Smithsburg 1/23

[XCanytime]

Looking like another mid 20's day with good directional winds. The usual suspects are planning to be there. Bacil

[Matthew]

Count us in....

Matthew and Karen

[mcelrah]

Gonna try to get Sallie out to Smithburg for some PG training hill work. She has Sunday school, so not till the afternoon.

[kcarra]

count us out now - going skiing instead.

[mingram]

I'm interested and watching the forecast. Saturday is looking too light, and Sunday too strong.

[hang_pilot]

I'm planning to arrive around 11am. If its already too strong for PG when I arrive, I'll tweet that using the hashtag #chgpa.

Blue skies,
Daniel

[XCanytime]

The usual suspects were there: me, Jon, and Amy. I got there at 10:40A to Amy and Jon setting up. Daniel and Pete also showed up shortly thereafter. My manager at FedEx also showed up with his family to watch us fly. As Amy and Jon set up, I set up the 6 socks as usual, and they indicated a lot of north going on. Daniel quickly set up and was ready to fly. As I helped Daniel stage his glider on top, Jon went with Amy for some ground handling practice. I went down to set up my glider and greet my manager and meet his family. As I started to spread the wings the kingpost base came out of the CG track. Where was the clevis pin and safety ring? Somehow in the past two weeks they disappeared somehow. Oh well, no fly zone for me, so I helped out again for the second week in a row. Daniel was the manimal of the day with 7 flights, one of which he flew through 3 thermals: 2 on the hill, and one in the LZ. Jon got in an elevator launch, the first he's ever experienced, and sporty air all the way down to his nice landing in a 15 MPH headwind. Pete struggled in the strong air on the hill and bagged the bag. He ended up flying his stunt kite for a while. Nobody got cold with all the exercise. Hit the road by 2:30P just in time to catch the 2nd half of Game 1.

Bacil

[sailin]

Another great day at Smithsburg. Just after we got there Amy and I took the opportunity to work on some ground handling exercises in the strong conditions....she did great! After that it was up the hill. Only two flights for me.....but LOTS of fun!!! As Bacil said in his previous post, my second flight was very SPORTY! I took about one step on my launch run and then took an elevator ride straight up.......pretty neat! I made sure to keep my speed up in the sporty air and it was not only great fun but a good learning experience for me as well. Big thank you to Bacil again for helping out with everything from moving the glider to good pre and post flight talks. It was great to see Daniel out there flying and picking up some sweet thermals......and Pete as well.
And to complete the day , Amy and I drove back to the Mountain House Restaurant at the Pulpit and picked up my jacket. Took a quick looksy at the Pulpit launch while we were there and it was as expected....... COLD and ROWDY! The trees behind the set up area were bending , shaking and making all kinds of noise. Beautiful view from the gravel ramp out over the valley. The blue sky covered with cummies was a nice sight to see.

Jon

[XCanytime]

Solved somewhat the mystery of the missing clevis pin and safety from the kingpost base/CG track assembly. I remember now while setting the glider up two weeks ago at Smithsburg, it got turtled, albeit gently, and landed on the kingpost. This must have broken the safety ring off of the clevis pin. Since during the preflight I do not look at this assembly very closely, I did not catch the compromised hardware, even from what seemed like a small, harmless bonk. The clevis pin must have stayed in the assembly w/o the safety ring. After flying, the clevis pin must have fallen out during breakdown of the glider. Last week I didn't even take the glider off of the truck, so no chance to discover it then. This is a good lesson in preflighting every assembly, especially after an incident, no matter how harmless looking. You betcha I'll be checking this assembly closely from now on. Bacil

[mcelrah]

Bacil,
Thanks for posting about the king post clevis pin! Making a mental note to find and inspect these on my gliders...
I wimped out and flew in the relative comfort of a sailplane at Front Royal. No visible wave formations so it felt like thermaling with climbs to 6700. Got out in front of the ridgr at Strasburg, but at around 6k so couldn't tell for sure that ridge was working (north cross?). Consequences of landing out in a half ton club glider without a retrieve crew makes one cautious... (Will transition soon to a more conveniently trailerable club glider for XC.)
Ellis and Laszlo flew PG after 4:30 in cold , strong but smooth conditions - L said he was parked momentarily in the slot, looking for his speedbar, going straight up. Ellis said she flew while sitting on her hands, could fiddle with handwarmers and gloves, practiced wingovers and spirals to get down and land.
Good on you all for getting out to Smithsburg! The weather has to warm up someday!
- Hugh

[mingram]

Thanks to Danny for the tweet to #chgpa. The forecast looked strong, but it was nice to have the confirmation. Flight reports showed it wasn't a Smithsburg day for PG. Would have gone to Woodstock, but had to work at 6pm.

