Kite Strings

How can a reserve repack get juxtaposed against one's starry-eyed and sometimes misguided ambition for personal bests?

Not sure. Guess I was wrong about (AIRS) being a black hole where any incident information would disappear forever and having been viewed by so few, result in little learned. It's a relief to me that what must be the most concerning issue, "flying in conditions that are too strong", is something I'm already adverse to.

We appreciate your participation in the USHPA Accident/Incident Reporting System (AIRS). We will, to the best of our ability, use this information to arrive at lessons learned that can help other pilots avoid a similar fate.

---
Tad Eareckson - 2017/05/01 19:15:00 UTC

Just discovered that this post ties this topic with:

Weak links

in terms of number of posts at 1614 apiece. Last "Weak links" post:

http://www.kitestrings.org/post10115.html#p10115
2017/04/27 06:04:22 UTC

same day, 11:33:14 before this one. Tie remains holding at this point.

Third place:
landing - 1228

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35306
Vintage Hang Glider Antics & Innovations

Timothy Ward - 2017/05/03 03:02:25 UTC

I have a toast: Here's to the good old days... may they never return.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEuTPbfhJJk

http://vimeo.com/126617152


The "good old days" are still alive and well, Shithead.

PS - Fucking ridiculous the utter incompetence in this sport!

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35182
A ghostly figure from the past ...

John LaTorre (jlatorre) - 2017/03/17 00:27:00 UTC

Hi, folks.

I'm John LaTorre (AKA JLT). I haven't flown in over twenty years, but I was a more or less regular pilot from 1975 to 1995, starting in the Maryland area and moving on to New Mexico and finally northern California.

During that time, hang gliding was also my bread and butter. I've worked for Electra Flyer, Flight Designs, Pacific Windcraft, and Pacific Airwave, among other smaller enterprises, mostly as a sailmaker. (Talk about ghosts from the past ...) I also taught hang gliding for a little while, back at the start.

I'm trying to get in touch with some of the people I used to know back then. I know that Red, Briggs Christie, and some other folks have been known to post on the forum, but I'm sure that there are many others I've lost track of over the years.

Y'all who knew me also might remember that I drove VW buses back then. I've written a book about them called On the Bus: Four Buses, Forty Years, and 400,000 Miles, which has been pretty well received. I've decided that my next book will be about how I encountered hang gliding at a point in my life where I desperately needed a focus, and how hang gliding became the focus. I'm hoping that you might help me jog some memories here and there.

I look forward to meeting you all (most for the first time), and sharing in the dialog.

Peace, and good air.
---
Last edited by jlatorre on 2017/03/17 16:51:46 UTC; edited 1 time in total

And what the critical passage looked like BEFORE 2017/03/17 16:51:46 UTC, when it was edited one time in total:

I know that Red Howard, Briggs Christie, and some other folks have been known to post on the forum...

Steve had tipped me off to this 2017/03/17 05:15:16 UTC and I had checked shortly thereafter - before the edit above and this response below:

red - 2017/03/17 17:16:53 UTC

Hi, John!

Good to hear from you on the .ORG! Campers, this guy personally built my Magic IV sail, and gotta say, it served me well. We go back many years beyond that, but one day I needed a sail, so I called Pacific Airwaves, and got a real surprise when an old friend answered the phone. This guy is the real deal, and I'm happy to call him a friend.

Give me a call sometime when it's quiet, John, I got a million tales to tell.

What a long, strange trip it's been . . . Jerry Garcia

And I've failed to follow up and monitor that thread.

And now...

http://www.kitestrings.org/post10198.html#p10198

...we have:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35352
Jerry Lanham, early HG pilot in the Maryland area, dies

John LaTorre - 2017/05/27 00:28:07 UTC
Sacramento

I heard recently from Richard Hays, of the Maryland Hang Gliding Association, that Jerry Lanham of Sail Flight Systems has passed away. He hadn't been active in the sport for over thirty years or so, but back in the day he was one of the pioneers of the sport in the D.C./Maryland/Virginia area. His company, Sail Flight Systems, taught a lot of people to fly. Red Howard probably remembers him, since he was a common sight at Oregon Ridge.

