http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21649
Truck towing accident in south Texas
Jeff Nibler - 2010/10/25 19:16:36 UTC
Marc Fink - 2010/10/24 22:17:49 UTC
...
That's exactly what I was thinking...
You're on real shaky ground whenever you're thinking anything in the ballpark that Marc is.
...who says the student was able and willing to go to the instructor more often than he did?
How come the instructor hasn't whispered a single syllable about that being an issue or any degree of problem in his training?
Or was progressing quickly enough for longer air time?
I dunno... Let's take a look at the second and third sentences we have on the Lemmy incident from his highly experienced and esteemed instructor:
Donnell Hewett - 2010/10/19 13:21:59 UTC
He was progressing well with consistently good take-offs, climb outs, straight flights, releases, and landings. He was also progressing well in ground school and was well aware of the risks of trying to tow on his own.
Solid as a rock. Any other ideas?
Or that the weather was cooperating when the student was available?!
- See above. Also below. The issue's off the table.
- Also note that Donnell isn't addressing a lot of the issues being raised here. If he's:
- following this discussion and not addressing these issues that's a huge fucking problem.
- not following this discussion that's also a huge fucking problem.
Pick one.
Where I trained, some people took years to get their H2 while others got it in one week... same school, same training methods, same everything.
- See above. He was doing fine. And bear in mind that Lemmy took the initiative to put together a tow system with which nobody's found or will find any degree of fault - as far as it went And if it was solid enough to quickly get him up to 25 feet and lock him out and kill him then it was also solid enough to get him safely up to a thousand feet.
- If some people are taking YEARS to get a fucking NOVICE rating on the same training schedule that the weekers are doing it - and they are 'cause you've just said "same everything" - then there's something SERIOUSLY WRONG with this picture. And there is. Bullshit like that would NEVER happen in any legitimate flavor of aviation. And it never USED TO happen even in hang gliding.
Student participation, availability, and conditions at time of availability have a huge impact. Why assume the instructor or his program was the bottleneck?
Because the instructor says absolutely nothing about any of these issues. Fuckin' period.
Gregg Ludwig - 2010/10/25 19:43:50 UTC
The dead pilot's instructor reports 6 lesson days over a 9 month period including 36 tows...
Nope. At this point he's said "Some thirty". He'll soon amend that to "some 38".
...resulting in:
-about 10 min. of airtime
-no ratings
There's no fuckin' way he shouldn't have been rated a One - based on what Donnell's already told us. And he's UNDOUBTEDLY keeping him upright on the control tubes so he can more quickly, efficiently, safely get his flare timing perfected. And what he SHOULD have been doing was getting him proned out, pulling him up to five hundred feet, having him work on hard coordinated turns.
-fatality
Show me some videos of tandem "instructional" flights staying upright any longer than they have to...
066-42014
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1950/46206626512_706984e9a5_o.png
...after foot launches. And damn near all of them are towed up from wheels and land on wheels...
149-74316
http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4878/31318159957_023202f2d9_o.png
...regardless of how they got airborne.
I feel it is safe to assume the training program had deficiencies.
It's safe to bet the fuckin' farm.
Gregg Ludwig - 2010/10/25 20:05:14 UTC
I would agree and support a quality low and slow training method to introduce the fundamentals of hang gliding, for many reasons.....but geez an introduction shouldn't take 9 months and result in only 10 min of airtime. Modern training programs and equipment can achieve results much more quickly than what this pilot experienced.
Donnell for the most part stayed stuck in what he came up with in the early Eighties.
Sam Kellner - 2010/10/26 00:00:55 UTC
Gerry Grossnegger - 2010/10/25 19:06:34 UTC
What it really sounds like is a release failure.
Yep, nothing that I've heard yet really defines what release, if any, he had.
Idiot.
Release failure or failure to release, then nosing over. There was a report that said he attempted to cut loose with his pocket knife
Define "report".
I doubt I could pull that off, not from 250'.
Give it a shot anyway, pigfucker.
