September, 2003

Upside Down at Golden
By Barry Bateman

It was the second contest day of the Western Canadian Championships and I had just made the GPS turnpoint and was approximately 7 km back when I picked up a thermal from approx. 6500 ft asl (Valley floor 2600ft asl, mountain peaks +/- 9000ft asl) and had climbed out to about 10500 ft at a average climb of 875 fpm (surges up to 1100 fpm). The thermal was starting to deteriorate and become broken up so I prepared to head out on course. I pulled on the VG and was just coming around the back of the thermal in about a 15 degree bank turn preparing to head out when the base tube was quickly, but not violently, pulled rearwards from my hands. I was flying at 29mph when this happened as verified by my barograph. The basetube came to a halt momentarily approx. 15cm past my feet where it remained stationary just long enough for me to observe it and say "oh oh!". The next thing I was aware off was a short, quick 'flopping' sound, (similar to that made by a yacht's mainsail as it jibs from once side to the other in light wind days) which was then followed by something blurred in my field of vision. When I was able to re-assess the situation I found that I was dangling in an upright position against the top surface of the sail near the trailing edge with the glider stabilized in an inverted, semi-nose down position with nothing broken and glider feeling relatively 'stable' .

What I felt happened at this point was (and this is purely through deduction, and therefore I cannot verify it as fact although feel I'm 98% correct in my assessment), is that the glider, after momentarily stabilizing in about a -55° nose down attitude, very quickly accelerated down and under me which caused me to be thrown backwards, (or more than likely I remained stationary whilst the glider dove around me as I personally didn't experience any noticeable acceleration) which put me through the control frame, then between the rear wires and over the trailing edge. This I later verified by the abrasion to the plastic on the rear wires just below the rear wire 'pigtail' where I was hanging from, plus the fact that the trailing edge of the sail showed no sign of any rubbing or straining from the main riser of my harness.

As the glider had stabilized upside down (was it homesick?) with nothing broken and my rate of decent was acceptable, (later verified at approx. 1400 fpm) and everything felt stable I felt no immediate cause for panic. I felt that trying to right the glider, which would entail me having to climb over the trailing edge to get back to the 'right' side, would very likely cause the glider to rotate/tuck again which I figured would greatly increasing the possibility of breaking the glider and consequently putting me in a worse situation, so I elected to throw my chute.

The 'ride down' took just over 2 minutes and the glider remained stable the whole time. In fact I was able to hook my right arm around the back of the keel with the trailing edge just under my armpit and hang onto the trailing edge with my left hand. If fact I found that I could even steer the glider by pulling or pushing on the trailing edge with my left hand but I didn’t care to experiment to much (if its working…. leave it alone). On the ride down I tried to estimate my point of ‘impact’. At first I thought that I was going to drift over the east side of the mountain ridge (loss of radio contact, bad retrieval area), then I was relived to realize that I was going to land on the west side of the mountains but it looked like I was going to come down amongst the jagged peaks at the top (not good news!). Approximately 100ft before impact I unzipped my harness and made a gentle landing into an alpine meadow, the only safe landing place on the whole mountain, 1000 ft vertical rocks above and the tree line just 150 feet below. The gliders left leading edge tip wand hit first, breaking with a loud crack and the glider settled softly onto its back with the nose pointing down the 45 degree slope.

After landing the chute was blowing in the wind so I attempted to deflate it by pulling one side of the canopy onto the ground. This I did successfully but then the glider started sliding down the hill about 25 feet, the chute re-inflated stopping the glider until the chute deflated starting the glider sliding down the slope again. After sliding down on and off for approx. 50 feet, a 2 ft high bush/tree slid past which I grabbed hold off and quickly wrapped the parachute bridle around it. This secured the glider which enabled me to get out of my harness and then I quickly deflated the chute, wrapped the bridle lines around the canopy and stuffed it under the gliders sail.

