A zillion years ago - mid Nineties maybe - I was in a conversation with Dennis Pagen when he responded to something I'd just said with something along the lines of:
"Shouldn't our goal in hang gliding be to attain the respect of our peers?"
That surprised me a fair bit 'cause back then I'd been drinking his Kool-Aid, buying into the façade he'd created for himself, thinking he was head and shoulders above just about everyone else on the planet and in the sport.
And I think long before that I was in a discussion with Mike Robertson - probably at Kitty Hawk in '82 at an Instructor certification clinic. I told him how I'd waded through Dennis's (Dense Pages') early (obviously back then) books on hang gliding, spent hours studying, deciphering, understanding all the vector diagrams illustrating the forces involved in lift, drag, control. Back then I'd thought that that's what all of the most advanced, accomplished pilots had done.
Mike told me that those books weren't designed in the least to educate pilots. Their purpose was to show off Dennis's depth of understanding. (Also, I now realize, to intimidate the novice pilot and render him submissive to the USHGA power establishment.)
That "peers" bullshit had always smelled a bit funny to me. I'd always wanted to be the best pilot possible, I was always pushing the envelope, questioning my instruction, pissing on spot landing bullshit. And in the '82 season I got to be a real high level dune pilot.
When I started looking at Industry Standard tow equipment I started thinking that I could produce much better stuff than the cheap overbuilt and underperforming crap being stocked on the display shelves.
Then ya keep reading more Pagen - only in print 'cause no way in hell is he gonna open up vulnerabilities by getting into digital interactive environments - and ya start noticing all the typos, spelling mistakes, pretentious misuse of language, inconsistencies, distortions, contradictions, total bullshit theory...
And you watch him tailor his messages to stay consistent with the state of the art. Towline failures were originally bad things so you were supposed to treat them with care and repair or replace them as they were damaged or worn. Then as operators continued to use them until they disintegrated you were supposed to always be prepared for a towline failure. (Or weak link success - whichever occurred first.)
You go with the respect from / acceptance by your peers you inevitably end up with the Tim Herr / Mark G. Forbes / Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney / Jack and Davis Show model and the extinction of the sport - which is right about where we are now.
Fuck peers and the horses they rode in on. Wilbur and Orville didn't get airborne by working to gain the respect of their peers. They put their two heads together and built upon good work that had gone before and totally nailed the theory. Then others rapidly built on what they'd done with engineering and left the Wright Flyer in the dust.
Kite Strings is the only legitimate hang gliding resource out there with any substantial footprint and it didn't get anywhere as a result of people seeking respect of peers. It got where it is by individuals who worked to get things right and help others to get things right.
---
Speaking of Michael Robertson...
Saw "Fly Away Home" last night on one of the local PBS stations. I'd seen it once in the theater when it came out in '96 and/but had about zilch recollection of it. It was kinda stupid but the refresher wasn't a total waste.
I'd known Mike had been involved in it (filmed and supposedly taking place in his backyard) and had talked a bit with him about it. He's in the credits as "stunt double: glider" and "hang glider pilot". But if you go to IMDb and click on him it takes you to the wrong Michael Robertson - a producer/director from Sydney.
---
And speaking of birds...
Just noticed some little stuff flitting through the newly foliated branches out the front window. Grabbed the glasses and hit the driveway. Male breeding plumage Black-Throated Blue Warbler and ditto Redstart. I grabbed the National Geographic guide to verify the former and opened to the precise page (434) on the first effort.
instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=14230
pro tow set-up
- And here I was thinking this site was just a small private business just like our local coffee shop. So why is this site promoting anything other than our local coffee shop? What's the motivation?
- How's that been going lately?
- Why? It's something you always sucked at, have never had anything to offer to, haven't participated in for gawd knows how long.
Jack Axaopoulos. sg. speed glide. What the fuck is that? Who's doing it nowadays? You take an aircraft that's specifically designed and trimmed to fly optimally at twenty-some miles per hour so it can work light lift, stay up forever, go far, land in tight fields and you stuff the bar right after launch to see how fast you can blast it out of the sky? That has never had and never will have the slightest appeal to me and I've seen zilch evidence that it's appealing to anyone else. I've had to do that sorta thing on occasion - to deal with strong ridge situations and make it to the next thermal sometimes - but it's absolutely nothing I enjoy.
And if you've ever done anything of any note in the sport I've never heard about it. At least with Ryan you get high quality aerobatics.
As far as I can tell you're only interested in using this site to parasitize off of content others generate for the purpose of raking in advertising bucks.
- The stated goal here was to reform the sport as a legitimate and competent flavor of aviation, make pilots out of participants, get opinions flushed down the toilet where they belong. We were only able to do that on the micro level. All we can do now is expose incompetence, negligence, criminal conduct; provide an educational resource; help established flyers. I advise nonparticipants to stay nonparticipants 'cause it will be virtually impossible for novices to protect themselves while working to obtain aeronautical competence.
- If hang gliding needs to be promoted to some individual that individual has no fuckin' business anywhere near the sport. Hang gliding promotes itself to anyone who belongs in the sport. Also a hundred times more effectively to those who have no fuckin' business anywhere near the sport.
Back in the mid Seventies I knew I was gonna do it. Then I saw "To Fly!" at the IMAX theater at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, watched Bob Wills soaring those cliffs somewhere on the Hawaiian Islands, said, "OOH! I'm gonna DO THAT!"
And I went down to Kitty Hawk, scored a Two in a few days, came back as an instructor, and learned - mostly on my own and in spite of further instruction - how to do that in a few weeks worth of dunes soaring experience.
And I don't want some douchebag who needed it promoted or thought it might be something he'd like to try inside of the cubic mile of air in which I'm operating. And I also don't want some dickhead who's in a Dragonfly because that's his mode of preference doing anything beyond his mediocre skill level job of getting me off the runway and up to workable altitude. I don't want it, I won't tolerate it, and if my choice is compromise or don't fly then I won't fly.
So if your stated goal there is to promote hang gliding then you've done the opposite of what you needed to with at least one individual I can name. And the numbers neither started going up, stayed level, nor slowed going down when that happened. And when the Darwin Effect kicked in for Zack Marzec and Jeff Bohl you didn't get replacements for them either.
Here's about all the proof anybody would ever need that you're totally full o' shit on this issue (as well):
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=25302
Interview with Davis Straub, OzReport founder
Another hang check lesson
It's a real safe bet that on Kite Strings the vast majority of hits are from bots. I've tried to get that under control in the past but found it to be a losing battle. I don't claim that we're getting much in the way of legitimate human hits and have said, what the hell, bots are better than nothing. And, for what it's worth, we have a HUGE Google image search footprint. If people wanna find out what REALLY happened at Jean Lake on 2015/03/27 they can find it.
- Tell me how that wouldn't be a good thing for Jack Show membership and participation. Wouldn't that just encourage more registrations so that desirable individuals could acquire that capability?
- Do they really need one? How much content is the worlds largest hang gliding community producing that all those droves of visitors who are supposed to be tuning in 'cause they're champing at the bit to take up training would find the least bit interesting in the first place?
- How many more participants too fucking stupid to figure out how to not read posts in which they have zero interest without an ignore button does the sport really need? I'd say one is way too excessive. Kite Strings has an ignore button (not by any choice of mine) but I have zero indication that anybody's ever used it. I'd consider it a substantial failure of the forum if that were the case.
- Nobody comes to The Jack Show 'cause it's done such a stellar job of promoting hang gliding and they want to know how to best go about pursuing it. They go to Lockout Mountain Flight Park, hand them the credit card, get rated, find and get on the Jack Show to try understand and learn to execute all the stuff they were supposed to have been taught and qualified for at Lockout.
-- There are fairly massive weekly slaughters of players at American Football fields and participants, stadium crowds, television audiences, advertisers, universities don't seem to be able to get enough of it.
-- Hang gliding in the Seventies through early Eighties was a total bloodbath yet it continued to explode on a global scale. Now it's all certified gliders and highly developed launches, LZs, towing rigs and facilities; fatalities are few and far between; u$hPa and the rest of commercial hang gliding has gotten really good at suppressing incident reporting and totally brutal at preventing fixes being implemented; and the sport's in a death spiral.
- What does? Name one thing that can be accomplished on a forum that can be pointed to as successful in promoting the sport. Videos maybe. But they have to be embedded from YouTube and Vimeo platforms. So you don't really need The Jack Show for that avenue.
Hang gliding tends to flourish in areas with resources for getting kites airborne - dunes, hills, mountains, cliffs, airports, surface tow strips. And those resources tend to diminish as the population increases.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=4171
Have you ever blown a launch?
How is Zach Etheridge doing?
Go to the Highland Aerosports website and find evidence that Chad Elchin, Keavy Nenninger, Paul Vernon, John Claytor, Bertrand Delacroix ever existed. And that's just the life and career ending stuff.
- Aren't the people you want in hang gliding capable of seeing through my misrepresentations and distortions, figuring out who the truly reputable individuals - like Jim Rooney and Ryan Voight - are, making up their own minds? The people you have in hang gliding and on the Jack and Davis Shows don't seem to be having any trouble.
- And look at all the posts that were generated by pilots who weren't Tad when just one tandem aerotow instructor doing everything right bought it at Quest using equipment they'd spent twenty years perfecting for reasons no one will ever understand. (Gotta confess to having coordinated a substantial chunk of the enemy action though.)
- If hang gliding has such a stellar safety record then why did you make the "Incident Reports" forum off limits to all the visitors you're trying to sucker into your cult? They see, want to know what's going on, click, get:
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=16439
Some day we will learn
- All over what place? Just Ridgely or AT in general? One of Ridgley’s two founders died at the Quest place before the operation was four years old. That wasn't an issue relevant to Tad's concerns but none of the operators felt they were doing pretty damn good after 2003/04/11. And on 2005/01/09 Robin Strid bought it behind a Dragonfly with Bobby at the helm. That was on the opposite side of the planet but one of the issues on that one was with the same equipment Ridgely uses and could've easily been a fatal flaw there as well.
If a stated goal of your site is to promote hang gliding it's failing miserably and there's nothing you're doing differently to get different results. And you identified me as poison to the sport. Your version of it, a version that would tolerate you and your ilk... No argument, thanks for the compliment. And I'm winning. And if you had a grain of legitimacy you'd be attacking me. Leaders, organizations, individuals who give flying fucks about the planet don't forbid any mention of Trump, related people, or his material or organizations.
And if you're so fuckin' worried about impressions on all those prospective pilots visiting your promotional site... Half of your main forum topics are launched by a guy who had his brain catastrophically mushed on a landing crash 2010/03/28 - a bit over a decade ago.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Hang-glider-crashes-into-Concord-school-3194777.php
Hang glider crashes into Concord school - SFGate
What effect do you figure that's having? Relative to all my misleading posts and negativity?
pro tow set-up
Jack Axaopoulos - 2009/11/12 14:49:58 UTC
One of the stated goals of this site is to promote HG. MOST views on this site are NOT from members but from visitors, they have no ignore button.
Having Tad run around every day giving the impression that there is a massive weekly slaughter of pilots at tow parks due to their horribly dangerous devices surely doesnt promote HG. Especially when the safety records are quite excellent.
Like Jim said, theyve gone a decade with no fatalities at their tow park. Pretty damn good I say.
Yet listening to Tad, you would think guys were dying all over the place
He's been nothing but misleading and negative and ignored multiple warnings from me. So He's GONE
- Meaning one of the stated goals of Jack Axaopoulos. He's the only one who's ever had an actual vote on the worlds largest hang gliding community.One of the stated goals of this site is to promote HG.
