Kite Strings

Ok I was wrong (some time ago now).
One busted wrist later. I want to know all about wheels, wheel landings what's good, what's bad, what surfaces you can get away with, landing techniques, wheel sizes. Everything please.

I always fly with 5" wheels but only to help with mishaps. I am considering getting some 8" - 10" pneumatics for landing.
Convince me.

Oh crap. With all the scum out there what really deserves it, one of the rare good guys gets it this time. Fervent hopes that within some number of months, a year, this will be pretty much only an unpleasant memory.

As rabid a wheels advocate as I am I can't really speak from experience - I didn't figure out that foot landings were nothing but dangerous bullshit until shortly before the end of my career. And then I still did them 'cause I didn't wanna slide in on my harness and I was too lazy to get it retrofitted with skid plates. Virtually all of my wheel and belly landings occurred in situations in which they were my only options.

And I really can't tell you anything you don't already know. Damn near every design issue in our game is a trade-off - drag/weight versus effectiveness. And no sane pair of wheels you put on a glider is gonna be able to handle all halfway sane landing surfaces - dry sand, waterlogged or freshly plowed fields, rough stuff.

We're playing the numbers here. We can't do 100.000 percent in non ideal circumstances. But if I were gonna do things over...

I flew with eight inch pneumatic Finsterwalders fixed outboard on my round tubing speedbar when my intent was to virtually always foot land / only to help with mishaps. I think that's a good middle ground on the drag, weight / effectiveness continuum. (And make sure the valve stems...

...are oriented outboard.)

When you CAN land on the wheels land on them.

If the surface to which you're committed is iffy... Fuck, do a foot landing. Just don't PRACTICE doing foot landings on good surfaces - that's where and how everybody's getting hurt. (And that - correct me if I'm wrong - is where and how you got hurt.)

More effective wheels - crappier performance but fewer dangerous foot landings.
Less effective wheels - better performance but more dangerous foot landings.
Anything that rolls or skids is better than anything that doesn't roll or skid.

That strategy, I predict, will drop the odds of a reasonably competent pilot getting seriously hurt on landing and, for that matter, in overall flying, in the course of a career to zilch.

Techniques...

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At Kitty Hawk Every Day One, Flight One student I ever had with enough feel for the glider to ignore my landing instructions rolled in instinctively and perfectly - just the way I did on Day One, Flight One at the same place. Burn it down to the surface, round out, skim, wait for it to stop flying.

First active Kite Strings contributor seriously hurt in the course of our three year plus near eight month history. Oh well, at least it was for a predicted reason.

Dang, Mike! I'm real sorry to read that you busted your wrist. I sure do hope the damage isn't too severe and that it heals up good.

Did you get a prognosis from the Doctor on this?

Steve Davy wrote:Dang, Mike! I'm real sorry to read that you busted your wrist. I sure do hope the damage isn't too severe and that it heals up good.

Did you get a prognosis from the Doctor on this?

A small chance of flying again in 2014, but I'll be fine once healed.
I've a wager with another injured flyer. A race to recovery to the first XC.
His injury is worse than mine but he's a more talented XC pilot so I guess we are about evens. Something to aim for.

If I'm honest my biggest worry is the mental thing. I can't be flying anxious about the landing, no fun at all.

Relieved to hear the prognosis. Any amusing anecdotes regarding your competitor and how he got himself in that class?

I was anxious about every single light and/or switchy air foot landing I ever made - with excellent reason. A huge percentage of them were failures of varying degrees of severity.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27415
Friday the 19th with Hawks & Friends!

NMERider - 2012/10/24 21:47:05 UTC

I have to say that landing on the wheels is so much fun it's not funny.

No fun at all.

"Any amusing anecdotes regarding your competitor and how he got himself in that class?"

A fellow '70s flyer XCs a lot and talks sense, good enough for me.

No amusing anecdotes but I will add one of my own on the subject of injuries.
This is a true story.

After a day's flying I loaded my glider on the car and in doing so I twisted my back. Nothing serious but a bit painful.
It was getting dark and while a bit preoccupied with my back I walked straight into the part raised tailgate of my car. (Come on we've all done it).
The drive home was a bit uncomfortable and on arrival it was completely dark with no one at home.

Hobbling about and in some pain the first thing I was greeted with on my kitchen floor was a pile of sick courtesy of my cat, just what I needed.

Ok, spilt milk and all that. A deep breath and into the scullery to get something to clean up the mess.
As I switched on the light the bulb popped. By now this was all getting a bit silly but I plodded on and attempted to change the bulb.

In the semi dark and standing on a chair I found because by back was killing me I could only reach up with one hand. Ever tried changing a light bulb with one hand? I managed to get the old one out but unfortunately dropped it smashing it on the hard floor, something else to clear up.

The finally to this story happed while trying to fit the new bulb.
One handed again and while reaching up the bulb slipped from my grasp hitting me metal side on my forehead, this caused me to jump off the chair and, in my bare feet, crush down on the glass of two broken light bulbs.
Swearing like a London docker I hopped back into my kitchen and, forgetting all about the cat sick, I slipped on the slime cracking my head on a kitchen unit.

My wife arrived home shortly after to find me flat on the floor in a pile of cat sick with bleeding feet, a bleeding head and the impression of a 100w light bulb stamped on my forehead!

Sure none of that happened while you were in pursuit of one of these?:

What landing option would you choose?

The day is thermic with a wind speed of 8mph a bit gusty but assessed as not too bad.

Rape seed is a crop you don't want to be messing with at any cost being about 5' tall and made from Velcro.

The crop on the other side of a long, rough grass runway is about 2'6" high managed by a super tolerant farmer, someone we do out best to keep happy.

The runway is a bit more than 2 wingspans wide.

The glider is a good performing kingposted design with 5" wheels.

This is what you've got. The decision to fly has already been taken and you are at 250' with the windsock showing the 45% crosswind.

(The graphic is a clear demonstration of my artistic talent.)

I'd be concerned about turbulence generated by the rapeseed crop. Lee side stuff scares me silly (don't ask). So I would probably land in the wheat while keeping both hands on the control tube, and belly land as slow as possible straight into the wind.

Did I live?

P.S. That was 63 topics and 6363 posts 'till I screwed that up.

Hate to say it but that looks like a pretty good excuse for the classic narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place no stepper. Hopefully you're not describing the setup in which you broke your wrist (but you probably are).

Let's make up north. I think I'd do a fast skim to the north at the west edge of the wheat / east edge of the runway, turn a bit when I was too low to overshoot and split the difference between the wind and the runway (NNW), flare the crap out of it a bit on the early side and a little high and in cleanish air, and hold it until the controlled crash was over.

If the wind's gusting from eight and not lulling to zero or minus three that doesn't sound like too tough a trick.

P.S. Damn. I wish I'd noticed that.