Kite Strings

Skyting

Don Boardman

1982/12

Saturday, myself and Dan Guido, a Hang IV and instructor from Mohawk, New York, 35 miles from Rome, spent the afternoon in final preparation.

Both Dan and I had received a day of tow training at High Perspective in Toronto on September 21. We used a traditional V-bridle with two releases, one at the heart bolt and the other at the control bar. I was a "hot" Hang I with about seven minutes of airtime. At the end of the day we had both winch towed to two thousand feet and I had gained 35 minutes - moving me close to my Hang II. That's our experience with towing.

Sunday, October 10, at 11:00 we hit the shoreline. Boat, release, towline, bridle, the Bobcat II on a three point float system and us in wet suits. We are starting in the water using a prone harness. The control bar is suspended about four inches above the water by the control bar floats, the tail supported by the keel float.

The landings, by the way, are the greatest. You come in just like a seaplane and touch down gently skimming on the water's surface.

1983/05

Part of what made the learning easy and the towing fun was the control bar floats that High Perspective uses. They developed them over several years and consider them the best design available for deep water starts and landings. The floats allow a prone in-the-water start and a seaplane-like landing ... level off hot about a foot above the water ... hold ... smooth, fun, prone landings.

Hang Gliding - 2004/10

Christian Thoreson

Thus wheel landings, the safest and easiest way to consistently land a hang glider (yes, I know many people will have much discussion over that comment)...
-
Christian Thoreson has been actively flying hang gliders since 1979 and has been the flight school director at Lookout Mountain Flight Park since 1990.

Hang Gliding - 2004/11

Executive Director Speaks Out

Wheel Landings: Broadening the Window

Jayne DePanfilis

I learned to fly by tandem aerotowing. This type of training suited me perfectly: I'm 5'3", 100 pounds, I have low bone density and not a lot of physical strength. You probably know other pilots who fit this description and who have benefited from tandem aerotow instruction to obtain their novice rating. It's likely you also know others who perhaps should have chosen this training method but decided to "tough it out" on the training hills where there's a greater likelihood of an injury or a bad training flight as a result of fatigue. There are many excellent training hill programs around the country, but for people like me tandem aerotow instruction makes it possible to experience solo flight.

Once you can launch, fly, tow, set up a conservative approach, and land without input from your tandem instructor, you are ready to fly solo in a glider that's the right size for you. One of the benefits of tandem aerotow training is the opportunity to launch and land on wheels, every flight.

By the time I was cleared to solo aerotow, I was very proficient at rolling in. In fact, for nearly all my landings since that first solo I've rolled in on twelve inch (training) wheels. Yes, I've been to the training hills and invested time in learning how to land on my feet, but only after I already knew how to fly. Still, I trust the technique I learned first: landing on wheels.

For me, rolling in is the right thing to do. It is the safest way for me to end every flight. Christian Thoreson, flight school director at Lookout Mountain Flight Park, points out that landing on wheels is a special skill. It's a technique that requires training and practice, just like flat slope launch or restricted LZ or any of the other recognized special skills.

One of the advantages of flying at a flight park is that often times there are plenty of gliders set up to fly each day. I seldom had to set up or break down the Falcon 140 that fits me so well. It was always set up, already equipped with a pair of twelve inch wheels that facilitated my landings.

I eventually moved to a flying site where the majority of new pilots learned to foot launch and land from a training hill. This school has one of the finest training programs I've ever witnessed or participated in, but I knew my primary launch method would not be foot launching and my preferred landing method would not be landing on my feet. I was scared but I desperately wanted to launch from a cliff. Eventually, with Christian's help, I did do that cliff launch - but I landed on my wheels.

When I moved from a flight park to a mountain/ridge soaring site I learned that I had more airtime than most novice pilots who had trained exclusively on a training hill. I was told my flying skills and my ability to set up an approach were better than average. I had to learn the rules of the ridge and the difference between flying in rotor and lift, and I had great respect for the breadth of knowledge necessary to fly safely at a new site.

However, I also learned that my choosing to land on wheels was seen as a negative thing when I was surrounded by mountain pilots at some flying sites. I heard a new term to describe my landing skill: belly landings. I envisioned belly flops, the kind we did in the pool when we were learning how to dive. Those comments hurt.

Many pilots (who had not learned how to land on wheels properly, who had not refined this special skill) made me feel like I hadn't learned a legitimate landing technique. I knew differently. I seldom dragged my belly. The front of my harness was pretty clean for a pilot who lands on wheels. Pilots who watched me land on the wheels time and time again should have been able to see that this was a skill and not just the "sissy" way out. After all, I had learned to land on my feet, and on a rare occasion or two I demonstrated this skill as well.

But on these occasions I walked off the field with this thought: I have more control over the glider when I remain prone during the approach and landing than I do attempting to fly from the downtubes in an upright position.

Well-intentioned pilots have advised me not to land on the wheels because it's dangerous. Their thought is that it is much worse to remain prone with my head close to the ground - but in control - than it is to be in an upright position, with considerably less control. This just didn't make sense to me considering where and when I choose to fly. Clearly we were considering the concept of landing on wheels from two different perspectives.

For me, landing on wheels is second nature; it is a skill I've learned and practiced over and over again. But to the pilots who were concerned about me, it appeared that I was relying on a landing technique that was supposed to be reserved for potentially bad situations, like downwind landings. Theirs was a heartfelt concern - they didn't want to see me injure my head or neck doing one of these wheel landings.

It was difficult to resist the pressure to land on my feet, so every once in a while I landed this way just to prove to them (or myself) that I wasn't deficient in my training. But a pilot who intentionally rolls in should not be disqualified from being considered a "real' pilot. Some well-respected comp and long-time pilots have to land on wheels because they've experienced too many hard landings on their feet. It's OK for them to land on their wheels, and it should be OK for anyone.

There are some very good lessons to be learned from my experiences:

Pilots who learn to launch and land on wheels are generally much more comfortable and proficient at doing so than pilots who rely on wheels for emergency purposes only.

Pilots may have more control over the glider when they don't transition from prone position to the uprights during the approach and landing. Some pilots maintain better airspeed this way because they can "pull in" farther than they can when flying from the downtubes. A pilot who doesn't need to transition to the downtubes during approach won't stall the glider during that moment of transition.

Pilots who intentionally land on wheels after almost every flight have in most cases decided this is the safest landing technique for them. They know their head is closer to the ground. They also know that there are other more important factors influencing their choice.

Pilots who roll in aren't doing what is commonly referred to as a "belly" landing if they are executing the landing correctly. Landing on the wheels properly is a special skill and one that many long-time pilots have not been trained to do. Many of these are mountain pilots and it simply isn't practical or safe to roll in at most of their flying sites. The introduction of the flight park and flatland flying changed this.

Pilots with special needs may consider landing on wheels safer than landing on their feet. We aren't sissies. We're smart, and we're implementing good risk management, unless the site is not suited to wheel landings.

Pilots who intentionally land on their wheels should never feel badly about using big wheels. Bigger is better. These pilots aren't usually concerned about drag or performance, but peer pressure is a powerful motivator. Ridicule could sway a pilot who's made the choice to land safely on wheels decide to opt instead for a potentially less-safe foot landing.

Landing on wheels makes it difficult or impossible to land safely at many mountain sites. Landing on bumpy or uneven terrain can be unsafe too. Don't forget why you made this choice. Go to the training hill and learn to land on your feet or don't fly sites where wheel landings are not a safe option.

Landing on wheels in tall grass can be done without incident if the pilot understands that the glider must quickly roll to a stop and not turn or spin 180 degrees. If the glider turns or spins after the landing, it was landed with too much airspeed. This is unacceptable if you need to land in tall grass.