[Danny Brotto]

Bacil

I have a hard time envisioning how a safety ring could break off of a clevis (without the safety itself being defective or the stress being extreme to deform the clevis itself.) . Did you find the broken bits? I could see it possibly work it's way off but I'm having a hard time with that too.

If if fact it did break off I think WW should be made aware; might be worth a call to Mike or Steve.

Danny Brotto

[hang_pilot]

The kingpost on my Litesport is bolted to its bracket with a nylock nut, so no safety pin. I haven't been checking that bolt for thread during my normal pre-flight, but will now.

I had a good day at Smithsburg. Never was cold after the first hike up. It was good to practice launching in stronger conditions and trying to soar the hill was a blast. I'm too chicken to really do it well -- not comfortable making high bank turns so close to the ground -- but I got high a few times as Bacil and Jon mentioned.

I feel like I've made some needed improvements in my launching and landing techniques, but I'm still not as consistent as I'd like to be. So, I'm up for another strong wind day at the 'burg, hopefully soon.

Best,
Daniel

[XCanytime]

Bacil

I have a hard time envisioning how a safety ring could break off of a clevis (without the safety itself being defective or the stress being extreme to deform the clevis itself.) . Did you find the broken bits? I could see it possibly work it's way off but I'm having a hard time with that too.

If if fact it did break off I think WW should be made aware; might be worth a call to Mike or Steve.

Danny Brotto

Danny,
The particular safety ring in question was a "large" safety ring and the cheap kind of safety ring that you usually get for your keys from a car dealership when you get your car worked on. It may have become brittle in the very cold conditions 2 weeks ago, and the "bonk" may have caused it to (a) work loose, or (b) break. The ground was frozen solid and the "bonk" may have been a bit more vicious than I originally thought. I cannot pinpoint what exactly happened, but it was either (a) or (b), because there was no sign of the clevis pin or the safety ring yesterday when I started to set up the glider. I checked my owners manual and there should have been a "small" safety ring installed with the clevis pin at the kingpost base/CG track (like the safety rings that are usually with a clevis pin at the DT/XBAR plug), not a "large" safety ring of lower quality/strength. No need to contact WW. A simple preflight of the assembly after the "bonk" should have caught the absence of the safety ring. It's on me.

Bacil

[Danny Brotto]

Bacil

Not to belabor this discussion but are you saying that this configuration (large safety ring instead of the small ring) was supplied by the factory or was it an aftermarket modification? If an aftermarket mod, was there an impetus to do so?

The reason I suggest contacting WW about this is that if for some reason people are replacing their small safety rings with large rings, then a TN might need to be issued to warn of such practices.

A lot of thinking and refinement goes into parts and material selection in modern HG design; in the old days it was less so. Now-a-days, I just don't like replacing bits and pieces with non-OEM material.

Danny Broto

[XCanytime]

Danny,
The "large" safety ring came installed from the factory. I will be installing the beefier, stronger, "small" safety ring called out on the Kingpost Base/CG Track schematic diagram in the owner's manual.
On the subject of contacting WW, I got slapped down pretty good by Mike Meier a few years ago when I complained that the wire bridal pigtail was a faulty design. Mine had failed on the ground when assembling the glider two winters ago. This design has been used by WW for many years. Sooner or later the stress at the point where the wire bridal pigtail exits the kingpost cap compromises the wire integrity, and it will break in two eventually if not replaced at regular intervals. This was another part of my glider that I did not closely observe during preflight. Mike pointed out the importance of preflighting EVERY assembly on the glider. My previous glider did not have this type of assembly and did not require such close scrutiny. So I'm a bit hesitant to contact WW, because I would expect Mike to do the same thing and remind me that preflighting EVERY assembly should be done EVERY time you assemble your glider.

Bacil

[Dan T]

Bacil,

If you contact WW and one of their employees attempts to slap you down for pointing out a design flaw you will know you did the right thing no matter what follows. If you don't contact them and someone falls out of the sky from the same system failure how are you going to feel then?

I don't know the details behind your last experience but if you get a similar response this time I think an official response from our entire club would be in order.

