Broken arm Saturday for discussion
Posted: 2012/02/20 14:49:54 UTC
I watched a friend break his arm Saturday and take out the downtubes of his Falcon 3 170 and wanted to get some ideas from you guys on how you deal with situations that you know are going to end badly, but the pilot doesn't want to listen. My buddy went out to Arizona last month to get his surface tow rating from Mark Knight. When he returned, he asked Mel Glantz (the local advanced instructor) to tow him up with his big winch. I was just driving by and stopped to watch and say hi.
I was asking my buddy how Mark taught and my buddy Bryan seemed stressed and looked like he was rushing to get ready and get on line as Mel had towed once and the winch was humming along.
He was connecting his paraglider tow bridle to his harness (Z5) shoulder loops and I thought that was weird, and asked him about it. He told me "that's how I towed all week" so I asked him if he was going to tow with it over or under his basetube and he replied "I did both and it doesn't make any difference". This scared me, so I asked him how much theory Mark taught, and my buddy said "None. We just flew a lot." I laughed and said "That's cool, but they had you take a written test, didn't they?" and he got mad (he was already stressing) and said "Larry, we just flew and those guys said I was flying like a Hang 3.", at which point I just walked away and waited for something bad to happen......which it did 5 minutes later.
He rushed to the end of the line while Mel was still in the air, rushed to hook in, did a hang check, and hook up and was calling go.go.go while I was still trying to figure out how to do video on my phone. I looked up and he's almost fully prone with his hands still mid-tube on downtubes, his nose pitched way up and about 10 feet off the ground. At that moment, the weaklink broke. (He was using that lame greenstripe crap and no one had talked to him about weak links as far as I know. He had a 1000 foot roll of the stuff in the back of his van. He was just using "what they told him to use".) So the nose pitched forward to dive into the ground and his arms were still fully extended and locked so he went through both of them taking his right arm out as he went.
Now that I read that, I think that maybe my questions increased his mental tension and distracted him or put him in a mood of "damnit, I'm gonna go". God, I hope it wasn't me quizzing him that made him go that way.
You can all see the physics of why his arm is in four pieces now and why all his new gear is for sale, but what success have you all had talking and convincing a friend(s) to slow down and relax and think about things before they do damage that you can see coming? Is there a time tested way of getting a pilot to back away instead of rushing forward?
Mel's attitude was "the guy just got his ST rating last month and Mark told me he was flying great" (Mel had called Mark and asked how he did), but I wouldn't have towed him without talking a lot more to him and doing some low energy moon walks and practice releases in a Condor or some other big friendly glider, and would have asked my winch man not to tow him with the "don't bother me, I got my rating" attitude he was exhibiting. It wasn't my winch or winch-man though and I was just watching and Mel is the advanced instructor and examiner here, so I don't have a lot of clout.
I think the operator of the winch should have shut down the winch and come over and talked to the pilot more before launching him or at least told the pilot "let's wait for Mel", and I sort of wish I had tried to get them all to slow down and just talk about the process, but I'm already seen as the "analytical nerd that talks too much" here and don't get a lot of the "just do it" guys to listen to me (sound familiar, Tad?). I plan to have lunch with Mel soon and try to talk him into a little more process and a little less "go for it".
Do you all have any "things to say that work"?
I was asking my buddy how Mark taught and my buddy Bryan seemed stressed and looked like he was rushing to get ready and get on line as Mel had towed once and the winch was humming along.
He was connecting his paraglider tow bridle to his harness (Z5) shoulder loops and I thought that was weird, and asked him about it. He told me "that's how I towed all week" so I asked him if he was going to tow with it over or under his basetube and he replied "I did both and it doesn't make any difference". This scared me, so I asked him how much theory Mark taught, and my buddy said "None. We just flew a lot." I laughed and said "That's cool, but they had you take a written test, didn't they?" and he got mad (he was already stressing) and said "Larry, we just flew and those guys said I was flying like a Hang 3.", at which point I just walked away and waited for something bad to happen......which it did 5 minutes later.
He rushed to the end of the line while Mel was still in the air, rushed to hook in, did a hang check, and hook up and was calling go.go.go while I was still trying to figure out how to do video on my phone. I looked up and he's almost fully prone with his hands still mid-tube on downtubes, his nose pitched way up and about 10 feet off the ground. At that moment, the weaklink broke. (He was using that lame greenstripe crap and no one had talked to him about weak links as far as I know. He had a 1000 foot roll of the stuff in the back of his van. He was just using "what they told him to use".) So the nose pitched forward to dive into the ground and his arms were still fully extended and locked so he went through both of them taking his right arm out as he went.
Now that I read that, I think that maybe my questions increased his mental tension and distracted him or put him in a mood of "damnit, I'm gonna go". God, I hope it wasn't me quizzing him that made him go that way.
You can all see the physics of why his arm is in four pieces now and why all his new gear is for sale, but what success have you all had talking and convincing a friend(s) to slow down and relax and think about things before they do damage that you can see coming? Is there a time tested way of getting a pilot to back away instead of rushing forward?
Mel's attitude was "the guy just got his ST rating last month and Mark told me he was flying great" (Mel had called Mark and asked how he did), but I wouldn't have towed him without talking a lot more to him and doing some low energy moon walks and practice releases in a Condor or some other big friendly glider, and would have asked my winch man not to tow him with the "don't bother me, I got my rating" attitude he was exhibiting. It wasn't my winch or winch-man though and I was just watching and Mel is the advanced instructor and examiner here, so I don't have a lot of clout.
I think the operator of the winch should have shut down the winch and come over and talked to the pilot more before launching him or at least told the pilot "let's wait for Mel", and I sort of wish I had tried to get them all to slow down and just talk about the process, but I'm already seen as the "analytical nerd that talks too much" here and don't get a lot of the "just do it" guys to listen to me (sound familiar, Tad?). I plan to have lunch with Mel soon and try to talk him into a little more process and a little less "go for it".
Do you all have any "things to say that work"?