He also was a manufacturer for a while in the 1970s, making your basic Dickenson wings (aka "Standard Rogallos") and then clones of the Cirrus 2. His quality control was often erratic, and his students often came away with sprained ankles and such. I was an instructor at a rival school that shared the training site at Oregon Ridge with him, and I often ended up driving those students to the nearest hospital. (I still remember when I checked one student in. The admitting nurse took down the pertinent information ... type of injury, where it happened, etc. When he told her that it happened during a hang gliding lesson at Oregon Ridge, she looked up and said, "You should have pushed out!")
-
"Good judgment is the product of experience. Experience is the product of bad judgment."
-- old aviation proverb

another slip-up - that we didn't even need.

So kiss your precious and treasured anonymity permanently bye-bye, motherfucker. (Much editing to do.)

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35182
A ghostly figure from the past ...

peanuts - 2017/03/17 02:14:20 UTC

hello JLT. i sorta kinda remember some long haired hippie complaining of knee pain back in the day. we'll have to stop in at Sadie's for lunch sometime and talk things over. how'd you like that C5B?

John LaTorre - 2017/03/17 16:35:48 UTC

Well, you obviously remember me, but I can't place the nickname "Peanuts" ... you'll have to PM me and jog my memory.

Got that motherfucker too, John.

http://www.kitestrings.org/post3377.html#p3377

Dennis Wood - after a great deal of code cracking effort. Ironic that the issue should surface in the first half dozen posts in the same smoking gun thread.

Thanks zillions, Steve.
---
P.S. - 2017/05/27 14:40:00 UTC

Best candidate at ths point:

Joel Howard - 23854 - Exp: 2016/10/31

---
P.P.S. - 2017/05/27 14:55:00 UTC

Doesn't show for Utah though.
---
P.P.P.S. - 2017/05/27 15:40:00 UTC

Idaho. State line less than 90 miles north of Salt Lake City. Things looking up.
---
P.P.P.S. - 2017/05/27 18:20:00 UTC

http://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-howard-345a6a2b
Joel Howard | LinkedIn

Joel Howard
Teacher
Meridian, Idaho | Primary/Secondary Education

USHGA ~ Special Observer + Examiner ~ Region #5 Alive
May 1980 - March 1993
...hômage Bruce Stoverud "CU in the Sky" ~ Good Lift to those pilots that were Region Five
Team members:
Joel Howard, JC Raser, Holly Raser, Bruce Stoverud, Lee Metzgar, Hugh Dundee, Birdie Emerson, Lisa King, Mike King, Barney Hallin, Dan Gravage, Bob Hladky, Sarah Bowman, Jim Bowman, Johann Nield, Chris Kastner, Monte Montana, Ken Bahmer, Enoch Walker, Jay Stephens, Rob Dixon, Frank Gillette, Ken Cavanaugh, Eiji Yakoda

Meridian is just a bit west of Boise - long walk from SLC. Also no indication of ties to my neck of the woods. Not good.
On the other hand... Despite the hang gliding credentials, Joel Howard has zilch in the way of a hang gliding web presence - as does Red Howard.
---
P.P.P.P.S. - 2018/08/27 13:05:00 UTC

Thomas Howard.
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11045.html#p11045

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=28581
How to get banned from kitestrings.org ((tad drama)lol)

Tim May - 2013/03/12 20:00:43 UTC
Boston

gives people a bad rap

After asking on this forum for AT advice, I was sent a link to that kitestring website, where I then proceeded to read lots of Tad's posts. Not knowing who he was, or what he's about, I took him seriously.

I was looking at the time into receiving my AT rating from Sonora, which I did by the way, and it was awesome, and I read Tad's comments on instructor Mark Knight (saying he was an idiot and partly responsible for a fatality that happened at Sonora a while back, I think you all know the one I mean).

SO Tad Eareckson or whatever his name is, directly made me doubt whether I should learn to aerotow with Mark Knight.

