can get out clear of the machine to parachute down…

Spoilers deployed. I towed a B4 to 3000 feet with an L19. I pointed at the wings of the L19 trying to get the B4 pilot to realize what was up. The glider almost beat me down to the ground. On downwind, the gear was retracted and he landed on the belly.

The spin is to the LEFT and the yaw string is also defected to the LEFT. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

I commend your effort to be objective in order to improve, but I must point out that the whole flight reeks of carelessness. The near miss incident at the beginning of the flight, not knowing the airfield better, the low altitude over the mountains, the too low exit from the ridge, too low over the tree line. It's like one thing after another. Perhaps overconfidence? I very much agree with your statement that the trouble started well before the harrowing landing approach, but it was in your attitude toward the flight more than anything else.

Never die in an fugly glider

What we can determine from this video is that you should never get to know the OP as you will meet an untimely death, regardless of what you do.

More margins make you powerful.

I’m a glider student pilot following your channel. I have been paragliding for many years and was used to hear the vario beeping while thermaling. Unfortunately In the club where I’m learning to fly they don’t use audio variometers. I was looking for some portable audio variometers to pair with mobile phone apps. The only ones I found on internet are paraglider’s varios like “XC Soar miniV (XC Soar-Swiss) or “Bip Bip Pro V2 (Stodeus-France) but I guess they are not “total energy compensated” so I was wondering if they could be useful for thermaling in a glider. Do you have any recommendations? Thanks a lot for your help and for sharing your skill and passion

Here in the Czech Republic, full training one the glider costs 1600 - 2400 Euro. There are many aero clubs, sport flying has a great tradition here. :-)

There was a HUD system in the 80's for sailplanes, far better than looking down into a cockpit for info.................. don't know why it wasn't developed or caught on............

God what a shit vibe.

52 years of continuous hang gliding I have seen the passings of fellow flyers, read and have heard the sad stories. All of which gives me puss for thought and refreshed my personal analyzing of all actions one can take away to reinforce one’s own focus on getting back down safely from aloft. Once one starts the roll or off down the ramp we set immediately the actions to pay close attention’s to to have to have a happy outcome. I think it’s called flight plan. ….. living the dream so far

too many screams in the cockpit.

Why not just stick a emergency parachute in the back that can deploy like some small planes have

If I were targeting a plane on the ground for destruction, would it take more effort to repair the aircraft if I deto nated abo mb inside the cockpit, or inside an engine. The cockpit would be a nightmare to repair and rewire, but if you took out an engine, it's not going anywhere. On the other hand, I assume ground crews take off engines all the time to service and rebuild them, and aren't so outfitted to totally retrofit a destroyed to a crispy critter cockpit...

Well done and objective video. Having survived a single engine general aviation crash, I am always interested in views about all kinds of flying. I have not flown in a general aviation aircraft since my crash in 1987. Not sure I ever will. But I support anyone who's passion is flying and understand the risks they are taking.

The U.S. glider accident rate is about 4x that of powered general aviation flight.

The bucket hat you wore in the intro

Where did you get that bucket hat?

hands up, is anybody still looking out of the cockpit ? Seriously, in cars mobiles are prohibited for a good reason and now we see gliders equipped sometimes with 2 mobile phones displaying all kinds of information. In most cases you actually have to scroll through the data or are inclined to do so. This is an enormous distraction source and takes away time where we can't see other gliders joining the thermal etc. We can't turn back this trend. Gliding is turning more and more technical, thermals get more and more crouded because everybody wants to join the biggest thermal popping up in weglide copilot.

Not related to this video. But a request: it would be fun to have you do a walkaround your own 18 m glider. Showing all the bells and whistles explaining why you selected them and giving advice. 😊

This happened to me once as a tow pilot. As soon as I ran out of elevator authority, I released. I didn't wait for the the nose to actually drop substantially.

I flew in a much simpler time (1985-1997). No GPS, no Ipad, no LCD displays. I think it was a case of less tech more fun.

if i land on a 1km runway and i need 100m, i can frigging go 800m later. but if i learnt all your stuff my head would explode. i was 16 and did all this by heart at first time. what should happen with all the knowledge? it hidners thinking and common sense. but i must admit, people nowadays have less common sense, so they need all that.

why cant the tow plane release the rope itself if things get out of hand? I dont wanna be a tow pilot who gives his life in the hands of a flying newbie

❤Hi If my car stalls I try to start it up. Like why did he not try to start it. Omg I think I got it you have to manual turn the prop to start this motor. Yes or no. Really should have a starter on it

Boxing the Wash! Lack of control of by both gliders pilots.

I’m thinking an AC-4 Russia would be an excellent first glider as far as crash worthiness after seeing this. That layup wouldn’t be out of place on a heavy displacement cruising boat!

