As a result of a dangerous event in Freiburg
on 24.08.1997 with a UP Speed where the glider suddenly became an almost uncontrollable
turn to one side after a flight of approx. 45 minutes, we would like to give the following
notice to our UP Speed pilots:
It is vital to keep to the assembly sequence
given in the operating manual. It is particularly important that, when tensioning the tip
strut string the batten string of the upper sail is set into the forked batten plug of the
tip strutbefore the rubbers on the double sail in this mounting. Otherwise the danger
exists that the upper tip strut string can unfortunately lie on a rubber knot and a
result can be that the upper batten string can spring out of this end point during
flight. The loss in tension on the trailing edge and the leading edge deformation cause a
strong turn in the direction of the side affected.
The risk of this failure can be excluded by
following the correct assembly sequence described above. We have not heard of any other
occasions of that kind. However we will be using larger forked batten plug of the tip
strut as sail tension mountings in future. This mounting can be requested, as a
addition, from UP Europe who will supply it free of charge (ph +49 8851 92920).
UP Sportartikel - European Sales - GmbH |