Weak links

General discussion about the sport of hang gliding
User avatar
Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: Weak links

Post by Tad Eareckson »

Emperor Bob's Trial/Trail/Fake Board of Directors brought this to mind...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Jim Rooney - 2011/08/25 21:40:25 UTC

First, I sent Steve a bunch of info offline. Hopefully it clears things up a bit for him.
Unfortunately, he's stumbled onto some of Tad's old rantings and got suckered in. So most of this was just the same old story of debunking Tad's lunacy... again .

See, the thing is... "we", the people that work at and run aerotow parks, have a long track record.
This stuff isn't new, and has been slowly refined over decades.
We have done quite literally hundreds of thousands of tows.
We know what we're doing.

Sure "there's always room for improvement", but you have to realize the depth of experience you're dealing with here.
There isn't going to be some "oh gee, why didn't I think of that?" moment. The obvious answers have already been explored... at length.

Anyway...
Weaklink material... exactly what Davis said.

It's no mystery.
It's only a mystery why people choose to reinvent the wheel when we've got a proven system that works.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec
Zack C - 2013/02/13 15:02:38 UTC

Can you explain, then, exactly how we arrived at the current 130 lb weak link standard?
Jim Rooney - 2013/02/13 19:09:33 UTC

It was already worked out by the time I arrived.
The reason it sticks?
Trail and error.

Every now and then someone comes along with the "new" idea of a stronger weaklink. Eventually, they scare themselves with it and wind up back with one that has a very proven track record. I mean really... no exaggeration... hundreds of thousands of tows.

Say what you will, but if you want to argue with *that* much history, well, you better have one hell of an argument... which you don't.

It amuses me how many people want to be test pilots.
It amuses me even more that people...
A) Don't realize that "test pilot" is exactly what they're signing up for and B) actually testing something is a far more involved process than "I think I just try out my theory and see what happens".

Allow me to repeat... hundreds of thousands of tows.
Sure, there's other stuff out there too. Some of it even has a number of tows behind it... but hundreds of thousands is a very large number.

That's not "religion" my friend.
The shit works. It works in reality and it works consistently. It's not perfect, but Joe-Blow's pet theories have a very high bar to reach before they are given credence.
And then suddenly...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks
Jim Rooney - 2013/03/04 19:31:36 UTC

The accepted standards and practices changed.
I still won't tow people with doubled up weaklinks. You don't get to "make shit up". I don't "make shit up" for that matter either.

We all play by the same rules, or we don't play.
Morningside decided that they were happy with 200lb weaklink. They changed their tug's link and they don't just pass the stuff out either. If you'd like to know more about it... go ask them.
The law of the land at comps was 130lb greenspot or you don't tow. Seriously. It was announced before the comp that this would be the policy. Some guys went and made their case to the safety committee and were shut down. So yeah, sorry... suck it up.

Talk to a few more tug pilots btw.

So, if you're interested in discussing something, let me know.
If you're just here to argue, dude, I've got so much better shit to waste my time with.
...the accepted standards and practices changed. Minus any:
- pretense of:
-- trail and error
-- test pilot flights
-- unexpected and/or unpleasant test flight results
-- slow refinement
-- numbers of tows
-- track record establishment
-- anyone knowing what he was doing
mention of:
-- the people that work at and run aerotow parks
-- tug pilots
-- Tad's:
--- old rantings
--- Hole In The Ground
-- theory
-- history
-- Dr. Trisa Tilletti's fourteen page magazine article on the:
--- outstanding performance of 130 pound Greenspot fishing line aerotow weak links
--- superior consistency of Wrapped and Tied 130 pound Greenspot fishing line aerotow weak links

When they very publicly and unambiguously splattered one of their pro toad Golden Boys at Quest with an inconvenience tumble from 150 feet they knew they had to do SOMETHING but weren't quite sure what it was. And they were too fucking stupid to shut Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney up while he was working overtime to get everybody seriously painted into corners.

Early in the game they started blundering into the RIGHT path by associating weak links with...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32824
Weaklink testing
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32857
Weaklink testing from Cloud 9

...actual quasi-valid NUMBERS. Then they rolled back to...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31717
Weak link?
Davis Straub - 2014/08/20 19:48:26 UTC

Many of us are now using 200 lb test line from Cortland.
...what many of us are using and...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31747
Lockout
Davis Straub - 2014/09/01 15:22:41 UTC

I can tell you that I fly with a 200lb weaklink on one side of my 750lb pro tow bridle. I am happy with it.
...what Davis is happy with on one side of his 750lb pro tow bridle (but apparently not happy with on the other side of his 750lb pro toad bridle or the top end of his three point bridle (one can only wonder what the differences are supposed to be)).

Then they finally wised up and realized that if they said ANYTHING about weak link:
- strength
- material
- installation
- performance
- purposes
- track records
they'd be totally fucked. So they went with what Wills Wing had figured out at the beginning of time.

http://www.willswing.com/aerotow-release-attachment-points-for-wills-wing-gliders/
Aerotow Release Attachment Points for Wills Wing Gliders
Always use an appropriate weak link with a finished length of 1.5 inches or less.
Hard to argue with something that's totally meaningless.

So now it's virtually impossible to find out anything about what's going on aerotowed gliders EXCEPT...

02-00820c
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7252/27169646315_9af9a62298_o.png
Image

...by looking at videos.

15-1212
http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4289/35692240262_2cf8131658_o.png
Image
18-1224
http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4260/35052154913_2739a471cb_o.png
Image
22-1407
http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4207/35820758466_0d5503718b_o.png
Image

We know they're using two flavors - in accordance with whatever the total fucking morons who run these shows happen to be "thinking" at any given moment.

They're using 200 and 130. 200 will NEVER break on any glider that isn't seriously locked out and if we see a pop while the tow's under control we know it's 130.

But they can't claim that they're learning anything from trail and error cause they:
- can't:
-- reveal:
--- what they are - and aren't - using
--- who's flying what and what they're basing their allocation decisions on
-- make any pretense of record keeping and data analysis
- would be in deep shit for killing a Jeff Bohl on 200 and suggesting that might have just broken his neck a little bit on 130

And they also can't and won't tolerate anybody else discussing anything about weak link strength, material, performance, purposes, track records and you'll notice how abruptly and totally those threads vanished from glider forums.

This little Davis/Rooney...

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.
...cocksucker will never again be able to post that or anything like it because he'll be saying that Quest was guilty of negligent homicide for putting Jeff Bohl up on 200 - and also, since the accepted standards and practices changed when they did, for putting Zack Marzec up on 130.

Monu fuckin' mental historical shift.

P.S. Note that on this action:

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32824
Weaklink testing

Both of u$hPa's designated point men are now dead - one of them instantly, the other for all practical purposes as far as hang, para, tugging, any relevance to the sports are concerned - and total silence on any issues that went into the final flights crashes.

And Mark's got a pilot mangling XC competion on his home turf named after him. (And you'd think that people at the comp would be discussing his crash and coming up with likely and/or possible scenarios. Funny we haven't heard anything.)
User avatar
Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: Weak links

Post by Tad Eareckson »

At or much more likely very shortly before 2017/11/11 16:54:04 UTC this "Weak links" thread with its 1631 posts prior to this one reached eighty thousand hits - for whatever that's worth what with unregistered bots ramping up the numbers. But what the hell, even if 99 percent of the hits are from unregistered bots we've still got eight hundred human hits. And maybe we should be flattered by the interest of the bots - hard to imagine any of them being less than ten times as intelligent as your average glider person.

But anyway, something occurred to me recently.
Tost Flugzeuggerätebau

Weak links protect your aircraft against overloading.
And then we move to monumentally stupider (most current issue I could get my ex-member hands on):
The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, Inc. - 2015/10/16
Standard Operating Procedure
12. Rating System
10. Towing Administration

03. Aerotow Pilot Appointment (ATP)

B. USHPA Aerotow Equipment Guidelines

1. The tow vehicle must have a rated thrust of at least 250 lbs.

2. The tow line connection to the towing vehicle must be arranged so as to not hinder the control system of the towing vehicle.

3. A pilot operational release must connect the tow line to the towing vehicle. This release must be operational with zero tow line force up to twice the rated breaking strength of the weak link.

4. A weak link must be placed at both ends of the tow line. The weak link at the glider end must have a breaking strength that will break before the towline tension exceeds twice the weight of the glider pilot and glider combination. The weak link at the tow plane end of the towline should break with a towline tension approximately 100 lbs. greater than the glider end. Weak links must be used in accordance with 12 CFR 91.309(a)(3). The USHPA recommends that a nominal 1G (combined operating weight of the glider and pilot) weak link be used, when placed at one end of a glider pilot's V-bridle; or about 1.5-2G if placed at the apex of the tow bridle or directly in-line with the tow rope. The actual strength of the weak link used by the glider pilot must be appropriate for the operation and have a breaking strength between 80% and 200% MCOW (max. cert. operating weight) of the glider, in terms of direct towline tension. The weak link used at the tow plane end of the towline must be stronger, but not more than 25% stronger, than the strength of the weak link used at the glider end of the towline.

5. A release must be placed at the glider end of the tow line within easy reach of the pilot. This release shall be operational with zero tow line force up to twice the rated breaking strength of the weak link.