I pulled the trigger and went. I never mentioned the accident, but Mark Knight did, he explained what he thinks happened (he was not at the scene), and he emphasized all the safety measures necessary to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

My aerotow instruction was great. The course was effective, and I was thoroughly groomed in safety, which alleviated my initial concerns.

My advice: fly with Mark Knight if you want to get your AT for an excellent rate, with an excellent instructor that is together conservative, safety-minded, experienced, and focused.

And that was the last anybody ever heard of/from Tim May, MD of Boston.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paafmG9cZTY

At some point last month a bit before the solstice I started getting:

404 Not Found
nginx/1.7.7

when trying to access The Jack Show to see if anything interesting was going on using my:

http://www.hanggliding.org/forums.php

primary bookmark. First assumed the server was down, then as time wore on thought maybe Jack had been hit by a truck and left no one with the keys to His Living Room. (Good news / Bad news thing. Good news - Jack had been hit by a truck. Bad news - a huge amount of the sport's history down the toilet.)

But there was no buzz anywhere about anything that earth-shattering so I tried another avenue and immediately found myself at the "new and improved" Worlds Largest Mutual Masturbation Society.

http://forum.hanggliding.org/index.php

A few observations...

Dontchya just love the light gray on white background text. Does marvels for readability. (Guess if I catered to the flavor of douchebags Jack does I wouldn't want their output read too easily either.)

Gone:

- Post rating option and entire history of. Glad we have here something of an archive of what was going on with a few key threads.

- Ignore list. Yours Truly was always proud to have been head, shoulders, chest above any runner-up for years after being banned.

- Phony "BURY this topic" button to create the illusion that Jack's sending threads to His Basement by popular demand. The Basement, however, remains. So now one wonders by what mechanism the topics therein were supposed to have gotten there and by what mechanism new ones will be added.

- Incident Reports subforum for any but Jack Approved Mutual Masturbators. Sure don't want prospective flyers and the general public to get any half decent feels for what the survival rate is like. Also don't want contributors who previously failed to rub Jack Approved Mutual Masturbators the right way having access to their own posts from years past. Visitors can SEE the subforum 44 percent of the way down the list to The Basement but they don't get to learn what happened to Nancy Tachibana at the hands of Pat Denevan and his state-of-the-art equipment on 2016/04/03 before or after booking lessons with Mission Soaring Center. (And, just to be perfectly clear, The Basement IS OK for visitors to peruse at their leisure.)

- Case Sensitive Topic Titles - they all now scream at you in FULL UPPER CASE. (You can, however, see/harvest the original/intended by starting the "Add Bookmark" function.) Really fucking obnoxious - tones, emphasis, meanings get obscured, lost, altered.

Topics...

Aerotow release options?
old:
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=11497
new:
http://forum.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=11497

Accessible via either old or new address formats. For references on Kite Strings I prefer standardization with the old - consistent with the zillion existing references, shorter, looks better.

Specific post references...

Landing on your feet (for AEROTOW)- So Dangerous
old:
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?p=132146#p132146
new:
http://forum.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?p=132146#p132146

Both functional, same deal.

Smilies...

old:
http://www.hanggliding.org/images/smiles/roflcat.gif

new:
http://forum.hanggliding.org/images/smilies/roflcat.gif


Attached photos...

old:
http://www.hanggliding.org/download.php?id=23019

new:
http://forum.hanggliding.org/download/file.php?id=23019


And here in which the original and revised addresses have no similarities whatsoever:

old:
http://www.hanggliding.org/files/t2_p20_596.jpg

new:
http://forum.hanggliding.org/download/file.php?id=26118


And attached photos now appear with their original orders reversed:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33322
Broken side wire . . .

NMERider - 2015/08/28 07:22:28 UTC

Here is the side-wire step-on test conducted Thursday afternoon on my T2C 144. I use plenty of force. Notice how far the leading edge is bowed up during the step. Notice also how badly the 1x19 side-wire isn't kinked immediately after removing my foot.

Right Jonathan? And in this case - and many others - the reader has no way of knowing what's supposed to be what. (Look for sidewire kinking, work hardening BEFORE the glider's subjected to the stomp test.)

