SAFA Skysailor Magazine

23 July | August 2021 SKY SAILOR Be aware of the altitude you will lose when executing turns on approach. If they are so energetic that you are being swung out a fair way from the centreline of your wing, then you need to be prepared for the follow through when you swing back underneath. If this is in combination with an unanticipated loss of altitude, you are putting yourself in a really dangerous position. Judging your touch down The second report involves a new PG4 pilot coming into land in nil wind conditions during an SIV clinic. The pilot misjudged their flare point, applied brakes early, then went hands up when they realised they were not where they thought they were. This resulted in the wing surging forward, followed by the pilot swinging through and impacting terrain, resulting in a laceration requiring stitches. Judging the height to flare is something I’ve continually struggled with. Time for a bit of personal medical history: When I was a kid, I had exceptional long-range vision. When plane-spotting at the airports in Tassie, I was always the first to spot the inbound aircraft. The family bestowed on me the epithet of ‘Eagle-eyes’. This all changed at age 14 – over a period of two weeks my eyesight went to pieces. I couldn’t read anything on the blackboards at school and a trip to the optometrists resulted in prescription glasses. It turns out this is not uncommon. What happens is that the muscles holding and adjusting the lens in the eye go into spasms, eventually seizing, over a short space of time and without warning. Over time, because the lens is a piece of living tissue, it keeps growing, but warps because it is locked by the muscles. The result was the addition of the condition of astigmatism to the condition of myopia (‘short sighted- ness’). The effect is that the prescription for my lenses has become ‘interesting’. A twist in this is that as you grow older, the muscles start to relax, and you can get an improvement in vision. For those who don’t like wearing glasses or contact lenses, you can have your lenses surgically replaced with soft plastic items – apparently a simple procedure, . Back to landing and judging your flare now. When you add prescription sunglasses into the mix, and particularly if they are quite concave, you may encounter problems, at least I do. When looking through the bottom part of the lens I get a loss of depth perception. It’s really difficult to tell just how far away the ground is. I have had times where I apply the flare too late and am running the landing out quite hard. I have also had the opposite response and flared too soon, ending up a foot or two in the air when the wing has gone Iain, the human centipede well and truly behind me. This could be nasty if you are in a rocky area and end up on your back. On one occasion I released the brakes, swinging through like the previously mentioned pilot did, luckily escaping any injury but learning a painful lesson nevertheless. Recently, I have also heard about a HG pilot who has been flying since the 70s who, following a change in prescription glasses, then had all sorts of problems nailing landings. They have gone from being the model to emulate to being all over the show. Another Board member and I have had a discussion on this matter, and we agreed on what we think the cause may be: When you look at where your feet are going to land is when the trouble occurs.