Wednesday
My first flight of the day was abbreviated; my ineptitude on tow was so bad I broke the rope.
Actually what broke wasn’t the rope but a steel “weak link” which is what actually connects the rope to the glider. The link is designed to fail when tension reaches a point that can only mean something bad is happening that needs to stop immediately.
Had this happened at or below 200 feet AGL, the emergency procedure would have been to land “straight ahead”, out in the desert past the end of the runway. Inconvenient but probably not a disaster, as those areas are relatively smooth and level and kept clear of heavy vegetation.
But we were already above pattern altitude (1000 feet AGL), so all we needed to do was conserve energy by gliding at the best speed for distance (“best L/D”), enter the downwind leg, and execute a normal landing.
Over the course of another five flights Sasha continued to assist me with, and when necessary save us from, situations I fumbled into.
But in the end of day debrief he said I was doing things after 3 days that sometimes take students 3 weeks to learn. He pointed out lining up on final approach as one thing I did unusually well given my experience level – another skill which I’m sure X-Plane gave me a head start learning.
My first flight of the day was abbreviated; my ineptitude on tow was so bad I broke the rope.
Actually what broke wasn’t the rope but a steel “weak link” which is what actually connects the rope to the glider. The link is designed to fail when tension reaches a point that can only mean something bad is happening that needs to stop immediately.
Had this happened at or below 200 feet AGL, the emergency procedure would have been to land “straight ahead”, out in the desert past the end of the runway. Inconvenient but probably not a disaster, as those areas are relatively smooth and level and kept clear of heavy vegetation.
But we were already above pattern altitude (1000 feet AGL), so all we needed to do was conserve energy by gliding at the best speed for distance (“best L/D”), enter the downwind leg, and execute a normal landing.
Over the course of another five flights Sasha continued to assist me with, and when necessary save us from, situations I fumbled into.
But in the end of day debrief he said I was doing things after 3 days that sometimes take students 3 weeks to learn. He pointed out lining up on final approach as one thing I did unusually well given my experience level – another skill which I’m sure X-Plane gave me a head start learning.
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