How do gliders bleed off airspeed on base and final?

Question

If they need to abort a landing do they have enough lift/ airspeed to do so safely or are landings a one shot deal?

Answer 1

Landings are a one shot deal.  They can bleed off airspeed using the air brakes, as necessary.

Answer 2

It's a one-shot deal. You don't mess up a landing in a glider.

It's generally a good idea to plan to land a bit long to reduce the risk of landing short. You generally don't need anywhere near all of the runway after landing. You can then bleed off excess distance/altitude any number of ways:

1) Air brakes/spoilers.

2) Decrease speed by pulling up. It's slightly counter-intuitive, but a lower speed will mean you don't travel as far forward. The airplane has a certain speed at which it will glide as far as possible (called 'best glide') the further you get above *or* *below* this speed, the shorter you will land. Above generally doesn't work because you reach the ground too fast to land, but below is almost always doable.

3) Rotate the plane with rudder, hold it on course with ailerons. This is called a 'forward slip' and it will cause the plane to fly at an angle. This will increase drag dramatically.

Answer 3

1) Base & Finals -

Airspeed can be bled off by proportionately extending your base leg, checking your glide (bleeding off excess speed), and resuming your approach once you reach your desired air speed. Just ensure you still have the required height to reach the runway. PS: Spoilers may not be necessarily used during the down wind or during base turns.

On the finals, you can reduce the air speed by use of the spoilers. This ensures that you do not upset your landing perceptive and with your touch down point in front, you would know exactly where to touch down.

You can further lose extra height by side slipping the glider (crabbing) with opposite ailerons to the rudder and keeping your nose pointing to the touch down line and by converting this loss of height into loss of speed by pulling up.

If you decide to abort your landing, your decision has to be made at a height which is safe enough for you to work out your alternate actions. Normally, to delay the landing, pilots do a 360 degree turn on the down wind leg prior to turning

base leg. You either abort a landing due to an obstruction on the runway or the choice of a better landing site. In either case, the decision must be made at a safe height which will give you enough time to work out your next landing spot.

Once you are on the finals, and with very limited height, you are definitely commited to land. Landings, in such cases, are a 'one shot deal'. In the olden days, when pilots arrived overhead with excess height or speed, they used to do a fly past over the landing area, pull up and do a steep turn onto down wind and continue for base and finals.

Answer 4

When you are at the level of the approach legs in a glider, you are committed to landing--no way to make a go-around.

Gliders are equipped with "spoilers," which are control surfaces that dump air from the lifting surfaces to increase the rate of descent.

For much more information, including photographs and diagrams, try an Internet search on "glider flying."

Answer 5

Spoilers, skidding, and pitch control.

Being in the right place at the right speed and configuration is important during a glider approach to landing.  You might be able to land shorter or longer than planned, or otherwise miss an obstruction, or fly to a different runway or taxiway.  But going around for another attempt is a problem even if you are flying with excess speed.

Answer 6

You should not need to abort the landing at any time, as you will have planned the approach carefully, and stuck to the spot-heights in place throughout the entire circuit.

Overshooting the landing area is not a problem as only a small area is required for landing, and as you descend you will be aiming towards a fixed aiming point at the start of the landing area and adjusting the air-breaks when necessary to prevent overshooting and overshooting, land in the right place.

There are procedures in place to fly a high circuit or low circuit, and if it ALL hits the fan you can always turn around 180 when you run out of runway, although this is EXTREMELY rare and very dangerous.