6. The purpose of the weak link is to protect the tow equipment, and may not prevent lockouts or other abnormal flight conditions.
THE purpose - singular - of the weak link is to protect the tow equipment. Not the aircraft, of course, but what u$hPa defines as...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=21033
barrels release without any tension except weight of rope..
Bart Weghorst - 2011/02/25 19:06:26 UTC

I've had it once where the pin had bent inside the barrel from excessive tow force. My weaklink was still intact. The tug pilot's weaklink broke so I had the rope. I had to use two hands to get the pin out of the barrel.

No stress because I was high.
...the tow equipment. Specifically the "tow equipment" that's required to be operational at twice weak link and thus not even an issue at once weak link.

And it MAY NOT prevent lockouts or other abnormal flight conditions. But hell, properly inflated tires with good treads and seat belts may not prevent skids on wet roads and fatal crashes. But we'd be totally insane not to stack the decks in our favour with them. And thus similarly insane to fly with Tad-O-Links over the tried and true / long track record stuff.

And let's give the ancient and fairly recent history of the aerotow weak link - from the sport's most revered sources - a skim.
The Wallaby Ranch Aerotowing Primer for Experienced Pilots - 1998/02
by Austin Scott Collins, USHGA Aerotow Pilot. Based on instructional information developed by David Glover and Malcolm Jones, USHGA Advanced Tandem Instructors. Copyright 1998 by Florida Hang Gliding, Inc.

Wallaby Ranch

Aerotow Primer for Experienced Pilots

Welcome to Wallaby Ranch, the first and largest Aerotow Hang Gliding Flight Park in the World! We're the aerotowing (or "AT") professionals; no-one knows AT like we do; it's all we do, and we do it everyday, year-round. This primer will teach you the basics of AT theory and technique. Our instructors have fine-tuned this system over the course of many years, while teaching thousands of people how to aerotow hang gliders. Careful study of this material will make your transition to AT faster, easier, less expensive, and safer. When done properly, AT is your gateway to longer, higher, hassle-free flights, and more airtime with less effort than ever before.

Introduction

Aerotowing is a system in which an ultralight aircraft (called an aerotug, or just a "tug") tows you and your glider aloft. For launch, your glider sits on a specially designed rolling cart. This cart supports your glider at the correct attitude for liftoff, and stabilizes it until you reach flying speed. You will already be prone before you begin rolling, making failure to hook in almost impossible. (Your harness should remain unzipped, however, in case you have to land immediately, due to weak link failure, rope break, etc.) An assistant will connect you and your glider to a 150 foot long tow line. Then, at a signal from the ground crew, the tug accelerates, and as soon as you have enough airspeed (a couple of seconds), you rise smoothly from the cart. You then essentially fly in formation with the tug until it's time to release. The tug pilot will try to drop you off in the best thermal he can find upwind.

Equipment

Besides the cart, you will also need a V-pull and a release. The V-pull is a piece of Spectra line which connects to both of your shoulder straps, and to a point on your glider's keel. The bridle of the V-pull passes through a ring at the end of the tow line, joining the glider to the tug. Thus the tug pulls the pilot and glider evenly, resulting in a more natural-feeling control pressure. The release handle is Velcro-mounted on the lower control frame. When you release, the bridle feeds through the ring on the tow rope and you and the glider are left in free flight. A weak link connects the V-pull to the release, providing a safe limit on the tow force. If you fail to maintain the correct tow position (centered, with the wheels of the tug on the horizon), the weak link will break before you can get into too much trouble.

Launching

A Ranch Hand will attach the bridle through the aerotow ring and then to the release mechanism. The tug will move forward to take up slack in the tow line. You will feel it pull you forward, but you should resist and hold your bar position just aft of minimum-sink. Hold your arms firm to overcome the initial cart drag and resist the tendency of the tow line to pull you through the control bar. When you are all set, the ground crew will give a signal and the tug will accelerate. You'll feel the speed pick up and the glider will begin to fly. YOU WILL LIFT OFF BEFORE THE TUG DOES. FLY AS SOON AS YOU HAVE FLYING SPEED. If one wing lifts prematurely while you are still on the cart, correct it so that you rise with your wings level. Just when you feel that the cart wants to lift off the ground, let go of the string, and let the glider rise 10 to 15 feet. This position gives you enough time to land if the weak link breaks. (If a weak link does break while you are still on the cart, simply hold on to the cart string until you roll to a stop.) When the tug climbs up through your altitude, do whatever it takes (push out or pull in, maybe even aggressively) to match the tug's climb rate.

Flying Under Tow

Watch the tug and control your pitch so that you climb with it. Always try to KEEP THE WHEELS OF THE TUG ON THE HORIZON! Do not ever take your eyes off the tug during the tow. While being aerotowed, tug position is everything. Unlike in free-flight, you must forget about bar position and bar pressure, and focus on only one thing: tug position. Do whatever it takes to keep the tug's wheels on the horizon throughout the tow. (If the sky is hazy, approximate the horizon.). The tug controls airspeed. Pulling in too much under tow will cause the glider to go down, possibly into the wake of the tug. Towing too high behind the tug will cause you uncomfortable bar pressure. If you get above or below the ideal position, it is important to make a pitch correction right away. There is a lag in time between control inputs and the glider's response to them. You must learn to anticipate this. If you hold the correction too long, you will overshoot the ideal position and then have to make the opposite input. You will make it much easier on yourself if you keep the tug's wheels on the horizon.

The three most common mistakes for pilots new to aerotowing are:

1. The pilot comes off the cart and rises too quickly above the tug, breaking the weak link.

2. The pilot fails to anticipate the tug's quick climb-out after launch, gets low, and then doesn't push out far enough to climb up. Remember: it is almost impossible to stall under aerotow. The induced thrust vector makes the glider trim at a higher attitude. It is OK to push way out; you will climb, not stall.


3. Over-controlling and over-correcting. Make only small, relaxed, conservative movements and corrections. Should you find yourself low behind the tug, you may need to actually push out on the control bar forcefully, resulting in a "past normal" bar position, that in non-towing situations would lead to a stall. However, because of the "pull" of the tow line, this action will result in a CLIMB, and not a stall. Stay with the tug using pitch input. If you are low, PUSH OUT!

Turns on Tow

It is especially important to remain in position behind the tug during turns. Wait, let the tug turn first, then follow, allowing the tug to draw you into the turn. Otherwise you may accelerate towards the outside of the turn like a water-skier "cracking the ship" behind a boat, and a lockout could occur. Getting too far inside of the tug's turn, on the other hand, will cause you to descend, slow down, and put slack in the line. In this case, pushing out and leveling your wings will allow the glider to pivot back into position. As always, early anticipation is the key. You don't want to turn more or less than the tug; just do whatever it takes to stay "tangent to the same arc".

Weak Link Failures

The pilot is responsible for inspecting the weak link well before the tug arrives. Any fraying indicates that it's time to replace the weak link. The weak link is designed to act as a fuse, breaking the circuit when overloaded. In an excessive out-of position situation, the weak link will snap before the control authority of the glider would be lost. If you should have a weak link failure close to the ground, it will be important to immediately lower the nose of the glider, due to the relatively high angel of attack while under tow and the sudden loss of energy upon release. Regain airspeed and land normally. Wheels are highly recommended. They increase your landing options, and never hurt anybody.

Glider Release Failure

If your release fails to operate or the V-bridle hangs up (extremely unlikely), you have several options:

1. Use the secondary release.

2. Cut the V-pull/bridle with a knife.

3. If you are high above the ground, push out sharply to snap the weak link. If all else fails, the tug pilot will release the tow rope at his end (see below). Looking away from the tug, adjusting your harness, vario, etc., can cause an inadvertent release. You may release from tow at any time, if you feel things are not going well. Generally, the weak link will fail before any situation can develop to a critical point. However, it is better to recognize a less-than-ideal situation and release intentionally before tow line tension builds to the point of a weak link failure.
http://www.questairforce.com/aero.html
Aerotow FAQ
Quest Air Hang Gliding

Weak Link

The strength of the weak link is crucial to a safe tow. It should be weak enough so that it will break before the pressure of the towline reaches a level that compromises the handling of the glider but strong enough so that it doesn't break every time you fly into a bit of rough air. A good rule of thumb for the optimum strength is one G, or in other words, equal to the total wing load of the glider. Most flight parks use 130 lb. braided Dacron line, so that one loop (which is the equivalent to two strands) is about 260 lb. strong - about the average wing load of a single pilot on a typical glider. For tandems, either two loops (four strands) of the same line or one loop of a stronger line is usually used to compensate for nearly twice the wing loading. When attaching the weak link to the bridle, position the knot so that it's hidden from the main tension in the link and excluded altogether from the equation.

IMPORTANT - It should never be assumed that the weak link will break in a lockout.
ALWAYS RELEASE THE TOWLINE before there is a problem.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24534
It's a wrap
Lauren Tjaden - 2011/08/01 02:01:06 UTC

For whomever asked about the function of a weak link, it is to release the glider and plane from each other when the tow forces become greater than desirable -- whether that is due to a lockout or a malfunction of equipment or whatever. This can save a glider, a tow pilot, or more often, a hang glider pilot who does not get off of tow when he or she gets too far out of whack.

I rarely break weak links -- in fact, I believe the last one was some two years ago, and I have never broken one on a tandem (probably because I am light and also because I change them whenever they show any signs of wear). They are a good thing to have, though!!
ZERO hint of a mention of keeping a certified glider from getting bent or even some piece o' shit pre-bent excuse for tow equipment getting overloaded. 100.00 percent about keeping the glider pilot from getting into too much trouble.

