http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=384
Another accident report
Marc Fink - 2005/04/17 02:04:44 UTC
Having read about several pilot's recent accidents while trying to land in midday turbulent conditions--I experienced a very bad situation today myself while trying to land at Fairfield--our "local" aerotow field.
The forcast was for moderate thermals being capped off by a low inversion and light SSW at 5 mph or less. Two pilots towed up before me and were in the process of returning to land when I decided to go--having ground crewed for their launches. My tow was fairly uneventful--but we transitioned through thermals strong enough that the tug pitched up and down pretty dramatically, but I was able to keep things pretty controlled and felt that it was an average strength day. A later look at my Compeo, though, had me surprised at just how strong some of the cores were.
OK, I'll skip the flight details and get to the juicy part that everyone wants to read--while setting up my approach all the wind indicators were showing a south flow. The airstrip runs east-west, and slopes off on either side, so the most reasonable option seemed to be approach to the west and split the difference low down to swing out into the wind after a short final. I use this technique with success very often at HR when its west cross. Just as I started to initiate the slight turn to the south, I was slammed by a violent gust/thermal from the west which not only pitched the glider up by 30 ft or so, but also rolled it into a left bank so that I was now in a quartering tail wind on the sinking back end of the gust/thermal.
The bar is stuffed and I pull over for all I was worth to the right, but the glider didn't seem to respond to my turn input (that was probably just a perception thing, it just seemed that way because I was in a tailwind component)--I was flying fast towards the ground. The feeling was about the same as when you encouter a strong thermal at altitude which initially rolls you away beacuse only part of the wing is in strong lift. Being fully proned, with the ground whizzing by at 30 to 40 mph very close to my face (and I fly without wheels) it became quickly apparent that the physics and geometry of the situation did not favor an inexpensive, pain-free outcome. Just before the control bar contacted the ground I used my patented control bar heave-ho technique and threw the control bar out for all I was worth--and amazingly the glider slowed down enough so that when the left corner bracket dug in the downtube took the force and bent , but no part of my body contacted anything--and the glider itself didn't ground loop or even nose over. I simply stood up and walked the glider off--though I was embarassed and well aware that I narrowly escaped a serious crash.
I'm not going to bother with the cathartic pilot-error prostrations or advise what to do to avoid this--I'll leave that to the more enlightened readership. But I think I was able to make some interesting conclusions about the conditions I was flying in.
Before I left late in the day I heard one pilot remark how nice it was to fly in such lite conditions, and I thought about what I had just experienced. I have come to the conclusion that, in a way, flying in light winds on unstable days can in fact be very dangerous. In my experience, any forecast of 5 to 7 mph or less simply means light and variable. And light and variable simply means that the odds are fairly good that the winds--and gusts or thermals--can come from any direction at any time. And by implication this means that the odds are pretty good that you might not get a consistent wind direction indication through the last phases of your approach--no matter how careful you are. Stronger winds generally tend to street up thermals and lift lines.
Having read about several pilot's...
Pilots'.
...recent accidents...
There's no such thing as an accident.
...while trying to land in midday turbulent conditions-
You mean the only kind worth flying in?
-I experienced a very bad situation today myself while trying to land at Fairfield--our "local" aerotow field.
- Pennsylvania. Mid Atlantic Soaring Association. 39°45'26.90" N 977°21'06.64" W.
- And please don't trouble yourself to give us a date on this one.
The forcast was for moderate thermals being capped off by a low inversion and light SSW at 5 mph or less. Two pilots towed up before me and were in the process of returning to land when I decided to go--having ground crewed for their launches.
So obviously you checked to make sure that all their equipment was well within compliance with all u$hPa SOPs and FAA regs - specially and critically with respect to the long track record weak link. Well done.
My tow was fairly uneventful--but we transitioned through thermals strong enough that the tug pitched up and down pretty dramatically...
And yet the weak links at both ends continued to not succeed. And here I was thinking that the primary purpose of every weak link in the system was to protect the tug from getting pitched up and down pretty dramatically. Were you guys using Tad-O-Links to trade off safety for convenience?
...but I was able to keep things pretty controlled and felt that it was an average strength day. A later look at my Compeo, though, had me surprised at just how strong some of the cores were.
