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myWindow.document.write ("Right click on this, then reload or refresh to open a black and white for a printout.
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myWindow.document.write ("Below there are comments on matters of safety from the DFHGC Chairman, Safety Officer and two very experienced club members
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myWindow.document.write ("1st Note from John Martin : DFHGC Safety Officer
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myWindow.document.write ("There is an argument that, post CP rating, any pilot should be able to make his own decisions about where and when to fly. This statement is frequently supported by the argument : if you need to ask – you shouldn’t fly. Both are good rhetorical statements – but without help and advice, solicited or otherwise a novice pilots progress will be frustratingly slow or potentially calamitous. Asking questions - no matter how simple, helps to build confidence in having made a good decision and helps to prevent making the poor ones…
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myWindow.document.write ("As regards reverse inflations it’s important to always turn the same way 'body memory' – so the risers on top should be the ones that start from the same side of the glider 'as if you are facing forward' as the direction you are going to turn. I always turn to my left so the wings left risers are always on top.
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myWindow.document.write ("I consider a new pilot should first master how to de-power the glider and put it safely back on the ground and then work on centring and regaining control of the wing after an asymmetric inflation. Should you feel on your return to flying you’d like some help in rebuilding your confidence at TO or extending your skills please ask. I won’t beat the drum about the importance of good GH skills.
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myWindow.document.write ("John.
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myWindow.document.write ("2nd Note from Gary Rothery : DFGHC Chairman
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myWindow.document.write ("I was amazed,when at Crete Rd ,that pilots were asking for back ups incase they cocked up and their wings went into the fence.It was blowing 20 mph and I couldn't work out why they didn't go down the hill a little bit. An extract from Pikey's thoughts.
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myWindow.document.write ("I remember reading advice along the lines of: if it is too windy at the top of a hill then - it is too windy and you shouldn't take off. I understand the spirit of this and would agree with it when the top of a hill is a large unobstructed area. However, Crete Rd. is not one such. In most circumstances it is the proximity of the barbed wire that poses the threat even within safe wind speeds for flying. My personal preference is: if the wind is 'lively' then it is sensible to take off well down the hill away from the fence. On the day of John's accident I laid out my canopy on thelevel ground of the footpath 1/2 way down the slope. This allowed the canopy to remain uninflated in the wind-shadow whilst I completed my preparations. This can be very difficult when the canopy is on the slope and it tries to inflate all the time. It makes a calm and thorough pre-flight set-up almost impossible.
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myWindow.document.write ("When it is quite windy there is not really a risk of failing to get lift once you are in the air and so I think that I would recommend others to consider this option even if it seems a little less macho than toughing it out and laughing in the face of higher risk options. ps. I know that this doesn't apply to Peter's accident which occurred after the wind had moderated from earlier and seemed within safe limits for a slope take off.
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myWindow.document.write ("This is not intended to encourage anybody to take off when it is too windy - I just hope that it might help pilots who, like me, wish to minimize anxieties about poor ground handling skills and yes, of course I should.
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myWindow.document.write ("Gary.
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myWindow.document.write ("3rd Note from Tim Pike : DFGHC Flying Member
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myWindow.document.write ("I dont agree with the bit if you have to ask you shouldn't fly.I still ask pilots if i'm flying new hills or if i've just arrived on a site and pilots have been flying for a while i will ask about conditions. But then ,yes , it's up to you to decide.
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myWindow.document.write ("I was amazed ,when at Crete Rd ,that pilots were asking for back ups incase they cocked up and their wings went into the fence.It was blowing 20 mph and i couldn't work out why they didn't go down the hill a little bit .My advice was if you need a back man don't inflate.
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myWindow.document.write ("Notices on our sites informing all pilots of the site rules , ceiling height and any other rules that might apply to our sites . Not just for our club members but for any visiting pilot , a laminated sign should suffice.I still believe that our sites are quite hard to fly , look small but can bite your nuts.Easy to fly in the perfect conditions but can change so quickly and get as rough as crap very quickly - so be very aware .
