I think we've just witnessed the last time - 2018/09/14 17:58:16 UTC - one of these AT Industry dickheads will be stupid enough to whisper a single public word on the issue of the focal point of a safe aerotowing system. One of the last crumbles in a three and a half decade long Ponzi scheme.
- One G will keep you from getting into too much trouble.
- A single loop of 130 pound Greenspot precision fishing line:
-- on the end of a one or two point bridle puts all solo gliders at precisely 1.0 Gs. For a tandem double it and put it on the end of a two point bridle and you're at precisely 1.0 Gs.
-- breaks at whatever pressure we feel like saying it does - but more consistently if it's tied onto the bridle better.
-- is used because:
--- it's always had an extremely long track record.
--- Davis Dead-On Straub is happy with it.
--- we all play by the same rules or we don't play.
-- can sense the difference between lockout and turbulence generated pressure increases and succeed or fail to succeed as called for in the situation.
-- is the focal point of a safe towing system and a virtual Swiss Army knife for dealing with all manners of aerotowing issues.
-- on a pro toad bridle is incapable of getting a single comp glider off the ground in light morning conditions in six attempts so double it. But be sure to tell your tug driver if you're playing by the new same rules so he can yank you off the ground at full afterburners.
- The 2012/06 fourteen page article on AT weak links which showed how to tie a loop of 130 pound Greenspot such that it would comply with the FAA AT regs - which, we found upon reading the article, had been expanded to cover hang gliders eight years prior - for all solo gliders was The Industry's last gasp Battle of the Bulge offensive. It blew up in their faces with the Zack Marzec inconvenience fatality at Quest eight months later.
- We'll never have any idea what really happened when the focal point of Zack Marzec's safe towing system succeeded at the worst possible time, when his pro toad glider was climbing hard in a near stall situation. And anybody who DOES have an idea of what really happened is engaging in pure speculation and that's grounds for him having his AT rating permanently revoked.
- Nobody cites the excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden for anything anymore. It was total garbage when it came out two decades ago and hasn't improved with age since.
- Team Kite Strings fuckin' DEMOLISHED Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney, hang gliding's then reigning expert on everything, in the course of the Zack Marzec postmortem discussions.
- When Jeff Bohl got killed 2016/05/21 in a low level lockout at Quest with his underpowered Dragonfly tug struggling to keep out of the trees nobody breathed a word about the issue of his Tad-O-Link not breaking when it was supposed to - and killing the passenger and endangering the tug.
- The flight parks and comps erected walls of silence about what they were using for AT weak links and what they were supposed to do.
- Highland Aerosports and Cloud 9 are now totally extinct and their operators have all vanished without traces.
The shit got piled up about ten feet higher than anything sustainable and now it's only possible to attain a partial working understanding of what a weak link does and what strength you're supposed to use to do it by going back to the AT operation - Cowboy Up for example - that certified you three months ago and getting them to recertify you. 'Cause this issue is way too complex for any solid information to be described in print. Hell, Dr. Trisa Tilletti tried in the course of fourteen pages of illustrated and footnoted magazine article. And if that didn't work then nothing will.
Ya really need five or ten years of experience running an AT operation to get a minimal understanding of the issue but we're all doing the best we can.
The only thing accurate that can be said is...
Tost Flugzeuggerätebau
Weak links protect your aircraft against overloading.
...exactly what T** at K*** S****** started saying a dozen years ago and nobody can afford to make any statements along those lines.
Bart came on at 2018/09/14 17:58:16 UTC and got what little he had left in the way of balls handed to him on a platter two posts later at 2018/09/15 05:23:24 UTC. And suddenly there's no more interest in pursuing the discussion of this critical AT safety issue.
I have Bart logged on to The Jack Show subsequent to that knockout post at 2018/09/15 23:33:33 UTC and 2018/09/17 16:38:04 UTC. He knows he can't even use the tried and true Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney / Dr. Trisa Tilletti tactic of declaring victory and walking out of the conversation 'cause the moderators are tolerating so much incivility.
No more interest in the subject (plutonium) I guess. It's now drifted down to the Jack Show No. 7 slot. And I think it will be a reasonably cool day in hell before anyone broaches the topic again.
P.S. Notice there's no discussions about surface tow weak links 'cause the only pilots involved are the ones flying hang gliders. In AT we've got powered ultralight flyers controlling our flavor of aviation.