Aerotow tandem training and flight parks make it possible for people to learn to hang glide or try it one time. I don't fly a lot, but when I do I fly a small glider with big wheels. No need to switch to a higher performing glider unless I plan to fly more and want to expand my options. I fly at sites in conditions that fit my flying style. I make decisions based on what feels safest for me.

Isn't that what we all should do, every time we fly?

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22447
Is hang gliding dangerous?

Mike Jefferson - 011/01/04 01:37:47 UTC

I had a older guy break his wrist on a hard flare which would have ordinarily been fine but for him it was not.

Rando - 2011/01/10 05:25:46 UTC

Back in '89 when I learned, my instructor was determined that nobody else would make the mistake his girlfriend student had made recently: after flaring too fast and gaining height, she pulled the bar in, attempting to regain flying speed. The impact killed her. I was his first student after that, but he gave up instructing even during my tuition. He used to run alongside the initial flights, yelling during flare: "hold the bar out!" I found that his training was very sound for me, only two bent uprights in 120 hours, and no pain.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hhpa/
Houston Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association

Tad Eareckson - 2010/10/21 10:17:14 UTC

I've got a gun to your head and I'm gonna make you fly. I've taken your backup strap, weak link, parachute, helmet, and wheels. I'm gonna let you have one item - or pair of items - back. What's it gonna be?

Zack C - 2010/11/07 05:40:14 UTC

I'm more likely to need the wheels than anything (although I've never used the wheels on my S2), but the consequences of not having them are nowhere near as severe as not having a parachute when you need it.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11946
Once again with wheels

Rich Jesuroga - 2008/05/19 17:49:23 UTC

A few years back a friend who had good landing skills missed ONE. Stuck his speed bar in the dirt and whacked hard. He swung through the control bar and hit the top of his helmet on the keel buckling his neck. He was a quadriplegic for eight months before committing suicide. Would wheels have worked? YES - no debate by those who were there and witnessed the accident.

There have been a lot of people who've recovered well enough to continue flying careers after being extracted from the wreckage of gliders which broke or disassembled aloft and came down without benefit of silk. I know of at least one aerobatics competitor (Telluride) who walked away uninjured.

I'd say if we had to chose we'd be much better off losing the chutes and keeping the wheels - especially if we opted for landing on them on all wheel friendly terrain.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3695
good day until the wreck

Lauren Tjaden - 2008/12/31 04:29:12 UTC

very light conditions at quest. me, paul, dustin, carl and jamie were going to fly out and back but not high enough so we flew around the patch. i worked small lift using carl's tips...he is english where conditions are weak, and is 2nd in world.

came in with no wind after an hour and had right wing drop. instead of wrestling gilder straight i tried to flare while desperately trying to straighten.

bad bad whack. horrible pain, i could not move. screaming with pain, literally. took a very long time to get me out and to the hospital. got very good drugs.

turned out to be badly dislocated shoulder. they had to knock me out to put it back in but it was so bad i kept waking up and screaming. finally they got it done but then they had a hard time waking me back up. drugs were so wierd by the end i could not leave for hours, i'd just start bawling for no reason.

am home now. will see ortho in the next few days. hopefully the damn thing will stay in joint so i can skip surgery. much better with the pain now it's back in joint. looking at maybe 6-8 weeks currently.

anyhow will be ok. pretty crappy day and it doesn't do much for the typing either.

Lauren Tjaden - 2009/01/07 22:32:27 UTC

Just got back from the ortho doc. It will be at least twelve weeks; that puts my recovery to the end of March.

I fully admit I made a mistake, though conditions were trying to screw me up the backside with a jackhammer. I concentrated on flare timing as a priority over directional control. I do find it disconcerting simply because as much as I try to avoid it, people do make mistakes, and I do not know if I can be certain of avoiding one in the future.

Lauren Tjaden - 2009/01/15 22:28:42 UTC

I am going to have surgery next week. I had dye injected in my shoulder and an MRI (that isn't fun, just by the way, makes a crappy Christmas present OOOUCH!) and got the results today. I not only ripped my labrum but also broke off a piece of bone, so that removes any debate about the surgery - the bone chip must come out.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=17092
Crash at Questair

Shannon Moon - 2010/05/28 12:31:35 UTC

This is my write-up of my hang gliding accident on 2010/05/09 at Quest Air in Groveland, Florida during an attempted foot landing which resulted in shattered arms, bilateral humerus fractures, and radial nerve trauma. I could not write this up before now as I am just getting enough motor control in my right hand to type very slowly.

First, a little background about myself. I am a general aviation pilot, single engine and glider (sailplane), with about 500 hours. I own and fly a DG-300 sailplane.

I had taken a couple of years off from hang gliding. I had around 100-110 flights (all aerotow at Quest). At the peak of my hang gliding I was more fit than I am now (5'5", 120 pounds vs about 30-40 pounds overweight now). Most of those were in a Falcon 2 170, and most were wheel landings. I only had a handful of flights on my Sport 2.

I took a number of tandem refresher flights before re-soloing a Falcon on landing gear and then a couple of flights on my Sport 2, all good wheel landings till the last flight.

After the initial flights on my Sport, there were three weeks in a row with bad weather for a newly returned pilot, so my skills may have deteriorated.

On 5/8 I was on my way to Quest at around 06:30 when I was struck with GI problems (possibly food poisoning) and ended up vomiting on the side of the road for an hour before heading home. I mention this because it may have impacted my reaction times the next day.

On 5/9 I headed out early for a flight thinking I was recovered enough to fly (note: bad decision #1, I should have waited for another weekend. Arriving at Quest I was a little hesitant about the flight as my wind watch showed 8-10K wind with an occasional gust 12-15, (note: bad decision #2, should have not flown, or flown the rental Falcon on landing gear).

Unlike other flights, I did not wear gloves, which is unusual. I have small hands so gloves help me keep a good grip on the control bars (note: bad decision #3 deviating from normal flight gear/routine).

Launch went smoothly (I previously had issues with the Sport sticking to the cart, even carrying it a few feet into the air). I was a tad high on initial climb out but waited for the tug to climb up to me. VG was set 50-60%.

Tow seemed to go well, it was a little turbulent below about 800 feet. Towed to about 2500. Release was good. At about 2100 I went upright to practice handling while in a landing position. Turbulence seemed to pick up a little and I felt like I was having trouble getting the glider to be responsive (note: bad action #4, I always land with a quarter VG and forgot to change it, so of course it felt less controllable).

Around 1200-500 I started feeling nauseous, having stomach cramps as I practiced arching my back for landing, and had broken out in a cold sweat, maybe still suffering from the food poisoning bout from the day before? (Bad decision #5, should have gotten back in harness for a wheel landing).

Wind was still strong as I started doing figure eights at the approach end of the runway. At this point I really just wanted to land. I turned in for final at maybe 200-300 feet with extra speed to compensate for gusty winds. At around 25-35 feet there was a particularly strong gust and my left wing dropped. I had just started to transition my hands up higher on the downtubes and one hand slipped off (I should have had my gloves on!). I got it back and struggled to level wings and mostly leveled it, it was maybe 5-10 degrees down. At this point I should have immediately leveled off in preparation to flare, but did not for reasons unknown (very bad action #6). Instead I hit the ground with a groundspeed of probably 20-25 knots. I don't remember anything after grabbing the downtube again until after impact. (Salvaged video from my GoPro helmet cam is consistent with this scenario.) After watching the video I am at a loss as to why I did not level off then immediately flare. Perhaps the high VG setting contributed. It looks like I had two or three seconds to make the transition but did not do so. Since I don't remember those last seconds, I guess I'll never know. I came to stunned, unable to move (or even breathe), a few moments later in a lot of pain and very disoriented.