Also note that prior to the Lauren Eminently-Qualified-Tandem-Pilot Tjaden revisionist drivel - that the tug pilot...
Bob Kuczewski - 2017/10/26 05:10:52 UTC

Third, I don't know a lot about aero towing, but I do know that there are two ends of a tow rope, and there's a pilot with his life at stake on either end. That means there's a negotiation about everything from cost to weak link strength. I'll bet if you were paying $10,000 per tow, you could use any weak link you wanted ... someone would take that risk. But if you offered a $10 "strong weak link bonus", and no one would take it, then you can bet they have a legitimate safety concern that they're willing to favor over hard cash.
...can't be phased by anything that's going on back there. Reasons:

- The practical experience of the early wave Dragonfly dickheads told them that it was pretty much impossible for a hang glider to give them a problem. And anyway:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7509/15659143120_a9aae8f7bd_o.jpg
Image

big fuckin' deal if it starts to. There's never been a single reported instance of a Dragonfly having the slightest problem dumping a glider under any circumstances.

- The stupidity of the hang gliding community hadn't been properly plumbed and they didn't think they'd be able to get away with making the argument that anything over a single loop of magic fishing line on a solo would seriously endanger the tug while a double loop on a tandem was a nonissue. Or maybe I've got that mostly backwards...

http://ozreport.com/3.066
Weaklinks
Davis Straub - 1999/06/06

During the US Nationals I wrote a bit about weaklinks and the gag weaklinks that someone tied at Quest Air. A few days after I wrote about them, Bobby Bailey, designer and builder of the Bailey-Moyes Dragon Fly tug, approached me visibly upset about what I and James Freeman had written about weaklinks. He was especially upset that I had written that I had doubled my weaklink after three weaklinks in a row had broken on me.

I told him that I would be happy to publish anything that he wrote about weaklinks, but I never received anything from him or anyone else at Quest.

The problem with strong links (neither Bobby Bailey nor I was aware at the time of the US Nationals that pilots were doing this) is that they endanger the tug pilot. If the hang glider pilot goes into a lock out, and doesn't break the weaklink (because there isn't one), they can stall the tug.
Who's to say for sure?

- They didn't foresee anyone...

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links
Jim Rooney - 2007/07/22 22:30:28 UTC

I've heard it a million times before from comp pilots insisting on towing with even doubled up weaklinks (some want no weaklink). I tell them the same thing I'm telling you... suck it up. You're not the only one on the line. I didn't ask to be a test pilot. I can live with your inconvenience.
...getting fed up with their lunatic bullshit and challenging them.

And also note...

- the STUNNING and GLARING CONTRADICTIONS in the vintage Quallaby crap. The purpose of the weak link is to keep you from getting into too much trouble / break before the pressure of the towline reaches a level that compromises the handling of the glider and then there's all this crap about what to do when you're getting into too much trouble and the pressure of the towline has reached a level that's compromising the handling of the glider.

- that the individual lacking the skill to tow without getting into too much trouble will ALWAYS have the "skill" to immediately lower the nose of the glider in response to being at a "relatively high" angel of attack while under tow then suddenly losing energy upon release, regain airspeed, and land normally. And of course the weak link is incapable of breaking at any point between being still on the cart and being at an altitude at which one can immediately lower the nose of the glider, regain airspeed, and land "normally".

- that from Wallaby's publication in the magazine pretty close to twenty years ago to this day on their bullshit website...

http://www.wallaby.com/aerotow_primer.php
Aerotow Primer for Experienced Pilots

... "angel of attack" has remained "angel of attack".

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Bart Weghorst - 2011/08/28 20:29:27 UTC

Now I don't give a shit about breaking strength anymore. I really don't care what the numbers are. I just want my weaklink to break every once in a while.
P.S. Hey Wallaby... Since you're the first and largest Aerotow Hang Gliding Flight Park in the World!, the aerotowing (or "AT") professionals, no-one knows AT like you do, it's all you do, and you do it every day, year-round, your instructors have fine-tuned this system over the course of many years while teaching thousands of people how to aerotow hang gliders, and you use weak links carefully calibrated to break before we can get into too much trouble how come:

- we still need to worry about and be prepared to properly respond to "rope break, etc."?

- the current u$hPa SOPs flatly contradict your claims about the purpose of the weak link and what it can be expected to do and you haven't taken the least issue with them?
User avatar
Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: Weak links

Post by Tad Eareckson »

This one needs a serious review...
Rob Kells - 1985/09
Accident Report

Chris Bulger

On July 17 you and I lost one of the most gifted pilots who has ever been in the sport of hang gliding. Chris Bulger started flying at age thirteen, and had racked up thousands of hours in hang gliders, hundreds in trikes and many in airplanes. The guy was a pilot's pilot: one of the world's best, and as the saying goes, he could have flown a picnic table.

The following is a brief summary of what happened during the tow flight that cost Chris his life. It is presented here with the hope that all who aero tow will not repeat the mistakes that were made; we know that Chris would want it that way.

I was not at the airport that day so what follows are my conclusions after talking with many of the people who were there and personally inspecting the equipment that was being used, after the accident.

It was late in the afternoon, and the conditions were smooth. A number of successful tows had been made that day without mishap. Kenny Brown, Mitch McAleer, and Jeff Huey each had clean tows to approximately 2500'. While Chris was towing John Pendry they climbed to between 1,000 and 1,500 feet.

Chris made a fairly sharp right turn which caused John to lock out to the left. John was fighting to get back behind the tow vehicle. At one point he started to recover from the lock out and then felt a "bump" (hard pull on the line). The trike tumbled, the single strands of 505 leech line that went from John's shoulder straps to the three-ring broke one at a time, and presumably the shackle pulled out of the trike release at the same time the second strand of 505 gave way.

The trike tumbled a second time, and broke a leading edge, and then on the third tumble Chris was thrown out and fell approximately 500' to his death. Exactly what happened will never be known but studying the physical evidence suggests several observations:

THE WEAK LINK:

It was one continuous strand of 205 leech line looped through the ring on the three-ring circus release (glider pilot end) and the tow rope, and fastened together with a fisherman's knot. This material is rated at 125 lbs. per strand by the manufacturer. The strength of the weak link would figure to be 4 X 125 = 500 lbs. minus the loss in strength due to friction and the knot. I have done several load tests with this material and duplicate hardware and found that the "weak link" was good for at least 400 lbs. Chris was telling me at breakfast that morning that Thevenot, when towing at the factory, doesn't use a weak link. In any case the weak link that was being used did not break. It is recommended that you never use a weak link good for more than 150 to 200 lbs. I have been using for years a single loop of 205 with three overhand knots and two bowlines to tie the ends together. Its breaking strength is between 210 and 215 lbs. It has always broken when necessary, but sometimes a little more time was required than I was comfortable with.

If you're towing, USE A WEAK LINK and test its breaking strength on numerous samples. Be sure it is breaking consistently at UNDER 200 lbs.

THE TRIKE RELEASE:

The trike was manufactured in Australia by Ricky Duncan. The trike release had been tested by the manufacturer for a straight pull of 300 lbs. They had always used 150-lb. weak links and had never had a release failure. Due to the increased load with this weak link it appears that the release on the trike did malfunction. It was a steel pin on the end of a cable that went through two bolts with a shackle fitting in between. The cable was routed to a foot peddle at the nose of the trike. The trike inspection revealed that the pin was bent above the bottom bolt making release from the trike end impossible, and the cable was broken away from the foot pedal, indicating that Chris was trying hard to pin John but was unable to. So a release that was tested to 300 lbs. proved inadequate for a 350-lb. plus load at an angle up and to the side. It is of course also possible that the release was damaged on the ground by an impulse load caused by the rope snagging on something.

THE GLIDER

The glider was a Moyes GTR 180 which had been modified to increase wing area and airframe strength for the purpose of using with a trike. This particular glider had undergone continuing modifications as late as the day of the accident. There is no evidence that the glider was a contributing factor in the incident, but at the same time there is no data on file which establishes its level of airworthiness.

PILOT RELEASE:

It is my understanding that John did not have a lot of aero tow experience. He was locked out and putting everything he had into recovering. It's tough to let go when you're locked out and it has usually been the case that the better the pilot the more attempt is made to recover rather than release well before a lock out becomes severe, especially when on high tow.

THE PILOT RESTRAINT SYSTEM:

The pilot restraint in the trike was a single lap belt of two-inch webbing with a pinch type buckle, so when open you can actually take the buckle right off. I think the buckle would be OK if it were clamped down fully but it seems too easy to misuse this system. I believe in four-point harnesses in all ultralights. It is all too easy to deploy a chute or tumble and then be thrown out of a lap belt. The appearance of the trike suggests that Chris may have survived had he stayed in the trike.

NO PARACHUTE:

Chris had no parachute. They had one in the trailer, but they were too anxious to get towing to take the time to put it on. In view of the fact that Chris came out of the trike it would not have helped him unless it was the type that attached a pilot harness to the chute and the trike.

NO HELMET:

Chris wasn't wearing a helmet. It may not have mattered in this case, but it could have. A pilot cannot do much to help himself if he is knocked out in the air.

Hang glider towing has been around since the earliest days of foot launched hang gliding itself. It has long been felt by many that towing has the potential to open up hang gliding to a much wider potential market of pilots. The major stumbling block through the years has been safety; towing has always been more dangerous, both inherently and statistically, than foot launched flying. Recent advances involving improved winches, the center-of-mass bridle system and the use of relatively weak "weak links" have offered new promise of increased safety in towing. The development of aero towing has made towing feasible from smaller fields, once more promising to extend the range of potential flying sites.

