jeb@eisx.UUCP (Jim Beckman) (03/01/84)
Here's a second-hand accident report. This happened to a friend of
mine a couple of days ago, while he was flying gliders at the wave
camp at Petersburg, Virginia. He was soaring above the cloud cover,
and had to descend through a fairly small window. This is typical
of wave cloud conditions in the East, I guess. However, when he
got down below cloud base, he found himself in a snowstorm.
With almost no horizontal visibility, but able to see the ground
below, he decided not to chance moving around any farther, and
picked a field from what he could see below. The field looked
flat enough from above, but when he got there, it had a steep
slope to it. The pattern and landing were executed well, and
he landed uphill and came to a halt. Then the problems began.
The older Schweizer 1-26 has primitive brakes at best, and they
hardly work at all when going backwards. Well, he started
rolling backwards down the slope, in spite of pulling on the
brake so hard that the cable broke. The glider eventually
fetched up against a tree, damaging the tail surfaces. No
injuries to the pilot.
What's the moral of this story? Beats the hell out of me.
Jim Beckman ATTISL, South Plainfield, NJ eisx!jeb
[rabbit!kco: yes, it was Bobby T., and he was flying
28R, not 40Z]