- And here I was thinking this site was just a small private business just like our local coffee shop. So why is this site promoting anything other than our local coffee shop? What's the motivation?
- How's that been going lately?
- Why? It's something you always sucked at, have never had anything to offer to, haven't participated in for gawd knows how long.
Jack Axaopoulos. sg. speed glide. What the fuck is that? Who's doing it nowadays? You take an aircraft that's specifically designed and trimmed to fly optimally at twenty-some miles per hour so it can work light lift, stay up forever, go far, land in tight fields and you stuff the bar right after launch to see how fast you can blast it out of the sky? That has never had and never will have the slightest appeal to me and I've seen zilch evidence that it's appealing to anyone else. I've had to do that sorta thing on occasion - to deal with strong ridge situations and make it to the next thermal sometimes - but it's absolutely nothing I enjoy.
And if you've ever done anything of any note in the sport I've never heard about it. At least with Ryan you get high quality aerobatics.
As far as I can tell you're only interested in using this site to parasitize off of content others generate for the purpose of raking in advertising bucks.
- The stated goal here was to reform the sport as a legitimate and competent flavor of aviation, make pilots out of participants, get opinions flushed down the toilet where they belong. We were only able to do that on the micro level. All we can do now is expose incompetence, negligence, criminal conduct; provide an educational resource; help established flyers. I advise nonparticipants to stay nonparticipants 'cause it will be virtually impossible for novices to protect themselves while working to obtain aeronautical competence.
- If hang gliding needs to be promoted to some individual that individual has no fuckin' business anywhere near the sport. Hang gliding promotes itself to anyone who belongs in the sport. Also a hundred times more effectively to those who have no fuckin' business anywhere near the sport.
Back in the mid Seventies I knew I was gonna do it. Then I saw "To Fly!" at the IMAX theater at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, watched Bob Wills soaring those cliffs somewhere on the Hawaiian Islands, said, "OOH! I'm gonna DO THAT!"
And I went down to Kitty Hawk, scored a Two in a few days, came back as an instructor, and learned - mostly on my own and in spite of further instruction - how to do that in a few weeks worth of dunes soaring experience.
And I don't want some douchebag who needed it promoted or thought it might be something he'd like to try inside of the cubic mile of air in which I'm operating. And I also don't want some dickhead who's in a Dragonfly because that's his mode of preference doing anything beyond his mediocre skill level job of getting me off the runway and up to workable altitude. I don't want it, I won't tolerate it, and if my choice is compromise or don't fly then I won't fly.
So if your stated goal there is to promote hang gliding then you've done the opposite of what you needed to with at least one individual I can name. And the numbers neither started going up, stayed level, nor slowed going down when that happened. And when the Darwin Effect kicked in for Zack Marzec and Jeff Bohl you didn't get replacements for them either.
Really? How were you able to determine that? How come you've never once given us a rough percentage breakdown? You have absolutely no way of being certain whether a click was generated by an unregistered visitor or an unlogged in member at a different location using a different device.MOST views on this site are NOT from members but from visitors...
Here's about all the proof anybody would ever need that you're totally full o' shit on this issue (as well):
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=25302
Interview with Davis Straub, OzReport founder
Jack Axaopoulos - 2012/02/24 14:38:01 UTC
How interesting....
Newtons IP address and AeroTows IP addresses both come from the Wichita Kansas area.
Care to explain newton? Total coincidence?
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31781Jack Axaopoulos - 2012/02/24 15:00:21 UTC
Tad has been BANNED again.
The "Extremist 1%" is not allowed on this site. Go crawl back under your rock with Bob and the other extremists that get themselves banned from every site and group they deal with. You guys have a marvelous record of getting along with people.
Another hang check lesson
Neither of us could be living in the 48 contiguous much farther than we are from Wichita. And everybody who ever read any of my posts or posts about me anywhere knew I flew Ridgely virtually exclusively from its opening day through my last ever glider flight on 2008/10/12. And nobody said, "No Jack, it's virtually impossible for Tad to be coming in through Wichita." Come to think of it... Is there anyone living within a hundred miles of Wichita with any substantive interest in hang gliding?michael170 - 2014/09/25 04:48:33 UTC
That would be just after I started this thread:
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=24633
FTHI
Then SG gave me the boot because he thought I was Tad.
It's a real safe bet that on Kite Strings the vast majority of hits are from bots. I've tried to get that under control in the past but found it to be a losing battle. I don't claim that we're getting much in the way of legitimate human hits and have said, what the hell, bots are better than nothing. And, for what it's worth, we have a HUGE Google image search footprint. If people wanna find out what REALLY happened at Jean Lake on 2015/03/27 they can find it.
- And thus like hang glider pilots the world over are incapable of not reading everything that appears on their screens....they have no ignore button.
- Tell me how that wouldn't be a good thing for Jack Show membership and participation. Wouldn't that just encourage more registrations so that desirable individuals could acquire that capability?
- Do they really need one? How much content is the worlds largest hang gliding community producing that all those droves of visitors who are supposed to be tuning in 'cause they're champing at the bit to take up training would find the least bit interesting in the first place?
- How many more participants too fucking stupid to figure out how to not read posts in which they have zero interest without an ignore button does the sport really need? I'd say one is way too excessive. Kite Strings has an ignore button (not by any choice of mine) but I have zero indication that anybody's ever used it. I'd consider it a substantial failure of the forum if that were the case.
- Nobody comes to The Jack Show 'cause it's done such a stellar job of promoting hang gliding and they want to know how to best go about pursuing it. They go to Lockout Mountain Flight Park, hand them the credit card, get rated, find and get on the Jack Show to try understand and learn to execute all the stuff they were supposed to have been taught and qualified for at Lockout.
- How do we know?Having Tad run around every day giving the impression that there is a massive weekly slaughter of pilots at tow parks due to their horribly dangerous devices surely doesnt promote HG.
-- There are fairly massive weekly slaughters of players at American Football fields and participants, stadium crowds, television audiences, advertisers, universities don't seem to be able to get enough of it.
-- Hang gliding in the Seventies through early Eighties was a total bloodbath yet it continued to explode on a global scale. Now it's all certified gliders and highly developed launches, LZs, towing rigs and facilities; fatalities are few and far between; u$hPa and the rest of commercial hang gliding has gotten really good at suppressing incident reporting and totally brutal at preventing fixes being implemented; and the sport's in a death spiral.
- What does? Name one thing that can be accomplished on a forum that can be pointed to as successful in promoting the sport. Videos maybe. But they have to be embedded from YouTube and Vimeo platforms. So you don't really need The Jack Show for that avenue.
Hang gliding tends to flourish in areas with resources for getting kites airborne - dunes, hills, mountains, cliffs, airports, surface tow strips. And those resources tend to diminish as the population increases.
- Oh. You've reviewed their safety records. I can go to Lockout Mountain Flight Park's website...Especially when the safety records are quite excellent.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=4171
Have you ever blown a launch?
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=20756David W. Johnson - 2007/11/05 00:57:23 UTC
Just so you will know, blowing a launch is probably not the worst feeling in the world.
My fourteen year old daughter's first mountain launch went wrong. I got to watch her fall forty feet into the trees.
Everything turned out alright. She bruised her knee and even the glider wasn't badly hurt, but I have never posted the video on the net out of concern for the sport.
How is Zach Etheridge doing?
...and click on their "Incident Reports" link to get a really good idea about what the problem areas are and how to learn from the mistakes others have made.Bob Flynn - 2011/02/04 11:26:34 UTC
Lookout keeps this kind of stuff under their hat. You never hear of accidents there. But every time I go there, I hear about quite a few. Blown launches, tree landings, etc.
Go to the Highland Aerosports website and find evidence that Chad Elchin, Keavy Nenninger, Paul Vernon, John Claytor, Bertrand Delacroix ever existed. And that's just the life and career ending stuff.
- Aren't the people you want in hang gliding capable of seeing through my misrepresentations and distortions, figuring out who the truly reputable individuals - like Jim Rooney and Ryan Voight - are, making up their own minds? The people you have in hang gliding and on the Jack and Davis Shows don't seem to be having any trouble.
- And look at all the posts that were generated by pilots who weren't Tad when just one tandem aerotow instructor doing everything right bought it at Quest using equipment they'd spent twenty years perfecting for reasons no one will ever understand. (Gotta confess to having coordinated a substantial chunk of the enemy action though.)
- If hang gliding has such a stellar safety record then why did you make the "Incident Reports" forum off limits to all the visitors you're trying to sucker into your cult? They see, want to know what's going on, click, get:
238 topics. "Fatal HG crash in Tres Pinos CA 4-3-2016A" has 328 posts. Didn't virtually all of the authors and contributors intend for their posts to be fully and permanently publicly accessible? I think it's pretty fucking obvious which one of us is interested in misleading the public - in true u$hPa...You do not have the required permissions to read topics within this forum.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=16439
Some day we will learn
...tradition.Steve Morris - 2010/03/31 23:58:54
In 2009 there were several serious hang gliding accidents involving pilots on the HG forum (or who had close friends on the forum that reported that these accidents had occurred). In each case there was an immediate outcry from forum members not to discuss these accidents, usually referring to the feelings of the pilots' families as a reason to not do so. In each case it was claimed that the facts would eventually come out and a detailed report would be presented and waiting for this to happen would result in a better informed pilot population and reduce the amount of possibly harmful speculation.
In each of these cases I have never seen a final detailed accident report presented in this forum. So far as I can tell, the accident reporting system that has been assumed to exist here doesn't exist at all, the only reports I've seen are those published in the USHPA magazine. They are so stripped down, devoid of contextual information and important facts that in many cases I have not been able to match the magazine accident report with those mentioned in this forum.
The end result has been that effective accident reporting is no longer taking place in the USHPA magazine or in this forum. Am I the only one who feels this way?
And seeing as how yours is the only vote that counts pretty damn good it will be.Pretty damn good I say.
- Who's "you"? Who's indicating that he's thinking guys were dying all over the place?Yet listening to Tad, you would think guys were dying all over the place
- All over what place? Just Ridgely or AT in general? One of Ridgley’s two founders died at the Quest place before the operation was four years old. That wasn't an issue relevant to Tad's concerns but none of the operators felt they were doing pretty damn good after 2003/04/11. And on 2005/01/09 Robin Strid bought it behind a Dragonfly with Bobby at the helm. That was on the opposite side of the planet but one of the issues on that one was with the same equipment Ridgely uses and could've easily been a fatal flaw there as well.
Fine Jack. (And thanks bigtime for capitalizing "He's" for me. (Just noticed that.)) Now I'm BACK still ignoring all your multiple warnings and being nothing but misleading and negative a click or two away. And there's not a goddam thing you can do about it.He's been nothing but misleading and negative and ignored multiple warnings from me. So He's GONE
If a stated goal of your site is to promote hang gliding it's failing miserably and there's nothing you're doing differently to get different results. And you identified me as poison to the sport. Your version of it, a version that would tolerate you and your ilk... No argument, thanks for the compliment. And I'm winning. And if you had a grain of legitimacy you'd be attacking me. Leaders, organizations, individuals who give flying fucks about the planet don't forbid any mention of Trump, related people, or his material or organizations.
And if you're so fuckin' worried about impressions on all those prospective pilots visiting your promotional site... Half of your main forum topics are launched by a guy who had his brain catastrophically mushed on a landing crash 2010/03/28 - a bit over a decade ago.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Hang-glider-crashes-into-Concord-school-3194777.php
Hang glider crashes into Concord school - SFGate
What effect do you figure that's having? Relative to all my misleading posts and negativity?