Well yeah. Otherwise there would've been no excuse for you ending up limping off the field with a damaged glider.
...while setting up my approach all the wind indicators were showing a south flow. The airstrip runs east-west...
If we're on the same wavelength the runway's 15-33 - which is a lot more north-south than east-west. But we'll go with your references anyway.
...and slopes off on either side, so the most reasonable option seemed to be approach to the west...
- You can't approach TO the west. You need to approach FROM the east. And if you're doing a pattern - anything other than a long straight glide in - that's meaningless anyway.
- Seemed to be? Not WAS? Sounds like you'd have done things differently in hindsight. Me? I believe there's always ONE best decision to make for any set of circumstances at the time. Those circumstances may change such that if we had a time machine we'd do things differently but we don't so one always takes the same option for the same circumstances and cope with upcoming variables as best as one can.
...and split the difference low down to swing out into the wind...
It's impossible to swing OUT INTO anything. The reason for this one is becoming pretty obvious.
...after a short final.
There's no such thing as a FINAL from which one turns.
I use this technique with success very often at HR when its west cross.
You have a definite problem with apostrophe's.
Just as I started to initiate the slight turn to the south, I was slammed by a violent gust/thermal from the west which not only pitched the glider up by 30 ft...
Lose the "by".
...or so, but also rolled it into a left bank so that I was now in a quartering tail wind on the sinking back end of the gust/thermal.
- There's no such thing as a sinking gust.
- At thirty feet or so? Shouldn't be a huge problem.
The bar is stuffed...
So you're prone. So got any comments on all the Greblo-mold total fucking douchebags who have their students upright for final no later than two hundred feet?
...and I pull over for all I was worth to the right...
With the bar stuffed. That doesn't do a whole lot in the way of turning the glider.
...but the glider didn't seem to respond to my turn input...
You weren't effecting any turn input - just roll.
...(that was probably just a perception thing, it just seemed that way because I was in a tailwind component)-
- No, that's the way it actually was. Try it at altitude sometime when you've got nothing better to do.
- Bullshit. The only way you can have a tailwind "COMPONENT" is to be in a tailslide - asshole. Here's Reidar Berntsen:
10-00704
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1527/25000631815_67393621b6_o.png
getting pretty damn close to one in a pretty damn close approximation of Zack Marzec's Standard Aerotow Weak Link induced increase in the safety of the towing operation.
-I was flying fast towards the ground.
Bar stuffed, hard over. Yeah. That's a really good technique for losing altitude when you need to.
The feeling was about the same as when you encouter a strong thermal at altitude which initially rolls you away beacuse only part of the wing is in strong lift.
And because the other wing is in the falls spilling off the edge of the thermal.
Being fully proned, with the ground whizzing by at 30 to 40 mph very close to my face...
..and no wheels...
...(and I fly without wheels)...
And you fly without wheels. You're OK flying pro toad with an easily reachable release just as long as you have a Standard Aerotow Weak Link 'cause that'll allow you to survive a lockout from 250 feet and up but... No landing gear, no problem.
...it became quickly apparent...
...that I should've been upright with both hands at shoulder or ear height where I could more easily slow the glider down, effect better roll control, and stop things safely with a perfectly timed flare.
...that the physics and geometry of the situation did not favor an inexpensive, pain-free outcome.
- Well, the best we can do is continue to hope.
- You mean like with a bent pin easily reachable pro toad release with a Standard Aerotow Weak Link?
Just before the control bar contacted the ground...
Symmetrically. You don't say CORNER OF the control bar. So you're not pointed in the direction you wanna be but you're level. So if you hadn't been too much of a douchebag to go without wheels, while you might've bounced back up a bit, you could've just stayed prone and landed it.
...I used my patented control bar heave-ho technique and threw the control bar out for all I was worth-
- You threw it out worth total shit? Try more than two three degrees next time.
- You're still on the basetube with no wheels so you can't land it safely and also have zilch flare authority so you can't stop it effectively. But you haven't done anything significantly wrong on this one.
...and amazingly the glider slowed down enough so that when the left corner bracket dug in the downtube took the force and bent , but no part of my body contacted anything--and the glider itself didn't ground loop or even nose over.
