Video

[Tad Eareckson]

Belatedly (sorry 'bout that) responding to Steve's at:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post10785.html#p10785

Embedding videos...

After Zack got us detapatalked and mostly back to our beloved phpBB format we lost our previous ability to embed/display YouTube and Vimeo videos. Serious problem 'cause we can't just scan through the pages and at a glance recognize familiar/unfamiliar, important/not-so-much, new, dead videos.

When you're composing a post and click the "video" button to embed a selected video URL the results are as before:

(youtube)htttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo2luM54zY0(/youtube)

'cept:
- with the square brackets - [] - instead of the parentheses - () - I'm substituting so's you can see what's going on
- the result is invisible and inert

So I experimented with a format I've seen used elsewhere:

(youtube)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo2luM54zY0(/youtube)

and voilà:



Shouldn't work but it does. But we're - not surprisingly - still fucked as far as Vimeo videos are concerned.

For recent posts referencing YouTube videos I've implemented or edited in the fix but I don't wanna overhaul the whole forum 'cause we SHOULD be able to get things running properly / as before.

When I log into the Administration Control Panel I get:

Your phpBB installation is not up to date.
Re-Check version - More information >>
---
HTTP input character conversion is improperly configured
mbstring.http_input must be set to pass. You can check the current value on the PHP information page.
---
HTTP output character conversion is improperly configured
mbstring.http_output must be set to pass. You can check the current value on the PHP information page.

I'm hoping that therein lies the problem but I'm afraid to touch stuff like that myself and have been putting off bugging Zack until a deader time of the year.

Update on Yours Truly...

About a dozen days into December I got REAL SICK for several days and recovery is following a familiar pattern. Still pretty sick right after and gradually tapering back over the course of a good many weeks.

And Thursday blew the frigid Mid Atlantic for a SouthWest trip. Landed at Vegas, rolled to and through Death Valley, currently in LA, Rose Parade tomorrow morning, then some birds, whales, whatever in this neck of the woods for another week.

Not doing great under all the stress but well enough and a lot better than I was expecting. Intending to do another trip report when I get some time and have recovered sufficiently.

Happy New Year to everyone east of the Central Time Zone and back to the International Date Line and shortly to everyone else.

[<BS>]

http://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qi54b6gRaXk_3EnrKaI7xqXEqyxCTVhj/view

[Steve Davy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

[TheFjordflier]

What the Russians are doing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyqDGK3fFhY


Учусь летать на дельтаплане. Самостраховка

Владимир Турукин - 2018/12/20

Хочешь летать, а заставляют копошится в снегу...
У меня случился второй практический выезд на наши холмики. Ветра не было вообще, но мы не отчаивались и старательно крушили раритетный Славутич-УТ, отрабатывая самостраховку - приём сохраняющий целостность тушки пилота, когда что-то пойдёт не так.

[Tad Eareckson]

Sorry Jan, but I've gotta be an equal opportunity abuser here.

The vast majority of hang glider crashes - and a real good percentage of the really serious ones - are direct consequences of coming in with hands on the downtubes...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27086
Steve Pearson on landings

Steve Pearson - 2012/03/28 23:26:05 UTC

I can't control the glider in strong air with my hands at shoulder or ear height and I'd rather land on my belly with my hands on the basetube than get turned downwind.

...at shoulder or ear height where they can't control the glider. You get WAY more bang for the buck teaching people how to land safely like all conventional fixed wing aircraft do - and can only do - than you do trying to teach them how to best survive the scores of crashes that inevitably result from imperfectly timed flares - 'specially the ones executed in real world conditions.

Extremely dangerous fucked up approach...

37-51811
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1452/25977033742_0e79a24e3e_o.png

38-51902
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1461/25796704820_e0f50e3f8a_o.png


...but substantial wheels, prone, both hands continuously on the control bar...

41-51927
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1444/25464788004_825dbdc812_o.png

44-52006
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1694/25796695810_3f2465e271_o.png

47-52016
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1625/26043614696_61406fb880_o.png

49-52101
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1484/25464781744_b1d33294d0_o.png

50-52111
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1449/25796690990_80a451af8d_o.png

51-52115
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1679/25464779434_4cf326b861_o.png

52-52119
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1708/25464778444_f46befb946_o.png

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http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1641/26043607966_4b75a9c5ea_o.png

54-52202
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1472/25466942003_12bf15881f_o.png


Pilot and glider come out like fuckin' roses.

63-60726
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1643/25796671480_a87ec17f6c_o.png


Compare/Contrast:

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http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2937/14081080220_373f64f01d_o.png
46-45901

If the upright "pilot" has the sufficient time and situational luxuries of being able to best configure himself to survive a crash he'd have had five times those resources to land the glider safely or safely enough if he'd stayed in flying configuration and continued to act as Pilot In Command until forward motion had stopped.

The instant you start configuring for foot landing is the instant you cease flying a certified hang glider. And in real life crash situations a lot of hands gripping downtubes are gonna get trapped on downtubes. Just looking at our contributing members here...

- Zack C - 2009/01/13...



- Alan Sparks - 2011/04/23...

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BADLY torn up right shoulder. And not to mention a 1989 landing crash which resulted in a spiral fracture of the humerus with permanent radial nerve damage.

