[JoeF]

[youtube]EsiYEXt_Iok&ebc[/youtube]

[Bill Cummings]

[youtube]EsiYEXt_Iok&ebc[/youtube]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsiYEXt_Iok

[reluctantsparrow]

thanks for the egg dropping vid dedicated to my early Days joe F. That was a highly accurate depiction of my first flying attempts.
concerning wheels, especially the extremely large wheels used by Dave Kilbourne and others....absolutely
I wrote an article for hang gliding magazine several years ago about flying with Adequate Wheels.
I defined Adequate wheels as a wheel of adequate strength, diameter, and efficiency to handle the speed of touchdown, the weight of the aircraft, and the roughness of the field being landed in.
You certainly would not use 4 inch clip on wheels to land a Cessna 150 (an obvious example)
Yet I still see pilots flying with wheels that are not adequate for the terrain they are flying over and may have to land in.
I used to fly the comps in Chelan and i always used some huge 12 inch wheels with pnuematic tires on my basetube.
Most of the other comp pilots teased me a lot but I usually placed well ahead of many of the high performance gliders using those large wheels and i was only flying a single surface glider.
One year I placed sixth overall on single surface with large wheels, my buddy and good friend tom Pierce placed fifth overall using a single surface as well. Paris williams place fourth over all and the top three places were taken by rigid wings.....
I am not here to brag. I am trying to make a point that many are totally missing about using wheels.
How did tom and I beat out every single high performance flex wing on the hill except for the one flown by Paris Williams, our national champion that year?

Easy....with my large and efficient 12 inch wheels I have landed safely in 8 inches of dust going about 35 mph with no incident.
I had been on final when a dust devil must have popped off nearby because a head wind suddenly turned into a serious tailwind when I was only about 15 feet off the deck and pulled in....
I briefly considered trying to pull a low altitude u-turn but then decided...no...might as well put these wheels to the real test.....
I landed in a plowed field going at least 35 and a pilot overhead told me later that I left a dust cloud they probably saw from outer space but I rolled to a perfectly safe landing.
I could not breath of course until all the dust cleared but I was safe.
Try pulling that off with four inch clip on wheels..... I dont think so.
So my fear factor on XC flying a single surface glider with very large and efficient wheels was far lower than the guys flying without adequate wheels trying to be all streamlined and low drag.
Also....I could work thermals almost all the way to the deck on that single surface glider with large wheels and feel very comfortable while most guys/gals with a high performance glider and no wheels are pretty committed to a landing when they are within 200-300 feet off the deck.
Not me. I have worked my way back up from 40 feet. I have also tried to work my way up all the way down to the deck and ended up landing cross wind in a dusty field with no damage of any kind because of those large wheels. A huge advantage.
Having those large wheels frees up brain space to focus on flying without having to worry about landing.
Every great flight usually has at least one low save that made it great. that one low save that puts you out in front of the pilots that did not get back up......
Flying with wheels I have had low saves from altitudes so low it would give a high performance wing pilot (with no wheels or inadequate wheels) nightmares.
I kept preaching to guys on the hill and gradually wheels have actually become cool again. But there is still a macho thin in our sport that flying with wheels is for sissys or something.
I landed with my wheels at dog a couple years ago and a really good friend of mine (and an awesome pilot) came up to me and said....you dont need those wheels jim....they are just adding drag....etc. etc..etc...
Then he handed me a cold beer.
I waited until after he handed me the cold beer before responding.... (im no dummy)
I then recited three separate instances where those big, clumsy, drag inducing wheels have saved my life....
As I shared the stories of the three times large wheels have actually saved my life I could see him waking up to realize it is not so much a question if flying with adequate wheels is a smarter way to fly than it was a known fact (at least to me it was a known fact) that flying without adequate wheels is simply not smart.
Especially if you want to drink a cold beer afterwards.

[Rick Masters]

Having never once flown with wheels, after thousands of cross-country miles I have to say, "You don't need those wheels, Jim, they are just adding drag."
I'm serious. I would never put wheels on an XC wing. Clean is the thing. 12-inch wheels? OMG...
Extra weight at landing, too. Not good in high altitude density situations. No advantage in XC outlandings in sagebrush.
I remember an old guy who flew from Horseshoe with wheels on a lousy day back in the middle 1980s. He overshot the "Postage Stamp LZ" and was looking like he was going to smash into the gully at the south end.
I yelled," Land on the road!" and he made a fine prone landing on the asphalt.
He shouldn't have been flying there. Wheels are for training.
If you fly with wheels, you probably get sidetracked looking for smooth landing areas instead of the next thermal.
Not that I'd know...