Now comes the preachy part: I credit my full face Skyrunner helmet with saving my life. If I had not had a full face helmet, I would have suffered severe facial trauma. Bystanders reported hearing the keel of my glider snap down on my helmet (there is a mark on the rear left side just above the edge of the helmet). It probably saved me from devastating spinal trauma. Guys and gals, wear full face helmets!!!!

My harness also protected me from worse chest trauma. The parachute on my chest definitely took some of the impact, and even so I have bones and cartilage bruised and fluids infiltrated in the ribs/cartilage.

A lot of bad decisions contributed to this accident. I had planned to go to Lookout Mountain Flight Park in late June for foot landing training and a mountain clinic. I'm not sure why I was so gung ho to try a foot landing that day. I think I had a little "go fever", particularly in light of the three prior weekends when I couldn't fly due to weather. I hope I learn from this and become a better pilot. Unfortunately there is a possibility I won't be able to fly again. The damage to my left arm was far worse than the right (probably from hitting left wing down). There is nerve trauma, and my orthopedic surgeon has said it could take more than a year to recover function in my arm.

I hope other pilots can learn from my accident. Be cautious, and wait to fly another day if you don't feel comfortable with condition or aren't at the peak of your health. Keep your focus and beware of distractions.

Fly safe!
-
I love my Sport 2 135! She's my baby! I love my DG-300, she's my girl!

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3167
Freak accident at Highland

Paul Tjaden - 2008/04/12 12:40:28 UTC

John (Simon) took delivery of a new Combat L on Thursday and very unfortunately, had an accident on his maiden flight. Let me add here that I think John is a fabulous pilot who has flown Sunny's Combat numerous times before and outflew me by ten or fifteen miles last spring while setting the new distance record at Highland.

Anyway, apparently John was a bit low on final approach and hooked his feet on a runway marker stopping his forward momentum and causing him to hammer in pretty hard. He told me he was transitioning to the downtubes at the wrong moment and missed the left so he wasn't able to push out a bit to clear the obstacle with more room.

I can commiserate as my worst landing accident (memorialized forever by Gary Smith's great video) happened because I missed a downtube at the wrong moment.

Anyway, his new Combat had extensive damage and John suffered a broken humerus on the left side and wrist on the right. I talked with him yesterday and he says there doesn't seem to be nerve damage but he's seeing a specialist on Monday regarding possible surgery.

Hang Gliding - 2009/01

SEEING THE SIGNS - The following account was written by a highly accomplished, Advanced rated pilot who had significant experience flying multiple aircraft and glider types. The mishap occurred at a site familiar to the pilot, while flying on a familiar wing under nearly ideal conditions. The outcome of this flight shows that nothing may be safely taken for granted in the activity of sport aviation.

---

I write this account of my rather sudden return to earth in the hope that by doing so others may learn a lesson and perhaps avoid my fate.

It was my second flight of the year (2008/04/10), and my first on the Combat. I had logged about thirteen or so flights on this glider, and maybe thirty or forty on other topless models.

The weather was calm, and it was still relatively early in the day, so the air was fairly stable. As I launched, the wind dribbled lightly from the NW at about 3 mph. I had a smooth tow behind a Dragonfly. Lift was nonexistent above 1500 feet and weak below.

I had considered flying my Discus but, because of the conditions, decided it would be an ideal opportunity to get back into the Combat. Although I had fewer than twenty hours and fifteen flights on it, I had become very comfortable with it by the end of the prior season.

I was planning a simple sled ride followed by an easy approach into a well manicured, ruler flat airport field. What could go wrong? I intended to make a nice, long, straight final while upright on the downtubes - conservative and safe.

I failed to remind myself of a few things that could have helped me immensely later. For example, the Combat was notably different from my Discus and the Lightspeeds and T2s I had flown so often in the last couple of seasons.

I had a short flight, as expected, performing a few stalls and some slow, high speed, straight and level flight, etc. - the standard stuff you do to become familiar with the characteristics of a new wing.

I then decided to set up for a nice long straight-in approach. I went downwind to the east and recall seeing my "spot" pass by to my right. I did not focus on the spot. Instead I turned to look forward, thinking that I would check back in a couple of seconds. Bad idea.

I had good speed on downwind, but by the time I glanced back at my intended landing area, I immediately knew I was a little farther downwind than I had planned. I still figured I could make it close to my spot. I decided to whip a 180 at fairly high speed to minimize my error. But I failed to coordinate the turn and the glider sliced downward dramatically and picked up speed as I rolled out on final, now even lower than I had hoped to be and traveling quite fast to boot.

The maneuver I had just performed presented the classic setup for a PIO. Recognizing this, I immediately input a small correction and held it, careful not to fall into the trap of chasing the motion of the glider. After one very small oscillation, I was once again tracking nicely. My professional and successful handling of the situation engendered within me a tiny bit of cockiness. I'd readily controlled a very sensitive machine in a situation that might have chewed up someone less skilled or current on the type.

I looked out and saw that I was going to land short. But I was carrying lots of speed with little headwind. I judged that I would easily glide over the taxiway and some foot high signs and land just short of mid field. I had planned to go upright early but now wanted to keep my drag down. Still, I ended up dropping my knees out and pushing up to prepare for the landing. It's questionable how much I gained by delaying the rotation. I was not worried and judged that I would easily pass to the right and above the signs with good speed.

As I approached the taxiway and signs, I decided to go upright. This is where things started going really bad really fast. I missed a downtube - not once, but twice. As expected, this sent me into a wag or two, leaving me low, left, and over a sign at about 26-29 mph. I thought if I could just get hold of the downtube, I'd push out and fly well over it. Alas, I did not and passed with two feet of clearance under my basetube. "Wow," I thought, "that was close. I hope my feet clear it too."

Unfortunately the boot of my harness snagged and I was slung into the ground with predictable, painful, and costly results.

So many mistakes, so little time and space. The most reliable remedies that come to mind - staying in bed, not taking up the sport - don't really satisfy. Four less radical ideas...

- Maintain a higher level of currency on any wing I intend to fly. Practice at altitude maneuvers like going upright and high speed coordinated turns that might prove critical down low.

- Pay closer attention to my intended spot and be more willing to adjust it (if possible) when conditions change.

- Spend more time chair flying, comparing differences between the wing I am most accustomed to flying, and planning how my responses to any situation would change due to differences in flying characteristics. This is especially important if you regularly fly wings with differences in flight characteristics. In a rapidly changing situation, your natural reflex reaction - the muscle memory you develop in flying your usual wing - may be ineffective or even inappropriate on what you are flying.

- Going upright sooner so that I am stabilized on final approach, well before reaching ground effect.

As in most aviation accidents, this one involved an unbroken chain of errors. Had I made one less, this flight would have ended like all others before - without mishap. This is the crux of aviation mishap prevention: recognize that you are not going to be perfect, and don't put yourself into a place where you don't need to be! Plan, prepare, practice, and think. Then, when you execute, always allow yourself an out. I know from now on, I will.

John took delivery of a new Combat L on Thursday and very unfortunately, had an accident on his maiden flight.

01. No he didn't. He flew into a sign and crashed.

I can commiserate as my worst landing accident (memorialized forever by Gary Smith's great video) happened because I missed a downtube at the wrong moment.

02. Maybe there's a pattern here, Paul. Maybe there's really no such thing as a RIGHT moment to go to a downtube. Maybe there are just more and less wrong moments.

The following account was written by a highly accomplished, Advanced rated pilot who had significant experience flying multiple aircraft and glider types.

03. He's also a freakin' carrier pilot. And he breaks a wrist and an arm landing an eighty pound plane in calm air at bicycle speed on moist grass at a wide open airport with virtually unlimited landing space? What else is wrong with this picture, Joe?