It would be interesting to see a picture of his winch he made and what type of release.
Then we can see how home built and make-shift it is.
Tragic.
Tragic it wasn't you.
Davis Straub - 2010/10/26 01:43:31 UTC
Hewitt bridle?
- Auto correcting for roll. Wonder why it didn't work?
- How many times have you seen "Hewett" spelled correctly in this thread so far? I count three.
- Four with the next post and you never go back and correct anything. Suits me just fine though.
Davis Straub - 2010/10/26 05:49:12 UTC
Revised Accident Report 10-24-10
Let's see what I've missed before.
This letter is a follow-up of my original accident report of Lemuel Lopez's fatal hang gliding accident in order to confirm and correct various aspects of that earlier report.
Confirm and flatly contradict various aspects of that earlier report.
After interviewing the witness...
- And since you say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about her credentials, experience, familiarity with hang glider towing it's a real safe bet that I was spot on with my deductions.
- That must've been loads of fun - for both of you.
...consulting with the police investigator...
...slipping him fifty bucks to help persuade him not to investigate too thoroughly...
...and inspecting the equipment...
Pity you didn't photograph any of it to show us just how crappy it was.
...and crash site...
Which you don't identify.
I believe the following facts are in evidence:
If you hafta believe them then they're not facts.
On October 13, 2010, at approximately 6:30 pm CDT, Lemuel Lopez age 45 was killed while towing a Wills Wing Falcon hang glider...
No mention of the size or if he was flying that glider at your operation.
...on a public road...
Which you don't identify as well as the mainstream media does.
...just north of Edinburg, Texas. Prior to the accident, he had taken 6 hang gliding lessons from me and logged some 38 flights totaling about 10 minutes in 9 months. He had progressed to the point of towing up to as high as 100 ft with consistently good foot-launchings, climb outs, straight flights, releases, and landings.
- I've had plenty of dune students do pretty much all that shit on their first lessons.
- What's a "good release"? All releases are good in straight flights - which were all that he was doing. What did you do to prepare him for releases when the shit's hit the fan and the glider's rolled on its ear the way it was the first time he went out into the REAL world?
You got him doing foot landings and getting his flare timing perfected in case he needed to land in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place - of which you have NONE within a five hundred mile radius. How come you don't train him to be able to handle the air he found on his first time out in his own backyard?
Got any videos of any of your more advanced students practicing emergency releases during induced lockouts at safe altitude? Does any other instructor or school? Why not?
He was able to handle and make corrections for light turbulence, mild wind gradients...
Really impressive. How long did it take?
...and slight cross-winds...
Oh really? So for a slight crosswind you have him steer back upwind to get back in line with the truck. Like this asshole:
18-3003
has just done in a more substantial crosswind at Steve Exceptionally-Knowledgeable Wendt's operation.
You don't "CORRECT" for crosswinds. You let the fuckin' glider drift and track where it wants to - pointing at the truck. That's EXACTLY what got hotshot Hang Five comp pilot John Woiwode mostly killed on 2005/07/07. Doesn't seem to be an issue here though 'cause he drifted and locked out right.
...but he had not advanced to the point of making major corrections or banked turns.
What was stopping him? You? That's the only sane conclusion I'm able to draw. You weren't teaching this guy how to fly. You were preventing him from learning to fly. If he learns to fly at a sane rate of time you don't get to sell him as many lessons. I'm familiar with that scam from my earliest days in the sport.
He was progressing well in ground school...
Really? What was a guy you hadn't authorized to begin practicing turns in 38 flights learning in ground school?
...and was fully aware of the risks of trying to tow on his own.
- Doesn't sound like what you were teaching him in ground school was sinking in all that well. So how do you really know he was progressing well?
- You?
Donnell Hewett - 1982/09
In addition to the above mentioned roll and yaw tendancies, there is some sideways force on the pilot due to the body line. This is illustrated below:
As can be seen, this sideways force tends to pull the pilot over to the correct side to make the glider turn naturally in the proper direction.
Teaching aeronautical theory?