Dan

[XCanytime]

Dan,
You are blowing this way out of proportion. There is no design flaw in either of the two systems. The only flaw that existed was with my preflight procedure that did not check the integrity of the wire bridal pigtail at the top of the kingpost, resulting in the fatigue of the wire going unnoticed until it broke during assembly of the glider 2 winters ago. This recent event of the clevis pin and safety missing was the result of a turtling of the glider during assembly, coupled with the fact that my preflight procedure did not catch either (a) that the safety worked itself off, or (b) that the safety broke and nothing was keeping the clevis pin in its rightful position. Therefore the root cause of both events is an incomplete preflight procedure. When I conversed with Mike about the design of the wire bridal pigtail, I thought that the length of wire was shorter than it actually is. I retorted no wonder the wire broke, being so short. I did not account for an extra two inches of the wire length. And Mike let me know that this wire bridal pigtail design has been used since the 80's on WW gliders. The lesson learned here is an inadequate preflight procedure can result in significant events going unnoticed, and these events could compromise one's flight safety.

Bacil

[Danny Brotto]

Glider was supplier by manufacturer with an out of spec component installed.
Component broke in what appears to be a benign event (as described "bonk" should not have stressed part.)
Part that broke is part of a critical safety system.
Manufacturer should be contacted to:
Be made aware of event
Recommendation on corrective actions to include:
Returning personnel glider to service.
Gauge extent of impact to fleet to potentially include:
TN issued to include specific instructions to inspect assembly prior to every flight and/or,
TN issued to apply corrective measures such as parts replacement.

Stuff happens; efforts should be made to keep it from happening again (across the fleet of potentially affected gliders.)
'nuff said... over and out.

Danny Brotto

[XCanytime]

"Glider was supplier by manufacturer with an out of spec component installed."

Agree. Wrong component installed.

"Component broke in what appears to be a benign event (as described "bonk" should not have stressed part.)"

Disagree. Any time a glider flips upside down should not be considered a benign event. Especially on frozen ground.

"Part that broke is part of a critical safety system."

Yes.

"Manufacturer should be contacted to:
Be made aware of event"

I will contact WW, specifically Steve Pearson, about this.

"Recommendation on corrective actions to include:
Returning personnel glider to service.
Gauge extent of impact to fleet to potentially include:"

"TN issued to include specific instructions to inspect assembly prior to every flight and/or,"

This is already in the owner's manual. Inspection of every assembly is already stressed. Especially after a "hard" landing or any other abnormal configuration that occurred (turtling on frozen ground).

"TN issued to apply corrective measures such as parts replacement."

I will install the correct safety ring.

[XCanytime]

Steve Pearson of Wills Wing replies:

Hi Bacil,

Thanks for sharing your experience. The Eagle has been out of production for eight years now and I can’t recall why we would have deviated from the configuration specified in the owner’s manual. The smaller ring is the only configuration that I ever remember seeing. In any case, you should be aware that there are innumerable anomalies and misconfigurations that can happen during routine glider storage, transport and set-up. A few of the more common issues that are reported to us are documented in owner’s manual and tech bulletins. Altogether there is NO SUBSTITUTE for a comprehensive preflight each and every time that you fly your glider. I do it every time that I set up my glider, and I often walk around other pilot’s gliders also. The preflight procedure in the owner’s manual specifically identifies this assembly. I’m certainly happy to hear that you weren’t injured and I’d encourage you to promote comprehensive pre-flight procedures in your flying community.

Best regards,
Steve


From a previous post: "The lesson learned here is an inadequate preflight procedure can result in significant events going unnoticed, and these events could compromise one's flight safety." Ditto.

[markc]

Just to toss in something that I've found useful for pre-flights....

I like the "see, touch, say" approach, where you visually examine the assembly in question, physically touch it
(flip safety rings, feel the exposed threads on a bolt, etc) if that is possible, and audibly name the assembly,
as you move from point to point.

In spite of this, there have been two occasions in my flying career where I've missed something obvious after
setting up a glider. Once, the left under-surface zips during the first comp (local, sport-class) that I'd ever been
in; and once, an unsecured nose-cone that I missed because I allowed myself to be distracted during my pre-flight.

Both were caught by other pilots who had my back (thanks Lauren! thanks Sunny!).... So Steve P's comment really
struck a chord :

and I often walk around other pilot’s gliders also

as a reminder to keep en eye out for each other. When wire-crewing, for example, I always try to quickly scan
a pilot's wing, just to see if anything strikes me as out-of-place.

(no direct relevance to this thread, don't mean to hijack; but Steve's comment got me thinking)

MarkC