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Old 27th Feb 2012, 07:40
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astir 8
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
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There must be strong similarities to winch lauch failures with gliders. e.g. you are climbing at a very steep angle, relatively close to stalling speed & then all motive power is suddenly removed.

The remedial action is then to lower the nose as quickly as possible (to about 30 degrees nose down is taught) and then WAIT until the required flying speed (normally approach speed with addition for for windspeed) comes back before returneing to a more normal attitude and then either a) landing straight ahead if possible or b) if landing ahead is not an option because you're too high, turning and re-assessing the options for a safe landing.

Just lowering the nose to a normal (or best glide attitude) means that it takes a much longer time to restore flying speed.

(Please note that option b is not necessarily a good idea in a powered aircraft)

It's educational watching how quickly airspeed is lost during the process of getting the nose down from over 45 degrees up to 30 down. It's also educational to see how long it takes to get back to a safe manoevring speed even when the nose is pointing quite steeply downwards.

The big no-no in the process is to start turning before the airspeed is restored as the glider is then being invited to spin at low level. Glider instructors get quite upset about that!

Also it's a very good reason for not rotating too quickly (i.e while still too low) into the full climb during a winch launch, because by the time you've got the nose down and airspeed restored, the ground has already intervened in the process.
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