- Undoubtedly also the risks of trying to tow with you - going broke and dying of boredom or old age - whichever hits first.
That was why he was taking professional lessons and why he tried very hard to duplicate the system he was training on and to follow the procedures he was learning.
See above about the crosswinds.
Unfortunately, the system he had acquired was unproven...
And yet everything worked exactly as it should've. Go figure.
No, wait. The auto-correcting Skyting Bridle didn't weight shift him back to level and back into position behind the truck. Did you take it back with you to test fly and figure out why it didn't work?
And then there's his Infallible Weak Link which failed to succeed when it was supposed to. How come you're not telling us anything about it?
...and the experience he had acquired was inadequate for him to properly evaluate the weather conditions and to tow safely on his own.
Bull fucking shit. That has ZILCH to do with EXPERIENCE and damn near everything to do with common sense. But if you're claiming that was an issue and that he was progressing well in ground school then I don't know what the hell you were covering in ground school.
Only after the accident did I learn that his primary release was a make-shift "Linknife" constructed from a thin plastic tube with two single-edged razor blades inserted parallel to one another inside.
So they were single-edged razor blades inserted parallel to one another inside a thin plastic tube. They weren't ANGLED to converge and form a "V" the way a GENUINE Linknife is constructed. What a total moron. It's totally astounding that he got it to work AT ALL in the preflight tests and during the lockout emergency. Go figure.
It was activated by a rope attached to the pilot's harness on the left side, similar to the way he had been trained.
Good thing you only need one hand to pull it when the situation's going tits up.
His secondary release was a high quality folding utility knife with the standard one-inch blade.
- Guess he was flying with it in his pocket 'cause you're not telling us shit otherwise.
- So since he was duplicating all the equipment on which you’d been training him I guess this was SOP 'cept for the high quality of the folding utility knife with the standard one-inch blade.
- What kind of total fucking idiot considers anything remotely like this a secondary release?
- You've got him on Saint Peter of Birren's Linknife. It's physically impossible for those things to fail. (Just as long as there's no wheat stubble around within a hundred yard radius.) Why were you training him to fly with a secondary release? And if you had to fly him with a secondary release then how come it wasn't another Linknife activated by a rope attached to the pilot's harness on the right side?
- How come sailplanes have never used or needed secondary releases since the beginning of time? I thought the unique quality and beauty of the hang glider was its simplicity.
His payout winch was home-built with a wheel for adjusting the brake tension but with no emergency tension release and no hook knife to cut the line.
- There was no one on the back of the truck. So why the fuck WOULD there have been a hook knife to cut the line?
- And if they'd had the luxury of a backender they'd have been way too stupid to provide him with something to use to cut the line.
- How come the towline is a "line" and the lanyard for the make-shift "Linknife" is a "rope"?
- I just figured out that the brake pressure adjustment wheel is on the winch and not in the cab. And thus with no back end observer it's only good for presetting resistance. And since he's duplicating your equipment and you're not pointing out that your system is adjustable from the cab you're configured about the same way. Big surprise - considering you're also not configured for platform.
On the evening of the accident, the pilot and driver setup the towing system, adjusted the winch tension...
Since they can't do anything about it after they'd started rolling.
...and tested the pilot primary release several times to see that everything was working properly.
It wasn't, of course, due to the make-shift and parallel blades issues. But Lemmy said what the hell and hoped for better luck in the air.
The winds were reported...
Obviously by Patricia - which you're conspicuously not telling us.
...to be variable with maximum speeds estimated to be below fifteen miles per hour.
- Suggesting that the max was getting close to fifteen. But "variable". This is estimated at 18:30 CDT, sunset for that date in Corpus Christie is 19.01. So we're not talking about thermal blasts.
- The winds WERE NOT reported to be variable switching around from all different directions at up to fourteen miles per hour - which is what you're implying.
The pilot was eager to fly, but waited until a lull in the wind before giving the signal to accelerate.
The wind was significantly cross from the left/southwest. If it had been reasonably straight down the runway he'd have taken it when it peaked.