However, Chris Bulger's accident should serve to remind us that the dangers involved in towing are still very significant. There are few pilots in the world, if any, more skilled than John Pendry. Chris Bulger was both a highly skilled hang glider pilot and a very experienced trike pilot. They were towing in mellow, ideal conditions. They made a few seemingly innocuous mistakes, and it cost Chris his life.

NEVER underestimate the danger in towing, and never shortcut or ignore any safety procedures. Let's not let Chris Bulger's tragic death be for nothing.
On July 17 you and I lost one of the most gifted pilots who has ever been in the sport of hang gliding.
Sounds like those gifts didn't serve him all that well in the long run. Thinkin' maybe being gifted ain't all it's cracked up to be in this sport.
Chris Bulger started flying at age thirteen...
Did he get Bob's permission first?
...and had racked up thousands of hours in hang gliders, hundreds in trikes and many in airplanes. The guy was a pilot's pilot: one of the world's best, and as the saying goes, he could have flown a picnic table.
- Just not a purpose designed and built trike tug in front of solo glider being flown by a former world champion hang glider pilot in mellow, ideal conditions.

- Bullshit, Rob. You can fly your brains out on these things and there's just so good you can get. We don't have much in the way of control authority in hang gliders and it's real tough to tell people apart once a solid competence level has been reached. Being able to make the right calls in XC thermal flying... That's more complex and dependent on depth of knowledge and experience but has zilch bearing on any of the issues here.

- There's a lot more to being a PILOT than the dumb jock stuff that's all you've told us about. To be an actual PILOT you need to understand aeronautical theory and the integrity of the equipment you're using to commit aviation. I'm not seeing any evidence that Chris was significantly registering on those other category scales.
The following is a brief summary...
- Why? This one wasn't important enough for a full detailed accounting?
- Where can those of us who are interested in something better than a brief summary go to find it?
...of what happened during the tow flight that cost Chris his life.
It wasn't the tow flight that cost him his life. It's what he was and wasn't using for it and did just before the end of it.
It is presented here with the hope that all who aero tow will not repeat the mistakes that were made...
Great presentation, Rob. It's been close to a third of a century since this one and there's never been anything close to like it anywhere on the planet. And just think how much better we could've done with a fully detailed report.
...we know that Chris would want it that way.
- Should Chris be getting a vote?
- What about his family? I thought we weren't supposed to discuss any of these out of respect for the victim's family.
I was not at the airport...
Undoubtedly Lake Chelan Airport - S10 - but please don't burden us with details like that.
...that day so what follows...
Is pure speculation. If you weren't there you can't really understand any of the shit that went south.
...are my conclusions after talking with many of the people who were there...
So he talked with MANY - but not ALL - of the people who were there. So we know that there were a lot of witnesses to this one. (I personally knew at least one of the crowd present from my opposite edge of the continent and my earliest days of flying hang gliders. Juan Sonen relayed to me that he was seeing iffy crap on that one but that it was too hard to call these world class rockstars on it.) And how very odd that we never got any personal accounts and perspectives from any of them on this major traumatic horror show. The only report we get is from an Industry operative who wasn't even on site at any time on crash day and...
... and personally inspecting the equipment that was being used, after the accident.
...only inspected the equipment after it had been swept up and removed from the scene of the crime.

So...

- Had anyone cared to personally inspect any of the equipment that was being used BEFORE the "accident"? Just kidding.

- Bummer no one thought to take and publish any photographs of the equipment that was being used - after and/or before the accident. But this is just a brief summary of what happened during the tow flight that cost Chris his life - so we wouldn't have seen them here anyway.

- How 'bout inspections of the equipment that WASN'T being used? Aside from the Tad-O-Link it sounds like you're OK with everything.
It was late in the afternoon, and the conditions were smooth.
Meaning they WEREN'T smooth EARLY in the afternoon.
A number of successful tows had been made that day without mishap.
- What number, Rob? It's plural so we know at least two were made that day without mishap.

- Don't we get to hear about the number of unsuccessful tows that had been made that day WITH mishap? There fuckin' obviously WERE some or you wouldn't be writing with this subtle misleading crap style.

- Oh. So everybody was towing in compliance with the AT regs published and distributed in the magazine two and half weeks prior to this fatal...
USHGA Aerotow Guidelines
from the USHGA Safety and Training Committee

The FAA has granted the USHGA an exemption that allows aerotowing of hang gliders according to these guidelines. Aerotowing is a new and different way of flying hang gliders and must be done according to these guidelines for safety and legality.

II AEROTOWING EQUIPMENT

3) A weak link must be placed between the tow line and the release at both ends of the tow line with the forward link ten percent stronger than the rearward weak link. The weak link must have a breaking strength less than 85% the weight of the hang glider and pilot combination, not to exceed 200 pounds.
...nobody had a weak link heavier than 0.85 Gs / 200 pounds - whichever was less - and there were no "mishaps" - just maybe a seventy percent safety inconvenience rate, with the usual resulting complement of broken downtubes.
Kenny Brown, Mitch McAleer, and Jeff Huey each had clean tows to approximately 2500'.
Hear that, people of varying ages?. Kenny Brown, Mitch McAleer, and Jeff Huey each had clean tows to approximately 2500 feet. And that's noteworthy. Three named individuals, at least two of them rockstars, who made it all the way up to obviously designated release altitude - likely in the late afternoon glass air. Point of pride.

And the tows were "clean"? Do we talk about the "dirty" tows that we had during a day at Ridgely?

The tows were CLEAN because they were in the late afternoon glass-off. They were breaking weak links left and right during the soaring window.
While Chris was towing John Pendry they climbed to between 1,000 and 1,500 feet.
And the former world champion hadn't made any tows prior to that one? I notice you don't say anything about John Pendry having had a previous clean tow to approximately 2500 feet.
Chris made a fairly sharp right turn which caused John to lock out to the left.
Oh really. For no reason whatsoever - in late afternoon glass air - Chris made a "fairly" sharp right turn which caused John to lock out to the left.

Bull fucking shit. The only sane reason Chris would've had to make "a fairly sharp right turn" in no wind - notice there's zero mention of wind - sled conditions would've been to stay in safer range of the runway. Also notice there's not the slightest effort to offer any possible motivation for this incident critical action.
John was fighting to get back behind the tow vehicle.
- Yeah? Why was he unable to track smoothly behind the tug in glass air no matter what it did? How many of us have trouble immediately rolling to match tug bank angles and stay in position in the most brutal of thermal conditions? Was the problem that he was flying one point with the bar fully stuffed behind a tug with a high stall speed and couldn't handle anything beyond the most gradual of turns?

- Right. The "tow vehicle". We really talk like that. It would be unthinkable to say the tug, the trike, Chris. This is being written with FAA ears in mind. Sure, we can do this safely. The problem was just that the "weak link" they used was good for at least 400 pounds - over twice the strength of what is recommended - and did not break (before something else did). And studious avoidance of any reference to all of the SOPs that were flagrantly violated.

- Wow. Somebody should've clued John in as to the definition of a LOCKOUT. Then he wouldn't have been wasting so much time and effort and endangering Chris fighting to get back behind the tow vehicle.

- And apparently Chris - started flying at age thirteen, had racked up thousands of hours in hang gliders, hundreds in trikes, many in airplanes, a pilot's pilot, one of the world's best, could've flown a picnic table - didn't know what a lockout was either. Otherwise he'd have blown him off immediately upon recognizing that John wasn't gonna.
At one point he started to recover from the lock out...
Yep. That's a former world champion fer ya. The difficult we do right away, the impossible just takes us a little longer.

Total bullshit misleading regarding the severity of Chris's turn and the resulting misalignment.
...and then felt a "bump" (hard pull on the line).
So what was he WATCHING at this point? He is using his superb pilot skills to recover from the "lockout", is coming back into position, has no intention of releasing, and FEELS a "bump"? Hey people of varying ages... Show of hands from those of us who've ever felt a "bump" on the line that wasn't related to turbulence and/or some slack line situation.
The trike tumbled...
- So it wasn't a BUMP, it was a SURGE.

- Yeah. With God's Gift to Aviation at the wheel, John Pendry recovering from the lockout induced by Chris's fairly sharp turn, the two planes level with each other, the engine running fine, the trike just TUMBLES. Doesn't even bother to nose up into a mild stall first.

- Glaringly conspicuous and deliberate absence of any account of what the tug was doing between making the fairly sharp right turn which caused John to lock out to the left and the tumble. And we've got John watching from a couple hundred feet away and undoubtedly a couple dozen pairs of eyes pointed up from takeoff. Classic sleight of hand maneuver. Get the audience's attention focused on the decoy, palm and pocket the real deal with the other hand.
...the single strands of 505 leech line that went from John's shoulder straps to the three-ring broke one at a time...
- Why? How come they're blowing now and didn't during the "bump"?

- In other words, an effective 252.5 towline pound weak link. The single strands are tied so cut the rating in half. And we know from this very clear account of them breaking "one at a time" that they weren't sharing the load AT ALL. 'Cause if they had been there'd have been a virtually instantaneous double plus shock load applied to the surviving strand and the bridle halves failures would've been perceived as simultaneous.
...and presumably the shackle pulled out of the trike release at the same time the second strand of 505 gave way.
Great engineering. Under a 250 pound load the trike's release actuation system turns to scrap metal.
The trike tumbled a second time, and broke a leading edge, and then on the third tumble Chris was thrown out and fell approximately 500' to his death.
- Pity he wasn't able to find a picnic table on the way down.