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=36761
We aren't the only ones . . .
098-23104-25420
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49979995768_581997b8ac_o.png
...in the bag for such occasions.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec
Note that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING changed in the wake of Jeff Bohl - not at any detectable level anyway. There wasn't even an advisory to keep both hands on the control bar during the most critical stage of launch 'cause long established Industry policy is that there' can be no negative consequence to take a hand off the control bar at any stage of launch. It's just that we muppets...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1143
Death at Tocumwal
- decertifying your aircraft with a pro toad bridle and/or easily reachable release, rotating upright to the control tubes to execute a perfectly timed spot landing flare?
- using an Infallible Weak Link as the focal point of your safe towing system?
- No you're not. You're interested in putting your best foot forward and showcasing the fun adventurous atmosphere we experience every day in the landing zone after a great flight. It's in the Jack Show SOPs.
- Haven't noticed you registering on or referencing Kite Strings. Oh yeah. Jack doesn't PERMIT you to reference Kite Strings and registering on it could make you a related person - which would be real problematic.
- When they teach kids to drive they emphasize the "things go wrong" incidents and consequences. And 0.000 percent of them have second thoughts about pursuing a license. In hang gliding the only danger is an imperfectly timed spot landing flare and the only recognized consequences are permanent paralysis from the neck down and instant death. You OK with that approach? And how's that been working for retaining people in the sport?
- Anybody who has any fuckin' business learning to fly is. And what's it say about the owner of the worlds largest local coffee shop in which you're hanging out when he puts the entire "Incident Reports" forum off limits to the members of the public to whom he's promoting the sport not to mention search engines? 238 topics, 5883 posts. It would be fun to go through them and find out if Jack has ever contributed anything more substantive than:
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=14410
Wallaby fatality
http://ozreport.com/12.081
Weaklinks - the HGFA rules
http://airtribune-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media/contest/files/2019/07/GTxd6mT4AIn8.pdf
- How the hell do you know what we are all not doing when we're not flying? Soccer, basketball, ice hockey overlapped my flying career.
- We need the ground for starting and stopping our flights, generating ridge and thermal lift.
- We do better with others - human and non - showing us where to find lift. And if you think we have freedom from others while we're flying then talk to Ken Muscio. A right-of-way rule was violated, two gliders went down to the GROUND, one of them died, we never heard from or of Stan Albright again.
- Without gravity we don't fly. And see if you can find anybody in this sport who thinks it's fun going weightless.
- Whatever was what killed Zack Marzec. Beyond that fact anything else would be pure speculation.
We have extremely little freedom when we're doing anything worth doing in a hang glider. Whether it's dune flying, ridge running, thermalling, aerobatics we're working inside of very tight margins to come away healthy and with feelings of accomplishment.
I've never once landed a glider and thought, "Wow! What a great feeling of freedom I just had!" Hopefully I'm physically shot 'cause I've been pushing and pushed to my limits and have flown competently enough to have maxed out the potential. Alternately I may be disappointed in myself for having poorly chosen or executed and missed out on some potential.
And now that I think about it...
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links
Is this a joke ?
I got to be a very competent and accomplished pilot over a career that spanned 28 years. But I didn't fly as an extreme pilot and I majorly resent hang gliding being presented as an extreme sport - let alone fringe.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks
- The sport's been around for about five decades, there've been untold thousands of life altering or ending crashes, when was the last time somebody came up with a groundbreaking new technique?
- Name something legitimate that you've picked up this way that shouldn't have been covered by u$hPa SOPs and relayed to you by an instructor and/or ratings official?
- Are you citing this bullshit from Red as an example? It's a total fake issue. Red's one of the major assholes who preaches against the Wills Wing preflight procedure which would totally prevented Rafi Lavin from getting so much as scratched at your main home site on 2015/08/23. Continued preaching against it through the postmortem.
In AT I can and did end up behind a Jim Keen-Intellect...
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links
23-05054
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48220828662_bbe40a3c90_o.png
There are absolutely no downsides to using locking carabiners. The more complex you make something the less chance there is for something to go wrong. Everybody in hang gliding understands that simple concept about complexity.
Hey Frank...
- Which is stronger? A locking carabiner hung up by its locking mechanism in minor axis mode or the nonlocking flavor of the same carabiner in major axis mode?
- Has there ever been an incident:
-- of a nonlocking hang gliding carabiner hanging up minor axis?
-- in which a glider has gone down in water in which the victim was thankful he'd been flying with a locked locking carabiner?
- Ever give any thought about which flavor of carabiner has the potential to damage the glider and/or harness suspension webbing? Just kidding.
If you go to the article cited in kicking off this idiot Jack Show discussion...
http://www.soundingsonline.com/voices/the-wrong-argument
The Wrong Argument: Why Experience Doesn't Matter - Soundings Online
And now that I think about it a little more... It's a totally assinine statement. The pilot isn't and can't be responsible for judging any risk of takeoff - that doesn't have anything to do with the airworthiness of his plane and crew anyway. That's entirely the responsibility and call of the tower. And there wasn't any risk of taking off into fog. There was a huge risk of taking off into another 747 still taxiing on the runway.
We aren't the only ones . . .
Red Howard - 2020/05/04 17:00:21 UTC
Watched a guy linking carabiners together, to make a too-short hang loop work for his too-short harness mains. They were non-locking oval carabiners, about the worst possible choice for the job. These days, I'm opposed to linking any carabiners, period; they are made for webbing loads, not point loading. Anyway, I tried explaining a bad choice to the guy, and he just was not listening to advice, not even from a friend.
Well, you can hold a carabiner at one fist, with just one finger around the carabiner. You can click them together, as you might expect, but with a slight twist, not touching either gate, you can click them apart just as easily. All the while he was explaining about freedoms and choices to me, I just kept quietly clicking the two carabiners apart, and together again, steadily. I listened nicely to everything he said, until he blew up and almost shouted at me "Will you STOP doing that?!!" We both laughed, but he got his gear straight, after that. Nobody knows if I "saved" him from a parachute ride, or worse, but I do believe that some "accidents" and their bad outcomes are preventable.
It's not a job. It's shitrigging. If you need to effect a temporary extension it should be done with line between the harness's normal carabiner installation point and the carabiner. But of course then you'd hafta have a hang glider pilot capable of tying an appropriate knot so that's a real iffy proposition. So probably just throw a spare backup loop...They were non-locking oval carabiners, about the worst possible choice for the job.
098-23104-25420
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49979995768_581997b8ac_o.png
...in the bag for such occasions.
But you were OK with it in those days. I was NEVER OK with it and never did it.These days, I'm opposed to linking any carabiners, period; they are made for webbing loads, not point loading.
With you being the friend that could serve him well at least half the time.Anyway, I tried explaining a bad choice to the guy, and he just was not listening to advice, not even from a friend.
Great, Red. Now get this trick to work in a glider scenario. Describe how it could possibly happen. Fer starters we need negative Gs on the glider. Just how often does that happen?Well, you can hold a carabiner at one fist, with just one finger around the carabiner. You can click them together, as you might expect, but with a slight twist, not touching either gate, you can click them apart just as easily.
No he didn't. He was still flying with a backup loop. And when the sport went to locking carabiners so did he.We both laughed, but he got his gear straight, after that.
You didn't. There's never been a scenario in which this could've been an issue. And no one can even invent one. And I note you haven't - hence the "nobody knows" bullshit.Nobody knows if I "saved" him from a parachute ride, or worse...
Wow. That sure was profound. Any thoughts on 2013/02/02 Zack Marzec? That one remains an unfathomable mystery......but I do believe that some "accidents" and their bad outcomes are preventable.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec
Swift - 2013/02/27 14:22:49 UTC
Zack wasn't "sitting on the couch" when a cheap piece of string made the decision to dump him at the worst possible time.
Who was betting his life on that decision?
I say, better him than you.
William Olive - 2013/02/27 20:55:06 UTC
Like the rest of us, you have no idea what really happened on that tow.
We probably never will know.
...to this very day. And don't even dream of...Jim Rooney - 2013/02/28 01:17:55 UTC
Well said Billo
I'm a bit sick of all the armchair experts telling me how my friend died.
Ah but hg'ers get so uppity when you tell them not to speculate.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec
...speculating on any of the issues. (Not that there's really ever been...Paul Tjaden - 2013/02/07 23:47:58 UTC
Beyond these facts anything else would be pure speculation.
...any NEED to.)Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974
"The greatest dangers are a rope break or a premature release." - Richard Johnson
Ian Riedel - 2020/05/05 04:07:58 UTC
Red, always appreciate your .02! "linking non locking carabiners" put a chill down my spine. No climber who expects to live long will do such a thing. Interesting read, knowledge is power... and preservation. One thing I attribute to my health and well being is a little read publication, Accidents in North American Mountaineering. Sometimes a little morbid, never fun, but always educational. It is a compendium of accidents and an extremely detailed dissection of what went wrong. The airline and space industry examine failures to the most minute detail. It almost ALWAYS comes down to a decision somewhere along the way. Sometimes it may be a huge decision, sometimes seemingly insignificant choices snowball into the worst events of your life. One article in ANM that lead to a fatality was distilled to the climbers rushing in deteriorating conditions because one climber had decided to NOT bring a windbreaker / jacket. It was not an act of God accident but a mistake that likely would not have taken place in a less hurried situation. A windbreaker. He even considered it but tossed it back in his car before the walk in. Understanding how quickly good goes wrong and knowing all the ways it can go wrong (education!) is important. I am attracted to every HG "Things go wrong" video or story, it is one more piece of the never ending puzzle to survival floating around in the sky.
Rules are only as good as the person who may follow the rules... or not. There is a reason we are all not playing team sports in tape measure defined playing fields... Too many rules, or to put it differently lack of freedom in the game. Freedom from the ground, others, gravity, whatever. For a fringe extreme sport I think we do a pretty good job of self regulating. Not perfect but for those willing to play along for the betterment of the sport it seems to be working. I value the words of anyone who has ever flown, they may have knowledge or wisdom I do not possess that saves my life. Staying safe is a group effort but only I can choose to participate in this effort... or not.
Cheers and stay safe everyone
Red doesn’t have any two centses. He's full o' shit and won't engage when he's called on any of it.Red, always appreciate your .02!
Yeah, you should always be most scared of the shit that's never actually happened in this sport. Good thing Red was there to save the life of the single individual to ever even think of using this configuration."linking non locking carabiners" put a chill down my spine.
There's no shitrigged equipment in climbing. Climbing gear is critical all the time it's being employed. The crap that hang gliding passes off as towing equipment is only critical in critical situations. High volume operations can go tens of thousands of flights before a critical situation lines up with a relevant shitrigged equipment element. And then you can ALWAYS attribute it to pilot error. Jeff Bohl shouldn't have made that three quarter second easy reach to his dangling camera at the beginning of that tow. Wasn't FOCUSED enough. And the only time everything was being done right by two ace professional pilots it's a total mystery, we'll never be able to understand what really happened.No climber who expects to live long will do such a thing.
Note that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING changed in the wake of Jeff Bohl - not at any detectable level anyway. There wasn't even an advisory to keep both hands on the control bar during the most critical stage of launch 'cause long established Industry policy is that there' can be no negative consequence to take a hand off the control bar at any stage of launch. It's just that we muppets...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1143
Death at Tocumwal
...have this unfortunate and irrational natural inclination to continue to hold onto the base bar in tough conditions and to try to fly the glider when we should be releasing. And Bill Moyes obviously lost his argument 'cause there was never a hang glider pilot anywhere on the planet who agreed with him.Davis Straub - 2006/01/24 12:27:32 UTC
Bill Moyes argues that you should not have to move your hand from the base bar to release. That is because your natural inclination is to continue to hold onto the base bar in tough conditions and to try to fly the glider when you should be releasing.
