[lostgriz]

If there is someone that you know that needs help with their landings, take it upon yourself to make sure they are aware of their issues. Be sensitive in your approach and enlist the support of other pilots for an intervention if necessary. It may be difficult for you to approach someone in this regard, but if the need is there, do not ignore it and be firm. Your efforts could save someone a downtube, a helicopter ride or their life. In fact, even if you don't know them well, I believe you have an obligation to speak up as a member of this great flying community.

There have been a few accidents recently due to bad landings. Two pilots that I know personally are currently in recovery from injuries sustained during bad landings last week. One pilot had to be taken to the hospital via helicopter and the last I heard was still in critical condition.

If you are not 100% confident in your landings, please get some help immediately. Landing should be a very gratifying part of your flight, not a source of anxiety. There are plenty of great instructors out there that can help you get dialed in on your landings. Do whatever it takes to get your landings tight before your next flying adventure. Mitch Shipley does landing clinics with his ET system and Steve Wendt is the man with scooter towing. Both of these methods are great ways to get lots of landing practice in quickly. I also highly recommend having someone film your landings and/or having a wing mounted camera to analyze what you are ACTUALLY doing. If you can't afford to go to them, organize a landing clinic with your local pilots and bring the instructor to you. Seriously, make arrangements with one of the great landing instructors and bring them to you. Spend a day, two days, a week or whatever it takes to develop consistent safe approach and landing practices.

Most of you are more experienced than I, so I humbly make this post with the hope that it will be heard by those that know they need a little extra help in this regard. Please make this your main priority with regard to your flying progression. If it means stepping back in performance, by all means please do so. Some of the newer pilots have yet to develop the skills to land well and some of the more experienced pilots have gotten rusty as they spend more time in the air with fewer landings.

If you have taken the time to read this entire post, please make an immediate commitment to improve your landing skills so that you are confidently and consistently landing safely. Also, please make a commitment to helping keep those around you safe by working with pilots who need help, to make sure that they get it ASAP. We should all be confident in our landings before we worry about soaring and DEFINITELY before you consider going XC.

Sincerely,

Matt

[CAL]

good write up ! landings have always been tricky event for most of us, well ok me.

just about the time i think i have got it down, i always have that one landing that gets me to realize that i need to always work on them, i have seen this with other pilots as well, excluding Ryan, he is the only pilot that i have flown with considerably and didn't see the landing woe hit occasionally, i don't think i will ever get 100% confident on any aspect of my flying, but that's what i like about this sport it keeps this proud male humble, every time i get to think i am getting good at a certain aspect is when i my glider talks back to me and says, YOU THINK ! better think again Cal, i just forgave you for that half a launch you just made, good thing i have such a good glide ratio so you could find that thermal that just spit you out, holy crap Cal, how many time must i forgive you for making a stupid landing approach, don't you remember i glide a long ways in ground effect, Crap i screamed flare how much louder must i screem

[gpwrinkled]

Great point, and also applicable to our responsibility to speak up and help a fellow pilot if launches are seen as being unsafe. In either scenario (launches or landings) it seems it's our fear of offending that keeps us from speaking up.

So to that end I'll mention a recent experience that may help others to have the confidence to speak up. For some time I have been concerned with the launch techniques of a certain pilot that is a fellow pilot but not a close friend. Therefore I was hesitant to speak up and provide some input. But it got to a point after one launch that I determined it had become a situation where if I didn't speak up he was going to blow a launch with, as we know, serious or fatal consequences. I decided that it was more important that he have the input even at the potential expense of damaging a relationship. So I wrote him a note and tried to make it as friendly as possible, but it was direct and contained detailed descriptions of what was being done wrong and suggestions for how to do it right.

He wrote back and expressed his agreement and appreciation, which was really great. But even if he had not and was upset, at least I had done what I could to help. I would not want to be in the post-fatality situation for the rest of my life thinking "... if I had spoken up would he still be alive?"

We are all in this together, which is a great thing about this sport and the pilots in it. None are perfect, we all can improve, so I try to also flip that a bit and recognize that others want to improve as well and that helps me to speak up and offer suggestions when it seems appropriate...

There are no topics on this forum more important than those that keep us alive! Thanks for bringing this one up !