- Wow, people of varying ages! Looky what a detailed and precise description of the sequence of events we have in the first several seconds of things having gone irretrievable south! Now compare/contrast with the description we have of what was going in in the three seconds before. We don't have shit regarding lateral angle off center, relative altitudes, glider bar position. (Nice job, Rob.)
Exactly what happened will never be known...
Yeah, if you guys couldn't do it there it couldn't be done. 'Specially after everyone had all their film confiscated and exposed to direct sunlight before being returned. (Right, Jon Orders?)

So does that sound just a wee bit familiar...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec
William Olive - 2013/02/27 20:55:06 UTC

Like the rest of us, you have no idea what really happened on that tow.
We probably never will know.
Jim Rooney - 2013/02/28 01:17:55 UTC

Well said Billo
I'm a bit sick of all the armchair experts telling me how my friend died.
...to anyone? (Also a tumble fatality by the way. The more spectacular the incident the harder it is to determine what really happened.)
...but studying the physical evidence suggests several observations:

THE WEAK LINK:
- Yeah, the weak link. Focal point of a safe towing system. Wasn't a recommended relatively weak one and thus didn't break when it was supposed to. Primary issue in this one so naturally needs to be the first thing discussed. How 'bout we make it:
THE WEAK LINK
to make sure everybody reading this report really understands the only issue that really matters.

- What the fuck do you mean "THE" weak link, Rob? This was an aerotow and there was a legal - not to mention COMMON SENSE - requirement for weak links on BOTH ends of the towline. And the one up front is required to be ten percent heavier than the one in back. And that's a pretty SPECIFIC SOP. And nowhere in this report do we hear a single syllable about what it was if there was one or its absence if there wasn't. No wait, I forgot. This is just a brief summary of what happened during the tow flight that cost Chris his life. Forget I mentioned it.

- The back end weak link was John's bridle half. Everything else at that end was irrelevant. And for the purpose of this incident everything else related to tension limitation was irrelevant.
It was one continuous strand of 205 leech line looped through the ring on the three-ring circus release (glider pilot end) and the tow rope...
Note that on a three-ring circus release the third ring...

Image

..isn't really part of the release. It's on the end of whatever's being released - the skydiver in its original application, towline in this case. So the third ring is serving as the tow ring and the double loop of 205 is installed between the towline and tow ring.
...and fastened together with a fisherman's knot. This material is rated at 125 lbs. per strand by the manufacturer.
This material is rated at 205 pounds by the manufacturer. That's why they call it 205 leechline.
The strength of the weak link would figure to be 4 X 125 = 500 lbs. minus the loss in strength due to friction and the knot.
- How did we get four? This is a DOUBLE loop but you only described a single.

- Friction? Bullshit. A weak link has a weak link. And unless it's substantially frayed - in which case all bets are off and it shouldn't be used anyway - that weak link is always gonna be at the point of a knot. And for that dividing by two is a safe enough bet.

- This weak link is gonna be 4x205/2=405 - MAX. And that's pretty much identical to what Davis and many of us suddenly became happy with immediately after the 2013/02/02 Zack Marzec inconvenience tumble fatality at Quest.
I have done several load tests with this material and duplicate hardware and found that the "weak link" was good for at least 400 lbs.
Oh. You've done several tests with a duplicate configuration and all you can tell us is that the "weak link" - which wasn't the weak link anyway 'cause the limitation was either bridle half - was good for AT LEAST 400 pounds. What was it good for AT MOST - asshole? Eight hundred? Did you bother to test it to failure? You said you did SEVERAL tests. So did you just go up to four hundred, back off, repeat several times?

Look at the pattern here:
Dennis Pagen - 1997/01

1996/07/25 - Bill Bennett / Mike Del Signore

The weak link was at the top end was tested after the accident to break at over 300 pounds (it was constructed from 205 Dacron line). Because of this doubling effect of the bridle, this would require a towline force of over 600 pounds to break.
http://ozreport.com/9.032
The Worlds - weaklinks
Rohan Holtkamp - 2005/02/07

2005/01/09 - Robin Strid

His actual weaklink did test to be stronger than 180kg... (176 and 396 pounds)
These assholes don't tell us what weak links in historic global interest fatals DO break at. They just tell us what they DON'T break at. So for the purposes of the exercises these weak links could've been aircraft carrier anchor chain links.
Chris was telling me at breakfast that morning that Thevenot, when towing at the factory, doesn't use a weak link.
- Then Thevenot's a total fucking asshole. A weak link sure as hell isn't the focal point of a safe towing system but a weak link appropriate for its purpose sure as hell IS the cornerstone around which a safe towing system is engineered.

- Got that, people of varying ages?

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Jim Rooney - 2011/08/31 09:25:57 UTC

See, you don't get to hook up to my plane with whatever you please. Not only am I on the other end of that rope... and you have zero say in my safety margins... I have no desire what so ever to have a pilot smashing himself into the earth on my watch. So yeah, if you show up with some non-standard gear, I won't be towing you. Love it or leave it. I don't care.
The inventor of the world's first practical hang glider aerotow tug would rather not use ANYTHING in the way of a weak link behind him. And it shouldn't matter anyway...
Dr. Trisa Tilletti - 2012/06

You and I have flown sailplanes for almost as long as we have flown hang gliders. We own two sailplanes and have two airplanes that we use for towing full-size sailplanes. In all the time that we have flown and towed sailplanes, we have not experienced or even seen a sailplane weak link break.
Just like in sailplanes.
In any case the weak link that was being used did not break.
- Just like the one(s) in your several tests, right Rob?

- The weak link that was being used was the bridle half. It broke. That was the only figure that mattered. So how come you didn't bench test that component to failure and report? 'Cause it would've only made it to 250 pounds and that would work to undermine all this Industry Infallible Weak Link / focal point of a safe towing system bullshit? Another glaringly conspicuous deliberate omission of critical relevant information.
It is recommended that you never use a weak link good for more than 150 to 200 lbs.
- Oh great! They don't even hafta know anything about what we weigh to recommend what we should never use! These guys are GOOD!

- By whom? Why? Based on what experimental and/or field data? So is that what you meant when you wrote:
Rob Kells - 2005/02

Aerotow Release Attachment Points for Wills Wing Gliders

Always use an appropriate weak link with a finished length of 1.5 inches or less.
regarding aerotowing your glider models? That doesn't even get us up close to the 130 pound Greenspot Standard Aerotow Weak Link that you put on your demo gliders at all the flight parks. And I don't see where you revised those figures even in 2004 when the FAA hang glider aerotow regulations made that range illegally light for just about everything we fly.

Also, people of varying ages... Note that while Rob / Wills Wing was only too happy to put on paper in undeletable black and white actual numbers on recommended appropriate weak link strength right after this 1985/07/17 Chris Bulger but a bit under two decades later not a shadow of a ghost of any actual numbers in the magazine article which has been made instantly globally accessible on their website. If it looks like shit, walks like shit, quacks like shit, smells like shit...

- Is that what it says in the SOPs? And if not, why should what is recommended be different from the just prior published SOPs?

- So is that how things work in sailplaning? Some anonymous dickhead just pulls some numbers out of his ass and recommends what we should never use minus the slightest pretense of a justification or explanation?

- You just told us that Chris was the greatest thing to happen to hang gliding since sliced bread. What are the qualifications of the anonymous assholes presenting figures radically different from what Chris judged appropriate? He got killed so that automatically invalidates all of his perspectives on towing?

- Who the fuck are you to select authorities whose recommendations we're supposed to accept? Wills Wing gliders have been designed for foot launched soaring flight and not to be motorized, tethered, or towed. And how many people did you assholes mangle before coming up with a solution to keep your gliders' nose wires from detaching in the process of a platform tow launch? Doesn't telling us what weak links we shouldn't be using intrude on that purity, start falling into the realm of towing design?
I have been using for years a single loop of 205 with three overhand knots and two bowlines to tie the ends together.
- Oh. Two Bowlines. Everybody and his fuckin' dog use the one Fisherman's Knot like what you reported for this incident. It's THE knot for the application. But you use two Bowlines to join the ends. One uses a Bowline for an application in which one wants to be able to untie after loading. That's its advantage. Its DISadvantage is that it can untie itself if it's not continuously loaded. But that would just be an inconvenience at worst in hang glider towing.

- Did you ever test it to see if the Overhand Knots made the slightest difference?

- THREE Overhand Knots. Good thinkin', Rob...

-- That way if your primary Overhand Knot doesn't work...

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1079
$15 pacifiers
Jim Rooney - 2005/09/20 13:11:43 UTC

Sorry, I don't see the logic in trying to save a couple bucks on equipment that I am litterally entrusting my life to. "Pacifier"? may be... but there's an old saying out there... "You never need the backup, until you need the backup".

I know of at least one pilot out there that flies with two caribiners. His logic makes more sense to me... you can't have too many backups.
...you have two backups going for ya.