Unfortunate title. There's no such thing as an accident in hang gliding - and I'm sure the same holds true for climbing.One thing I attribute to my health and well being is a little read publication, Accidents in North American Mountaineering.
Too bad. None of this shit SHOULD BE educational. It should all already be elements of our competency.Sometimes a little morbid, never fun, but always educational.
Funny you need to cite a mountaineering resource. Couldn't find anything of any actual substance in hang gliding? (Not since Doug Hildreth was allotted some magazine space anyway. He got replaced by a non pilot corporate attorney who immediately shreds all of the information and analysis that Doug used to take great pains to publish.)It is a compendium of accidents and an extremely detailed dissection of what went wrong. The airline and space industry examine failures to the most minute detail.
Like:It almost ALWAYS comes down to a decision somewhere along the way.
- decertifying your aircraft with a pro toad bridle and/or easily reachable release, rotating upright to the control tubes to execute a perfectly timed spot landing flare?
- using an Infallible Weak Link as the focal point of your safe towing system?
Did they consider making "FOCUSED CLIMBER" wristbands available to participants?One article in ANM that lead to a fatality was distilled to the climbers rushing in deteriorating conditions because one climber had decided to NOT bring a windbreaker / jacket. It was not an act of God accident but a mistake that likely would not have taken place in a less hurried situation.
- Where do you find them? On u$hPa's website or magazine? If not that tell me how the sport doesn't have a real serious cancer at its core.I am attracted to every HG "Things go wrong" video or story...
- No you're not. You're interested in putting your best foot forward and showcasing the fun adventurous atmosphere we experience every day in the landing zone after a great flight. It's in the Jack Show SOPs.
- Haven't noticed you registering on or referencing Kite Strings. Oh yeah. Jack doesn't PERMIT you to reference Kite Strings and registering on it could make you a related person - which would be real problematic.
- When they teach kids to drive they emphasize the "things go wrong" incidents and consequences. And 0.000 percent of them have second thoughts about pursuing a license. In hang gliding the only danger is an imperfectly timed spot landing flare and the only recognized consequences are permanent paralysis from the neck down and instant death. You OK with that approach? And how's that been working for retaining people in the sport?
- Anybody who has any fuckin' business learning to fly is. And what's it say about the owner of the worlds largest local coffee shop in which you're hanging out when he puts the entire "Incident Reports" forum off limits to the members of the public to whom he's promoting the sport not to mention search engines? 238 topics, 5883 posts. It would be fun to go through them and find out if Jack has ever contributed anything more substantive than:
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=14410
Wallaby fatality
You're saying that studying this material is increasing your chances of survival. Isn't that the same as saying that prohibiting access to this material decreases the target population's chances of survival?Jack Axaopoulos - 2009/11/16 17:01:31 UTC
Nooooooooooooo!
Bull fucking shit. Name somebody who's so much as skinned a knee as a consequence of anything that wasn't fully understood at Kitty Hawk on 1903/12/17. We've known everything we've needed to for decades and the vast majority of it is common sense. And if you disagree cite one example to serve as an exception....it is one more piece of the never ending puzzle to survival floating around in the sky.
How 'bout the rules themselves? Tell me how one makes the slightest sense out of:Rules are only as good as the person who may follow the rules... or not.
http://ozreport.com/12.081
Weaklinks - the HGFA rules
http://airtribune.com/2019-big-spring-nationals/info/details__infoDavis Straub - 2008/04/22 14:47:00 UTC
Here is the requirement from the 2007 Worlds local rules (which I wrote) for weaklinks:Pilots must use weaklinks provided by the meet organizers and in a manner approved by the meet organizers. All weaklinks will be checked and use of inappropriate weaklinks will require the pilot to go to the end of the launch line to change the weaklink.
Weaklinks will consist of a single loop of Cortland 130 lb Greenspot braided Dacron Tolling line and should be placed at one end of a shoulder bridle.
http://airtribune-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media/contest/files/2019/07/GTxd6mT4AIn8.pdf
2019 Big Spring Nationals - 2019/07
Weaklinks of 140 and 200 (280 and 400 towline) pounds will be available and provided by the organizers. Weaklinks provided by the organizers must be used by the competitors.
- Have neither the brains nor balls to?There is a reason we are all not playing team sports in tape measure defined playing fields...
- How the hell do you know what we are all not doing when we're not flying? Soccer, basketball, ice hockey overlapped my flying career.
Bullshit. People are CHOOSING to make and play by rules in order to do and enjoy what they want to. And name some rules that kids organizing themselves are complaining about and choosing to ignore.Too many rules, or to put it differently lack of freedom in the game.
We DON'T have freedom from the ground, others, gravity, whatever.Freedom from the ground, others, gravity, whatever.
- We need the ground for starting and stopping our flights, generating ridge and thermal lift.
- We do better with others - human and non - showing us where to find lift. And if you think we have freedom from others while we're flying then talk to Ken Muscio. A right-of-way rule was violated, two gliders went down to the GROUND, one of them died, we never heard from or of Stan Albright again.
- Without gravity we don't fly. And see if you can find anybody in this sport who thinks it's fun going weightless.
- Whatever was what killed Zack Marzec. Beyond that fact anything else would be pure speculation.
We have extremely little freedom when we're doing anything worth doing in a hang glider. Whether it's dune flying, ridge running, thermalling, aerobatics we're working inside of very tight margins to come away healthy and with feelings of accomplishment.
I've never once landed a glider and thought, "Wow! What a great feeling of freedom I just had!" Hopefully I'm physically shot 'cause I've been pushing and pushed to my limits and have flown competently enough to have maxed out the potential. Alternately I may be disappointed in myself for having poorly chosen or executed and missed out on some potential.
And now that I think about it...
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846Jim Rooney - 2007/07/22 22:30:28 UTC
I've heard it a million times before from comp pilots insisting on towing with even doubled up weaklinks (some want no weaklink). I tell them the same thing I'm telling you... suck it up. You're not the only one on the line. I didn't ask to be a test pilot. I can live with your inconvenience.
Is this a joke ?
Does that sound to you like freedom from the ground, others, gravity, whatever? How I wish we'd had the freedom to deal with that snotty little shit in an extremely appropriate manner. And that was THE public face of Highland Aerosports at an absolute minimum. And those motherfuckers never whispered a single syllable's worth of condemnation. And they'd all started out as hang glider people.Jim Rooney - 2011/08/28 19:39:17 UTC
Weak links break for all kinds of reasons.
Some obvious, some not.
The general consensus is the age old adage... "err on the side of caution".
The frustration of a weaklink break is just that, frustration.
And it can be very frustrating for sure. Especially on a good day, which they tend to be. It seems to be a Murphy favourite. You'll be in a long tug line on a stellar day just itching to fly. The stars are all lining up when *bam*, out of nowhere your trip to happy XC land goes up in a flash. Now you've got to hike it all the way back to the back of the line and wait as the "perfect" window drifts on by.
I get it.
It can be a pisser.
But the "other side"... the not cautions one... is not one of frustration, it's one of very real danger.
Better to be frustrated than in a hospital, or worse.
No exaggeration... this is the fire that the "other side" is made of. Best not to play with it.
Go fuck yourself. Hang gliding isn't any more of a fringe extreme sport than bicycling. They can both be taken to extremes - and are by one out of a thousand participants. Ryan resembles that remark. You go fringe extreme you have 2011/01/15 - Doug Prather and 2011/05/20 - Eric Meis. That's what happens at the fringe (twice within the space of four months with these two). If it didn't happen it wouldn't be the fringe.For a fringe extreme sport...
I got to be a very competent and accomplished pilot over a career that spanned 28 years. But I didn't fly as an extreme pilot and I majorly resent hang gliding being presented as an extreme sport - let alone fringe.
Pull your head out of your ass for a minute or two and see if that changes your perspective.I think we do a pretty good job of self regulating.
Yeah, that's what a bunch of FREEDOM loving extreme sport fringers are ALWAYS willing to do. PLAY ALONG for the betterment of the sport.Not perfect but for those willing to play along for the betterment of the sport it seems to be working.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks
With the few people actually working on things. (If only we could find out who these few people are, what things they're actually working on, how much longer it will take to see one of their things. Over seven years at a minimum so far - and way too late for Rooney.)Jim Rooney - 2013/03/03 19:37:19 UTC
My response is short because I've been saying it for years... and yes, I'm a bit sick of it.
This is a very old horse and has been beaten to death time and time again... by a very vocal minority.
See, most people are happy with how we do things. This isn't an issue for them. They just come out and fly. Thing's aren't perfect, but that's life... and life ain't perfect. You do what you can with what you've got and you move on.
But then there's a crowd that "knows better". To them, we're all morons that can't see "the truth".
(Holy god, the names I've been called.)
I have little time for these people.
It saddens me to know that the rantings of the fanatic fringe mask the few people who are actually working on things. The fanaticism makes it extremely hard to have a conversation about these things as they always degrade into arguments. So I save the actual conversations for when I'm talking with people in person.
A fun saying that I picked up... Some people listen with the intent of understanding. Others with the intent of responding.
I like that.
For fun... if you're not seeing what I mean... try having a conversation here about wheels.
Me too. But very rarely for the same reason you do.I value the words of anyone who has ever flown...
Like what?...they may have knowledge or wisdom I do not possess that saves my life.
- The sport's been around for about five decades, there've been untold thousands of life altering or ending crashes, when was the last time somebody came up with a groundbreaking new technique?
- Name something legitimate that you've picked up this way that shouldn't have been covered by u$hPa SOPs and relayed to you by an instructor and/or ratings official?
- Are you citing this bullshit from Red as an example? It's a total fake issue. Red's one of the major assholes who preaches against the Wills Wing preflight procedure which would totally prevented Rafi Lavin from getting so much as scratched at your main home site on 2015/08/23. Continued preaching against it through the postmortem.
Group intelligence... IQ of the stupidest individual in the group divided by the number of individuals in the group. And in hang gliding good freakin' luck finding individuals with IQ's in the higher double digits or better. And on the Jack and Davis Shows...Staying safe is a group effort but only I can choose to participate in this effort... or not.
In AT I can and did end up behind a Jim Keen-Intellect...
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links
Jim Rooney - 2007/08/01 13:47:23 UTC
Whatever's going on back there, I can fix it by giving you the rope.
...Rooney. So if I hook up behind him my IQ is instantly maxed out at 12.5. You need a minimum of 50.0 and good freakin' luck with the tug driver pool.Jim Rooney - 2007/08/01 19:49:30 UTC
It's more of this crappy argument that being on tow is somehow safer than being off tow.
Virtually no one's safe.Cheers and stay safe everyone
Let's once and for all put an end to all the needless carnage we reap through the insane use of nonlocking carabiners. Let's get some federal legislation on the books to make possession of a nonlocking carabiner a Level 1 Felony - and the death penalty for anyone who manufactures or sells one.Frank Colver - 2020/05/06 19:01:06 UTC
Also, always use locking carabiners!
And whenever we see an HG pilot carrying an extra locking biner on his belt loop or harness let's make extra sure that it's properly and fully locked!I've posted here before about the HG pilot who carried an extra nonlocking biner on his belt loop or harness (I don't remember which). It killed him when in a hard turn it clicked around a side wire.
Using a nonlocking biner is just slightly less problematic than hooking into a velcro secured loop. Total insanity.Locking biners are also stronger (when locked).
