Not rare.
Below is from one of my students when I asked him what he thought of our
rope break training: he had a premature release last week. Not sure why
it happened.
Not being a frequent attender at our club, in 18 years I have seen the
broken rope from one proper rope failure and I know that we had an AEF
passenger pull the bung instead of adjusting the air-flow lever, despite
being briefed not to. (On hearing that, I now do not ask passengers to
adjust anything at low level!)
PeterS
G'day Peter
It goes without saying that I am impressed with the rope break training
I got at Caboolture. You could say I am the living proof of its
effectiveness! I don't recall precisely how many simulated rope breaks I
had but I can remember having the bung pulled by you at least once and
JC many times (including one when I pulled it myself in response to a
tug rudder waggle. My muttered "uh, oh" one second later was followed by
JC saying "I knew you'd do that!")
Since the recent thread on 180 degree turns at low level, I have been
trying to remember the detail of my immediate response to the tow
failure but it is all rather blurred.
I had about 500 feet and all I remember is getting the nose down and
checking my situation in relation to the field. I'd say I was already
turning to the right -- into wind -- before I had consciously considered
it and I did not need a full 180 degree turn to get back to a downwind
heading for 30. I think the tug had turned to track along the highway
fairly shortly after clearing the runway. Anyway I found myself in a
reasonably comfortable position heading downwind, probably got some lift
over the dump (another detail I don't remember clearly) and got all the
way back to the threshold.
Things got interesting again at that point because a Piper Cub was also
on final. I let him know I was turning inside him and landed on grass
right, actually passing him on the ground.
That last was because I landed with way too much speed. I was aware of
getting too fast on downwind and I thought I had got back to 60 knots,
which is what I was aiming for to allow for the wind. However it's very
possible that my adrenaline-soaked brain misread the instruments on
final. The result was a very long landing and a pilot who was very
annoyed at himself at the end of it -- but at least a pilot and an
aircraft both back and safe on the ground.
Please quote my experience.
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