-- Each knot makes the weak link thirty pounds safer. Three knots, ninety pound better lockout protection. Or maybe...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27393
Pro towing: 1 barrel release + weak link or 2 barrel release
Juan Saa - 2012/10/18 01:19:49 UTC
Boca Raton

The normal braking force in pounds for a weak link is around 180, at least that is the regular weak link line used at most aerotow operations. By adding a second weak link to your bridal you are cutting the load on each link by half, meaning that the weak link will not break at the intended 180 pounds but it will need about 360.
If that is what you use and is what your instructor approved then I have no business on interfering, i dont know if you are using the same weak link material but there shoul be only ONE weak link on a tow bridle for it to be effective in breaking before higher loads are put into you and the glider should the glider gets to an attitude or off track so much that the safety fuse of the link is needed to break you free from the tug.

I made the same mistake on putting two weak links thinking that I was adding protection to my setup and I was corrected by two instructors on separate occacions at Quest Air and at the Florida RIdge.
...adding weak points makes it stronger. Hard to know for sure.
Its breaking strength is between 210 and 215 lbs.
So it's illegally overstrength - according to the u$hPa mandates published two issues ago. But neither you nor anyone else - particularly any of the assholes who enacted them - has a comment on this point?
It has always broken when necessary...
Like when you're locked out low needing BOTH hands to fly the glider and can't get to your easily reachable release?
...but sometimes a little more time was required than I was comfortable with.
- But still when NECESSARY. One and a half to two seconds before what would've otherwise been certain death impact.

- So what did you lose?

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.
About 200 feet?

- Lucky you. Any thoughts on all the people who've died when their comparable weak links DIDN'T always break when necessary? Or the ones whose comparable weak links didn't always HOLD when necessary?

- Sorry Rob, I'm a bit confused here. You're using up to 215 pounds, 15 pounds over the top and 65 pounds over the bottom of what is recommended - and you're getting significantly close to getting killed. And there's absolutely no downside to going lower until you hit 149 pounds (and nobody even seems to know what kinds of problems might present themselves in that range). So how come you're not going lower? (Sleazy goddam motherfucker.)
If you're towing, USE A WEAK LINK and test its breaking strength on numerous samples.
- Of course. Goes without saying. All of us do this at least twice a year to make sure there aren't any inconsistencies with new batches of material. And the flight parks all do it the first Tuesday of every month to ensure the highest possible safety margins.

- You mean the way you DIDN'T on the tests for what was installed in this incident?
Be sure it is breaking consistently at UNDER 200 lbs.
Why? You don't. And you just said that you've gotten uncomfortably close to being killed. So is there some DOWNSIDE...
Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974

"The greatest dangers are a rope break or a premature release." - Richard Johnson
...to dialing down weak link strength? Or does it just keep getting safer as we approach ten or fifteen pounds?

And any thoughts on why the cumulative wisdom of Chris Bulger and John Pendry...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Davis Straub - 2011/08/28 15:26:28 UTC

Then again, Russell Brown had us double up behind him after six breaks in a row at Zapata. We couldn't figure out why we had so many breaks so quickly. Maybe just coincidence.
...went with what they did? And dontchya think that it's a bit odd that we've never heard a single published syllable on any of the issues of this one from the survivor and best witness?
THE TRIKE RELEASE:

The trike was manufactured in Australia by Ricky Duncan. The trike release had been tested by the manufacturer for a straight pull of 300 lbs.
- Catch that? The trike release wasn't manufactured by the trike manufacturer. And the manufacturer of the trike is clearly identified and the manufacturer of the trike release - which disintegrated when needed in a situation that was under control (glider getting back into position) and sent things into fatal mode - isn't. Go figure.

- Well fuck, if its been tested by the manufacturer for a straight pull of 300 pounds there's no way in hell it's gonna have any problems with a locking out glider and a two hundred pound weak link.
They had always used 150-lb. weak links and had never had a release failure.
'Cause they never got any gliders off the ground. And remember, people of varying ages, this is 1985 and there aren't any low twist, super sleek, zilch drag toplesses around.

Any thoughts on why they didn't always use 300 pound weak links and see if they'd have a release failure if the pull wasn't perfectly aligned straight back? Is that the approach you use to certify your gliders, Rob? Just flight test them for whenever everything's going right in ideal conditions?
Due to the increased load with this weak link it appears that the release on the trike did malfunction.
USHGA Aerotow Guidelines
from the USHGA Safety and Training Committee

II AEROTOWING EQUIPMENT

2) A pilot-operational release must connect the tow line to the towing vehicle. This release must be operational with zero line force up to twice the breaking strength of the tow line.
The weak link can legally be up to two hundred pounds, the tow line needs to be stronger, so the considerably off the bottom end legal requirement for the release function is four hundred pounds. And this glider was under control and moving back into position when the failure occurred.
It was a steel pin on the end of a cable that went through two bolts with a shackle fitting in between. The cable was routed to a foot peddle at the nose of the trike. The trike inspection revealed that the pin was bent above the bottom bolt making release from the trike end impossible, and the cable was broken away from the foot pedal, indicating that Chris was trying hard to pin John but was unable to.
Yeah...
Dr. Trisa Tilletti - 2012/06

We could get into details of lab testing weak links and bridles, but this article is already getting long. That would be a good topic for an article in the future. Besides, with our backgrounds in formal research, you and I both know that lab tests may produce results with good internal validity, but are often weak in regard to external validity--meaning lab conditions cannot completely include all the factors and variability that exists in the big, real world.
No fuckin' way that problem could've been foreseen.
So a release that was tested to 300 lbs. proved inadequate for a 350-lb. plus load at an angle up and to the side.
- So...
-- How come it wasn't tested to be adequate for a 400 pound load and legally compliant with US aerotowing regulations?
-- When and how did we get an up angle?
- Wow. Imagine that. A glider needing to be released under tension not straight and level behind the tug. Who'da thunk.
It is of course also possible that the release was damaged on the ground by an impulse load caused by the rope snagging on something.
Yeah right. The trike tumbles, loses a leading edge, ejects the pilot, continues down in wreckage mode until impact, and the towline could've snagged on something solidly enough to destroy the release system at impact. But it doesn't stay snagged and there's no suggestion regarding anything it could've snagged on. Bullshit.

AND:
USHGA Aerotow Guidelines
from the USHGA Safety and Training Committee

II AEROTOWING EQUIPMENT

3) A weak link must be placed between the tow line and the release at both ends of the tow line with the forward link ten percent stronger than the rearward weak link. The weak link must have a breaking strength less than 85% the weight of the hang glider and pilot combination, not to exceed 200 pounds.
There was a legal requirement for a max 220 pound weak link on the front end of the towline.
THE GLIDER

The glider was a Moyes GTR 180 which had been modified to increase wing area and airframe strength for the purpose of using with a trike.
This is not THE GLIDER you're talking about. This is the tug's wing. And please don't trouble yourself what John was flying and/or how much weight was on the back end of the line - so we can figure out how he fit into u$hPa's idiot bullshit aerotow weak link SOPs.
This particular glider had undergone continuing modifications as late as the day of the accident.
- Like WHAT? All the previous tows we heard about that day were successful and had been made without mishap. Kenny Brown, Mitch McAleer, and Jeff Huey each had clean tows to approximately 2500'.

- Great way to run an airline.
There is no evidence that the glider was a contributing factor in the incident, but at the same time there is no data on file which establishes its level of airworthiness.
And the trike's OK 'cause its release system had been tested by the manufacturer for a straight pull of 300 pounds.
PILOT RELEASE:

It is my understanding that John did not have a lot of aero tow experience. He was locked out and putting everything he had into recovering.
Bull fucking shit. You can't be locked out and RECOVERING. You can only be locked out and putting everything you have into slowing the progress of the lockout. And you're not gonna be spending much time doing that.
It's tough to let go when you're locked out...
That's why we need more training for letting go when we're locked out. Idiot.
...and it has usually been the case that the better the pilot the more attempt is made to recover rather than release well before a lock out becomes severe...
- Wow! So it sounds like the better pilots are actually the crappier pilots - and vice versa - in a lockout. So we should be placing our bets on the Twos in this special circumstance. Who'da thunk!

- Bullshit.

-- Neither you nor anyone else has shit worth of statistical data on what people do and don't in lockouts. And you don't even have a fuckin' clue what a lockout IS. You can't RECOVER from a lockout. If you can it wasn't a lockout.

-- Anybody with solid 2.0 flying competency or up is gonna respond to a lockout in exactly the same way. That'll be getting way the fuck over and resisting to the max extent possible. And aerotow lockouts get pretty severe pretty fast and it tends not to matter much what the guy under the glider does which doesn't involve releasing.
...especially when on high tow.
- We never heard that he got high on tow. What we heard was that Chris made an abrupt right turn when John was in position and shortly thereafter tumbled his bird for no reason whatsoever.

- Why should anybody HAVE TO let go of anything? 'Cause that piece o' crap John was using is the best that the world's collective hang gliding intelligence can do?

- So what you're saying is that John, because he responded to Chris's totally needless abrupt right turn by starting to move back into position, exactly as Chris was expecting him to, is in part responsible for Chris's death. Right?
THE PILOT RESTRAINT SYSTEM:
Fuckin' pilot restraint system should've been actuated before any of these assholes got anywhere near the runway.
The pilot restraint in the trike was a single lap belt of two-inch webbing with a pinch type buckle, so when open you can actually take the buckle right off. I think the buckle would be OK if it were clamped down fully but it seems too easy to misuse this system.
The implication being that Chris might have failed to securely buckle it or accidentally released it as things were going south. But this is deliberately misleading bullshit because you'd have told us and everybody and his dog would know if the lap belt had been found in the wreckage disengaged. The problem was that a lap belt was a half assed way to do the job - exactly like the fuckin' joke of its release system.
I believe in four-point harnesses in all ultralights.
Great, Rob. Let's write our standards based upon what you believe.
It is all too easy to deploy a chute or tumble and then be thrown out of a lap belt.
Ya think?
The appearance of the trike suggests that Chris may have survived had he stayed in the trike.
- Nah, the lap belt and the lack of parachute sound fine to me.
- The appearance of the trike would've been considerably different if it had come down with the really heavy thing still strapped in place.
NO PARACHUTE:

Chris had no parachute. They had one in the trailer, but they were too anxious to get towing to take the time to put it on.
- But nevertheless, this guy was a pilot's pilot. Right Rob?