[pjwings]

[J Williams]

After reading Cals's post I thought I would pitch my 2 cents. First off I am only an H2 and do I need more work on my landings? You bet! Before I was an H! and was standing with Rob at AJX watching pilots come in for a landing they were coming in almost regularly whacking if not outright pounding in. I told myself "This is what I have to look forward to?" Back to Cal's remark. He said he screamed FLAIR. Maybe thats what we should be doing when we land. Yes it sounds goofy to me too but before pilots yelled clear they probably sounded a little goofy.

[peanuts]

[flybop]

First off, I hope your friends will recover to fly again. If and when you get more info and the people involved agree, please keep us posted.

A non pilot friend who has been on launch with my flying buddies and I a couple of times remarked about how seriosly we take this, how helpful everyone is and how patient we are. He was most impressed at how freely we all were to relate mistakes to each other so we can all learn from them.

While I feel safe and confident in my landings I realize that there is room for improvement. Learning to soar (or beginning to learn) is a priority for me this year. However, I do know that a great soaring flight is worthless if it ends in a bad landing.

Your post made me think of a pilot from another state who I have flown with a few times. He is an amazing soaring and XC pilot, however, he can not land safely consistently. During set up and on launch he is openly dreading landing. My question with a pilot like this is, "How do they earn a H4 when they can not land safely?"

[AIRTHUG]

[AIRTHUG]

Oh, and Matt....

GREAT POST AND TOPIC

[CAL]

[AIRTHUG]

Not trying to argue Cal... But I don't launch thinking I can stay up until X o'clock when landing will be nicer. Sometimes I very much hope I can! But if I wasn't confident I could perform a quality landing in the conditions at that time, I wouldn't be launching. Doesn't mean I'll ENJOY the landing, but I have the confidence that I can use my knowledge and skills tol reliably get me down safely.

I personally find thermic landings lower risk than turbulent (mechanical) landings, which is what we get on those strong N side nights... If I do fly in it, it's usually on a Falcon!

Completely avoiding risk is still a failure in risk management

But why are we talking about me??? Matt created a great topic here, let's stick with that!

[CAL]

[AIRTHUG]

[lostgriz]

I don't want to give the wrong impression with this thread. By no means do I think it is a requirement to nail no steppers every time to be considered a safe competent lander. Some of my landings are no steppers some are a few steppers and fewer require a little run, and a couple have been slightly worse than that. While I shoot for perfection in my landings, they usually miss the mark. Having said that, my goal is ALWAYS a spot and ALWAYS a perfect landing. If you have ever seen the movie The Patriot with Mel Gibson, there is a great saying in that movie that is applicable here as it is in many parts of life; "Aim small miss small." That has always been a key component to my landings and I am cussing myself for anything short of that. I think it will be very difficult for anyone to improve their landings if they become satisfied with "decent" landings.

I definitely didn't intend for this thread to become a "how to" on landings. My hope here is that as Pilots everyone will look at their last 50 landings and ask themselves the following questions:

1. Do I consistently land in control, within a close proximity to my intended spot, without my glider touching the ground until I have come to a complete stop and set it down?

2. Do I know someone who's landing skills are not in control, within a close proximity to their intended spot, without letting their glider touch the ground until they have come to a complete stop?

If you answer NO to the first question, will you take immediate and decisive steps to resolve your landing issues before investing any energy or resources into any other areas of hang gliding?

If you answer YES to the second question, will you commit to firmly and tactfully addressing your concerns with the pilot and or finding another pilot/pilots that will assist you in an intervention?

I suspect that there will be some who answer YES to the first question, that are actually flying in denial. Hopefully these pilots will be approached by others in the community to alert them of their concerns and help find ways to assist. If you are honest with yourself and aren't really sure how you would rate your landings, ask some well respected landers to give you some candid feedback. As it has been pointed out before, what we think we do, is sometimes very different from reality.

If you answer YES to the first question and your typical landings in moderate/light/nil wind do not include a round out with good speed into an extended glide in ground effect; then I would challenge that your landing skills have room for a critical improvement (we all have room for some improvement).

I am by no means perfect and defer on actual instruction to your local resources, but I felt strongly that this discussion needed to be had again. Hopefully it will make a difference for someone and we can all commit to being good citizens in this hang gliding community and watch out for the best interests of our fellow pilots; even if it means a little tough love.

[TomGalvin]

[NMERider]

[AIRTHUG]

You can't do it, therefore it can't be done. Got it.

Thanks for that contribution to this discussion.

[Jason]

[Jason]

[TomGalvin]