Great piloting skill then - almost as great as your skills in writing coherent sentences. Make sure you teach your students to maximize their use of great piloting skills.
I simply stood up and walked the glider off--though I was embarassed and well aware that I narrowly escaped a serious crash.
Why should you have been embarrassed? You did everything right way above and beyond the call of duty and in freak circumstances that would've killed ten out of ten of us stupid student muppets. Why didn't people cheer and carry you off the field on their shoulders?
That's a smoking gun. I don't believe in aviation "accidents" so let's do a scenario in which you have the right of way and someone who doesn't blindsides you. Your glider's damaged, compromised but you get it down and stopped well enough to walk away smelling like a rose. You're not embarrassed - that's the job of the guy who flew into you. Nobody's gonna think you fucked up in the least - far from it. You're embarrassed 'cause you KNOW you fucked up somehow or other - at least one being no-brainer flying minus wheels or skids - and you're posting this to advertise how perfectly you performed in these deadly and totally unforeseeable circumstances.
I've fucked up bigtime before and have paid a terrible price for one that wouldn't have even been the slightest fuckup in any halfway sane tow environment. I don't have the slightest problem admitting my fuckups to anyone. I'll happily advertise them as instructional aids. So how come you're so fucking perfect all the time? You and your buddy...
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2809
hook-in failures
Marc Fink - 2007/11/11 12:51:54 UTC
As for Jim Rooney--he's well known for his rather spare and direct "tell it like it is" style--but it's very rare when Jim doesn't say something that's right on target, timely and accurate.
08-19
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5277/30076449505_1f6ed2f804_o.png
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49837
Jim Rooney tandem paraglider incident in New Zealand
Jim 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.
...Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney. (2016/09/29 - three years plus a dozen days and counting.)
I'm not going to bother with the cathartic pilot-error prostrations...
- See above.
- Why should you? You did everything 100.00 percent right. Relax a bit and bask in the glow of our admiration.
...or advise what to do to avoid this-
You're a fucking instructor aren't you? If it isn't your fucking JOB to advise what to do to avoid this then what the hell IS? Teaching flare timing perfection?
You're not even saying you're gonna start flying with landing gear or advising anybody else at any level to do so. So are ya gonna tell all your students up front before they hand over the check that this sport is just a dice roll with their lives? If the wind is under seven anyway?
-I'll leave that to the more enlightened readership.
There is no enlightened readership allowed to post on your shitty little Capitol Club rag. Which is a real good thing for you, motherfucker.
But I think I was able to make some interesting conclusions about the conditions I was flying in.
Fly in them and you're gonna die if you're not lucky?
Before I left late in the day I heard one pilot remark how nice it was to fly in such lite conditions, and I thought about what I had just experienced.
Precipitated.
I have come to the conclusion that, in a way, flying in light winds on unstable days can in fact be very dangerous.
- Wow. What an amazing insight. Any thoughts about a situation like this in these conditions (soarable) on the other end of the flight? À la John Dullahan 2006/02/05?
- I have too. Christ. If something like this can happen to a Marc Fink doing everything twenty times righter than any of us muppets could possibly dream of doing...
- In my later career - which was exclusively AT - all I did was fly in such light max unstable conditions. I had zilch interest in XC with all of its hassles and just wanted to thermal for as many hours as possible and land next to the car. And I only had one downtube incident when I came down as a major dust devil was fucking up the LZ. And it wouldn't have even been a downtube incident if I hadn't been stupid enough to come in in foot landing mode. But thanks bigtime for the dire warning anyway. I have no doubt whatsoever that you saved a countless number of arms, necks, lives.
In my experience, any forecast of 5 to 7 mph or less simply means light and variable.
Oh good. So if it's five to seven then guaranteed thermals.
And light and variable simply means that the odds are fairly good that the winds--and gusts or thermals--can come from any direction at any time.
Even on a solid overcast drizzly day.
And by implication this means that the odds are pretty good that you might not get a consistent wind direction indication through the last phases of your approach--no matter how careful you are.
Such amazing insights. Good thing you had that experience and survived in good enough condition to clue the rest of us in. But I'm deeply concerned that none of the folk in conventional aviation will hear and be able to heed this message.