- They who? Chris and John? Or the whole hang glider contingent at the airport? Note that nobody who was present that day said, "I'm not hooking up until after that parachute is installed." Compare/Contrast:

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3600
Weak link question
Jim Rooney - 2008/11/24 05:18:15 UTC

Well, I'm assuming there was some guff about the tug pilot's right of refusal?
Gee, didn't think we'd have to delve into "pilot in command"... I figured that one's pretty well understood in a flying community.

It's quite simple.
The tug is a certified aircraft... the glider is an unpowered ultralight vehicle. The tug pilot is the pilot in command. You are a passenger. You have the same rights and responsibilities as a skydiver.
It's a bitter pill I'm sure, but there you have it.

BTW, if you think I'm just spouting theory here, I've personally refused to tow a flight park owner over this very issue. I didn't want to clash, but I wasn't towing him. Yup, he wanted to tow with a doubled up weaklink. He eventually towed (behind me) with a single and sorry to disappoint any drama mongers, we're still friends. And lone gun crazy Rooney? Ten other tow pilots turned him down that day for the same reason.
In view of the fact that Chris came out of the trike it would not have helped him unless it was the type that attached a pilot harness to the chute and the trike.
And let's not consider the possibility of him having deployed the parachute before the trike had tumbled twice and broken its leading edge.
NO HELMET:

Chris wasn't wearing a helmet. It may not have mattered in this case, but it could have.
No, in this case it couldn't have.
A pilot cannot do much to help himself if he is knocked out in the air.
But a hang glider pilot can learn how to let go of the basetube with one hand and keep the glider under safe control while he reaches for his release. But as your proficiency rating increases your aptitude automatically decreases.

He wasn't knocked out and became a passenger the moment the tumble began. And shortly after that he wasn't even a passenger. Just a skydiver with no parachute.
Hang glider towing has been around since the earliest days of foot launched hang gliding itself.
It's been around longer the free flight hang gliding has.
It has long been felt by many that towing has the potential to open up hang gliding to a much wider potential market of pilots.
Everybody but Wills Wing - which designs its gliders for foot launched soaring flight and not to be motorized, tethered, or towed.
The major stumbling block through the years has been safety...
The major stumbling blocks through the years and decades have been stupidity, incompetence, negligence, and corruption.
...towing has always been more dangerous, both inherently and statistically, than foot launched flying.
- This incident WAS foot launched flying.

- Where'd you get your statistics, Rob? This sport has never had shit worth of valid statistics on much of anything. We've always needed to go by anecdotal and best guesses.
Recent advances involving improved winches, the center-of-mass bridle system...
Oh really? The kind that splits the tow force between the pilot and glider with a two point bridle? We have really good documentation that two point bridles were being used for aerotowing...
Don Boardman, III - 1983/12
Rome, New York

I observed a third skytout in Elmira, N.Y. at the Free Flight Hang Gliding Festival. Eighty-seven pilots showed up on Labor Day weekend for the competition, a truly super event. Rob Kells, with the help of Rich Pfeiffer, was giving aero-towing and aerobatic demonstrations. On the second day, a Canadian tow pilot experienced a skytout shortly after takeoff during a right hand turn. Rich Pfeiffer reported the incident in Skyting #18 (See "Pop-the-Whip Problem). In my discussions with the pilot and the others after the flight it was felt that the above mentioned overriding of the bridle's self-correcting function may have caused or influenced the situation. The pilot was not clear as to exactly what had happened.
...the better part of two years prior to this one. So why were these clowns flying one point such that John was unable to stay down level with the tug with the bar fully stuffed and why are you saying absolutely nothing about this bullshit being a major factor in this one? 'Cause you decided at Square One that the Tad-O-Link was gonna be the only issue to be "discussed" and dealt with?
...and the use of relatively weak "weak links" have offered new promise of increased safety in towing.
- Yeah Rob.. Gotta love those...

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links
Jim Rooney - 2007/07/22 22:30:28 UTC

I've heard it a million times before from comp pilots insisting on towing with even doubled up weaklinks (some want no weaklink). I tell them the same thing I'm telling you... suck it up. You're not the only one on the line. I didn't ask to be a test pilot. I can live with your inconvenience.
... relatively weak "weak links". Funny you motherfuckers have never specified any for any of your gliders - or commented on any of the inconvenience cripplings and fatalities.

- New promise. Get fucked. If any of you assholes bothered to and/or were capable of doing the theory and engineering we'd have had totally solid towing solutions at the beginning of time.
The development of aero towing has made towing feasible from smaller fields, once more promising to extend the range of potential flying sites.
And then around the middle of the second decade of the Twenty-First Century it started collapsing.
However, Chris Bulger's accident...
His what?
...should serve to remind us that the dangers involved in towing are still very significant.
I don't know what the fuck it should serve to remind us of. We haven't heard shit to indicate what it was that precipitated the tumble or even related it to the tow. And in the entire history of hang glider aerotowing - the small bit prior to this incident and the near third of a century since - we've never seen anything else remotely like it.
There are few pilots in the world, if any, more skilled than John Pendry.
Yeah, I was totally awed by the skill he displayed on that flight. Nearly beyond belief.
Chris Bulger was both a highly skilled hang glider pilot and a very experienced trike pilot.
Well then, he should be really good at flying all that chintzy illegal crap he was.
They were towing in mellow, ideal conditions.
Ideal. I just start drooling whenever I read about late afternoon glassy sled conditions.
They made a few seemingly innocuous mistakes...
Seemingly innocuous to whom, asshole? These were MAJOR. Total shit for release systems on both ends of the string, pro toad bridle on the back end, critical tug and glider components serving as weak links, no front end weak link, flagrant violations of u$hPa SOPs, total shit for tug pilot restraint system, helmet and parachute left on the ground... Name a couple things they did RIGHT.
...and it cost Chris his life.
- Oh well, he died doing what he loved and we all learned from his few seemingly innocuous mistakes.
- HOW? We haven't heard a single punctuation mark's worth of explanation of what precipitated the tumble.
NEVER underestimate the danger in towing...
We won't, Rob. And from this day forward we'll address all the dangers with one-size-fits-all weak links that blow every other tow in glass air with gliders lined up in perfect position and trim.
...and never shortcut or ignore any safety procedures.
You mean like the way every motherfucker there at Chelan was either directly engaging or enabling and complicit in violations of just about any u$hPa SOP and common sense guideline one could imagine?

And big thanks for the enormous body of work Wills Wing has contributed over the decades in developing and producing the best towing equipment the sport will ever see. Also for the way Wills Wing always takes the lead in getting to the bottoms of incidents after things have gone
Let's not let Chris Bulger's tragic death be for nothing.
Fer sure. Let's let it be total bogus evidence for the danger of using weak links heavy enough to get gliders up to release altitude reliably in glass air and get hang glider aerotowing firmly into the Dark Ages before it ever gets properly off the ground.

And then a few months shy of a decade later at the 2005 worlds when Robin Strid eats it because of shit launch carts and a total shit release let's also use that one to illustrate the deadliness of using weak links heavy enough to get gliders up to release altitude reliably in glass air and dive hang glider aerotowing even more solidly into the Dark Ages - while you and your Wills Wing buddies say NOTHING.

This was total fucking fringe activity and should've been of zilch interest to anybody involved in halfway legitimate hang glider aerotowing. And ya want pictures?

09-1712
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11-1814
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12-1915
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05-01816
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15-03805
32-05112
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http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7309/11414153476_3ca8cc4036_o.png
42-05328

Those are all gliders getting actually, seriously, and, for the purpose of the exercise, fatally locked out. And the trikes aren't the slightest bit FAZED.
---
2020/09/12 10:45:00 UTC - Edited.
User avatar
Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: Weak links

Post by Tad Eareckson »

Maybe an error in my analysis above of the duplicitous crap Rob fed us by way of an accident report...

Chris was a dead man flying at the point his trike was irretrievably headed into its tumble and what happened after that point is of pretty much zilch practical importance. But...
John was fighting to get back behind the tow vehicle. At one point he started to recover from the lock out and then felt a "bump" (hard pull on the line).
John's bridle halves didn't fail one at a time until the trike was in tumble mode and thus may have been symmetrically loaded and thus good for about five hundred pounds and thus the four hundred pound towline weak link would've more likely been the weak link. HOWEVER... The glider was NOT locked out and was headed back into position and the worst John ever felt in the way of tow tension was reported - and never contradicted by John or anyone else to have been - a (lower case) "bump". So there's NO indication that anything was going on when anything mattered at a tension much above normally encountered thermal conditions stuff.