(On the plus side, I don't believe there are any images (outside of all of the ones in Incident Reports) that one must be a logged in member to access. (Wonder what the "thinking" was supposed to have been behind the original move anyway.))

And note that to date (correct me if I'm wrong) not one single Jack Show Mutual Masturbator In Good Standing has had one single word of complaint, criticism regarding one single issue involved in the wholesale bulldozing and reconstruction. Totally fucking amazing.

Thomas Jefferson wrote:All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Even more so (correct me if I'm wrong) when one also notes that neither has there been one single word of a complimentary, appreciative nature.

Currently showing a membership total of 10302. Seems you actually CAN please/fool all of the people all of the time. Well done, Jack.

Meanwhile, over here at Kite Strings, Yours Truly had to spend a good chunk of a week scanning close to 10220 total posts and revising thousands of suddenly defunct links - including over two thousand Jack Show quoted or based smilies. What fun.

Oh well, not a total waste. It was good to review the history, issues and other corrections and improvements were made. And I'd previously been editing a lot of old posts for better attribution, formatting, standardization, illustration, clarity.

And there are lot of important videos which have been taken down and are in need of stills projects. I'm figuring that just taking proper care of what's already up will take more time than I probably have left in my lifespan.

And if anyone stumbles across any of these:



anywhere I'd appreciate a note. (There's a small handful I know about but can't do anything about mostly because of my failure to save an archive).

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34942
Suprone revisited, the "Fenison Fly Bar"

David Botos - 2017/07/21 16:45:48 UTC

Interesting listen here on the Threshold Model of Collective Behavior (which I happened to hear on the podcast while driving on one of my trips to go train):

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/590/choosing-wrong?act=1#play
Swish Miss. | This American Life

Good find there, dbotos!

http://www.shga.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=5475
Sad News of OP's passing

Joe Greblo - 2016/12/18 02:38:03 UTC

We've only just learned that Orion Price passed away in October of medical complications. He was found by his landlord in his apartment.

So what was it 28 hour 25 minute 41 second duration and first known dead Kite Strings member? Accidental opioid drug overdose? Opioid drug overdose induced suicide? Guessing the former.

Passed away alone in your apartment sometime in October as a consequence of medical complications. Wow, that really narrows it down for us. Like the suffering of fatal injuries in a hang glider crash. Total bullshit. And nobody giving or asking anything further.

So did you leave the sport any better than you found it? Other, of course, than providing a few laughs for some of your low life buddies pissing all over an outcast reformer / whistleblowerand all of his hard and careful work? Too bad you didn't have any friends with enough morsels of decency to call you on anything.

I feel sorry for you.

Remember this, OP?

http://www.shga.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=3840
[TIL] About Tad Eareckson

Mike Blankenhorn - 2013/03/12 03:57:34 UTC

Suicide is highly under rated, Tad should try it, but no wait he's lost his balls!

Orion Price - 2013/03/12 05:12:33 UTC

Normally I'd say that is a low blow Mike. However, this time it's not. I don't want to re-post it. But the senile guy has read our entire forum history and make detailed comments about our activities. He waxes on with glee about our fatalities. It is disgusting. Beyond anti-social.

Anywho. my comment this morning, posted only on shga at first, got be banned from kitestrings.org

Mike Blankenhorn - 2013/03/12 16:07:44 UTC

We should bury this thread and not give Tad the satisfaction that we are actually wasting our time acknowledging his existence. Yes, this needed to be brought into the light but now we should bury this asshole with some nice cold dirt (metaphorically) and never speak of him again.

Orion Price - 2013/03/13 05:52:48 UTC

Tad really has no testicles. He says he had one surgically removed. However we all know they took both out.

Quote Tad about our this thread here on SHGA:
"tell Rob McKenzie he can go fuck himself"



Surely that is a quotation of a man with no balls. Imagine living most of your life with no testicles.

Orion Price - 2013/03/13 06:40:59 UTC

Imagine walking around with a flat sack. Talking all castrato. A eunuch who wanted to be put out to stud, instead writes weird letters to the FAA. It's no way to be.

