Landings

[Jim Rooney]

The Zen.

Warning... this one is hard and it hurts when you get it wrong.
Learn the other ones first.
I don't even bother with this one. Some of my friends have had success with it however.

Approach the ground faster than trim (one last time... AS ALWAYS!)
Round out into ground effect.

Look out ahead at the horizon.
Maintain your altitude religiously... Do not ever let the glider descend.

Yes... that's it. That's the whole technique.
What will happen is this... to maintain your altitude, you will wind up pushing the glider out faster and faster, much like the crescendo flare except without climbing.
When done correctly, it is an exceptionally beautiful technique.

What will happen if you get this wrong however is you will power-whack.
You have been warned.
Jim

[Pjwings]

I want to thank you Jim. It's not just that you took the time to write it all out, and even include some instructional video... it's that you actually know what you're talking about AND can communicate the concepts clearly. So often this discussion get's muddied all up as people try to detail every nuance of technique (like the ever popular when to move your hands up the the DTs).

Thanks!
Paul

[Lorenzo]

Jim,
this has got to be the most instructive thread that I've come across in a HG forum. Though I'd dare say that, of late, I'm kind of getting my landings right, the information you provided a) makes things a lot more clear and b) provide alternatives in the the way of different and, at least to me, hitherto unknown techniques, all nicely laid out.
Thanks a lot man!

Lorenzo.

[Ridgerodent]

Often overlooked , the camber of the nose (center) batten, a flattened batten will make landing more difficult.

[Magentabluesky]

Quite simply, if you can stall the tips of your glider, you will have a good landing.
If you do not stall them, you will not have a good landing.

Jim,

Thank you for your thoughts on landings.

Since this thread was started with the pre-world competitors in mind, making the assumption most all would be flying gliders with a v-g, and since you have brought up the subject of making sure to stall the tips to achieve a good landing, would you please share your thoughts on the optimum v-g setting for landing as v-g also varies washout at the tips.

Thank you.

[Jim Rooney]

Wheels.

I nearly forgot a very important one.
This goes ahead of everything else, but is very often overlooked for many reasons.
Landing on the wheels... on purpose.

The significance of this didn't dawn on me till I started spending a lot of time doing tandems and very little time flying solo. It's not till you start doing "production tandems" that this idea enters your world. I was working as a commercial tandem pilot at a place where we land the tandems on wheels and being a foreigner, I didn't have a solo glider readily available. Every now and then, I'd hop on a tandem and fly it solo, but most of the time I just flew my paraglider. Well, this makes for a very interesting situation. You're exceptionally current at flying, but horribly uncurrent at foot landing. Not a mix you find often. So when you do wind up finally getting back on a solo glider, there is quite the nagging thought in the back of your head... "how rusty have I become?".

And here's the strange strange answer... not much at all.
The reason why is the interesting bit.

All those wheel landings actually help... a lot.
See, with the wheel landings, we're doing all the landing bits except final flare. AND... we're actually doing a bit of that as well.

You're diving at the earth (faster than trim) and flying the glider way down into ground effect... then you're maintaining height, often for as long as possible because passengers (and you) love it. It's fun as hell. Up hill, down hill, into wind, with the wind, cross wind... who cares? You're on wheels. Over and over and over.

You get very very very in tune with your glider.
Because you're landing on your belly (and the passenger's belly) all blessed day long, you instinctively become gentle about it as well.
So, you skim the earth for a very long time, then you give a bit of a shove at the end and more plop down rather than just skidding in. Sometimes you do skid in and sometimes you smash it onto the wheels a little early, but it's the plop ones that are important in regards to foot landings. Cuz, yup... they correlate directly to the flare. You're just pushing out on the base bar instead of slaming the uprights up.

It's not exactly the same of course. As they say, there's nothing like the real thing.
But damn if it doesn't help more than you'd expect.
I know it shocked me.

You're also managing all the "other" parts of landing without a cluttered mind that's worrying about sorting the flare.
So then when you switch back to doing the flare bit, you're not bothered about the other bits because they're automatic by this point.