This is one of the most frightening aviation videos I have ever seen!

Enjoy!

Great video. Do you have suggestions for clubs that want to avoid the suction cups?

Always good insights Tim. More a fan of KISS method (keep it simple stupid). Just started using See You Nav. App. This Saturday just moments before launch and tapping start/record… return msg. - “acquiring GPS…”. Never did connect. 😢. Elec. vario & airspeed worked just fine😁. If i could; I’d choose just one in panel cpu - HAWK s100 vario.! Plus smartphone app… done

whole video could take 2 mins, you are sooooo slow, omfg!

100% pure commercial. And none of the accidents as described had anything to do with being found and rescued in time.

On a rainy day or early in my season, being able to see where and how people are flying gliders, has turned soaring into a spectator sport. What is the time lag for displaying OGN and ADSB traffic? A Powerflarm with an Air Avionics Air Traffic Display (ATD) provides real time information and collision warnings for gliders and 1090 Mhz ADSB targets. PowerFlarm ignores US 978 MHz ADSB targets, but the ADT will merge inputs from Powerflarm and a 978 ADSB-in receiver on one simple schematic style screen.

Thanks for skweeezing in the time to make this video in your otherwise fully booked schedule. After all, that hammock does not keep a stable movement in the air, by it self. 👍

Interesting take on having more screens! I like it. What I get stressed about is when I see video's of guys with lots of mounts and cords going everywhere. So I would suggest be careful that nothing gets tangled in the controls! I didn't have that problem when I flew gliders. A camera was about the only thing you had to mount - yes I'm that old!

Every pilot needs to find out how much information he needs for himself. It's also dependent on how much experience one has. A fresh pilot is best off just having a small glide computer (LX8080 or something), when you become more experienced, the flying doesn't use up as much mental capacity as before, so you have time to look at information on an LX9000 and your phone/glide computer for example. I personally fly with Weglide Copilot on my phone and have an LX9000 in the gliders I fly. I have all the information I need while still looking outside most of the time!

Need some kind of tablet rolodex or lazy susan. 😎

As a new tow pilot, I really appreciate this video as a learning opportunity.

Great video, Tim (and very jealous as I sit here watching biblical UK rain) and I completely agree with all your points. To have ALL the information YOU need to complete whatever task you are doing, immediately accessible, is the most important factor. So many near-misses such a tug upsets, are a result of folk fiddling with the electronics when they should be concentrating on the task in hand. I fly with an LX9000 and maybe one day I’ll get to grips with all it can do. I fly with it so infrequently as I do so much other gliding-related flying such as instructing and examining (not to mention my day job of being an airline pilot), I just don’t have the time or capacity to properly learn it. So I have it set up to give me what I NEED and maybe one day I’ll actually learn what it can actually do for me. Enjoy your holiday!

Min speed for banking angle????

Less is more, keep it simple. Look out the window!

I had a competition flight over ten years ago in a borrowed aircraft, where all the electronics slowly failed individually in very irritating and concentration-zapping ways, whilst getting pretty low in a nasty headwind. When I finally made the decision to just flick off the master switch completely and carry on with just steam instruments, map and Mk1 eyeball it became a blessed relief, and actually enjoyable again. I still came just over mid-way down the pack. I do love the ease of flying with all the info available on a well set-up and connected Oudie or 9000 size screen, but it is all very manageable without, using just feel, knowledge and use of traditional techniques, and only a little bit slower.

Wise words as always. Electronic devices are tools to aid the pilot and are not meant to be a substitute for good piloting skills. What's the most important instrument in the cockpit? The human brain. Use it effectively and you'll never go wrong.

Demonstrating this with a student is rather tricky. Windsocks are dead so why so much sideslip? I daresay that glider needs a takedown, fuselage upended to check for stress cracks and depending on what's found, either reassembled or repaired. Believe me, been there more than a couple of times with our aging Grobs....Assisting our resident airplane mechanic who was trained in glassfibre repair was a big eye opener. Little cracks can be hard to find.....Hull insurance will partly cover the repairs but not for the downtime in a commercial operation.

man, when i was a pupil and age 17 it got serious (we go to school till 20 here), i really wouldnt have made such a sloppy presentation. "well the more screens you have, the more info you have. surely, we must all break taht down, but somehow: the preservation of common sense in society is lost, by repeating all basic and ever true facts. just my thoughts.

I'm smiling right now as I remember the old people who used to talk about walking miles in the snow to get to a one room schoolhouse. And now I am one of those old folks (sometimes called "your Elders") remembering one flight when for some reason only my altimeter and ASI worked; no vario and NO screens (didn't even exist then). Very few clouds that day and yet I flew for three hours when the proverbial 'seat of your pants' and 'wingtip' varios still worked.