Originally Posted by
Sick
It is a known phenomenon that some people react to negative G with a large and sustained PUSH on the stick to a crazy attitude (+forward trim if applicable), even if there are massive visual cues that it is excessive. For example, it has resulted in fatal glider accidents after a winch cable break (first action, adopt a normal gliding attitude = brief period of negative G), where the pilot has pushed, and continued to push extreme nose down, right into the runway clearly visible outside the canopy.
Umm - that's not what I was taught, admittedly many years ago. My instructor explained that in a cable-break, the first thing you need is air-speed, and you do that by 'filling the canopy with green', because without sufficient air-speed to fly, you are stalled. Get air-speed up, then adjust attitude. So yes, negative-G is to be expected, as you deliberately go nose-down sharpish (after ensuring you are not fouled by still being attached to broken cable, so first action is to pull the cable release). If you stop at normal gliding attitude without having got airspeed up, bad things happen.
So:
1) Pull cable release
2) Joystick forward "fill canopy with green" until airspeed sufficient for flight. This is the point at which you discover why heavy things need to be secured, as all the detritus in the cockpit rises up.
3) Adopt normal attitude and scan for and review options - land ahead/ find other suitable landing area/ do a circuit.
It my be that training has changed.