I write this account of my rather sudden return to earth in the hope that by doing so others may learn a lesson and perhaps avoid my fate.

04. Let's just make sure that you learn the lessons first, John.

I was planning a simple sled ride followed by an easy approach into a well manicured, ruler flat airport field.

05. Sled conditions, sled intentions, new high performance glider... And your rationale for not installing a pair of wheels was...?

I intended to make a nice, long, straight final while upright on the downtubes - conservative and safe.

06. Bullshit.

Hang Gliding - 2004/10

Christian Thoreson

Thus wheel landings, the safest and easiest way to consistently land a hang glider...

- If you really wanted to be conservative and safe you'd have had wheels.

Hang Gliding - 1995/04

Erik Kaye
Crested Butte, Colorado

Have you ever been at goal when the big boys and girls come in? If so, you have seen the proper way to land. These pilots come in with plenty of airspeed, rocked up in their harnesses, feet down, with their hands on the basetube - then downwind, base, and final. When they are straight and level on final, then, one hand at a time, they come up on the uprights and flare. When conditions are really nasty, one or both hands are kept on the basetube during ground effect and then moved up just before flaring. This landing style is used by experienced pilots because it offers the greatest control and is safest where it counts, near the ground.

There is another landing technique, the upright style, in which the pilot's hands are on the uprights during downwind, base, and final. In Hang Gliding magazine there is often documentation of the results of this landing style: stalls, hitting objects on approach, and the ever-popular downwind turn on final.

When your hands are on the uprights you have only fifty percent of the pitch and roll authority you would have on the basetube. Go ahead and prove it to yourself by flying around on the uprights. Flying with less than perfect control and airspeed near the ground will eventually bite you.

Staying on the basetube throughout the landing approach is not new or just for the expert pilot. This landing style should be the standard for all pilots.

Hang Gliding - 1995/07

Doug Rice
Quaker Gap, North Carolina

I'd like to thank Erik Kaye for describing landing techniques that I have used for many years. I have always felt that pilots rotating up to their downtubes early on final approach are at a tremendous disadvantage especially in turbulent air.

First of all, the upright position limits the glider's usable speed range by not allowing the control bar to be pulled all the way in if necessary. If a thermal is breaking off while you're crossing a tree line, you don't want to be slipping a turn to lose altitude. The best way to get down is to stay on a selected straight heading and bring the glider's nose down by pulling in. If the LZ is small, stay on the basetube, and as soon as you enter the back of the field, pull in to just a few feet off the ground. Although you will be flying low and fast, the speed will give you the authority to deal with the turbulence near the ground, and by making your forward glide level, your flying speed will smoothly drop off through ground effect. The longer you stay on the basetube, the longer you will have maximum speed and stability control. There is no need to be on the downtubes until you are ready to push all the way out.

Dennis Pagen's advice for downhill landings (May issue) can also benefit pilots on flat ground. The closer you are to the ground when you flare, the less you will fall after you stall. As long as you are flying straight and level and make a smooth transition to the downtubes at the last moment, and aggressive flare (no wind) held all the way up and out, will settle you on your feet even if you flare a moment too early. Ground skimming near the end of your glide lengthens your usable flare window, which will not only improve your landings but will give target shooters more room to hit the bull's-eye. So long as you use a quick, full flare, you never need to be holding downtubes more than halfway up. The danger of flying fast, close to the ground can be controlled with quick and decisive adjustments in pitch.

- There is NOTHING conservative or safe - or halfway intelligent - about a nice, long, straight final while upright on the downtubes and with obstructions between you and where you're going. Pilots who know what the hell they're doing use nice short steep approaches and finals - bending them as the circumstances may dictate - and stay prone and on the basetube at least until they're level, in ground effect, and have bled off most of their excess speed. Pilots who REALLY wanna be conservative and safe stay prone and on the basetube until they stop rolling.

...the Combat was notably different from my Discus and the Lightspeeds and T2s I had flown so often in the last couple of seasons.

07. BFD.

I had a short flight, as expected, performing a few stalls and some slow, high speed, straight and level flight...

08. Prone or upright?

09. Where were your hands?

I then decided to set up for a nice long straight-in approach.

10. Translation: I decided to fly an excessive distance downwind of the field in an aircraft with no engine.

I went downwind to the east and recall seeing my "spot" pass by to my right.

11. Your "spot"? You're at an airport with a thirty-two hundred foot runway. That's about three Nimitz class carrier decks lined up end to end. And you're trying to land a hang glider at twenty miles per hour.

I did not focus on the spot.

12. Why would anyone focus on a "spot" instead of the obstructions at the downwind end of the field? Was there a spot landing contest going on? What was the prize?

I had good speed on downwind, but by the time I glanced back at my intended landing area, I immediately knew I was a little farther downwind than I had planned.

13. You fucked up.

I still figured I could make it close to my spot.

14. At this point how important is making it close to your spot?

But I failed to coordinate the turn and the glider sliced downward dramatically and picked up speed as I rolled out on final, now even lower than I had hoped to be and traveling quite fast to boot.

15. Whereas this wouldn't have happened on a Lightspeed, T2, or Sunny's Combat.

16. You fucked up again.

My professional and successful handling of the situation...

17. You were never a professional hang glider pilot. Doug and Christian were professionals. And when I was working with Doug in 1980 I was a professional.

I looked out and saw that I was going to land short.

18. Short of WHAT? Your precious spot? Were there other spots available at the time?

I judged that I would easily glide over the taxiway and some foot high signs...

19. Bullshit. You don't JUDGE that you will EASILY clear the signs. You either SEE that you will EASILY clear the signs or JUDGE that you will clear them. You were doing the latter.

I had planned to go upright early but now wanted to keep my drag down.

20. Good idea.

Still, I ended up dropping my knees out and pushing up to prepare for the landing.

21. You don't mean to prepare for landing. You mean to prepare for landing ON YOUR FEET.

22. And thereby rotated your harness such that the boot projected below the level of your basetube.

It's questionable how much I gained by delaying the rotation.

23. But it's pretty freaking obvious how much you lost by not eliminating the rotation altogether.

As I approached the taxiway and signs, I decided to go upright.

24. Starting from the point at which you cleared fifty feet on tow and ending at the point you'd have otherwise cleared the signs and entered ground effect, what's the single worst instant that you could've elected to seriously compromise your control authority?

This is where things started going really bad really fast.

25. No shit.

Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974

"Never take your hands off the bar." - Tom Peghiny

I missed a downtube - not once, but twice.

26. Maybe God was trying to tell you something.

I thought if I could just get hold of the downtube, I'd push out and fly well over it.

27. Whereas if, instead, you had moved your right hand back to the basetube you wouldn't have been able to?

"Wow," I thought, "that was close. I hope my feet clear it too."

28. Which, had you stayed prone, would not have been a concern.

So many mistakes, so little time and space.

29. So let's skip over the basic, obvious, useful stuff and waste most of what we have remaining on the usual irrelevant postmortem crap.

Maintain a higher level of currency on any wing I intend to fly.

30. Huh? Fly every day and, if you miss a couple, never fly again? And if it's not a wing you've flown before then don't fly it? Yeah, that's a useful one.

31. Or perhaps you just mean blow the dust off only at a wide open airport in brain dead easy conditions? How'd that work out?

Practice at altitude maneuvers like going upright...

32. GREAT! Practice driving drunk at an empty track so back on the road when you're drunk you'll be better able to deal with a critical situation. Love it!

33. How many years have we been flying these things and how much better are we getting at doing something unnecessary, dangerous, and stupid?

34. How 'bout instead - since going upright for no legitimate reason whatsoever was virtually the entire cause of this crash - we instead practice at altitude maneuvers like NOT going upright?