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myWindow.document.write ("I dont want to go on to long but just be very aware of the Warren , it says in the sites guide CP plus cliff experience.You need much more experience for this site , to all pilots CP plus 20 hours and defo no red ribbons. I dont want to spend the summer worrying about how much experience pilots have and asking questions , if you are new to our sites , book the day with a club coach and get him a few bears at the end of the day .Honest , he wont mind.
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myWindow.document.write ("Pikey(Delboy)
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myWindow.document.write ("4th Note from Ade Leppard : DFGHC Flying Member
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myWindow.document.write ("I feel the urge to contribute to this, mainly in the interests of everyone's safety. I've managed to get away with 10 years of flying without major injury so far, although I've been close and I also recognise that the odds are stacking up against me!
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myWindow.document.write ("Firstly can I wish you the best of recovery Peter and also thank you for your willingness to contribute to this forum in such an honest and open manner. In my world we de-brief all the time. Thats where real learning comes from but it needs an approach such as your's Peter for others to gain from it also. THANK YOU.
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myWindow.document.write ("I agree with Pikey on all points. Admittedly I am a very cautious pilot so here's my tips. You don't have to follow them and I should stress they are more broadly focussed on windy days not just the issues surrounding Pete's launch, which quite frankly could happen to any of us. I've had a few dodgy ones but I've been lucky!
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myWindow.document.write ("1# You should ALWAYS ask whenever you fly. Try to find someone who has just landed and ask them what its like in the air. I do that almost without fail. At very least ask someone who's been at the site a few hours, what the wind/flying's been like.
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myWindow.document.write ("Linked story - I was at Caburn last weekend a round topped hill. I don't fly it much and it was a little windy. I watched and asked and being satisfied that the air was good I tried to launch on the lip of the hill and had trouble bringing the wing up straight until a local pilot told me that the lip is the worst place to try and launch. Go higher or lower he said, but not here. He was right I should have figured this out myself and after a trouble free launch I had a great couple of hours in the air. (I should have asked more than I did!)
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myWindow.document.write ("2# Never be the FIRST TO FLY. There will always be someone more experienced than you or who has a lower risk threshold. Let them launch and fly. Watch their wing on launch and in the air and most importantly the pitch of the pilot/harness. If it looks lumpy when your watching them up there you can bet its worse in the actual harness!
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myWindow.document.write ("Linked Story - In Algo last week I was flying with a group of very experienced pilots. It was windy and a little gusty and my hackles were up. I didn't even get my kit out of the bag By the way thats a good tip on its own to stop yourself getting sky suck. The most experienced pilot with 20 years as an instructor launched and within seconds got into real difficulty. His wing was trashed, he was accelerated upward and backward and all over the place. Regardless of his experience I was really fearful for his safety for a full ten minutes until he managed to get himself out of the situation, regain control and land.Needless to say no one else flew that day!
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myWindow.document.write ("3# Learn to assess launch sites and in particular relevant to this discussion about windy days learn to judge which sites are going to be more forgiving. Normally small launch sites and those with sheer drop off's add an element of risk to the normal launch. By the way - launching and landing carry the bulk of all accidents. Strong wind on those sites increases the risk level dramatically, so in simple terms a small sites can be benign in low wind conditions but can carry the higest risk when the wind picks up or is gusty.
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myWindow.document.write ("4# Always wait 30 mins at site before launching to find the rhythm of the weather. Its seldom static. Strong wind days always carry a risk. There will inevitably be gusts either caused by dynamic wind strength change or thermals. This is just as important on low wind days when you need to establish the rhythm of the thermals often about every 15 - 20 mins to launch INTO them. On windy days you want to launch OUT of the them or not all if the gusts are much stronger than the underlying wind strength. It can be easy to launch in the lull of the rhythm of the wind but you don't want to be up there wishing you were down there.. You're senses pick up over time and with experience, but we all have them from the outset and they're usually a pretty good indicator of risk. LISTEN TO THEM.