Yeah.Frank
BTW - When tying up my raft for the night, on a river, I always lock the biner connecting the bow line to the boat. It's just good sense to lock biners!
23-05054
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48220828662_bbe40a3c90_o.png
There are absolutely no downsides to using locking carabiners. The more complex you make something the less chance there is for something to go wrong. Everybody in hang gliding understands that simple concept about complexity.
Hey Frank...
- Which is stronger? A locking carabiner hung up by its locking mechanism in minor axis mode or the nonlocking flavor of the same carabiner in major axis mode?
- Has there ever been an incident:
-- of a nonlocking hang gliding carabiner hanging up minor axis?
-- in which a glider has gone down in water in which the victim was thankful he'd been flying with a locked locking carabiner?
- Ever give any thought about which flavor of carabiner has the potential to damage the glider and/or harness suspension webbing? Just kidding.
If you go to the article cited in kicking off this idiot Jack Show discussion...
http://www.soundingsonline.com/voices/the-wrong-argument
The Wrong Argument: Why Experience Doesn't Matter - Soundings Online
That's pure undiluted bullshit. It was a perfect storm event with a zillion issues needing to line up just right but THE issue which precipitated this incident was that the captain - knowingly - committed to takeoff minus clearance from the tower. And nobody either at the article or on The Jack Show has called the author on it. If you're gonna write an article on the importance of getting everything right in potentially lethal situations that sure is a crappy way to start out.Mario Vittone - 2018/04/05
The pilot responsible for the greatest airline disaster in history, Jacob van Zanten, had been a pilot for 21 years when he misjudged the risk of taking off into fog. He killed 538 people.
And now that I think about it a little more... It's a totally assinine statement. The pilot isn't and can't be responsible for judging any risk of takeoff - that doesn't have anything to do with the airworthiness of his plane and crew anyway. That's entirely the responsibility and call of the tower. And there wasn't any risk of taking off into fog. There was a huge risk of taking off into another 747 still taxiing on the runway.
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
http://www.facebook.com/mitch.shipley
Mitch Shipley
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11765.html#p11765
A bit shy of eight months now... No:
- incident report
- statement that he can't do an incident report 'cause his memory got wiped
- recovery status report
http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4778/39004826790_90f4fd60c9_o.jpg
So maybe you need to use your hands once in a while flying these things. Or maybe you used your hands too much on this one and would've been fine if you'd just trusted your glider to handle the situation properly. Hard to say for sure. We weren't there. And even the people who WERE there haven't been able to pinpoint anything that was done wrong.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27396
Scooter tow faillure... or Never Land On Your Face
Must be a real bitch to have all that extra attraction to the sport now and yet be physically incapable of participating in it. Kind of a Catch-22 situation.
And I'll tell ya one thing you fer sure will never again be able to do.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=32681
Tandem crash in LV (speculation thread)
Mitch Shipley
Mitch's imperfectly timed flare incident was probably 2019/09/25. And this PG comp was 2018/04/01-08. So it's a real safe bet that he hasn't flown anything anywhere subsequent to that incident and that may well have been a career ender.Mitch Shipley - 2020/04/11
I woke up to this morning to this "memory" on Facebook. As I read it again, the post grew into something I wanted to re-share with my friends. It was a lovely flight that followed some pretty rough times. Perfect example on how I would like things to go now! I appreciate you all and will try to post more often.
...
So it was the last day and the last task of the 3rd FAI Panamerican PG Championships in Baixo Guandu Brazil.
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11765.html#p11765
A bit shy of eight months now... No:
- incident report
- statement that he can't do an incident report 'cause his memory got wiped
- recovery status report
http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4778/39004826790_90f4fd60c9_o.jpg
So maybe you need to use your hands once in a while flying these things. Or maybe you used your hands too much on this one and would've been fine if you'd just trusted your glider to handle the situation properly. Hard to say for sure. We weren't there. And even the people who WERE there haven't been able to pinpoint anything that was done wrong.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27396
Scooter tow faillure... or Never Land On Your Face
Mitch Shipley - 2012/10/22 19:04:16 UTC
We engage in a sport that has risk and that is part of the attraction.
Must be a real bitch to have all that extra attraction to the sport now and yet be physically incapable of participating in it. Kind of a Catch-22 situation.
And I'll tell ya one thing you fer sure will never again be able to do.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=32681
Tandem crash in LV (speculation thread)
Mark G. Forbes - 2015/03/30 23:29:59 UTC
Please, no speculation
We have a very experienced tow administrator (Mitch Shipley) headed to Las Vegas to do an accident investigation, and when we learn what really happened we'll convey that information to our members. He'll be working with two of the local instructors there to get to the truth.
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
http://ozreport.com/24.102
Bring Back a Dragonfly
Bo blows up
- Bad? Doesn't that depend a lot on a particular idividual's perspective?
- Accident? Lauren says:
http://ozreport.com/forum/files/2_264.jpg
running again while we're at it.
KSNV-CNN-1-1916
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5788/23461251751_e98b9c7500_o.png
...don't he?
Aerial Adventures lost just a tandem glider with instructor and student and went extinct. Pretty sure AT is history for SOGA as a consequence of their Dragonfly getting totalled. Ridgely totaled two tugs and their pilots and eventually went extinct. Mark Knight went down with his Dragonfly and I don't know what's left of Sonora Wings. Avia Club Nepal lost a Dragonfly and pilot and and their hang gliding program went extinct. There's a real good chance that Florida Ridge is already history thanks to this asshole.
And we're never gonna be able to learn the techniques Bo mastered in order to be able to climb with Jim Rooney...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9230
Departing the launch cart
P.S. Watch the video again. Keep a close eye on the left side of Bo's mouth as he runs it. There's even less brain connecting to that area.
P.P.S. Hey Lauren... Put up a photo of the Dragonfly in the condition in which Bo returned it to you so we can get a better feel for what will be needed in the way of repairs.
P.P.P.S. The astounding deafening silence we're hearing from the hang gliding "community" in response to this one does not bode well for a GoFundMe response. Note Davis doesn't even post this one as a forum topic. Probably would be happy to see the place wither and die as Quest has always been his financial bread and butter. Compare/Contrast to/with the response Tiki got for trying to keep AT alive for Houston. (Clewiston, you have a problem.)
---
P.P.P.P.S. - 2020/06/09 14:00:00 UTC
Donors to date in chronological order - $3822. Been stagnant for over a week now.
300 - Richard Ainsworth
200 - Federico Panzitta
025 - Nolan Hollingshead
020 - Krystal Montoya
025 - Artiom Markelov
200 - Adelino Agostinho
100 - Thaisio Feliz
030 - Anonymous
020 - Niko Koehler
100 - Alessandro Silva
005 - Anonymous
050 - Robert Bradley
050 - Monica Agostinho
100 - Sheryl Zayas
050 - Davis Straub
100 - Mark Frutiger
100 - Attila Bertok
050 - Krzysztof Grzyb
050 - Knut Ryerson
100 - Moyes Gliders
050 - Bill Reynolds
050 - John Simon
100 - Raymond Mon
400 - Ullrich Vassmer
025 - Paul Voight
015 - Carlos Morinico
207 - Nathan Contreras
100 - Abhijeet Gole
050 - Peter Adams
400 - Michael Barton
100 - Joseph Lazaro
050 - Roger Irby
100 - Russell Rocksund
200 - Javier Figueras
300 - Pascal Lardy
Bring Back a Dragonfly
http://www.gofundme.com/f/tow-plane-recovery-effortBo broke it
And let's put the other two biggies up...Lauren Tindle is organizing this fundraiser.
Clewiston, Florida
Created 2020/05/09 - Accidents & Emergencies
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49920845387_a98042edef_o.jpg
As many of you know, in early-March one of our pilots was solo-flying our tow-plane in a reckless manner, and totaled our airplane doing an unauthorized high-risk maneuver. No customers or community members were involved in the accident, and the pilot has been treated for his injuries and is in recovery. Our backup tow plane was currently being serviced at the time, so business operations were halted when our only airplane was out of commission. With this accident occurring right at the cusp of the COVID-19 pandemic, our business took a huge hit not only from loss of income but the costs of repairing one plane and replacing another. It costs almost $30,000 to replace a tow plane specifically designed for hang gliding. We are trying to get back on our feet amidst this struggling time, and we would greatly appreciate any and all help our community can provide for us. We are hoping to raise these funds by the end of June so we are open and ready for business when the community is ready to fly.
Thank you so much for your continued support,
The Florida Ridge Team
Lauren Tindle - 2020/05/17
Update
Message from Bo Hagewood! Thanks for your support everyone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGzqVWNG_s0
Tow Plane Recovery Effort video updateBo Hagewood - 2020/05/17
1-3620
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49919031798_7388f13a26_o.png
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49919893367_f540a81b3b_o.png
Hello... hang gliding community. This is Bo Hagewood back at the Florida Ridge again. Thank God.
Jimmy's gonna open the place again after, uh... This virus has really shut everybody down for a while and... Plus uh... I had a bad accident and I crashed one of his planes so we're having a hard time getting that plane put back together. So if any of my flying buddies that I've towed up over the years have any extra few dollars here and there to help us get that plane running again I sure would appreciate it man but I'm just blessed to still be walking and... And I hope you get back flying again real soon and I hope to see everybody flying.
http://ozreport.com/8.106Doug Hildreth
1991/12/15 - Michael Elliot - 27 - Novice - About to take first altitude flight - Pacific Airwave Double Vision - Lookout Mountain Flight Park
- 1992/02
Novice pilot went tandem with experienced tandem pilot in preparation for first, solo altitude flight. On base leg of approach over tree line, the attempt to turn onto final was unsuccessful. The glider hit a tree, side slipped 60 feet. Novice passenger was killed on impact, the tandem pilot was seriously injured.
- 1992/03
Novice pilot went tandem with experienced tandem pilot 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 60 feet. The novice passenger died, the tandem pilot was seriously injured
Bo blows up
Davis Straub - 2004/05/18 00:00 UTC
Survives by whatever has saved him so far.
According to the stories that have reached us here at Quest Air today Bo Hagewood broke his glider in a positive attitude doing aerobatics near the airport at Currituck just north of Kitty Hawk. Bo was there for the Spectacular.
Bo was flying the new Aeros Combat L, the one that Oleg had been flying in the competitions here in Florida. He was flying with Cracky who watched the whole incident from the air.
According to the account circulating here, Bo broke the glider, then through his chute and the chute wasn't attached to the harness (or became detached). The chute landed ten minutes after Bo did. Bo is flying with an arrangement where the chute is connected to the harness (Woody Valley) and not to the carabineer.
The glider was spinning down and Bo and the glider landed in a swampy area on soft ground. He has a compound fracture of his wrist. His helmet took a lot of abuse. He was able to miss a lake and a road and find the soft ground.
Joe Gregor - 2004/09
2004/05/17 - Currituck - Male, H5 - Aeros Combat L
A pilot flying a borrowed glider and harness experienced a structural failure while engaged in aerobatic maneuvers. Witnesses report that the glider exhibited a slightly deformed left wing but was otherwise intact. Witness statements and wreckage examination indicate pre-impact damage to the left leading edge, crossbar, and left lower flying wire, and that the failure occurred while the glider was under positive G-loading. Manufacturer analysis is ongoing in an attempt to determine the exact failure sequence. Manufacturer reports indicate that this was not a production glider, but rather a special lightweight version developed specifically for competition. The pilot had been advised not to perform aerobatics using this glider. The pilot threw his reserve while still above approximately 2000' AGL, but the parachute was observed to immediately separate from both glider and pilot without opening. Subsequent examination indicated that the parachute bridle was likely not connected to the harness and pulled free when thrown. This parachute was configured to connect to the harness internally to reduce drag, rather than at the carabiner as is usual among non-competition pilots. The glider entered an uncontrollable spin/graveyard spiral and impacted in a soft swampy area. The pilot suffered severe injuries but is now recovering at home.