...and high speed coordinated turns that might prove critical down low.

35. Percentage-wise, how much of a relevant factor in this mega pooch screw was the turn coordination?

...Pay closer attention to my intended spot...

36. How 'bout instead you pay closer attention to your unintended signs and options for not flying into them - even if that means relinquishing your claim on The Precious?

37. How 'bout we start recognizing the concept of the spot for what it is - a malignant institutionalized embrace of target fixation syndrome?

...and be more willing to adjust it...

38. How 'bout flushing it down the toilet - where it belongs - altogether? How 'bout thinking about how - primarily because of your fixation on The Precious - you managed to fly into a foot high obstruction in dead air? And one of two only available obstructions within a hundred yards.

...(if possible)...

39. IF POSSIBLE??? Is the implication here that when - after the second pooch screw - you found yourself low you didn't have virtually unlimited other options for a safe landing? When in your entire hang gliding career - except for fulfilling some idiotic rating requirement - has hitting a spot been more important than getting into a field? Your "instructors" taught you how to do the former at the expense of teaching you how to do the latter.

...when conditions change.

40. I didn't hear about any change of conditions. As a matter of fact - there were no conditions at all.

Spend more time chair flying, comparing differences between the wing I am most accustomed to flying, and planning how my responses to any situation would change due to differences in flying characteristics. This is especially important if you regularly fly wings with differences in flight characteristics. In a rapidly changing situation, your natural reflex reaction - the muscle memory you develop in flying your usual wing - may be ineffective or even inappropriate on what you are flying.

41. In dead air with a wing under full control - until you ELECTED to take your hands off of the CONTROL bar - you flew into a sign at a wide open airport.

Going upright sooner so that I am stabilized on final approach, well before reaching ground effect.

42. Great. The precise opposite of what you should be doing.

43. Great. The precise game plan that was the catalyst for the sequence of events that trashed your glider, sent you to the hospital, and could easily have permanently ended your flying career.

44. Great. Assume that when you pull that same stupid game plan at a real field real conditions won't leave you in EXACTLY the same position - wallowing around ten feet behind a fence post trying to grab a downtube.

This is the crux of aviation mishap prevention: recognize that you are not going to be perfect, and don't put yourself into a place where you don't need to be!

45. Yeah. Five feet off the deck with your hands on - or not on - the downtubes.

46. Setting XC records is really cool. Knowing how to take off and land is really important.

47. And not one freakin' word about wheels in the whole freakin' article.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3173
somewhat predictable accident at Highland

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=21088
What you wish you'd known then?

Doug Doerfler (flyin_canuck) - 2011/03/02 05:24:44 UTC

Nothing creates carnage like declaring a spot landing contest.

And, at the discretion of the instructor, that's exactly what the USHGA Pilot Proficiency System is - one massive, 35 year long, stupid, useless, occasionally deadly spot landing contest.

Ann Fawkes - 2011/03/02 10:52:50 UTC
Western Europe

If the conditions are such that you need to choose between a controlled wheel landing or a risky foot landing, go for the wheels and try the foot landing in better conditions. Landing unharmed is your first priority.

Sorry Ann, couldn't possibly be. Otherwise why would USHGA be so rabid about "safe, smooth landings, on feet, into wind"? If you don't do risky foot landings at airports and in wide open pastures every single flight of your entire hang gliding career you might not be able to safely land on your feet in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place or a field filled with seven foot high corn. Are you nuts or something?

Tad Eareckson wrote:And, at the discretion of the instructor, that's exactly what the USHGA Pilot Proficiency System is - one massive, 35 year long, stupid, useless, occasionally deadly spot landing contest.

I think I'm one of the few people that agrees with you on this.

For anyone not familiar with USHPA's 'Optional Landing Task', it's a legal alternative to the spot landing rating requirements that involves landing on a 200' runway (and the pilot CAN land on wheels if pre-designated). This requirement makes a helluvalot more sense than landing on a spot and I'd like to see it totally replace the spot landing requirement. However, as it stands, it can only be used "when the spot landing task is not practical or potentially dangerous." What the hell does that mean??

I've been working on my H4 spots lately. I've gotten two in a row but never three. One thing I've realized is that trying to hit the damn spot makes me do things I wouldn't normally do that increase landing risk. For example, if I realize when turning on to base that I underestimated the wind, I'll fly straight at the spot, which means I may have to land in a crosswind. Or if I think I'm going to be short I might fly slower than I normally would on final and stay in my harness longer. I haven't hurt myself yet, but having to do this stuff is completely unnecessary.

It's not that I think accuracy isn't important. But I will never be in a situation where I need to land 25' from a spot. In fact, about the only remotely possible real world situation I can imagine where one would need to do this is landing on a 25' radius island in the middle of a lake (hopefully no one else needs to land before the boat comes to pick you up...).

The way I see it, there are three general types of landing fields.

1. Large, unrestricted fields, or fields with obstacles surrounding them but so large they don't matter. Wallaby and Lookout have LZs in this category. Aim for somewhere in the middle and it doesn't matter if you're way off, so spot landing skills aren't necessary here (other than minimizing walking distance to the breakdown area).

2. Small, restricted fields. The kind you have to show you can land in for an RLF rating. I don't land in fields like this, but if I ever did (or was practicing to), hitting a frigging spot is going to be the last thing on my mind. All I'm going to be focused on is turning onto final with just enough altitude to complete the turn safely. The RLF rating says nothing about where you end up so long as it's in the box. This type of approach requires lots of skills, but spot landing is not one of them.

3. Small, unrestricted fields. You could fly an RLF approach into these (which as discussed don't benefit from spot landing skills) but they're a lot less forgiving so it makes more sense to use some extra space around the field. This is the one time when accuracy is important. However, I would never attempt to land in a field smaller than 200' (the runway size for the Optional Landing Task). Actually, I don't think I'd attempt to land in a field smaller than 400'. So if I can do the Optional Landing Task, I should have a substantial safety margin. I sure as hell don't need to land 25' or even 50' from a spot.

I think it's a good idea to always pick out a landing spot to hone your accuracy as much as possible, but I think it's dangerous and totally unnecessary to go out of your way to hit it.

Interestingly, the instructor who's around the most when I'm attempting my spots agrees with me. But I don't feel comfortable doing the 'Optional Landing Task' for my rating given the fact that USHPA seems to frown on it and puts some nonsensical restriction on it (sounds like a compromise made because of opposition to the task). Most pilots I've talked to aren't even aware of the Optional Landing Task. I feel like I'm going to be cheating if I don't do this the hard way. (It's not so much about what I think, but the whole point of ratings is to give others an idea of your proficiency.)

I don't know anything about the history of the Optional Landing Task, why it was added, and why USHPA put the restriction on it. I'd really like to know these things. But most of all, I'd like to know why people don't realize that it makes so much more sense than spot landing and make it the STANDARD task rather than an 'optional' task.

Do other countries have similar spot landing requirements?

Zack

Tad Eareckson wrote:If you don't do risky foot landings at airports and in wide open pastures every single flight of your entire hang gliding career you might not be able to safely land on your feet in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place or a field filled with seven foot high corn.

For everyone else, this is a reference to something one of the Houston club members said:

Dave wrote:Now, tell me what you do when your chosen LZ is a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place. Better yet, you see what looks like a large green pasture so you head over there only to find out that it is in fact filled with 7-foot high corn, and now there is no usable LZ within glide. Wheels probably won't help you in either case.

To which Tad responded:

Tad Eareckson wrote:1. People (foot) land badly all the time.

2. Wheels probably won't help you in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place and DEFINITELY won't help you in a field of seven foot high corn.

Conclusion...