We do this all the time with students that we teach via aerotowing.
They get loads of practice at all the other bits of landing before they get anywhere near flaring.
Only after they've got everything else down, do we progress them.
And it makes for a very easy transition.

Jim

[Jim Rooney]

Ah! Good point Michael!
VG....

VG is a very telling part. Yes, VG flattens out your wing. So more of the glider stalls at the same time.

Here's the neatest part of VG in terms of landing....
It's a huge tradeoff, so there's a lot more to say about it... BUT... landing with full VG is the easiest flare you will ever do.

The stall point of the tips is very close to the stall point of the root, so while you're scooting along in ground effect, your flare window is absolutely gigantic. When you flare, if the nose is going to stall, the tips are going to stall as well. Your glider turns into a gigantic billboard and you can have your shoes ripped off your feet from your legs getting flung forward so hard. When that glider goes vertical, it STOPS with authority.

The tradeoff of course is firstly that you lose a LOT of roll authority.
I only land full VG in silky smooth air in big fields. And even then, I just do it for the fun of it.
There is no practical purpose.

The second is that your trim speed will be higher, but your stall speed will actually be lower. More of the wing will be flying as the nose reaches stalling AOA, thus it will be producing more lift... it becomes in essence, at lower speed, a larger wing.

So VG becomes a "flavor to taste" thing.
It's whatever you "like".
I tend to prefer a 1/4 - 1/3 VG for landing. Most gliders retain most of their roll authority in this range and you get a noticeable amount of the "flattening out" benefit.

It makes flaring noticeably easier.
So as long as it doesn't make the rest of the approach a pain (I'm thinking about landings in choppy air here), then it tends to be a good thing.

Jim

[Christopher]

Anybody able to comment from experience (personal, observed/directly relayed) on the challenges of flaring for smaller pilots? Doesn't their reach handicap flare pitch range? How can they adapt? Within the context of landing, how should it inform their speed-to-flare and optimal trim/CG placement? Aside from hanging higher, what else can they do to maximize flare authority?

[CloudHopper]

Anybody able to comment from experience (personal, observed/directly relayed) on the challenges of flaring for smaller pilots? Is their reach a handicap for flare pitch range? How can they adapt? How should it effect their speed-to-flare and trim CG? Are there other effective solutions aside from hanging higher?

Great info thread here, Jim. Thanks for the contribution.

I'd like to also mention the HG "Hail Mary" which works wonders if the wind gets on your tail while in ground effect. I've only had to use it once, in a desert, when a thermal kicked off as I was landing. I'd seen Paris do it just a few days prior, so the option was fresh on my mind:

Just when you'd normally prepare to flare by placing your hands high on the down tubes, instead place them high on the rear wires. With the same signal(s) used for flare timing as normal, give it your best agressive effort at the right time. If done right the keel will hit dirt and the base bar will end up on your toes.

Smaller pilots with shorter arms might consider the "Hail Mary" as another arrow in their quiver, especially if they wind up downwind without wheels on.

[Jason Rogers]

NO ONE TEACHES LANDING TECHNIQUES.

I just read through this thread and Jim, that's totally awsome. How come this stuff isn't in text books? (well the ones I've read anyway)

But… just one tiny point. There's at least one instructor who does. (apart from you I would guess)

When I started with Chris Boyce he said "first we'll learn to land, then take off then fly". That's pretty much what we did! Until we could flare to a full no step stop we didn't progress to anything like a takeoff practice. It was explained to us then that the centre of the glider has a higher angle of attack and that we needed to stall the *whole* glider, right to the tips (no easy task with a Mars when you're first starting). The natural thing is to throw your feet forward at the last moment and he beat that out of us.

I've ended up with your last landing technique. Fly in to ground effect and then maintain height and track. Interestingly it not only gives you a perfect flare but it brings you perfectly into the wind (unless it's a dead downwind of course).


=:)

edit (I put "lower" when I meant "higher"