Hello... motherfucker.Hello...
The hang gliding community that Lauren (not the usual Lauren) just said......hang gliding community.
...you're not in? Confirmed by not a single response on any other glider forum anywhere - Davis, Jack, Bob, Capitol... Just this one.No customers or community members were involved in the accident...
They give you a returning hero's welcome?This is Bo Hagewood back at the Florida Ridge again.
My sentiments PRECISELY. And I was a devote atheist until seeing this one.Thank God
Fuck yeah. Let's talk about the virus for a while.Jimmy's gonna open the place again after, uh... This virus has really shut everybody down for a while and...
There's more? Beyond the virus?Plus uh...
- Again? Good thing I'm keeping an archive. Getting hard to keep track of this shit.I had a bad accident...
- Bad? Doesn't that depend a lot on a particular idividual's perspective?
- Accident? Lauren says:
Doesn't sound like an accident to me....one of our pilots was solo-flying our tow-plane in a reckless manner, and totaled our airplane doing an unauthorized high-risk maneuver.
Glad we got that part cleared up. Now let's get on to the important stuff....and I crashed one of his planes...
I imagine so. Lauren says it was totaled and they're having to get a new one. So I'd say an EXTREMELY hard time getting that plane put back together....so we're having a hard time getting that plane put back together.
I'm guessing you have almost as many flying buddies as Jim Rooney does nowadays.So if any of my flying buddies...
For free. Out of the goodness of my heart. 'Cause they're your buddies....that I've towed up over the years...
What a total fucking douchebag. Maybe we could get this one:...have any extra few dollars here and there to help us get that plane running again...
http://ozreport.com/forum/files/2_264.jpg
running again while we're at it.
Perhaps Florida Ridge plus the local hang glider pilots who depended on that operaion would as well.I sure would appreciate it...
God sure knows how to pick 'em......man but I'm just blessed to still be walking and...
KSNV-CNN-1-1916
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5788/23461251751_e98b9c7500_o.png
...don't he?
You should probably make sure there are lots of non hang gliding people around when you see everybody flying. 'Specially after your performance on this 36 second video.And I hope you get back flying again real soon and I hope to see everybody flying.
Aerial Adventures lost just a tandem glider with instructor and student and went extinct. Pretty sure AT is history for SOGA as a consequence of their Dragonfly getting totalled. Ridgely totaled two tugs and their pilots and eventually went extinct. Mark Knight went down with his Dragonfly and I don't know what's left of Sonora Wings. Avia Club Nepal lost a Dragonfly and pilot and and their hang gliding program went extinct. There's a real good chance that Florida Ridge is already history thanks to this asshole.
And we're never gonna be able to learn the techniques Bo mastered in order to be able to climb with Jim Rooney...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9230
Departing the launch cart
...at full boost. Not even a video of him we could use to get a feel for how we should be timing things. And curiously no videos of anyone anywhere revealing above average timing techniques.Jim Rooney - 2007/09/01 02:39:53 UTC
I don't tow solos under full power... you could't keep up with me if I did. I wouldn't be going faster horizontally, but my accelleration and climb rate would be so extreme that most pilots couldn't keep up the timing needed to make it work. (I think Bo's the only one I've successfully towed at full boost)
P.S. Watch the video again. Keep a close eye on the left side of Bo's mouth as he runs it. There's even less brain connecting to that area.
P.P.S. Hey Lauren... Put up a photo of the Dragonfly in the condition in which Bo returned it to you so we can get a better feel for what will be needed in the way of repairs.
P.P.P.S. The astounding deafening silence we're hearing from the hang gliding "community" in response to this one does not bode well for a GoFundMe response. Note Davis doesn't even post this one as a forum topic. Probably would be happy to see the place wither and die as Quest has always been his financial bread and butter. Compare/Contrast to/with the response Tiki got for trying to keep AT alive for Houston. (Clewiston, you have a problem.)
---
P.P.P.P.S. - 2020/06/09 14:00:00 UTC
Donors to date in chronological order - $3822. Been stagnant for over a week now.
300 - Richard Ainsworth
200 - Federico Panzitta
025 - Nolan Hollingshead
020 - Krystal Montoya
025 - Artiom Markelov
200 - Adelino Agostinho
100 - Thaisio Feliz
030 - Anonymous
020 - Niko Koehler
100 - Alessandro Silva
005 - Anonymous
050 - Robert Bradley
050 - Monica Agostinho
100 - Sheryl Zayas
050 - Davis Straub
100 - Mark Frutiger
100 - Attila Bertok
050 - Krzysztof Grzyb
050 - Knut Ryerson
100 - Moyes Gliders
050 - Bill Reynolds
050 - John Simon
100 - Raymond Mon
400 - Ullrich Vassmer
025 - Paul Voight
015 - Carlos Morinico
207 - Nathan Contreras
100 - Abhijeet Gole
050 - Peter Adams
400 - Michael Barton
100 - Joseph Lazaro
050 - Roger Irby
100 - Russell Rocksund
200 - Javier Figueras
300 - Pascal Lardy
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
Ooh! I see someone has posted a link at Bo's video.
...
Three devastating crashes all with the Pilot In Command on someone else's plane. Well, on the second one Bo, someone else's plane, Bo's parachute all came down separately so we need to come up with some sort of asterisk.
At least two of them were from fucking around with the plane and not getting away with it. So was the one which totaled the student one flight shy of being trusted by Lockout Mountain Flight Park to fly the task solo not reflective of this pattern?
- Michael Elliot wasn't a PASSENGER. He was gonna do this SOLO on his next flight. I totally DESPISE tandem "training" in hang gliding but Bo's job was to let him fly the plan and coach or take over as/if necessary - which neither should've been had this training been competently conducted. And from what we know about Lockout and Matt Taber it wasn't.
- The student doing just fine until late on base then overpowering Bo and driving it into the trees? Bullshit.
- Thermal activity? We ASSUME there's gonna be thermal activity. It's mostly the reason we're training on and flying these things. And if the Instructor / Pilot In Command either allowed this approach to fly or flew it himself this critically close the problem was NOT thermal activity. Somebody find me one other incident from the entire history of the sport in which a survivor and/or witness has presented this as an issue.
- Note we have not a single punctuation mark's worth of commentary anywhere from the Instructor / Pilot In Command on this one. There's a good probability that his memory was wiped. But when we get those the pilot usually tells us it was and that "The last thing I remember was...". And that last thing often was the flight a minute or so prior to impact. Bo tells us NOTHING - for a fair chunk of three decades now. So let's look at the pattern of crashes and draw our own conclusions as best as possible.
We get to hop in the time machine and decide whether or not it's OK to skip the last tandem and let him solo. Anybody think this is NOT a no-brainer? The only way to figure out what's really going on in this shit heap of a sport is to listen very carefully to all the stuff that's very conspicuously not being said.
Bullshit. This was routine and this time Bo got just a little too cute. I was there at Currituck 1991/08/02-04 when Bobby Bailey, Bill Moyes, the guys who would soon become Wallaby and Quest were doing their Dragonfly promo tour. Whenever they had a bit of downtime they were hotdogging their planes down on the deck. That's what pilots do. It's fun and makes one a better pilot. But you get assholes like Bo in the equation who've gotta take things outside of the envelope and the Darwin Effect starts kicking in.
You want us to fork over 30K to buy you a new plane and can't be bothered to provide the least shadow of a description of this reckless unauthorized high-risk maneuver? Not really important? Or 'cause this bullshit was routine, everybody knows about it, you weren't doing anything about it?
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=5089
The Good-The Bad-The Ugly....
And:
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=6911
Sunday flying at Florida ridge. -
Assholes.
1-3620
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49919031798_7388f13a26_o.png
...again!
http://ozreport.com/5.126
Flytec Dragonfly
Weaklinks and aerotowing (ONLY)
Weak link question
Is this a joke ?
Let's see what happens.
...
Three devastating crashes all with the Pilot In Command on someone else's plane. Well, on the second one Bo, someone else's plane, Bo's parachute all came down separately so we need to come up with some sort of asterisk.
At least two of them were from fucking around with the plane and not getting away with it. So was the one which totaled the student one flight shy of being trusted by Lockout Mountain Flight Park to fly the task solo not reflective of this pattern?
Bullshit.The inability to turn onto final may have been caused by thermal activity, the passenger interfering with glider control, or both.
- Michael Elliot wasn't a PASSENGER. He was gonna do this SOLO on his next flight. I totally DESPISE tandem "training" in hang gliding but Bo's job was to let him fly the plan and coach or take over as/if necessary - which neither should've been had this training been competently conducted. And from what we know about Lockout and Matt Taber it wasn't.
- The student doing just fine until late on base then overpowering Bo and driving it into the trees? Bullshit.
- Thermal activity? We ASSUME there's gonna be thermal activity. It's mostly the reason we're training on and flying these things. And if the Instructor / Pilot In Command either allowed this approach to fly or flew it himself this critically close the problem was NOT thermal activity. Somebody find me one other incident from the entire history of the sport in which a survivor and/or witness has presented this as an issue.
- Note we have not a single punctuation mark's worth of commentary anywhere from the Instructor / Pilot In Command on this one. There's a good probability that his memory was wiped. But when we get those the pilot usually tells us it was and that "The last thing I remember was...". And that last thing often was the flight a minute or so prior to impact. Bo tells us NOTHING - for a fair chunk of three decades now. So let's look at the pattern of crashes and draw our own conclusions as best as possible.
We get to hop in the time machine and decide whether or not it's OK to skip the last tandem and let him solo. Anybody think this is NOT a no-brainer? The only way to figure out what's really going on in this shit heap of a sport is to listen very carefully to all the stuff that's very conspicuously not being said.
Right out of the blue. For the very first time. Right Lauren? Previously when one of your pilots was solo-flying your tow-plane in a reckless manner, doing high-risk maneuvers they applied for and received authorization.Lauren Tindle - 2020/05/09
As many of you know, in early-March one of our pilots was solo-flying our tow-plane in a reckless manner, and totaled our airplane doing an unauthorized high-risk maneuver.
Bullshit. This was routine and this time Bo got just a little too cute. I was there at Currituck 1991/08/02-04 when Bobby Bailey, Bill Moyes, the guys who would soon become Wallaby and Quest were doing their Dragonfly promo tour. Whenever they had a bit of downtime they were hotdogging their planes down on the deck. That's what pilots do. It's fun and makes one a better pilot. But you get assholes like Bo in the equation who've gotta take things outside of the envelope and the Darwin Effect starts kicking in.
You want us to fork over 30K to buy you a new plane and can't be bothered to provide the least shadow of a description of this reckless unauthorized high-risk maneuver? Not really important? Or 'cause this bullshit was routine, everybody knows about it, you weren't doing anything about it?
How 'bout:No customers or community members were involved in the accident...
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=5089
The Good-The Bad-The Ugly....
Socrates Zayas - 2008/01/14 05:22:38 UTC
Yesterday was a very emotional day for me and my household. My better half did something that I really didn't expect from a medical student/mother/busy no time to waste...
This would be the final flight of the day, just in front of her was a student tandem flight about to launch, so I was headed back to the car to finalize the packing up when I heard the tug make the familiar sound it does when a weak link breaks.
