Glider Pilot Confession: A turn that nearly killed me.

In this episode of glider instructor reacts, we look at a dangerous low level turn onto an airfield. Who was this dangerous maniac?! What lead to this incident, and what lessons can we learn from it?

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📷 Equipment Used to Make this Video:

00:00 Near Crash Landing
00:36 No one likes sharing their mistakes
01:00 Near Mid Air Collision
01:52 Mistakes made
03:02 Tree Danger
03:57 Mistakes Made
04:35 Key Lessons to Take Away
05:17 Think about your flying

[SteFly]

"And remember don´t crash" 😂Great and honest video, Tim!

[davesgliding]

From a safety perspective, aviation is encouraged to be a non-judgement zone. We need to be free to share our failures openly, else we don’t learn from each other. Thanks for being a good example for us in that.

We have a saying. Airspeed is life, altitude is options. You’ve certainly clearly made that point in your commentary. Good lessons shared. Thanks.

[barbermot]

Kudos for taking a critical look at yourself and posting it no less. Got nervous just watching you, but learned a lot from it.

[Pletharoe]

As a professional pilot recently taken up gliding it's great that you posted this video and I salute the lessons learned. A little tight on the landing I agree, but as some other comments have suggested my biggest criticism would be the use of the speedbrakes in the turn on final. I've seen many a private pilot come a cropper from this at low altitude particularly in a turn. It's vital to understand that doing so rapidly increases the stall speed on the higher AOA wing and can cause a stall and spin before you know what's happening. Better to land long or roll out first before applying. Thanks for sharing!

[MiniLuv-]

"Don't crash" - classic.
Thanks for sharing the flight issues and the decisions. Cheers.

[simoncasey]

Hey Tim - probably one of your most viewed videos and one of the most effective. It took real courage to share this and you can see the appreciation from all the comments. One thing that one of our club members noticed was that your glider was in a skidding turn at 03:45 as shown by your yaw string. This is fairly common with low level turns that can quickly lead to a wing drop stall. I think your high airspeed saved you from this.

[Fidd-mcsz]

My old instructor, an ex RAF Meteor pilot, used to say "if ever you see anything wrong during a flight, be it your position, airspeed, other aircraft, whatever, (fortissimo) DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!". He was driving at the need to react swiftly, as a mediocre decision taken early, is much better than a better one taken late; and that nothing is more dangerous than failing to act at all. it demanded a pro-active approach to problem solving. The longer I flew, the more sense this made.

[samchaiton]

I thought that the wingtip was going to hit the ground. That was my biggest worry along with stall potential. Downwind landing is the way to go. That looked like a 120 degree turn to final.Fortunately, the line-up to final went very well.

[ToetFly]

Thanks for sharing. The big lesson is to keep critical at your own flying. May I add that pulling the spoilers in that last low turn onto final is something I as an instructor wouldn't recommend doing. It could easily result into a spin which could not be recoverable at that altitude. Thanks again Tim for sharing!

[whoisthispianist]

I love your honesty, self-awareness and humility. Those are precisely the traits that makes me think you’re a good pilot.

[TheSoaringChannel]

Holy COW that was a CLOSE call on tow! That will rattle for a while I suspect. I'm so glad you have Flarm. Do the towplanes have Flarm as well?
Man... Then to finish it off with that turn to final. You forgot to mention what you did Right! Here's what I'll say you did RIGHT: when you made the low turn you pushed the nose down and resisted stepping on the downward/inside rudder when you overshot!!! Cheers for the low angle of attack turning to a tight final even in spite of all that Bahia grass in your face. It takes a well trained pilot to push forward when confronted with Terra firma in their face and you did a nice deliberate push. That and the speed staying up gave you what you needed to make it down safely. The low AOA helped reduce the risks from ruddering it around on the turn to final. And as always: if the yaw string is pointing to the sky... At least it won't roll over in the turn if you come up short.

Thank you for sharing this Tim. I'll be showing it to my children tomorrow as a lesson of what you said in the video; and also in humbleness. You've got that one dialed right in. 😊

[siggedd]

Just had near clip with the brushes at the start of the runway with the brake chute hanging in the back. Same issue of trees yet a known airfield.
Didn't have too many options but to keep the speed up enough. I watched this video before, watching it again made me listen carefully again to "Deal with it early". What I've learned is that when it goes bad, it goes bad quickly. Act soon or it'll get ya.The last and only option you ever have left is speed.

[davidshepherd]

Refreshing to see such an honest debrief, sharing mistakes and lessons learned. Aviation in general could do with this level of honesty without judgement or ridicule. Well done.

[spadgm]

Had my heart in my mouth when you made that final turn, glad it ended well!
This channel is so good at explaining the good and the not so good aspects of glider flying.
Keep up the great videos, also love seeing my old home country of NZ ( I miss it a lot!)

[doningram]

Thanks for sharing. Another gotcha in the low turn onto final with a breeze is the severe differential in airspeed experienced by each wing due to pronounced wind shear and the increased likelihood of dropping the inboard wing tip. Shan't detail how I know that but I was informed that the comment was made regarding mistaking a wing tip for an agricultural ploughing implement. The benefit is that it's a wake-up call regarding increased planning for future hazard reduction ;-) ;-) As everyone's favourite Scott says... "Fly Safe"

[SoaringMike]

Thanks for sharing Tim! One should not feel ashamed to talk about mistakes or mis-calculations... it's good to be able to self-reflect. I would even say it's a caracter-condition every (glider) pilot should have. Looking at your video and the thing not mentioned here (unless I've overlooked it); in my opinion, opening or even playing with your air brakes (at 3:45) at that altitude in a sliding turn was the most critical part. Speed looked OK, but the momentum of sink while opening ones air brakes in that low turn.... That really gave me the creeps for a moment🙂. Anyway, thanks for the lessons!

[anthonyf.]

One of the most important qualities of a pilot is having great self assessment skills. You did a great job evaluating yourself. Great video!

[alexhatfield]

Respect to your humility and honesty. Impressive and adds to the power of your teaching.

[johnslater]

I’m not and have no desire to be a pilot. But I really appreciate your honest, clear-eyed analysis of your mistakes and the lessons you draw from them. You make it easy for non-flyers to understand and to apply your wisdom to any discipline in life.

[maubunky]

In college, in one of several aviation safety courses, we learned that the accident rate due to pilot error goes down steadily during the first two to three hundred hours of a pilot's total logged flying time, and then levels out for a while, but strangely begins to increase again after 1000 hours. Pilots can begin to get overconfident or complacent as they get more and more experienced. I lost a friend who had 4000 flying hours due to complacency while he was doing some agricultural spraying...not that it's the safest line of work to begin with. I think posting this video is a good idea because it's going to sink in to your brain better rather than just attending a continuing education course or an ordinary biennial flight review. Well done.