If people regularly land in narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place and fields of seven foot high corn you can count on a fair chunk of them being seriously injured. (That DOES seem to be supported by the data.)

Therefore...

People should not attempt to land in narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place and fields of seven foot high corn. Works for me.

I may disagree with you here, Tad ('may' because I may not be understanding you, as has happened in the past). Foot landing is difficult relative to wheel landing, and this is why I think it needs to be practiced, as it is a useful skill. Many LZs simply don't support safe wheel landings (Dave is from SoCal...his river bed scenario sounds like the LZ at Sylmar/Kagel). And if you want to fly XC, you better be damn sure you can land on your feet because you never know what you're going to be landing on (as you can't get a real good look at the ground until you're pretty much committed to the LZ). In Dave's example, the pilot doesn't intentionally choose to land in corn, but that becomes his only option.

If you're only going to fly at flight parks with frequently mowed fields, I see no problems with landing on wheels all the time. And if it's safer to land on wheels given the circumstances (suitable terrain and maybe a tailwind or very turbulent conditions), it's smarter to do that then try to foot land. But I think there's a huge value in perfecting foot landings, especially if you plan to fly a lot of sites or go XC.

By the way, Christian Thoreson was still Lookout's flight school director when I trained there. He retired from hang gliding instruction not long after that (a great loss for the school).

Zack

For anyone not familiar with USHPA's 'Optional Landing Task'...

Very interesting. In late 2009 Addendum 1 read like this:

At the discretion of the Observer or Instructor and not the pilot, this task may be substituted for the "three spot landings in a row" task.

which I thought was plenty despicable enough as it was. This sentence:

The optional landing task must only be used when the spot landing task is not practical or potentially dangerous.

was subsequently amended.

What the hell does that mean??

I dunno. The spot landing task is ALWAYS potentially dangerous. So the meaning seems pretty obvious to me - at least that's how I'd interpret it if I were an attorney suing the crap out of USHGA on behalf of a former pilot who had permanently lost use of an arm. And let's not forget the "At the discretion of the Observer or Instructor and not the pilot" part - we might as well get his house and SUV while it's convenient.

I've been working on my H4 spots lately. I've gotten two in a row but never three.

And, of course, when you DO get three in a row you will have mastered a skill that you will never lose and this will make you a much better pilot.

In fact, about the only remotely possible real world situation I can imagine where one would need to do this is landing on a 25' radius island in the middle of a lake...

You make it - GREAT! You miss it - you drown.

Large, unrestricted fields, or fields with obstacles surrounding them but so large they don't matter. Wallaby and Lookout have LZs in this category. Aim for somewhere in the middle and it doesn't matter if you're way off...

Michael Elliot - 27 - Pacific Airwave Double Vision - 1991/12/15 - Lookout Mountain Flight Park

Novice pilot went tandem with experienced tandem pilot (Bo Hagewood, in case anyone's wondering) in preparation for first solo altitude flight. On the base leg of the landing approach, flying crosswind over tree line, the attempt to turn onto final was unsuccessful. The inability to turn onto final may have been caused by thermal activity, the passenger interfering with glider control, or both. The glider continued straight, hit a tree, and side slipped sixty feet. The novice passenger died, the tandem pilot was seriously injured.

...(other than minimizing walking distance to the breakdown area).

That's the lead-off to SO many crash reports. There's virtually always something from the owner of the crumpled wreckage in the final paragraph to the tune of "How could I have been THAT STUPID!!!"

I don't land in fields like this, but if I ever did (or was practicing to), hitting a frigging spot is going to be the last thing on my mind. All I'm going to be focused on is turning onto final with just enough altitude to complete the turn safely.

My second through thirteenth mountain flights were on my Comet 165 off of High Top on the Blue Ridge in Virginia into a rotten little LZ. Kitty Hawk Kites did their clinics there and at the time - 1982 - I was working for them and getting my Three. You could hit it with a Seahawk OK but with the supership of the day you couldn't afford to waste ANY runway and my coaching sucked.

Even though I was a really good dune goon at the time I didn't know how to translate the skills to that environment and the third time I was sledding down over that postage stamp I was scared sick and felt like I had absolutely no business being in the sport. But what I learned by that flight or within the next couple was to keep up a good head of maneuvering steam and roll hard onto final as close as you dared to the treetops. After you did that there was no freakin' way you were gonna overshoot. I.e., treat every landing like a carrier landing and you stay out of trouble.

I think it's a good idea to always pick out a landing spot to hone your accuracy as much as possible...

Disagree. If you're even thinking spot you're thinking compromise.

...but I think it's dangerous and totally unnecessary to go out of your way to hit it.

Exactly.

But I don't feel comfortable doing the 'Optional Landing Task' for my rating given the fact that USHPA seems to frown on it...

Fuck USHGA.

(It's not so much about what I think, but the whole point of ratings is to give others an idea of your proficiency.)

Fuck others.

I don't know anything about the history of the Optional Landing Task, why it was added...

On the morning of 1989/07/03 I had gone up the road with Santos Mendoza from the Hyner View fly-in for breakfast at Renovo. As we were about to head back we heard sirens. Dave Collins, one of our DC area club guys, was trying to hit a spot for his Three and flew his Mark IV into the ground.

The basetube caught and he swung forward and twisted a bit.

The Mark IV - instead of the conventional two nose wires arrangement - had a continuous nose wire that turned around through an aluminum elbow sleeve which was engaged by a catch. Perfectly adequate in flight, not so good in a crash.

The wire failed at the nose, the control frame folded back, and the wing came down and forward flat. Since Dave was twisted the keel was able to diagonally guillotine the back of his neck and seriously break it.

The next time I saw him his head was bolted (literally - screws into his skull) to a framework which engaged his shoulders/collar to immobilize his neck. I saw him again flying a training hill but after that he dropped out.

I later discussed this incident with Ken Brown. His response was, "We don't build them to crash." (Yeah, thanks Ken. But that was pretty freakin' obvious to everyone there that weekend.)

Hyner View is in Dennis Pagen's backyard but I believe he was absent that weekend. I myself was working on getting my Four spots signed off - unsuccessfully that trip.

It was shortly thereafter that the "Optional Landing Task" made its appearance in the SOPs.

...and why USHPA put the restriction on it.

'Cause they're total idiots. It's what happens when you put pilots in charge of aviation procedures.

I'd really like to know these things.

One thing you might be asking is why the goddam spot landing was EVER the standard. My theory is that it's a relic from the days of bamboo and four to one before anyone even dreamed of soaring - so, like skydiving once the chutes were open, spot landings were the only thing people could use for demonstrations of skill and competitions.

I'd like to know why people don't realize that it makes so much more sense than spot landing and make it the STANDARD task rather than an 'optional' task.

Precisely the same reason we've insisted for twenty years that our aerotow releases be based on bent pins - criminal negligence and unfathomable stupidity.

Do other countries have similar spot landing requirements?

Probably. From Canada to the UK to Germany to Australia they all tend to have unfortunate habits of following US models.

I sure as hell don't need to land 25' or even 50' from a spot.

Twenty-five feet is ridiculous. That hasn't even been a wingspan of a glider since the mid Seventies. The following Hyner View fly-in - Labor Day weekend - I got three in a row close enough for Dennis to sign me off, but I had an ace up my sleeve anyway. A long time prior a more advanced pilot who shared our conviction that these things were ridiculous told me to ask whatever sonuvabitch was gonna be signing me off to demonstrate one first so I could see how to do it right.

To which Tad responded:

People should not attempt to land in narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place and fields of seven foot high corn. Works for me.

To which Dave (Susko) responded:

Besides, Tad will miss my response, because he obviously missed my point. But I can't get to it right now, because like I mentioned in a previous post, I have to catch up on work today, and I have a life away from the keyboard.