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myWindow.document.write ("Linked story : At Coombe last month it was too windy to fly but occasionally the wind dropped. It also occasionally gusted. My hackles were up and I waited for an hour. While I waited a 2/3 wing took off. The pilot flew relatively easily in the wind although he also got pinned a couple of times. After about 45 mins the wing took a big collapse and then cascaded resulted in the pilot throwing his reserve which unfortunately didn't open in time. He was injured and we arranged for helicopter recovery to hospital.
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myWindow.document.write ("5# Practice your ground handling. Mine's crap and I know it. The best answer is to get your skills up and John Martin's the best champion I know for this. I hope he won't mind me saying that he has spent days doing nothing but GH and is an example to us all of what we should be doing. There are some great tips for stronger wind launches such as holding the A's in one hand and D's in another to bring the wing up more slowly. Outside of this you need to honestly understand your own level of skill at launching, thermalling, landing etc. My GH's poor so I take a great deal of care to consider where I launch in stronger winds. John I'd like some coaching also please....I'll swop it for some 'how to fly tandem XC' coaching... which I know you don't need anyway!!
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myWindow.document.write ("6# Know when to land and what to look out for when you do. I try to monitor wind strength and direction all the time when I'm flying. You can do this by watching the wind sock on launch or if abroad/near sea by watching indicato rs such as white crests on the sea or smoke stacks, but the best method I use is my GPS ground speed. I probably check this every 5mins when I'm flying.If my ground speed drops to less than 5-6km when I'm into wind I'm starting to get twitchy and if that doesn't improve over the next 10-15 mins I'm on my way to land. If you're going to land in strong wind pick a spot a long LONG way from anything that can cause rotor even if it means landing down the hill or away from the normal top/bottom landing spots and be ready to run back into your wing regardless of how good you are at collapsing it.
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myWindow.document.write ("Linked stories : I've landed going 5km backwards after flying xc from Mt Babadag in Olu Deniz. I got cloud suck i.e enjoying the thermals as I was going XC but ignored the rapidly increasing ground speed as the valley wind picked up. If I had managed to stay high and got across the valley it would have been ok cloudbase is actually a very safe place to be but I was never high enough and should have reacted earlier to the conditions. Fortunately I landed OK I picked an enormous field but my decisions were poor and I was lucky.
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myWindow.document.write ("In Spain five years ago I was flying XC with a bunch of pilots when the wind picked up and the thermals were punchy. We weren't high enough again and had to land. One pilot went down into a large building site. He was rotor'd landing and unfortunately broke his back and is now in a wheelchair.
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myWindow.document.write ("I'm not wishing to spread too many sad stories and I realise over the years that I've been lucky, but could have learned more if people such as Peter had shared more experiences with me. I've also spent time thinking about every accident I've witnessed and I've seen a few and figured out that virtually every one could have been prevented by the decisions of the pilot. Not the fast time regaining control of a collapsed wing decisions, but the slow time decisions of whether to fly, where to fly, route decisions and when/where to land etc. It is helps just one person once then I'll be really pleased.
I'm not wishing to spread too many sad stories and I realise over the years that I've been lucky, but could have learned more if people such as Peter had shared more experiences with me. I've also spent time thinking about every accident I've witnessed and I've seen a few and figured out that virtually every one could have been prevented by the decisions of the pilot. Not the fast time regaining control of a collapsed wing decisions, but the slow time decisions of whether to fly, where to fly, route decisions and when/where to land etc. If this helps just one person once then I'll be really pleased.
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myWindow.document.write ("My final strapline : If you're not sure, you're probably right. You can always fly tomorrow.
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myWindow.document.write ("Ade.
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myWindow.document.write ("Thanks to John,Gary,Tim and Adrian for their input above to help oldies and newbies alike to enhance and widen the safety margins to this great sport we love so much.
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