The glider had broken the leading edge just inboard of thecrossbar/leading edge junction where the rear inner sleeve terminates forward of the crossbar/leading edge junction, and the tip section where it protrudes from the front section had a slight bend. The sail sustained multiply small tears on the top surface where it had slid down the meadow over the numerous abrasive rocks that were present. As for myself, I didn't even have one scratch on me! I established radio contact to inform everybody that I was OK and proceeded to fold up the glider and stow it safely so it wouldn't slide down the mountain. Interesting side note was that my initial radio transmission was "I’ve just tumbled but I’m fine" which, by the time it had been relayed to the Nicholson LZ, ended up being " Barry’s just tumbled but he’s still flying!"

Geoff Dossiter came to my assistance by driving my car back down the valley and by finding a local (the owner of the Parsons general store, give him your business, he deserves it) who has hunted extensively in these mountain. They were able to locate my general position with their GPS and located my exact position through the use of my signal mirror that I had with me. Once he located me he was able to guide me off the mountain using the radio. I elected to take my harness with me as it contained articles which may be of use to me, survival kit, clothing, radio batteries, GPS etc. but the penalty was it weighed 35lbs. I started hiking down at 8:00pm.

Of course Murphy's Law was at work!! I always fly with a spare battery pack so I was not concerned about losing radio contact so naturally the battery went flat about 2/3rds of the way down…. No worries, change batteries. Well it was just about this time that my spare battery pack decided it was time to die, not just go flat but to quit completely, not even a glow on the display. So now my radio transmissions were now down to switching off the radio for 5-10 minutes, then switching it on, and then transmitting and receiving for maybe a minute before they run out of power.

After a while I realized that I had deviated from the best route down. It was 11:00 pm, I guesstimated I still had about 2000 ft to go and I now found myself slipping and sliding down narrow avalanche chutes and steep, windfall covered slopes. I was tired and exhausted and as the possibility of braking a leg was quite high I elected to rest and sleep for a while. I found a small rocky ledge and laid down, ignored the mosquitoes and started to fall asleep. At first it was deadly quite around me but as I became accustomed to the quite I could hear branches breaking and rocks being dislodged and rolling down the mountain….. bears, just what I needed. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your point of view) I was so tired that I didn’t give a damn. I figured that I had two chances, either they would attack me or they wouldn’t… no sense worrying about it….. so I continued to fall asleep. After about 15-20 minutes I thought I heard muffled shouting from below. I became more attentive and then realized that Geoff had moved further south at the bottom of the mountain and was now almost directly below me. This gave me a boost of renewed energy so I gathered up my stuff and continued to head down the mountain. It still took me another hour to reach the bottom and by that time I was no longer 'scratch free' (I was wearing shorts!). It had taken me four and a half hours to hike off the mountain and it was 12:30 am by the time I reached the bottom. I found out later that I was very lucky that I was guided of the mountain as the route that I was going to take (down the draw in front of me) would have led me to a vertical drop of about 1000 ft!

I retrieved the glider the following day by renting a helicopter (cheap at $525) with the assistance of Geoff Dossiter. (Its amazing were you can land a chopper on a mountain!) Unfortunately this little episode did not help my position in the meet and I was also unable to get the glider fixed so that I could fly in the ‘Nats’ the following week.

Summary:
Although thermal activity was a factor I did not experience any severe pitch problems prior to the glider tucking. The air felt sort off 'mushy' just prior to the basetube being pulled out of my hands but it gave me no reason for concern as I have felt similar air many times around a thermal during my flying career with no dire consequences. I had not experienced any sever pitch pressures, positive or negative at all in this thermal or during this flight. The VG was on almost 100% which obviously didn't help the situation but the texture of the air just prior to going over did not indicate that I should be concerned.

Personally I feel that today's topless gliders are not as resistant to tucking as kingposted gliders even though they are able to pass the various glider certifications standards around the World. I feel that the certification criteria for pitch stability for today's 'topless' gliders needs to be looked at and re-evaluated. Perhaps the lateral batten is just too far in from the trailing edge to be as effective as the luff lines on kingposted gliders.

One point that is of interest is that of all the topless gliders that I have heard about that have tucked or tumbled, it appears that only those with flexible curved tip wands have gone over. Others, like the Aeros Stealth and the Wills Wing Fusion, as far as I know, have not tucked or tumbled. Is this just coincidence or is there something else at work here?

Water and a Power bar with me would have helped tremendously and now I know for sure that I HAVE been packing my chute correctly!!!!