Mr: "I'm a genius, no one listens to me, the world will burn" decides to write the FAA a letter about how unsafe we are:

http://www.energykitesystems.net/Lift/hgh/TadEareckson/4144review.pdf

Imagine you work for the FAA in DC and you get an 80 something page letter divided into 12 sections. It refers to other documents he's written of similar length. Ramblings of a mad man. It's not so much what he's written anything damning. It's more they have to receive letters from weirdos whom used to fly, but still associate with our sport.

Why does the world contain Raffertys and Tad Earecksons?

Mike Blankenhorn - 2013/03/13 16:55:55 UTC

Pure poetry!!!

Joe Faust - 2013/03/13 21:47:52 UTC

Some background:
http://www.energykitesystems.net/Lift/hgh/TadEareckson/

Orion Price - 2013/03/14 02:30:05 UTC

Yea, someone else pointed that out to me. That's some weird stuff. A window into the mind of a madman. In 80+ page colored ASCII texts he starts calling other designs and people "insane." I noticed on his tow treatise he keeps mentioning the word "strength." And referred to the "G" rating of weak links and ropes.

And I was all:


Might of has well mention the number in inches of water in of gallon, or how many volts are in a pound. A clear demonstration of ignorance involving simple concepts.

Some times, in life, you get left with the short end of the stick. And sometimes, in Tad Earecson's case, holding an empty sack. Literally. The man has no testicles.

Orion Price - 2013/03/16 17:56:25 UTC

People ask me: "OP, why must you troll the trolls?"

After watching this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW8qZESnFvQ


Tad Eareckson says:

Go fuck yourselves:
- Paul Voight - Fly High Hang Gliding
- Sylmar Hang Gliding Association
- Joe Greblo - Windsports Soaring Center
- The Crestline Soaring Society
- Rob McKenzie - High Adventure

So in effect my effort is a preemptive ban. The crack pot has been banned from most every arena of discourse on hang gliding. Now he is also known to our group as an incredible idiot on the subject of hang gliding.

In place of debunking the scientifically illiterate and religiously motivated Tad. I've started a free weak link testing endeavor. Send me your links and i will test them free of charge.

Funny how these things work out sometimes. Two of your photo links are dead, you're dead, your thread has been buried down in the "Politics of flying" subforum, not a single weak link was ever tested, nobody's speaking of you anymore.

I'll give ya this though... You brought a lot of attention to me with that thread - 22387 hits for 23 posts at the moment. But not sure whether or not they really had any of the effect you wanted them to.

Bob Kuczewski - 2016/04/23 21:40:24 UTC

OP, it's been over 3 years since you started this topic to discuss Tad's testicles. I've seen very little progress in your maturity since then.

Public communication has been the bedrock of political change in the United States. That's why it was given a prominent place in our US Constitution:

First Amendment of the US Constitution wrote:Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There are people who use public communication (like this forum) for the purposes of improving our civilization - including the sport of hang gliding. Those people may have differing opinions, and they use free speech to argue for things like stronger or weaker weak links, stand-up landings or wheel landings, representation for hang gliding on Soaring Councils, and redress of grievances like unjust expulsions. These are all constructive uses of public communication.

Unfortunately, you have not been able to make such constructive contributions. Instead, you play the class clown trying desperately to derail serious discussions.

In some ways, you and Tad are two peas in a pod. Neither of you can carry on a rational discussion about the merits of a topic without resorting to either foul abusive language (Tad's case) or adolescent ad hominem attacks (your case). Both are intended as a diversion to throw a "monkey wrench" into otherwise thoughtful discussions.

In the past, I've attempted to take you seriously, and I have shown you respect in the hope that it might elevate the conversation. It hasn't. So just as a teacher is eventually forced to draw the line with a "class clown", I'll be doing the same with you. When you see a response from me using the phrase "class clown" with a link to this topic, you'll know exactly what I mean.

I look forward to your growth and maturity, but I won't be waiting around for it.

'Specially not now.