Since the topic is Safe-Splat, I'll talk about safe outlanding techniques in high desert environments.
A friend of mine in in the Owens Valley had an alfalfa ranch north of Horseshoe.
He hated hang glider pilots.
They'd land in his fields and trample his crop. He called the cops many times in frustration.
His ranch was completely surrounded by sagebrush flats, maybe six to ten feet between three-foot high bushes.
The hang glider pilots from down south thought it was dangerous to land in the sagebrush and chose my friend's fields instead.
I had to explain to them repeatedly the technique I was using on one of the faster hang gliders of the day, a Pacific Wings Racing Express.
You come in skimming the brush, flare aggressively and drop in a parachutal stall.
Ignore the bushes completely. They don't matter. Watch out for the Choya cactus, though.
Land on your feet and let the base tube continue to drop hard into the soft dirt.
It worked really well, once you got the timing right.

[reluctantsparrow]

good point Rick. wheels are for training.
I am still in training.

[reluctantsparrow]

I probably have thousands of xc miles too and i still need wheels. There are situations where thousands of xc miles are rendered meaningless.
I have a local buddy who crashed his rigid wing. Kamron and I repaired the Keel for his rigid wing after his head went through it AND the sail.

here is what happened to him. he had all his ducks in a row. Even had his driver below him radioing the wind direction and speed.
Wind switched on final. A Big Dusty went off and reversed the wind flow at the last minute. Now he was coming in downwind with a heavy wing . No amount of flare is going to help and he cant run out the glider in 10 inches of dust......you get the idea.....two steps and its all over....nose comes down...head swings through the keel.....he was just lucky he has a hard head. ....and that was a DOUBLE KEEL his head smashed through. (and a sail)
There are plenty of situations I can think of where thousands of hours are rendered meaningless. This is just one of them.
When i was in the exact same downwind situation he was in a couple years earlier with 12 inch Wheels I just rolled it on in. A total non-event.
I was in that situation through no fault of my own just like he was.
We cant control mother nature.
....I am keeping my wheels

[JoeF]

RS and Rick: Thanks for excellent posts.

=================================================
Potential coming arrangements: hidden adequate wheels, hidden adquate skis, hidden adequate water-buoyancy bodies. The devices are to be streamlingly hidden. Pilot triggers a choice: stay without one of the choices or have one of the devices come out into operational position for potential use in a given landing. "WWW" "Wheels When Wanted" tags some prior discussion on such direction. The mass of the devices could be considered in the total system for useful ballast. The devices would have some induced drag because of the mass. But the aim is to have a clean profile during XC.

JoeF

[reluctantsparrow]

recounting all that caused me to remember a TECHNIQUE I used once that applies to splat protection directly. Nothing needs to be invented to use this technique. Could save live....here is the back story.
I had suffered a mid-air collision with turbulence that ripped my left arm out of its socket at about five grand. It was the third day of the Chelan Classic in 2008 (maybe 2009, I cant remember) and I was flying a Moyes SX I had picked up for 500 bucks just a few days earlier so I was flying in kingposted class. ( I think they call it recreational class now)
I did not have enough time to track down good wheels for this glider so I was flying without wheels for the first time in years.
anyway, as it turns out the sky had turned into a boiling cauldron of Cu-nimbs and I was trying to dodge them all on my way back from a 70 mile triangle task which was very stupid of me. I should have just landed out.
Anyway...i did not choose to land out. Instead, i kept trying to find my way around these huge Cu-nimbs.
I had just made it about half way back to chelan from mansfield and past the last of the CUNIM beasts and I almost had the Chelan airport on a glide when I spotted some suspended dust a little off route and decided a little extra altitude would be good and the detour wasnt much, so I altered route to fly over what looked like dust suspended at around 4,000
as I got closer the dust began to look a bit weird. it looked like it wasnt moving at all. I flew directly over it and hit nothing.....not even a small bump....and then...WHAM!
I was knocked upward in what I estimate was a three hundred foot loop.....totally went over the top with massive airspped and positive Gs.....so I just flew it out like it was a regular loop, but thinking...what the heck was that?
As I came out of the loop I was also realizing I was going to end up hitting the exact same thing all over again so on the pull up I kept the glider pulled in a bit, thinking....I have to penetrate this thing whatever it is.....but no way.....WHAM and over I went again....another full loop with a twisty at the top that was so violent it ripped my arm out its socket. (but I never let go of the basetube)
this was an upward movement of air that was so powerful I could not get my nose into it.
so now I am flying with one arm and away from this thing as fast as I can, but I am over five sets of power lines. you know, the really Big ones that run from grand coulee Dam to Wenatchee.