Stronger winds generally tend to street up thermals and lift lines.
- OK then. No more flying in excellent thermal conditions on light wind days. Let's get the word out to all the AT operations and mountain clubs and get this shit shut down NOW. Even if we're as highly skilled and superbly equipped as you are...
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links
Marc Fink - 2007/05/30 02:52:19 UTC
Tad, I'm truly dismayed at the prospect of you showing up at the ECC's--flying in that in environment is stressful enough without having someone walking around preaching imminent death to someone who aerotows with present systems.
If you don't think you can control your impulse to denigrate others for using something other than what you personally approve of, I'd just as soon not show up.
You gonna be a good and leave it alone during the comp?
...we're all just rolling dice with our lives whenever we go out on any of the days we've hitherto found most desirable. Keep up the great work.
- According the Donnell Hewett the only thing we have to fear on a tow flight is the tow flight itself. And there's no problem on tow flight that can't be fixed by an Infallible Weak Link. So how come you had such a dangerous landing? One that left you bent and came close to getting you fucked up pretty good? Were you flying with a Fallible Tad-O-Link?
By the way, Marc...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Marc Fink - 2011/08/28 21:11:09 UTC
I once locked out on an early laminarST aerotowing. went past vertical and past 45 degrees to the line of pull-- and the load forces were increasing dramatically. The weaklink blew and the glider stalled--needed every bit of the 250 ft agl to speed up and pull out. I'm alive because I didn't use a stronger one.
Marc Fink - 2011/08/31 08:11:05 UTC
This all happened in a few seconds--in a lock out the line/bridle will likely be caught in your corner bracket further complicating things. I was actually in the process of reaching for the release and just about to pull it when the weaklink blew. If procedures were amended to "insist" on stronger weaklinks I would simply stop towing.
Procedures WERE amended to "insist" on stronger weak links - and had been seven years prior to your idiot post when the FAA pulled hang gliders in with sailplanes with respect to legal weak link range which put virtually everything over the Standard Aerotow Weak Link. And there wasn't one single whisper of objection or protest from the tiniest little girl glider anywhere.
And then we had Davis put:
http://airtribune.com/2019-big-spring-nationals/info/details__info
http://airtribune-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media/contest/files/2019/07/GTxd6mT4AIn8.pdf
2019 Big Spring Nationals - 2019/07
Weaklinks of 140 and 200 pounds will be available and provided by the organizers. Weaklinks provided by the organizers must be used by the competitors.
on the books. The lightest weak link option is eight percent over the one that allowed you to come out skimming the grass. Procedures HAVE BEEN amended to "insist" on stronger weak links. You WOULD have been killed. (So close, so disappointing.) So did you simply stop towing as you promised us you would? Obviously so. But then how come you neither protested nor warned others not to play with the fire that the "other side" is made of? You were always such a staunch and vocal advocate of safety when it was Yours Truly making recommendations and calling for compliance with existing stuff.
And if you or anyone else is flying comp you are using ONLY the cheap illegal crap Davis and his Flight Park Mafia buddies PERSONALLY approve of - and (sell on site). And Davis and his buddies are all...
http://ozreport.com/pub/images/fingerlakesaccident2.jpg
http://ozreport.com/pub/images/fingerlakesaccident3.jpg
14-0614 - 18-0801
...stupid incompetent total douchebags. So how come no objections to the rest of the shit sandwich either?
When I first see this crap near a decade and a half ago I think bent downtube, big fuckin' deal, give it a light skim, not really interested. But after getting all this experience really analyzing crap from scumbags like this, understanding what they're really doing and why, knowing where this crap is leading and will take us to...
Thanks bigtime for this valuable contribution to the historical record Marc.
Last detectable pulses - 2014/05/30 03:10:55 UTC and 2014/10/28 22:48:45 UTC on the Capitol Club wire and Davis Show respectively. Close to five years now. Do these douchebags start figuring out that they're no longer capable of opening mouths without flatly contradicting a minimum of thirty other statements and claims they've made before? (Took forever and a day plus two chopper rides for that lightbulb to start glowing for Rooney.)