I looked back to see the tug circle around and saw a wing turned up in a WHACK configuration. I was like "wow". Then I noticed it wasn't the tandem but Sherb-Air's Falcon 170.
When I got there her nose was lacerated and her lip was bleeding (yeah, she had a full face helmet) and the dolly's left wheel was missing.
The radiography showed acute multiple fractures around the top and head of the humerus. Her nose didn't break but she may have hairline fractures to the septum. She had a hard time remembering the date, day, names of her kids, number of kids, and other basic things...
The dolly had hit a huge hole and she went left shoulder into the ground at 25+ mph.
And:
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=6911
Sunday flying at Florida ridge. -
Socrates Zayas - 2008/05/21 23:53:23 UTC
The cycle was nice, nothing out of the ordinary, but just as the tug flew over the fence line of the orchard the weak link broke. It was as if it didn't even break - Eric and I both thought it was a release malfunction.
I was flying nice with good speed and climbing. I thought "Shit. It broke again. Damn, I don't want to land between those trees, they don't even have the keys to the gate anymore."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR_4jKLqrusAxel Banchero - 2008/05/22 04:19:39 UTC
Doc's body wasn't moving and we were shitting our pants until he started talking confused. The first thing I saw was his eye bleeding and swollen the size of an 8 ball. There was sand and dirt inside. Looked like he lost it at first until he could open it a little bit.
Assholes.
Yet......and the pilot has been treated for his injuries and is in recovery.
1-3620
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49919031798_7388f13a26_o.png
...again!
Just how well was it specifically designed for hang gliding?Our backup tow plane was currently being serviced at the time, so business operations were halted when our only airplane was out of commission. With this accident occurring right at the cusp of the COVID-19 pandemic, our business took a huge hit not only from loss of income but the costs of repairing one plane and replacing another. It costs almost $30,000 to replace a tow plane specifically designed for hang gliding.
http://ozreport.com/5.126
Flytec Dragonfly
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skysailingtowing/message/4633USAFlytec - 2001/07/14
Steve Kroop - Russell Brown - Bob Lane - Jim Prahl - Campbell Bowen
The tail section of the Dragonfly is designed so that it can accept in-line as well as lateral loads. Furthermore the mast extension, which is part of the tow system, is designed to break away in the event of excessive in-line or lateral loads. The force required to cause a breakaway is roughly equivalent to the force required to break the double weaklink used on the tail bridle. More simply put, the mast would break away long before any structural damage to the aircraft would occur.
Weaklinks and aerotowing (ONLY)
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3600Steve Kroop - 2005/02/10 04:50:59 UTC
On the tow plane we use 1-1/2 loops (3 strands) of 130# line. The weak link is placed in the top of a V-bridal which would yield a maximum nominal towline tension of around 780#. However, due to the fact the knots (two are required since there are three strands) are not "buried" the maximum towline tension is greatly reduced. I do not know the exact tow line tension required to break this weak link but the value is somewhat moot since the weak link is not too strong so as to cause any damage to the tow plane and it is not too weak to leave the glider pilot with the towline.
Weak link question
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846Jim Rooney - 2008/11/24 18:54:27 UTC
I'm confused. I never said the tug's ass was endangered. That's why we use 3strand at the tug's end. Using 4 strand can rip things off (it's happened). When forces are achieved that do break a 3 strand, your tail gets yanked around very hard, which does have implications as to the flight characteristics and flightpath. AKA, I have no desire to allow you to have the ability to have that effect on me when I tow you... esp near the ground.
Is this a joke ?
They designed the tow mast to succeed at the same time their tandem weak link succeeded. Then they dumbed the tug weak link down to succeed way below what their tandem weak link and tow mast would. Then they beefed up their solo weak link to succeed at the same time as their tandem would.Davis Straub - 2011/08/28 15:26:28 UTC
Then again, Russell Brown had us double up behind him after six breaks in a row at Zapata. We couldn't figure out why we had so many breaks so quickly. Maybe just coincidence.
Where was your fucking community when Zack Marzec and Jeff Bohl were getting fatally and needlessly splattered on the runway a bit under 128 miles to your NNW?We are trying to get back on our feet amidst this struggling time, and we would greatly appreciate any and all help our community can provide for us.
$2672 out of $28400 so far - just a little shy of ten percent. If this rate of donations continues you should be fine - eventually.We are hoping to raise these funds by the end of June so we are open and ready for business when the community is ready to fly.
And thanks ever so much for yours.Thank you so much for your continued support,
The Florida Ridge Team
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=32059
Torrey Incident, should USHPA get involved?
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22212
So long guys
Torrey Incident, should USHPA get involved?
Davis Straub - 2014/11/12 16:06:00 UTC
The video speaks for itself. Sometimes even assholes have a point.
The owner of the worlds largest local coffee shop has deleted that entire thread - I just now discovered.Brian Scharp - 2014/11/12 16:47:20 UTC
Good point.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22212
So long guys
And that one...Jack Axaopoulos - 2011/06/12 18:20:06 UTC
Like ive told others... if you want to go... just go. You dont get a free parting cheap shot at the community to tell us how much we suck. Sorry... no free attack on us while you exit.
Well I see now that you are threatening to delete your account in a PM if I dont delete it for you, which I can only assume means youre going to do what a certain other poster did and start vandalizing and deleting posts so you force my hand... account banned so you cant vandalize. Well this truly sucks. Threatening to damage the site just because you got pissed off is really messed up dude. You need to seriously chill out.
Accounts cant be deleted. It screws all the threads up. Sorry, I cant let you just start trashing the place, which is your intent.
The motherfuckers controlling this sport are in all out war mode against its history. Think the Inquisition, Hitler, Stalin, Trump, their supporters and enablers...INFORMATION
You are not authorised to read this forum.
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2256
Status of David Beardslee Banishment
Status of David Beardslee Banishment
Bob Kuczewski - 2020/05/24 13:27:42 UTC
I had forgotten about Brad Hall's rotten gag order "deal" that he tried to get Dave Beardslee to sign. I'm glad that Dave declined that one. It also reminds me how chummy Brad Hall was with David Jebb. I didn't know it at the time because I'd gotten Brad Hall's name and phone number as a referral by Joe Greblo. I don't know if Joe knew how close they were either. In the end, Brad Hall disgraced himself several times. Both GlideJunkie and Councilwoman Donna Frye outed him for his behind-the-scenes treachery.
This topic is also a good reminder that hang gliding history is being continually destroyed on hanggliding.org. The link that Doug posted above on January 11th, 2016 is already broken. It had pointed to my own documentation of that incident and the surrounding problems at Torrey. It was part of the "wiki" that Jack Axaopoulos had set up. I remember working on that section. Now it's gone. If you follow Doug's link (http://www.hanggliding.org/wiki/Special_agreement), you'll find this instead:
"No text" in that page? Gee Jack, where do you think it went?
Fortunately, Doug preserved that snippet of hang gliding history by posting it to the U.S. Hawks. Otherwise it would have disappeared In the Orwellian nightmare at hanggliding.org.
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24546
Serious accident at SOGA
Jim Rooney tandem paraglider incident in New Zealand
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5277/30076449505_1f6ed2f804_o.png
Or maybe we can ask the chopper pilot.
P.S. And we never got a word from or even the identity - "beyond Pilot peter" "our friend" - of SOGA guy:
http://ozreport.com/forum/download/file.php?id=3592
who ended his walking career on that one.
Serious accident at SOGA
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49837Jim Rooney - 2011/08/03 10:54:08 UTC
PS... yeah, you're right... what will he know? Let's ask the government to tell us. They'll have a much better idea than the pilot.
Jim Rooney tandem paraglider incident in New Zealand
08-19Jim Rooney - 2016/10/01 05:55:48 UTC
Up from surgery... Plates on L2 while it heals, will come out after. Feeling good.
I won't comment on my crash just yet. Maybe after the CAA investigation.
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5277/30076449505_1f6ed2f804_o.png
Or maybe we can ask the chopper pilot.
P.S. And we never got a word from or even the identity - "beyond Pilot peter" "our friend" - of SOGA guy:
http://ozreport.com/forum/download/file.php?id=3592
who ended his walking career on that one.
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
I couple days back I was doing some forum housekeeping and stumbled back across Angelo Mantas's report on the 2004/06/26 Mike Haas AT crash and burn along with - on the same Davis Show newsletter page - response to Joe Gregor's u$hPa certified magazine report(s). I've dissected those two (Angelo) entries here before:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post397.html#p397
http://ozreport.com/9.179
Fatality Report
Angelo Mantas - 2005/08/30
http://www.kitestrings.org/post3857.html#p3857
http://ozreport.com/9.179
Report on the fatality report
Angelo Mantas - 2005/08/30
but it's been a while and the sport's been devolving since at the speed of sound and I was stunned at the level of quality I was seeing - honest, heartfelt, articulate, literate, reasonably intelligent... Try to find stuff comparable permitted on the mainstream from the past decade.
Note that in four days subsequent to the posting date Mike's driver and Jeremiah Thompson are gonna go down in flames at the same operation - 41°31'07.45" N 088°36'13.95" W - behind Gary Solomon.
This 2004/06/26 has always bothered me - not a nice clean no-brainer like Arlan's last, 2013/02/02 Zack Marzec, 2016/05/21 Jeff Bohl - and needs a little more work and I needed to get Joe's stuff out of the magazine and up in digital.
As usual, pay closest attention to all the stuff that's not being said and the people who aren't saying it.
Mike Haas's accident at Hang Glide Chicago
http://www.kitestrings.org/post397.html#p397
http://ozreport.com/9.179
Fatality Report
Angelo Mantas - 2005/08/30
http://www.kitestrings.org/post3857.html#p3857
http://ozreport.com/9.179
Report on the fatality report
Angelo Mantas - 2005/08/30
but it's been a while and the sport's been devolving since at the speed of sound and I was stunned at the level of quality I was seeing - honest, heartfelt, articulate, literate, reasonably intelligent... Try to find stuff comparable permitted on the mainstream from the past decade.
Note that in four days subsequent to the posting date Mike's driver and Jeremiah Thompson are gonna go down in flames at the same operation - 41°31'07.45" N 088°36'13.95" W - behind Gary Solomon.
This 2004/06/26 has always bothered me - not a nice clean no-brainer like Arlan's last, 2013/02/02 Zack Marzec, 2016/05/21 Jeff Bohl - and needs a little more work and I needed to get Joe's stuff out of the magazine and up in digital.
As usual, pay closest attention to all the stuff that's not being said and the people who aren't saying it.
Joe Gregor - 2004/09
Date/Time: 2004/06/26 / Approximately 2:00 p.m.