The pilot launched westward on an east-west paved roadway with grass fields on both sides. The take-off was good and the pilot climbed to approximately 25 ft with a ground speed of 20 to 25 mph before drifting to the right, out of sight of the driver who was looking through the rear-view mirror. The driver immediately looked over her shoulder only to see the glider in a steep bank to the right.
Since he'd never once had any practice in serious roll control input. Oh well, at least he died with an excellent career long record of light touch control.
By the time the driver could stop the pickup...
Probably using a light touch on the brake pedal.
...the glider had crashed in the grass field approximately 100 ft to the right side of the tow road.
XC. First effort. Well done.
Inspection of the equipment after the crash showed that the right wing had broken where it joins the cross-bar, that the keel had broken near the hang point...
Really? The keel broke and the main and backup loops and steel carabiner were all still OK? Must have been a corrosion and/or metal fatigue issue.
...and that the control bars had been mangled.
How 'bout the basetube? (Catch that? Control barS.)
An autopsy revealed that the right side of the pilot had numerous broken bones and that there was a severe head injury in spite of the pilot wearing a safety helmet.
- Good thing he went in upright. Just think how severe his head injury would've been if he'd been flying prone.
- Sounds like he was using a salad bowl on a string. You'da thunk we'd have learned something after Robin Strid.
Inspection of the site revealed that the towline was approximately 250 ft long at the time of the accident and lined up with the crashed glider with its free end approximately 100 ft from the glider. The weak link had been cut...
Which tells us that as this glider was violently locking out Lemmy was flying the glider with one hand - the right one on the right "control bar". Seems to be pretty good support for the theory that you need to use TWO hands to safely control a hang glider. (Right...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks
Brad Gryder - 2013/02/21 23:25:31 UTC
There's also a way to swing your body way outside the control frame so it stays up there while you reach out with one hand and release. Come on - do some pushups this winter.
See if you can advance up to some one-arm pushups.
...Cloud Hopper?)
...and was lined up with the glider and towline, approximately 30 ft from the glider.
Analysis of the above facts suggests that the primary cause of the accident was the weather conditions.
Not MY analysis, motherfucker. If the pilot's not prone with both hands on the control bar, tons of airspeed, safely and securely connected to the towline, the ability to release so configured we don't start looking at or for other issues - 'specially hypothetical ones.
...Although we do not know the direction of the wind at the time of the accident, the fact that the pilot launched westward suggests that the wind at the time of take-off was from the west.
He immediately drifted right. The wind was southwest.
However, the prevailing wind at that location is from the southeast...
So what? They took off - IMMEDIATELY and SUCCESSFULLY - to the WEST.
...so there is a reasonable probability that the wind at 25 ft was stronger than that at take-off...
Yes, the wind at 25 feet is virtually ALWAYS gonna be stronger than the stuff in which we're walking. But not MUCH and not enough to be talking about on this one.
...and from the left. If that were the case, it would have caused the glider to drift and bank to the right as observed.
Bullshit. It wasn't observed to bank. It was totally out of sight when it banked. It was only observed when it was steeply banked to the right and almost certainly beyond the point of recovery whether still on or shortly off tow.
In any case, the fact that the wind was variable with speeds approaching 15 mph would likely have produced a significant wind gradient when launching from a lull.
Rubbish. And it wasn't gusted either 'cause the driver had the windows down in order to be able to do launch communications, she'd have been aware of any serious shit going on with the air, and she didn't report any.
Even if the wind gradient were head on, it would have caused the glider to climb rapidly and the pilot to pull in hard on the control bar to keep from climbing higher.
- Perish the thought.
- Yeah, will all instinctively do that when we find ourselves climbing up through the kill zone at a real good clip.
- I notice you're not saying as he was trained to do in ground school.