I cleared the last powerline by forty feet then turned to land into the wind which meant swinging around to land UNDER the power lines.
As I tried to rotate into the upright position I could not. I realized my left arm was useless. I had enough time on final to try using my good arm to push my bad arm up the left downtube but I could not maintain that position and fell back down to the basetube.....so....now I am going to have to land a wing with NO WHEELS that has the perfect geometry for the pilot to swing foreward while the nose of the glider is going to come down HARD right on top of my neck or head.
Ive seen it, youve seen it.....the MOyes SX is a great glider but the geometry is just right for breaking necks in this scenario....so it is amazing what new techniques you can think up when your life is on the line.....here is what I did
I decided, at the last minute, I would use my one good arm to throw my body SIDEWAYS.
this is a technique anyone can use in this situation....and it worked.
I threw my body sideways as the basetube (with no wheels) hit hard and I swung through the A-frame SiDEWAYS.
As usual the nose came crashing down but instead of landing on my head it brushed my back lightly as it hammered into the ground HARD and left my head neatly sticking out sideways under the right leading edge.
I remember laying there in the dust, nose to nose with that leading edge thinking....well,... that worked....
It worked because i could not have flared to save my life but I did have the ability to throw myself SiDEWAYS before impact, thus changing the geometry of the situation.
BTW....what I flew into that caused this incident is still unknown to me.
I found out that after we all launched that day NOAA called for tornado Warnings in the area between Mansfield and Chelan, which is where this incident occurred.
also, several pilots said they saw a tornado come and touch down in that same location that same day.
It could also have been the gust front feeding the Cu-Nimbs I had just outran...I really dont know which it was.
A gust front or the remnants of a tornado.....I dont know. it was NOT a dust devil of any kind.
all I know is i was unable to penetrate it on a hang glider even when pulled in and coming out of a full loop.
It was a miracle the glider did not break. If I had to have thrown my chute I would have come down into the powerlines.

anyway....shared all that to share an Anti-splat technique that actually worked and could work for others....
throwing yourself sideways alters the geometrical arrangement.
As for the Chelan XC classic that year.....
the fourth day was called due to more expected bad weather
the fifth day was called due to high wind
and the sixth and final day conditions were not good enough for anyone in the king posted class to catch up to my three day score so I still took first place in king posted class that year.....drinking Tequila! LOL

[Rick Masters]

Hidden skid
    I think a centered straight skid (or a pair that rotated out from the base tube ends) could be devised to drop into place below the base tube and between the pilot's legs at landing. In flight, this skid would be perfectly straight and aerodynamic but at landing it would warp into a curvature. The pilot could remain prone or supine at landing.
    Early sailplanes used skids. They produced amazingly short stops when the gross weight was light.

Gliders where the nose comes down to meet the pilots head in a crash
    These have to be retrofitted with a short "bowsprit" extension. No one should fly them, otherwise. I am very surprised they are allowed by USHPA/USHGMA/DHV without this simple modification. Somebody is asleep at the switch.

Flying in tornadoes
    Cool, Jim, you're the man!!!
    In prior conversations with other advanced pilots about thermal micrometeorology, there has arisen speculation that parcels of rotating air can break free of thermals and rotate on their individual axes. These rotating masses are like cylinders. The axis of rotation can itself rotate, sometimes presenting a rapidly rotating horizontal column that could produce the same effect that Jim relates (OMG!!). This was hinted at in my article "Explorations with the Thermal Snooper" in SSA's Soaring Magazine, August 1987, pp. 24-29.
https://web.archive.org/web/20111102020458/http://www.cometclones.com/illusion.htm

[reluctantsparrow]

Skids ..yes....probably better than wheels if constructed right.....and I would launch with skids extended for some flat slope launch scenarios. skids that may prevent that sudden stop from a blown launch could easily be retracted once in flight for that ultra clean streamlined thing. then extended again before setting up for approach...thats got my vote....AND the bowsprit idea so we are not flying with potential guillotines.