And, predictably, we never heard from Dave again.

Foot landing is difficult relative to wheel landing, and this is why I think it needs to be practiced...

Yeah? Ya know what I think? I think if you just landed everybody on wheels ALL the time that a pilot who got caught in a waist high grass or boulder situation would be no less likely to be able to stop it on a dime than the typical weekend pilot who practices "doing it right" every landing. And even if that statement doesn't hold water without a bit of leakage I don't think there's any question whatsoever that our overall numbers would get astonishingly better than the way we do it now - which is practice dangerous landings every flight to prepare for dangerous situations we may seldom or never encounter.

...as it is a useful skill.

So's throwing yourself into a ditch when you hear an incoming mortar round. But there's a limited advantage and a predictably high cost associated with everybody practicing it two or three times a weekend - especially if you're operating in an environment in which there's an extremely low or zero probability that anyone's gonna be shooting at you.

We're injuring and killing more people with the practice than we would be with the thing we're practicing to protect ourselves from.

Many LZs simply don't support safe wheel landings (Dave is from SoCal...his river bed scenario sounds like the LZ at Sylmar/Kagel).

Yeah, I was wondering why anyone with all of Texas to choose from would opt for anything that insane. So fine. If that's what he needs to do to get local airtime and he's good enough to pull it off consistently then more power to him. Just don't force all the Texas and airport people to land every time like you have to to avoid breaking a leg at Sylmar/Kagel.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3695
good day until the wreck

Lauren Tjaden - 2008/12/31 04:29:12 UTC

came in with no wind after an hour and had right wing drop. instead of wrestling gilder straight i tried to flare while desperately trying to straighten.

bad bad whack. horrible pain, i could not move. screaming with pain, literally. took a very long time to get me out and to the hospital. got very good drugs.

turned out to be badly dislocated shoulder. they had to knock me out to put it back in but it was so bad i kept waking up and screaming.

And the guy who had taught her all the pro subtleties of flare timing - Kevin Carter - permanently destroyed his knee punching one prematurely to stop short of a paddock fence during a comp in Australia. He told me he and his glider would've been fine if he had just bellied in and tapped it with his nose wires - if he had even gotten that far.

And if you want to fly XC, you better be damn sure you can land on your feet because you never know what you're going to be landing on (as you can't get a real good look at the ground until you're pretty much committed to the LZ).

1. I flew for over a quarter century and I don't think I was EVER ONCE damn sure I was gonna land on my feet in light or switchy air.

2. I was never once in a situation in which stopping on my feet was important unless I had deliberately pushed my luck and dialed in the danger.

3. Sailplanes fly XC all the time and those guys all suck at landing on their feet.

4. Chris Starbuck has been paralyzed from the waist down ever since the mid Seventies when he pancaked in while swing seated and he flew XC competitions for decades thereafter without incident.

5. I have ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM with offering a No Stepper Special Skill signoff. I likewise have absolutely no problem with offering a Loop Special Skill signoff. But we shouldn't mandate those as default flying modes.

In Dave's example, the pilot doesn't intentionally choose to land in corn, but that becomes his only option.

Then he's FUCKED UP. He's demonstrated poor judgment. He may be extremely skilled and able to use that skill three out of four times to come out smelling like a rose but he has - nevertheless - screwed the pooch.

I used to push my luck a lot doing ridge runs and I've landed in overgrown clearcuts on the sides of mountains in which had I not been able to stop on a dime I'd have been really screwed. I once did a really excellent stop-on-a-dimer in one of them. Lost my balance on the slash and fell down uneventfully. Didn't even realize that I was hurt until after I stood up and put some weight on my right ankle. Good thing I was still in radio contact with launch.

When I used to follow the local wire you'd frequently hear an impromptu collection of half dozen people talking about going to High Rock on Thursday 'cause the conditions were gonna be great and expressing concern about the grass not having been mown in a while. You could bet your bottom dollar that one of them was gonna come back with a broken arm.

Your average weekend pilot is NEVER gonna be able to consistently stop the glider on his feet in light smooth air more than about two thirds of the time. Watch what happens at ANY LZ on ANY weekend. Regularly scheduled bonks, whacks, ground loops, and trashed downtubes. The perfect boulder/corn field landing is such a rarity that people cheer on the odd occasion when someone actually pulls one off.

So if a bunch of dumb, testosterone poisoned XC jocks wanna push their luck for an extra half mile and trust that they can stop on a dime in injun country EVERY TIME then super. But I one hundred percent guarantee you that probably all of them are gonna end up getting hurt. And I also want those assholes to leave Jayne DePanfilis the hell alone 'cause she's doing just fine the way she is and she's a lot smarter than they are.

Doug Hildreth - 1990/03

We all know that our new gliders are more difficult to land. We have been willing to accept this with the rationalization that it is the unavoidable consequence of higher performance. But I see my job as a responsibility to challenge acceptance and rationalization. From my perspective, what I see in the landing zone and what I see in the statistics column is not acceptable. Crashes on landing are causing too many bent downtubes, too many minor injuries and too many serious or fatally injured pilots.

So what are we going to do? One reply is, "We should teach all those bozos how to land properly." Well, we've been trying that approach for the past few years and it has NOT worked!

William Rich - 1991/01
San Diego

I personally have laid in the dust stunned, my helmeted head rammed into the ground, after having stumbled during a difficult landing. It is a terrible thing to tentatively wiggle the fingers and toes to determine if one has a spinal injury.

Dennis Pagen - 1991/01

Landings and probably bad landings will always be with us as long as we take to the sky and insist on using our feet as landing gear.

Gil Dodgen - 1995/01

All of this reminds me of a comment Mike Meier made when he was learning to fly sailplanes. He mentioned how easy it was to land a sailplane (with spoilers for glide-path control and wheels), and then said, "If other aircraft were as difficult to land as hang gliders no one would fly them."

That is NEVER gonna change.

If you're only going to fly at flight parks with frequently mowed fields, I see no problems with landing on wheels all the time.

I'd hazard a guess that the OVERWHELMING majority of rated pilots in this sport never land anywhere else. And the percentage of flights that come down in those environments has gotta be off the scale.

The Ledger - 2009/11/17
Jeremy Maready

Vermont Man Dies in Davenport Hang Glider Crash - Volunteer firefighter was gliding near Davenport Sunday (2009/11/15) when he hit tree, police say.

Anthony Ameo, 59, of Sheffield, Vermont was trying to land when he struck a pine tree and fell nearly 25 feet, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office and officials at Wallaby Ranch, a facility that caters to hang gliders.

Ameo was flown to Lakeland Regional Medical Center where he died during surgery.

A friend said Ameo began hang gliding about three years ago and was practicing for his intermediate rating. He had passed a written test and was practicing for his flying test, which would measure his ability to set up a proper approach and flare the glider at the appropriate time to land on his feet.

"The transition (from flaring the glider to landing) takes a lot of eye-to-hand coordination," said Eugene Pettinato, Ameo's friend and flying partner. "That was his weakest area, I think."

I posted the following on the TUGS group three weeks ago:

---

Luen Miller - 1996/07

1996/04/28 - Frank Sauber - 68 - Taylor Farm Training Hill, Fredericksburg, Virginia
- Pacific Airwaves Formula 144
- Novice, 17 years, still low airtime, tow sign-off on a payout winch
- massive internal

The pilot and a tow operator were using an experimental stationary winch system, reportedly utilizing a motorcycle engine. On the first tow a bicycle grip release was used and three tries were required before the glider released.

On the second tow a string three-ring circus was used. The pilot also said that he wanted to remain lower. "At 50 feet Frank got into a left turn for reasons unknown. The operator thinks that Frank may have been reaching for the release. The turn went uncorrected until Frank was 180 degrees from his original flight path." The winch operator does not believe the glider locked out. At some point in the turn the tow operator reduced power on the winch.

