As Instructors we are always mentioning the possibility of emergencies to students and hopefully we can simulate an emergency to help the student through his/her first experience with them so that we can be assured they have some chance if it actually happens. E.g. rope break, wave off etc. But not all emergencies can be simulated. How often have you heard the saying learn from mistakes – preferably other people’s mistakes.
Well, in order that others may learn I am about to considerably embarrass myself on paper by reporting on an emergency I had recently – No, I am not admitting to a mistake as such just informing you all of an incident so that we may all learn. At my expense.
Whilst practicing for the Avalon Airshow (see other article) I was strapped into the glider FQT getting ready for launching, one up. I went through my checks, as always, and, as I thought at the time, did them properly. A person, not of our club, crewed for me and hooked me on. The take off was quite normal, I had two hundred liters of water ballast on board, and we proposed to turn into a three hundred foot circuit and land on tow, take off again to gain height and proceed to the rest of the planned flight. As soon as we were airborne and started to turn at about three hundred I flew into quite a lot of turbulence and thermal activity. We were being bumped around quite a lot and I deployed dive brakes to keep the aircraft more stable and control speed to keep the tow rope tight.
In the turbulence I think I knocked the canopy latch and the canopy opened in flight. Did I have it properly locked ???? In hindsight of course (a wonderful thing) I distinctly remember closing it and applying the locking latch to a full stop. With even more hindsight, and discussing it with people later it appears that the canopy when heated on a quite hot day may distort a little and not close properly at the rear seat. I, of course, could not see into the rear area and the full stop of the locking latch may have been up against the locking lug instead of through it. Didn’t I look to check? Probably not. My only excuse was the work loads in the cockpit were high due to what we were about to do and the fact that officials of GFA and other clubs were there (for another reason) and my thoughts were concentrated in other directions. Not acceptable ?? Of course not but there it is, it happened.
What to do now? I managed to grab the cockpit rim with my left hand and shut it partially. Priorities - Aviate – Navigate – Communicate. Aviate – well I was still on tow and in the turbulence and thermal activity we were climbing – now at 400 feet and going up. My thoughts - get off tow and try to land cross wind. NO. Dive brakes were still out, right hand on the stick left hand gingerly holding the canopy closed but not locked yet. And I wasn’t sure of making it to a good landing with two hundred kilos of water on board. So, I decided to stay on tow for now and try to work it out.
By now we were at 500 feet. But my next thought was would I let the canopy go hoping it would brake off not hit the tail and disable the aircraft forcing me to bail out at 400 feet and think I was going to survive. If I did that I wouldn’t have minded paying for the damage if I was still alive. No we wont do that.
My next thought was to get the canopy locked – but – I needed two hands on the canopy and one hand on the stick. It was still not closing properly at the back and there wasn’t much I could do about that from where I was. Still with one hand on the stick I applied a little left yaw with rudder to have the wind pressure keep the canopy closed, then held the stick between my knees and grabbed the latch. As soon as I did that the glider started flying all over the place, back on the stick again to straighten up, canopy wanted to open again. Side slipped a little to get the air pressure working in my favor and try again. Again it dived and then up and down again, grab the stick get control back and by this time we were lined up on final getting ready to land and I called on the radio —”GO ROUND — GO ROUND”
Poor old John Gleeson, driving TNC must have thought “What is this flaming Idiot doing?” (That’s the clean version.) We went around still fighting with everything and the radio blaring at me “You’ve got your dive brakes open“ a number of times. I knew that and intended to keep them open, it was the only thing stopping me from overtaking the tug. Eventually I gave it a boot full of left rudder yawing the aircraft to the left and applying air pressure on the canopy, stick between the legs and right hand on the latch. It closed and locked. Thank God. I checked it a number of times to ensure it was locked and then advised the tug pilot what had happened. His reply, “I wondered what you were doing , I was going to release you.“ Thank goodness he didn’t as I think it would have been worse. The rest of the flight was completed without drama.
Lesson for me and you: LOOK — LOOK — LOOK MAKE SURE OF EVERYTHING.