On Sun, Jan 30, 2005 at 10:49:55PM -0600, Jared wrote: | Lol! Speaking of dead stick landings... | | I did my first over Thanksgiving.
Um, isn't every single glider landing a `dead sick' landing? :) | We got to the field and talked to some of the guys out there. They asked me | if I had flown before and I replied "I've never flown power." Not even an electric glider? If you want to try it again, I've got some planes you can try ... Either way, I doubt any decent glider pilot would have any problem whatsoever with a powered trainer -- it's just another stick that you can pretty much leave alone most of the time. | We were instructed to go to the "bad" runway away from everyone | else. Heh. Sounds like they thought you were a disaster waiting to happen. (I've found R/C guys to be pretty arrogant when it comes to other types of flying -- gas/glow guys look down on electric guys, electric guys look down on glow guys, pattern guys look down on 3D guys and vice versa, helicopter guys look down on `planks' and glider guys look down on everybody else :) (of course, this is hardly true in all cases -- it's just a general observation, and the it's not even that pronounced.) | Take off was fine. Engine cut off about 45 seconds later. Glow engines do that a lot (at least when I fly them, anyways.) | He noticed the prop had stopped spinning and yelled "Dead stick!!!" That's actually the usual protocol at a power field -- it basically tells everybody that you've got one shot at landing, and to get out of the way. When I fly my glow powered glider (a Dynaflite Butterfly) at the power field and the engine dies, I usually don't even bother -- it floats so much better than most glow planes that there's no point. Just call a normal landing ... | I have never seen people run for cover so quickly! Then obviously you've never been at a power field when a plane goes out of control right at the pits :) (and THAT is a time where you really do need to run for cover.) Seriously though, dead stick (it's really a poor choice of terms -- the stick is hardly dead) landings are quite common at power fields. There's no reason for people to panic -- certainly, many (most?) power-only pilots aren't terribly good at it, and many planes are lost this way, but still, the vast majority of dead stick landings are completely uneventful, even with the hottest and fastest power planes. And when something does go wrong, it's rarely anywhere near people. | Brought it back to the field and touched down about 1 foot past the | grass...rolled about 10 feet to a stop. | | People saw it, some applauded. He even has it on video :) | | Just go out there again and kill the motor on purpose when there are lots of | people out there :) Your experience was hardly typical. I wouldn't expect it to happen again. [ about The Aviator ] | It needed some soaring content. ... did Howard Hughes do anything with gliders? If you're looking for gliding content in unusual places, look for `Air Emergency' on the National Geographic channel. Not only is the show in general fascinating (and scary), but one episode covers the Airbus plane that ran completely out of fuel over the ocean (and yet made it to land and landed safely.) -- Doug McLaren, [EMAIL PROTECTED] `Every man has his price. Mine is $3.95.' RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