Location: Hang Glide Chicago, Cushing Field, Illinois
Pilot: 53-year-old male, H4
Glider: LiteSport 147
Wx: W 5 mph, thermally
Helmet - non-full face
A highly experienced mountain pilot aerotowing a newly-purchased glider experienced a lockout at low altitude. Witness reports indicate that the glider began oscillating immediately after leaving the launch dolly. The weak link broke after the glider entered a lockout attitude. Once free, the glider was reportedly too low (50-65' AGL, estimated) to recover from the unusual attitude and impacted the ground in a steep dive. The pilot suffered fatal injuries due to blunt trauma. There is no evidence that the pilot made an attempt to release from tow prior to the weak link break; the gate was found closed on the Wallaby-style tow release. Reports indicate that this was possibly only the second time the incident pilot had flown this new glider (a replacement for a smaller Xtralite 137), and that the previous flight had taken place at a foot-launch site. The pilot's last reported aerotow flight at this site took place in October of 2003.
http://ozreport.com/9.188HANG GLIDING ACCIDENTS
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Photo: Aaron Swepston - A safe aerotow launch in southern California
Joe Gregor - 2005/07
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Date/Time: 2004/06/26 ~14:00
Location: Hang Glide Chicago, Cushing Field, Illinois
Pilot: 53-year-old male, H-4
Equipment: Glider - Moyes LightSport 14; Harness - Unknown; Helmet - non-full face
Wx: W 5 mph with thermals present
A highly experienced mountain pilot aerotowing a newly purchased glider experienced a low-altitude lockout. Witness reports indicate that the glider began oscillating immediately after leaving the launch dolly. The weak link broke after the glider entered a lockout attitude. Once free, the glider was reportedly too low (50-65' AGL, estimated) to recover from the resulting unusual attitude and impacted the ground in a steep dive. The pilot suffered fatal injuries due to blunt trauma. There is no evidence that the pilot made any attempt to release from tow prior to the weak link break; the gate was found closed on the Wallaby-style tow release. Reports indicate that this was only the second time the accident pilot had flown this glider (a replacement for his Xtralite 137), and that the previous flight had taken place at a foot-launch site. The pilot's last reported aerotow flight took place in October of 2003.
Conditions: The accident flight was initiated from an airfield employing a dolly. Runway surface conditions present at the time at the time of the accident are unknown. Winds were light (W at 5 mph) and crossing from the left. Low-level thermal-induced turbulence was present.
Logbook: The accident pilot held a USHGA H-4 rating (obtained in 1983) with the following special skill signoffs: TUR, AT, AWCL, CL, FL, FSL. Detailed logbook information is not available, but the vast majority of his time reportedly involved ridge soaring via foot launch. The accident pilot had flown one previous time on the accident glider - a two- to three- hour ridge soaring flight. He had performed numerous aerotow launches using his previous glider (a smaller Moyes Xtralight) behind a Dragonfly tug.
Medical: There were no known pre-existing physical conditions prior to the accident flight.
Synopsis: The accident pilot launched via dolly while being towed by a Kolb ultralight. Witnesses observed the pilot to oscillate first right, then left, immediately after leaving the cart. In both cases the pilot corrected back to wings level after reaching a near-lockout roll attitude. Glider and tug both encountered turbulence while still below 100' AGL. Witnesses observed the glider pitch up "radically" and begin rolling to the left while still under tow. The weak link broke with the glider in an extreme left bank and the glider continued to roll left to enter a near-vertical dive. The glider struck the ground left wing first with a near-90-degree pitch attitude. Assistance was immediate, but the pilot died from severe blunt force trauma.
Airframe: The glider control frame was found intact with one downtube bent. The keel and one leading edge were broken off near the noseplate junction. The glider was not equipped with a tail fin. The tow release was found with the gate in the closed and latched position.
Analysis: No electronically recorded flight information (GPS or barograph) was available for analysis in this accident. As a result we are left with eyewitness accounts and post-crash damage analysis in order to determine what likely occurred in this accident. Eyewitness accounts both in-flight and on the ground all agree that the glider entered a lockout prior to experiencing a weak link break below 100' AGL.
The pilot employed a dual V-bridle system using the pilot hang point as one terminus. There is some controversy concerning the efficacy of this arrangement given the pilot's weight and skill level, but it is not an unusual configuration for towing a hang glider of this class. Lower performance gliders commonly use an upper attachment point somewhere along the keel forward of the attachment point, to help reduce the high bar pressures present under tow. This arrangement probably adds some positive yaw stability to the system, also. Higher performance gliders exhibit significantly less bar pressure, and access to the keel forward of the hang point is much more difficult to obtain due to sail design. The pilots of these gliders are also generally more experienced. Thus an upper bridle attachment at the hang point is more common with these designs.
The accident glider was new to this pilot, a bit larger, and perhaps also somewhat less stable on tow than the wing he was accustomed to flying. The pilot was towing in mid-day conditions on a day during which thermals were present. The combination of all of these factors could have placed a premium on the accident pilot's aerotow skills.
Probable Cause: Failure to maintain aircraft control while maneuvering close to the terrain. Mitigating circumstances include possible low-level turbulence inducing conditions beyond the pilot's skill and proficiency level to correct.
Discussion: Launch is one of the most dangerous phases of flight for a hang glider. During this phase the pilot is generally constrained to maneuver close to the ground while below, at, and just above stall speed. Aerotowing using a dolly mitigates some of these dangers by eliminating the need to transition from ground-handling below stall speed to active flight just above stall speed, all while manually maintaining physical separation between the wing and nearby terrain with the pilot's legs. However, aerotowing introduces other dangers related to the fact that the pilot must separate cleanly from the cart (dolly) and actively manage an unstable flight system during the entire tow. These issues are critical during the first 100' of the tow, below which successful recovery from a lockout attitude is problematic, at best. Use of devices that add stability to the system - such as a tail fin - should be highly encouraged for pilots making the transition from another launch method.
Recommendations: Exercise great caution when learning to fly using a new launch method, or when launching with new equipment.
Pilots should treat each launch method as an independent maneuver for the purposes of training and currency. Pilots should not expect proficiency in one launch method to automatically transfer in whole or in part to proficiency in another launch method. Slope and ramp launching, assisted windy cliff launching, aerotow, platform and scooter tow, are all very different maneuvers, each requiring different skill sets. This is why the USHGA Pilot Proficiency System recognizes a separate special skill signoff for several of these maneuvers.
Every launch method involves a transition from non-flying to flight while very close to the terrain. This puts a great premium on pilot skill and proficiency. When learning a new launch method, even highly experienced pilots should consider themselves equivalent to a new H-2 with regards to that particular maneuver, until they have accumulated a level of experience at that launch method commensurate with their general flying skills.
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Photo: Dale Guldan - A safe aerotow requires wings level and appropriate airspeed, especially when close to the ground.
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Photo: Peter Darian - Every launch technique has its own specific set of challenges.
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Photo: Aaron Swepston - An experienced pilot and crew carefully preflight glider, tow system and dolly.
Mike Haas's accident at Hang Glide Chicago
Joe Gregor - 2005/09/14
After Angelo's post in the Oz Report I decided to review my information concerning the reporting on Mike's accident. In his e-mails to me, Angelo's concern seemed centered on a lack of acknowledgement for his contribution, and the long timeframe required for the report to hit the magazine.
Angelo did indeed send me a detailed report via US Mail, which all have now seen, and which I used in drafting the Executive Summary for the column in HG Magazine. Other sources include statements from at least four other witnesses and numerous e-mail messages of discussions concerning the accident from a digest maintained by the local club.
At the time of Mike's accident I had been the HG Accident Review Chairman for only a few months. There was no one on the committee but myself. In the previous three months, we had experienced seven fatalities or near-fatalities:
03/03 on an XC from LMFP,
04/22 on a launch from Sugarloaf Peak, CA,
05/17 a structural failure experienced during aerobatics in NC (Bo's accident),
05/28 another structural failure at Dry Canyon, NM,
06/19 a H-2 outlanding at Hull Mountain, CA,
06/24 a severe weather related event at King Mountain, ID,
and two days later, on 06/26, Mike Hass' accident.
There is no way that one man (even if he didn't have two jobs and a family) could simultaneously perform a creditable investigation of seven geographically separated accidents and maintain situational awareness with the constant flow of minor accident reports flowing in day-by-day. The only solution was to create a process which relied on local volunteers to conduct the data collection and at least some of the analysis for each major accident.
I tried to outline a vision for this process in one of my early columns. The USHGA SOPs call on the Regional Directors to serve in this role, and they are the first people I look to, but we are all volunteers (the accident review committee has limited resources and no budget) so I would appoint as Principle Investigator whomever seemed willing, motivated, and in the best position to accomplish the task. I would draft an Executive Summary for the column based on their input, be it a larger report (my ultimate desire) or just a collection of facts and analysis they were able to put together and/or send my way. I would share the Summary with the Principle Investigator for their comment and changes before submitting it to the magazine. Is it a prefect process? No, the resources don't exist for perfect, but it was at least functional.
In the case of Mike's accident several names were offered up to me as a potential Lead for the investigation. Angelo's was not one of them, presumably because he was not on-site at the time of the accident. Everyone should be thankful to Gary for stepping up to the plate when no one else was willing. Had it not been for him, it seemed to me at the time, no creditable investigation of Mike's accident could have been accomplished. Angelo's report was received by USHGA on 27 September - three months after the accident - and sometime later forwarded to me. I included it with all of the other information coming to me on Mike's accident, but I continued to look to Gary to lead this particular investigation, as I looked to others to lead the remaining six accidents. When Angelo e-mailed me 6-7 months later wanting to know why nothing had been done, I believe I told him that Gary was on it and that he should send his information Gary's way so it could be included in Gary's report. I agree, it would be desirable for the committee chair to acknowledge every letter, report, and e-mail as they come in. There is simply not enough time in the day.
I also acknowledge the long time it took for Mike's accident to make it into the magazine. I do not know what can or should be done to accelerate the process in this regard. Even running the extremely long columns I was writing, at two accidents per column, and one column every other month, and a two month set-up time for the magazine, it would take over nine months to achieve print on the fatal/near-fatal accidents we had lying in wait. In addition, I felt it would be unfair to unduly rush those who volunteered to give up their time and energy to do the difficult job of investigating these accidents.
In my mind the major point of the magazine column is to relate lessons learned. These lessons will not spoil due to a few months delay. They may spoil if the investigation is rushed, however. Since the magazine column format is ill suited to play the role of instant messaging anyway, I felt that any attempts to rush an investigation would prove counter-productive. If you want immediate dissemination, the Oz Report is the appropriate vehicle, not the magazine.
As for the Conclusions and Recommendations, I probably deserve to take a small hit there. The Probable Cause is the part that relates to what made the accident happen. But the Recommendations, those are there to help others find a way to avoid suffering the same fate. The Probable (and I mean probable) Cause in Mike's accident was, quite literally, a failure to maintain aircraft control. Nothing more definitive than that can be said. But telling pilots that the lesson learned here is to maintain control of your glider, that is less than illuminating. So when I write a Recommendation, it is not intended to outline should have been done in this accident; it is intended to highlight things that could be done to mitigate or prevent a similar future accident.
In the info I received on Mike's accident, there was no objective logbook review. Instead, in addition to Angelo's report, I received things like: "This pilot was very experienced at coastal ridge soaring, and less experienced (although he had recent experience at a FL aeropark) with aerotow." There was no consensus that Mike had ever towed the higher performance wing he was flying the day of the accident, and Angelo himself one e-mail stated that "It's very possible that this was his first tow on the Lightsport." One reporter indicated that Mike had recently taken a few years off to build a house "but still managed a few dune flights each year." His last reported aerotow was in October of 2003. Altogether in my mind, this became an experienced foot-launch pilot who had relatively little aerotow experience, and none of it current. I admit that this may have been a poor characterization, but that is what I came away with from the information presented to me of a pilot whom I unfortunately never knew.
With 20/20 hindsight, in the case of Mike's accident, I should have written "flying a new class of wing" or "after a long break in activity, indicated reduced proficiency" or something similar; rather than using the all-encompassing "new launch method" phrase. Water under the bridge. I have done the best I know how given the limited resources at my disposal. My Reserve commander once said that you know you are in the zone when your employer, your family, and the Reserves are all equally pissed-off at you. By that criterion I have achieved 'balance.' I strongly encourage anyone interested in the position of HG Accident Review Committee Chair to contact USHGA and let them know. I see no need to carry out a task that could be better performed by another willing volunteer. Your application will have my full support.