- Mike Lake - 2014/06?

Broken left wrist.

And Orion Price - banned and now deceased asshole...



And I think that led to an opioid drug addiction which ended up costing him his life. And nobody's yet contradicted me on that one.

[TheFjordflier]

I have had both my shoulders dislocated due to holding on to the downtubes when crashing/whacking during my hang glider career, so I can't argue with your logic here

[Tad Eareckson]

We'll add you to the Kite Strings database.

I started flying with Kitty Hawk Kites at Jockey's Ridge in the spring of '80 and worked as an instructor in the fall of that year and for a long grueling spring to fall season. It was a great learning environment (also a pretty damn good environment for unlearning all the official USHGA crap one was being fed (even back then)) 'cause you could push limits hard and just crash into soft sand when you screwed things up. I got to be pretty good at crashing and never then or in the rest of my career was this:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22176
Paragliding Collapses

Jim Rooney - 2011/06/12 13:57:58 UTC

Most common HG injury... spiral fracture of the humerus.

anywhere close to being an issue 'cause I was crashing pushing limits making soaring passes (fully proned out - versus the Greblo total rot) and not due to imperfect flare timing. And when I was mountain flying and having to put it down in shit situations I won't hesitate to...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27086
Steve Pearson on landings

Steve Pearson - 2012/03/28 23:26:05 UTC

I can't control the glider in strong air with my hands at shoulder or ear height and I'd rather land on my belly with my hands on the basetube than get turned downwind.

...belly in and take what advantage I could of my eight inch pneumatic Finsterwalders.

I did, however, trash a lot of expensive downtubes due to imperfect flare timing in primary LZs and only realized what a load o' crap foot landings - minus smooth substantial headwinds - were too late at the very end of my career. If I had it to do over again... Skid plates on the harness, roll in for anything less than brain dead easy.

Actually - knowing now what I do about the way hang gliding was gonna devolve - I'm not all that sure I'd have ever touched the sport.

[TheFjordflier]

Regarding my previous post. My first incident was an early attempt (H1) to soar in strong winds. Got turned into the hill, pulled in for speed and tried to flare at the last moment. Took my left shoulder. No wheels could have saved me. The second was in a training hill. Whacked hard and took my right shoulder. Wheels could probably have saved the situation, but not 100% sure. I witnessed a girl a few years back on the training hill. Big pneumatic wheels. Still I had to drive her to the hospital with a broken upper right arm. Never saw her again.

Often I like to do landings in weird places, like this one:

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


The penalty for error can be high, but can't be landed on wheels either. Still fun
---
duplicate:
http://vimeo.com/324722764
"THE RIVERBANK" (4K)
TheFjordflier - 2019/03/16 22:06 UTC
dead

[Tad Eareckson]

My first incident was an early attempt (H1) to soar in strong winds. Got turned into the hill, pulled in for speed and tried to flare at the last moment. Took my left shoulder. No wheels could have saved me.

Neither would have any level of proficiency in those crashing drills featured in the video referenced in your 2019/02/15 12:55:06 UTC post. Assuming you were proned out with both hands on the basetube when you got turned, this incident isn't relevant to the database I'm talking about. You were in over your head, out of control, headed for a very serious crash. All bets are off.

Kite Strings isn't much concerned with those 'cause there's no mainstream controversy about how to avoid doing that.

BTW... BTDT. 1980/10/10, Jockey's Ridge, Eaglet 191 trainer, my 64th flight. Was making passes in SW 15 mph air about twenty feet over the ridge. Stalled my right/inside tip on my second turn, spun to downwind / over the back, was pretty sure my life was over. Brain started kicking back in; pancaked in on the lee side; got away with two broken leading edge breakaways, a downtube or two, a scratched thumb, and a psychological setback 'cause no one on the Kitty Hawk staff was any good at communicating to me how to avoid experiencing a rerun.

The second was in a training hill. Whacked hard and took my right shoulder. Wheels could probably have saved the situation, but not 100% sure.

Much more promising candidate. "Whack" almost always implies imperfect flare timing. The pilot would've been OK had he continued piloting his aircraft until it wouldn't fly or roll anymore. And the issue isn't all that much about the presence or absence of wheels or skids. Lotsa times one can come through bellying in with a bare basetube with a light bonk at worst.

I witnessed a girl a few years back on the training hill. Big pneumatic wheels. Still I had to drive her to the hospital with a broken upper right arm. Never saw her again.

Yeah. The sport does TONS of those and most of the time nobody ever hears about them. Recipe for extinction.

Often I like to do landings in weird places, like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKkTvlqZDHM

Not the classic perfectly timed no-stepper flare - a bit of a runout. The point I just made a week ago...

http://www.kitestrings.org/post11403.html#p11403

...concerning what ACTUAL pilots - plus experienced and skilled total assholes like Mike Bomstad - are doing for light air / rough surface landings.

The penalty for error can be high, but can't be landed on wheels either. Still fun

If something's fun...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27415
Friday the 19th with Hawks & Friends!

NMERider - 2012/10/24 21:47:05 UTC

I have to say that landing on the wheels is so much fun it's not funny.

...you know that the safety margins are high.

[Steve Davy]

And now, some more entertainment.

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

Sasha weaklink break