Expert advice and beginners, do they mix?

I was flying in Yelapa Mexico in the end of February. A typical day would start with a morning flight off the high site and a afternoon flight from a smaller site. The morning flight would be pretty calm with light thermals. The afternoon flight was after the sea breeze came on and be ridge soaring with embedded thermals. At some point in between, the transition from the morning calm to the afternoon wind would happen. At times this transition would be quite abrupt and gusty before settling down into the afternoon session.

I was guiding pilots on this trip and therefore,in the mornings, was always the last one in our group to launch. As I flew around I noticed that the sea breeze was starting build in. Soon, there were white caps on the ocean and the palm trees were waving around. “Great” I thought. At some point I would have to fly through the shear between the calm upper air and the strong surface winds to reach the LZ on the beach. So, the question was, How turbulent will the shear be and at what altitude will I meet it? If it’s not very turbulent, no big deal. If I hit it when still high in the air, I’ll have lots of time to sort it out if it is a bad shear. If the shear is bad and low, I could take a big whack close to the ground, which is the worst case scenario.

I decided to meet the shear over the ocean, well clear of the surf. The shore was lined with boats and I figured if I wrecked into the ocean, one of my buddies would get up from their lemonade and get someone to fetch me from the drink. I , also, decided not to pull big ears but to go through the shear with my glider “Open”. As an eighteen year pilot, I was assuming that my surge control would be up to the task. I was also flying DHV 1-2.

As it turns out, my assumptions were correct. I took a hell of a beating, but I kept the glider overhead and open. Mind you, I was pretty gripped because, even as I handled each situation, the question was, “Yea, but what’s coming next?”. At six hundred feet I dropped out of the shear into the strong but smooth seas breeze. At that point I did pull big ears as I had had it and wanted to be on the ground. I released them to set a figure eight approach. As it was still strong I slightly extended the down wind sides of the figure eight so I could slowly back into the LZ from up wind. On the ground I turned, pulled in my “d”s and it was over.

The next pilot in didn’t fair as well. They hit the shear at about four hundred feet. The glider pitched forward and collapsed. The center went away and both wing tips came forward and touched. As this glider was a DHV 1, it sorted it’s self out right away. The pilot landed, got drug and was none the worse for wear except getting the crap scared out of them.

I spend a little time talking with the pilot afterward as it is important for a new pilot to be able to place these events in some context so they don’t become spooked. The big question is always, “what should I have done?”.

The advice I gave was NOT what I did.
The standard expert reply would be, keep or glider open, don’t pull big ears as that will eliminate the use of the brakes AND well timed surge control is more effective than the non responsive big ears. The big BUT here is that that advice assumes the pilot has good surge control. If, as in this case, the pilot does not have that skill set, then the expert advice does not apply to the beginner pilot. The advice I gave was first, learn, from this experience, how to recognize the situation and pull big ears before you enter the shear. In big ears she would have then descended through the shear quickly with a small, highly pressurized glider.

The last bit of advice was to practice surge control in mild, non critical, situations. Make it your goal to always have your glider directly overhead. If there is anything dangerous about the new entry level gliders, it is that they are too safe. Uh....? In the bad old days we had surgy gliders and if you didn’t get your surge control sorted out you either got lucky or crashed. Things are way better now, but I see a lot of pilots who don’t develop their surge control because experience has shown them that they can get away with it. Well, you can get away with it till you don’t. If you don’t practice your surge control when it’s not completely necessary it won’t be there when it is.

Lastly, advice giving is instruction. Instruction is a skill set of it’s own. If you don’t practice instructing you won’t be good at. Even if you flying skill set is at expert level.


Bill