If he could mush the glider into the trees covering the mountain, his chances of surviving would increase. His glider’s sink rate combined with the rising ground diminished his height above the ground as each second passed. The outer portion of the sail on the affected side slid back down the leading edge tube enough so that Brian was able to maintain a heading toward the mountain.

(This was three years before emergency parachutes for hang gliders became widely available.)īrian’s team-mate Eric Short circled above and watched, while looking for a landing spot nearby so he could assist if necessary.īang! Suddenly, the turn stopped. There was only light snow covering the valley floor, as can be seen in photos of the event, and it would do nothing to cushion his impact with the ground if the airframe broke. He eyed the hard ground of the fields below, expecting the airframe to break at any moment. The kite went into a spiral dive.īrian was turning when the sail leading edge de-tensioned on the damaged side and the wing locked into the turn. Suddenly I found myself flying on one half of the kite. …while I was flying a tight 360 the sail rode up the boom.

He recovered quickly and they began their planned display routine. Brian made a dodgy take-off (see the video link later on this page) almost certainly resulting from the large television camera strapped to his back. It seemed safe enough for just this one flight.īrian and Eric ignited colored smoke canisters attached to their airframes and launched, Eric first. The cap on one side had been knocked off and the stitching was torn part way, but most of the seam remained intact so that, when Brian tugged on the sail hard to pull it up the tube (toward the nose) it did not move. The leading edge pockets of the sail were stitched closed at the ends (the tips) and plastic caps fitted over for protection. …in those days the sails weren’t fixed as securely as now and the sail on my had become detached from the end of the leading edge after being knocked about on the chair lift. Such events colour a pilot’s perceptions in flight… The test pilot was lucky to survive with just a badly broken leg. However, on his third weekend out flying just a year or two earlier, Brian witnessed a Wasp test pilot suffer a side wire failure (it had not been swaged or clamped correctly) that caused the cross-tube to break. A possible third outcome, complete structural failure, is extremely unlikely given the strength of these gliders. In this instance - and against all probability - both those outcomes applied, the latter only temporarily but fortuitously, which is how Brian emerged from the experience uninjured. The aircraft encounters turbulence that, by extreme good fortune, corrects the problem that caused the locked turn.The aircraft strikes the ground, with dire consequences to those aboard unless they are extremely lucky, or….It continues in the turn, which usually steepens into a spiral dive, until one of two things happens: The over-used and abused term spiraling out of control refers to a flight condition in which, because of damage or a malfunction, an aircraft is locked into a turn and the pilot is unable to level it. Top British pilot Brian Wood and his Waspair team-mate Australian Eric Short planned a coordinated display, both flying black CB-240s, at the World Championship competition at Kössen, Austria, in 1975… Wasp CB240 semi-cylindrical Rogallo hang glider of 1974-5

Home (contents) → Chronology → Hang gliding 1975 part 1 → Spiraling out of control Spiraling out of controlīrian Wood’s crash at the world hang gliding championship, Kössen, Austria, in 1975

Hang glider not strapped in youtube