- You've got him foot launching with his hands on the left and right control bars. So he CAN'T pull in hard. Well, he can pull in HARD but he can't pull in very FAR. We see this sorta problem in the sport,,,
http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4174/34261733815_bfb41c49d8_o.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRrpHNa68iY/UQ6Pv9gRZyI/AAAAAAAAjTg/Hc22bx5122Q/s2048/20943781_BG1.jpg
...quite a bit.
In either case, if the pilot had tried to release at the first sign of trouble as he had been trained to do...
...instead of...
Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974
"Never take your hands off the bar." - Tom Peghiny
...flying his glider...
...then he would have taken his hand off the left down tube...
Great. You've already got him in...
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.
...in a dangerously decertified flying configuration during the most dangerous phase of the flight, you've trained him to do what's virtually always the worst possible response when things start going south, he does it and successfully releases by pulling the rope going to his make-shift "Linknife", and is immediately annihilated.
- I think he DID try to release at the first sign of trouble as he had been trained to do. You'd trained him how to handle and make corrections for slight cross-winds - but not shit about authoritative roll control. Which he wouldn't have been able to exercise anyway 'cause you had him upright on the on the control bars with shit airspeed and no experience with the technique for getting substantially more.
So he launches with a left crosswind from straight behind the truck in brief lull. The wind picks back up as he's climbing through the gradient and the glider drifts to the right / downwind and keeps pointing at the truck. So far everything's fine.
But you'd trained him how to handle and make corrections for slight cross-winds and to release at the first sign of trouble. So no problem. Being substantially downwind of but not behind the truck is definitely a sign of trouble - at the very least - and he's got shit airspeed and shit roll control authority and experience. So what the hell. Make the easy reach to the make-shift "Linknife" and maybe bag it and come back tomorrow evening to give it another shot in lighter conditions.
Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974
"Never take your hands off the bar." - Tom Peghiny
"The greatest dangers are a rope break or a premature release." - Richard Johnson
End of fuckin' story.
This is pretty much 2005/07/07 John Woiwode redux. 'Cept he launched platform and flew prone with both hands on the control tubes connector bar with Hang Five experience and skills and tons of airspeed and roll control authority and the ability to completely correct for a strong crosswind. So he corrected for the crosswind all the way back to behind the truck and into a violent lockout, made the easy reach to his release rope, got BRUTALLY, TOTALLY, PERMANENTLY DEMOLISHED right after the safety of the towing operation was increased.
Also, by the way, a Peter Birren Linknife cocksucker - although he wasn't using one at the time and released just as successfully anyway.
I know ENTIRELY what happened now during the interval in which the glider was out of view of the driver. Thanks bigtime, Donnell. This one's been bugging me for close to a decade.
...long enough to release.
Did you ever consider implementing a release that didn't require any time, effort, control authority compromise to blow?
20-22804
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8262/29074014833_6b92a0f6d7_o.png
Just kidding.
If his make-shift release failed to release immediately...
Total fucking bullshit. There isn't the slightest shred of evidence or logic upon which to base a speculation that the release didn't respond fully and flawlessly within a millisecond of it getting the signal.
...his continued pull-in on the right side of the control bar would have produced a strong roll and turn to the right as observed.
Or maybe a gravity wave. Who can say for sure?
The amount of time from the initiation of the roll-out until the impact on the ground could only have been a matter of seconds, probably about 5 seconds.
Amazing how much totally bogus speculation one can squeeze into a time interval like that.
The glider would have accelerated during the roll-out and the pilot would have impacted on the ground head-first on his right side at approximately 40 mph.
59 feet per second. Sure. Sounds pretty reasonable.
It is doubtful that the pilot had time to even consider using his back-up release. In all probability, the primary release finally functioned immediately before impact or upon impact, cutting the weak link too late for the pilot to have any chance of recovery or survival.
What a massively incompetent effort to redirect attention away from legitimate and freakin' obvious issues.
You weren't a big and economically powerful enough operation to get away with this one, Donnell. Wallaby, Quest, Lockout, Manquin, Ridgely, Whitewater, Mission, Greblo... No problem.
And gee... Where were all your graduates when you really needed them to speak up in your defense?
