Maintaining a Lookout |
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Maintaining a Lookout |
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It is always important to remain aware of your surroundings - the whereabouts of the airfield as well as and other aircraft. Gliders tend to flock together in areas of lift. In the case of thermals, several gliders may be circling, each only a hundred feet apart.
Gliding accidents are rare but are often linked to a poor lookout - the main reason why glider pilots wear parachutes is insurance against a collision.
If another glider is close by there are standard rules of avoidance as illustrated below:
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| If two gliders are approaching head-on at roughly the same altitude then each must move to the right. | If two gliders are converging, the glider with the other on its right must give way. | If you are overtaking another glider you must move well clear on the right. |
It is good practice to establish a lookout pattern, scanning constantly in all directions. Start by looking as far back over your left shoulder as you can, then in the same direction look up and down above and below the horizon. Ideally you should see the tail. Turn about 45 degrees and repeat this until you are looking over the nose when you should scan the instruments. Then continue turning your head to the right every 45 degrees or so, again looking up and down at each position, until you are looking back over your right shoulder at the tail again. Every couple of scans you should look as far up and behind as possible. When you are turning you should take advantage of the bank angle to look well down in the direction of the turn, but not forget to look outside the turn occasionally.
On some flights we knew there were other aircraft close by and had to work hard to keep them in sight. If we lost one, we were careful not to change height or direction until we saw it again. Sometimes we passed other gliders in opposite directions (maintaining a safe vertical separation). The closing speed of over 120 mph reminded us how fast we were moving. Such a flight in the company of other gliders really emphasises the need for a good lookout.
Flying close to clouds is more risky as your view is more obscured. When soaring through broken cloud layers it is easy to lose sight of familiar landmarks. It can be hard work to keep sight of the airfield or remember in what direction it lies. It is wise to know where the airfield is in case you need to return quickly - and not enter cloud in the process.
Photo over Deeside by Terry Cawthorne
One day I continued flying the tow to 2000 feet and then let go of the tug. I flew us west of the airfield looking for lift but there was little to be found. All the time the instructor kept asking me questions about what I had just done or was planning to do, or stuff about general airmanship. We were getting rather close to the ridge south of the airfield. Too close I thought, so I turned east to fly parallel to the ridge top, while keeping a beady eye on it. Then the instructor informed me that I wasn't maintaining a good enough lookout. He said that although I was looking around quite well, especially before turning and during the turn, I wasn't looking enough outside the turn or above, and I wasn't looking far enough back towards the tail.
Photo of a busy sky by Daniel Franzen
This was interesting, because after my previous flight the other instructor had commented that my lookout was good ! But this flight was different to earlier ones - under the added burden of the constant questioning and partly due to my concerns over the proximity of the ridge, I was mentally overloaded. I figured it was a deliberate ploy by the instructor to see how much my flying ability deteriorated when being overloaded. Indeed, aspects of my flying were suffering - especially the lookout. But I realised that he was of course correct: so far I hadn't been looking up very often and I was probably concentrating too much on where I was going rather than from where another glider might appear from - i.e. anywhere else. So there was certainly room for improving my lookout.
This is a bit too close...
I admitted that the more I looked around the harder it was to fly well. The instructor said that was normal and I was doing OK, but I should work hard at improving my lookout along with improving everything else. He added that among the club instructors he was notorious for pointing out any deficiencies in the lookout, although it was clearly an important topic for all the instructors. As mentioned above, the main cause of gliding accidents is a collision. 1998 was a very bad year with several fatal collisions in the U.K alone. Students need to develop good lookout habits as early as possible because it is much harder to make it a habit later on. I had to remember to look everywhere and do it methodically (e.g. look up ever 15 seconds - or much more often if another glider is up there).
On a later flight the instructor pointed out that I could improve my lookout a little when turning: For example when turning right I was correctly looking right round and back to the right before banking into the turn, but I should also glance quickly up and left before starting the turn: If there was another glider up to the left then my rising left wing could cause a collision as I banked into the right turn. This full lookout is good discipline for thermalling when several gliders might be circling together, perhaps on occasions less then two wingspans apart.
Keeping each other in view |
I flew the takeoff and tow nicely, but when I let go the tug I was interrupted. I hadn't looked well enough before climbing left (the standard separation manoeuver, also to convert the high tow speed into more height). I pointed out I had glanced with my eyes, rather than turning my head - but was told that wasn't enough. We discussed this. I was a bit confused as a previous instructor had told me never to take my eyes off the tug - only to use peripheral vision. But as we chatted it dawned on me that I should only do that until I let go of the tug, then look up and left, then climb left. I had indeed goofed. The instructor then casually pointed out that while we had been chatting we had drifted constantly away from the airfield slowly losing height - I worked out our situation and realised we were way out of position, too low for this distance from the airfield. It was going from bad to worse. I realised I had to turn back immediately and quickly plan a landing. I hurriedly started to turn left - and with a sense of impending doom I only remembered to look out just after I started the turn. Indeed, this prompted a big row from the rear seat. I cheerfully acknowledged the row as being completely justified. I should have brought my brain into the air that day. |