The glider impacted the ground nose first. After attempts to revive the pilot failed, the tow operator went for help. The pilot was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.

The above information has been assembled from second and third-hand reports. An official accident report on this incident has not yet been received.

I first took lessons at Kitty Hawk in 1980 on Easter weekend. Frank and Barbara were camped about two or three tents away with a Seahawk on the racks. He had tremendous enthusiasm for hang gliding but zilch in the way of aptitude and a nasty case of acrophobia.

Starting in 1988 I started working my ass off to get him competent and safe enough for a Two and mountain flying. After about a year and a half of training hill hell I was able to sign him off and throw him off the ramp at Henson and for the remainder of his life we carpooled to the ridges and, every now and then, a tow site. He was a real decent, generous guy. He was the last guy who I signed off on a rating and the last guy who signed me off on a rating sent him up on crappy equipment and killed him in two tows.

---

The reason he was towing - with Santos Mendoza - was to relearn to land on his feet. The reason he was trying to relearn to land on his feet was to satisfy the stupid standup spot landing requirement for his Three so he could fly the high sites without Observer or Instructor supervision. He didn't need any of that shit - he was plenty qualified to make his own launch calls. And we were all landing on our feet and breaking downtubes - he was rolling in on his Bennett wheels every time and doing fine. I had been frustrated that he wouldn't/couldn't flare it like everybody else but maybe a year before he was killed I had reached the conclusion, "So freakin' what? He's having fun, he's doing fine, leave him the hell alone."

But I think there's a huge value in perfecting foot landings, especially if you plan to fly a lot of sites or go XC.

PERFECTING them? Good freakin' luck. Knowing how to do them well enough to establish a pretty good batting average? OK. But we're gonna perfect them the same way Olympic athletes perfect their gymnastics and figure skating routines - at best. And those people are working inside where Mother Nature can't get to them.

Yeah, it's a very useful arrow to have in your quiver. But it shouldn't be default mode. Get the glider into the field, stay on the basetube, keep it fast and level, get it down into ground effect and bleed enough speed to get to the point at which it's gonna be tough to hurt yourself, THEN you can start getting artistic if you want.

By the way, Christian Thoreson was still Lookout's flight school director when I trained there. He retired from hang gliding instruction not long after that (a great loss for the school).

Kinda like Oskar Schindler was a great loss for the Nazi Party. Nowadays those assholes are having students do the entire flight from ramp to turf with their hands on the downtubes so they'll be good and ready to flare when the time comes. After they've done a couple of those iterations Matt PERMITS them to advance to the basetube.

http://ozreport.com/14.129
Packsaddle accident report

Shane Nestle - 2010/07/01

2010/06/26 - John Seward

Being that John was still very new to flying in the prone position, I believe that he was likely not shifting his weight, but simply turning his body in the direction he wanted to turn. Because his altitude was nearly eye level for me, it's difficult to judge what his body was doing in the turn. And because the turn was smooth throughout, it would make sense that he was cross controlling the turn. It was also supported by Dan's observations.

He was killed 'cause Jeff was more concerned about teaching him to land on his feet than he was about teaching him to fly the fucking glider.

Frank, Tony, and John were all killed by USHGA and its stupid landing policies - and I'm not happy about it.

Try this experiment...
- At Hearne designate a wide open landing area that NOBODY can miss.
- First round everybody is required to attempt foot landings as safely as possible anywhere in the LZ.
- Second and all successive rounds everybody has adequate wheels and is required to stay prone and land on them.
- Third and successive rounds you bring vodka and start raising everybody's Blood Alcohol Contents.

How high do you hafta go with the BACs until the landings hit the break even point with Round 1?

Next weekend do the same experiment with an orange traffic cone in the middle of the field.

I never knew about that tandem incident at Lookout (or that Bo was ever an instructor there). I don't know what the field was like in 1991, but I know it's much bigger now than it was originally. There's no reason to fly over trees at any point during an approach there today. Even today it's far from an ideal LZ, but not because accuracy is important.

Tad Eareckson wrote:Disagree. If you're even thinking spot you're thinking compromise.

You have to be thinking about landing somewhere. Even airplane pilots are thinking about a spot (their touch down point). I think it's much easier to have a point picked out than a general area. You have to have some way to judge accuracy (in preparation for LZs fitting into my third class).

Tad Eareckson wrote:Yeah? Ya know what I think? I think if you just landed everybody on wheels ALL the time that a pilot who got caught in a waist high grass or boulder situation would be no less likely to be able to stop it on a dime than the typical weekend pilot who practices "doing it right" every landing.

Gonna have to disagree with you there. My flares sucked for a long time after I started flying.

What do you think about Joe Greblo's 'moonwalk' approach to landings?
http://ozreport.com/4.59#2
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19877
I've never tried it. I'm so used to the way I do things it's very difficult for me to change.

Tad Eareckson wrote:I was never once in a situation in which stopping on my feet was important unless I had deliberately pushed my luck and dialed in the danger.

During the summer the grass frequently gets too high at Hearne to safely wheel land. And we once had a student on a tandem out there break a wrist after a front wheel hit a large ant hill.

On my only three XC landings, one was in a rocky field (in Mexico), one had tallish grass, and one was in a cow pasture. I would have only felt comfortable wheel landing in the last one (but then it was strewn with 'land mines').

My Ultimate Goal In Life, and the reason I even care about getting an H4, is to fly Yosemite. Here's what YHGA has to say about wheels:

Wheels are greatly discouraged. Wheeled gliders tend to roll off of the steep launch during hook in with or without the pilot. The Landing Zone is high grass offering no advantage for a "wheeled" landing.

Tad Eareckson wrote:I'd hazard a guess that the OVERWHELMING majority of rated pilots in this sport never land anywhere else.

I know you have a lot of east coast experience, but have you flown out west? I haven't (much), but my impression is that LZs like Kagel's are not uncommon in the drier parts of the country. And the densest population of pilots in the US is without a doubt in SoCal.

Tad Eareckson wrote:Sailplanes fly XC all the time and those guys all suck at landing on their feet.

It's my understanding that if a sailplane pilot lands out he 'FUCKED UP'. In hang gliding, out-landings are expected.

Tad Eareckson wrote:Your average weekend pilot is NEVER gonna be able to consistently stop the glider on his feet in light smooth air more than about two thirds of the time.

Really? Even smooth air? I think hang gliders are actually pretty easy to land in smooth air, even with light wind. It's when conditions are rowdy that it gets tough. I'm a pretty average weekend pilot and pretty much always stop the glider on my feet. But I do think we have it easier out here in the flats (we pretty much never have nil wind and don't have much in the way of mechanical turbulence).

Tad Eareckson wrote:Nowadays those assholes are having students do the entire flight from ramp to turf with their hands on the downtubes so they'll be good and ready to flare when the time comes.

This was the case when I learned there as well. But the reason wasn't so that they'd be ready to flare...it's because they've only flown from the downtubes on the training hills. Plus, they're using training harnesses that don't allow going prone (at least that's how it was). I don't think they have any problem with aerotow students going to the basetube on their first mountain launches because they're used to flying from the basetube.

I'm sure Jeff has his students fly from the downtubes initially for the same reason.

Should instructors teach students to fly from the basetube before they go off a mountain? I dunno...most training hills aren't very big and students don't have a lot of time to transition, do some turns, and then transition again. They certainly don't have time to do all that and go prone.

I'm glad I had tandem training before I first soloed...

I agree that pilots should be able to land on wheels should they choose without criticism. But only performing wheel landings will limit the sites a pilot can fly.

Zack