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Larry Hockensmith—a licensed power pilot for over 40 years, but still a student glider pilot—was flying over the Cleveland National Forest, a few miles southwest of Lake Elsinore, California, when he executed a rather dramatic and unfavourable outlanding, effectively “totaling” his Schweizer 1-26 sailplane, valued at £5,500.
The entire event was captured in eery, HD silence—the GoPro video providing an invaluable after-the-fact learning aid, from which Hockensmith and fellow pilots can watch and determine what went wrong and how better to handle a similar such situation in future, should that ever become necessary.
The admirably eloquent write-up accompanying his YouTube post appears in full below:
Complacency has no place in soaring. I was trained better than to have lingered on the lee-side of a ridge over rough terrain. The dramatic outlanding was due to my actions exclusively.
While tight turns over roofs, brushing treetops and dodging street signs are not desired flight maneuvers, they do make for interesting viewing. An almost perfect (for a power pilot and plane but not a sailplane) landing until an unnoticed mailbox catches the right wing of the sailplane about 8 inches from the tip.
The original is 16 minutes of Full High Definition Video and shows every second of the events leading to this out-landing/ crash. It has been closely reviewed and much learning has taken place. My instructor, safety officer, FAA and NTSB were all outstanding professionals in helping grow skills from this experience.
More videos on this are coming. See if you can spot how the differences between a power pilot’s training and a glider pilot’s training could have contributed to this outcome.
[CNET]
Such a shame, thought it was going well until he hit whatever them things on poles are. Good that he was in a glider and not an plane with fuel though.
hahahahahahahahahahaha
Wow, Also if you are going to copy/paste an article from the american localised giz, please replace sailplane with glider.
Also I spotted he fucked up immediately, firstly blitzing a ridge is a sure fire way of blasting through the side of the thermal, also I noticed he basically panicked and didn’t use his flaps, so in essence he just fell from sky in a controlled fashion. As a 15 year old child I flew gliders better (Air Cadets FTW)
Well then as an Air Cadet you should have realised that gliders don’t have flaps, especially the Air Cadet gliders! That’s all a glider is…falling from the sky in a controlled fashion, this outcome could have been a lot worse. You can see in the video the VSI (vertical speed indicator) is indicating sink and so he was probably going fast to try and get out of it and being able to walk away from any landing is a good one in my book. Well done to him!
This particular glider might not have flaps, but many do. Tut tut.
Maybe you are thinking of air brakes that most if not all gliders have…very different from flaps
No, I’m fully aware of the difference between flaps and airbrakes, and even ailerons. Now here’s a word to blow your mind: flaperons. LOL!