More critical info on this bullshit...
Bill Cummings - 1985/08

FATAL AERO-TOW ACCIDENT
Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota

Dear Donnell,

Terry and I just returned home from the U.S. Nationals. I'm sorry to report an aero-towing accident that took the life of Chris Bulger, age 20, of Mercer Island, WA. It happened Wednesday, July 17, 1985, on our scheduled rest day, in the middle of the competition week.

Terry and I were heading for the Chelan airport to learn about aero-towing, when we met the ambulance coming out. Talking with some very upset pilots and friends, at the airport, about what happened, it became more unbearable.

I feel that it would not have happened had your guidelines for safe towing been followed. Here is the information I received: (1) No weak link, (2) no helmet, (3) no parachute. There was some speculation that Chris (in the tug) may have broken the release lever trying to release the line under high tension. There was talk about the towed pilot being locked out to the left and having his release cord OUT OF REACH, tied on the far side of the A-frame. Chris tumbled from just above 1000 ft AGL after the tow line separated. The pilot being towed was not hurt, but had to be sedated.
US Nationals, rest day, big crowd, lotsa witnesses. And everybody who was anybody was there. Big write-up in the 1985/09 magazine - detailing all the kinds of carnage that hang glider people treat as background noise - that I'm gonna need to transcribe and post in order to put this bullshit into full and proper perspective.
Terry and I were heading for the Chelan airport to learn about aero-towing, when we met the ambulance coming out.
Did it have its siren on, lights flashing, hoping against all hope?
Talking with some very upset pilots and friends, at the airport, about what happened, it became more unbearable.
How many of them were upset enough to make sure that what happened would be accurately and honestly reported and thoroughly understood?
I feel that it would not have happened had your guidelines for safe towing been followed. Here is the information I received: (1) No weak link...
Wrong already.
(2) no helmet...
Probably no snakebite kit either. Which would've been just about as relevant.
(3) no parachute.
Not up with the trike anyway.
There was some speculation that Chris (in the tug) may have broken the release lever trying to release the line under high tension.
How high could the tension possibly have been? Shouldn't a tug be able to release AT LEAST its own weight? Like if it were hanging stationary from a crane or bridge?
There was talk about the towed pilot being locked out to the left...
Locked out high and to the left and COMING BACK. One of those special Wills Wing lockouts from which one can recover.
...and having his release cord OUT OF REACH, tied on the far side of the A-frame.
- You mean the way Quallaby and Lockout have rigged them all the fuckin' time since the beginning of time?
- Bullshit.
-- It was a pro toad configuration - one point, shoulders mounted. Just short of impossible to rig it as you describe.
-- A-frames have TWO far sides.
-- It was one hundred percent irrelevant as at no time prior to the point of return did John have any desire or reason to release.
Chris tumbled from just above 1000 ft AGL after the tow line separated.
The towline didn't separate. The bridle did - one strand at a time.
The pilot being towed was not hurt...
Since his glider was flying fine the whole time. And how do you explain that under the Hewett concept of a weak link - which is to limit the tension such that the glider...
Donnell Hewett - 1980/12

A properly designed weak link must be strong enough to permit a good rate of climb without breaking, and it must be weak enough to break before the glider gets out of control, stalls, or collapses.
... can't get out of control? How come they've transmitted enough seriously misaligned tension to:
- blow John's tow bridle apart
- lock up and destroy the trike's release system
- tumble and kill the tug
with the glider flying so fine the whole time that there's not a single hint in any report or account anywhere of John having gotten the slightest bit unfavorably nudged at any point in the catastrophe phase?
...but had to be sedated.
Why? To keep him from talking to people about what happened before he got briefed by u$hPa Damage Control on what really happened?

And more from Bill:

http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1638
Basement Bob
Bill Cummings - 2014/11/22 19:27:04 UTC

After John Pendrey (sp?) popped his weak link Chris Bulger (tug pilot)(sp?) doubled the next weaklink. John got out of position and Chris bent his release activator trying to dump the line. The release wasn't fully functional. Chris died after loosing control of the tug above Chelan Washington Airport.

That was exactly why I commented to Bisfal to not get headed down the same chain of events that lead to Chris's death.
Bill Cummings - 2014/11/22 19:27:04 UTC

After John Pendrey (sp?)...
Pendry. And make sure not to try a Google search to get it right.
...popped his weak link...
Bullshit. Dontchya think that if he popped his weak link in glassy smooth late afternoon air straight and level behind Chris's tug Rob would've included something that fundamental to our understanding of the incident in his extensive report?
Chris Bulger (tug pilot)(sp?)...
Nah. You spelled "tug pilot" OK.
...doubled the next weaklink.
- Which is pretty good evidence that the popped Infallible Weak Link flight immediately preceded the fatal incident flight. (Fuck you, Rob.)

- When a weak link blows in smooth air with the glider straight and level going to double strength...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Davis Straub - 2011/08/26 14:04:52 UTC

We had six weaklink breaks in a row at Zapata this year. Russell Brown (tug pilot, tug owner, Quest Air owner) said go ahead and double up (four strands of Cortland Greenspot). He knows I used his Zapata weaklink in Big Spring (pilots were asked to tell the tug pilot if they were doing that).
...is a pretty good idea. And tripling it is an even better idea.
John got out of position...
Yeah. John Pendry, former world champion hang glider pilot, got out of position in glassy smooth late afternoon afternoon air for no reason whatsoever. Probably did the same thing on the previous flight five minutes prior and the Infallible Weak Link broke when it was supposed to - before he could get into too much trouble.

You were there right after the incident and talked to a zillion witnesses, undoubtedly read Rob's report published in the magazine less than a month and a half after incident, and are now telling us that John got out of position for no reason whatsoever.
...and Chris bent his release activator trying to dump the line.
Must've been using a Tad-O-Link. His release activator would've been just fine under reasonable conditions - a straight back pull of three hundred pounds. Or at a lockout angle with 150 pounds.
The release wasn't fully functional.
Always had been before - using 150 pound weak links.
Chris died after loosing...
You forgot the "(sp?).
...control of the tug above Chelan Washington Airport.

That was exactly why I commented to Bisfal to not get headed down the same chain of events that lead to Chris's death.
- Why? It was the tug driver's decision to:
-- go up:
--- on a trike masquerading as a tug with a bunch of chintzy illegal crap for a tow release system
--- without a parachute
-- use the Tad-O-Link
-- pull the cheap shit pro toad bridle
-- initiate the fatal turn
-- not wave off the glider when his cheap junk release system imploded (just thought of that one)

And it was the tug driver who bought the farm and that was in no fuckin' way the glider's fault or responsibility and the glider did just fuckin' fine before, during, and after the predictable implosion.

And if you listen to the greatest tug pilot this sport has ever seen...

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3600
Weak link question
Jim Rooney - 2008/11/24 05:18:15 UTC

Well, I'm assuming there was some guff about the tug pilot's right of refusal?
Gee, didn't think we'd have to delve into "pilot in command"... I figured that one's pretty well understood in a flying community.

It's quite simple.
The tug is a certified aircraft... the glider is an unpowered ultralight vehicle. The tug pilot is the pilot in command. You are a passenger. You have the same rights and responsibilities as a skydiver.
It's a bitter pill I'm sure, but there you have it.

BTW, if you think I'm just spouting theory here, I've personally refused to tow a flight park owner over this very issue. I didn't want to clash, but I wasn't towing him. Yup, he wanted to tow with a doubled up weaklink. He eventually towed (behind me) with a single and sorry to disappoint any drama mongers, we're still friends. And lone gun crazy Rooney? Ten other tow pilots turned him down that day for the same reason.
When was the last time you heard of a non terrorist and reasonably rational passenger ever endangering a flight?

The pilots in tow operations really just have one responsibility - to complete the tow as safely and efficiently as possible. And if they do that they'll automatically maximize the safety margins of BOTH planes.

But both of these assholes elected to go up on cheap, dangerous, illegal crap. So instead of having a successful tow and positive fun experience one of them ended his short life with a horrifying five hundred foot plummet and the other probably substantial dose of PTSD. (Can't imagine that all the other US Nationals participants present at the time had their experiences enhanced much either.)

- Yeah Bill, you certainly wouldn't wanna get behind a 115 horsepower, three-axis control, aerobatics capable, purpose built Dragonfly with huge control surfaces, a decent Schweizer knockoff release system, and a ballistic parachute designed for pulling up five hundred pound tandem thrill rides 24/7 with anything heavier than the magic fishing line that blew six times in a row at Zapata in 2010. It might not break when it's supposed to.

02-00820c
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7252/27169646315_9af9a62298_o.png
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No telling what might happen.
The "other side"... the not cautions one... is not one of frustration, it's one of very real danger.
Better to be frustrated than in a hospital, or worse.
No exaggeration... this is the fire that the "other side" is made of. Best not to play with it.

James K.I. Rooney
2002-2016
http://sites.google.com/site/wwwriotandemflycom/hangglidinghistory
hangglidinghistory - http://www.riotandemfly.com
Camel International Hang Gliding Competition - 1983 - Rio de Janeiro
Image
Left to right - Guto Villas, Paulinho Falcão, Chris Bulger, John Pendry, Dudly Moore and Steve Moyes
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Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: Weak links

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=12587
weak links (here we go)
Patrick Halfhill - 2009/06/23 15:42:23 UTC

In the Chris Bulger incident it was found that he and the pilot he was towing were breaking to many weaklinks so...
I hate when that happens. Five, six an afternoon... OK. Much after that... To many. Just can't handle that much increase in the safety of the towing operation.
...they put multiple ones on.
What? Like five or six at a time so they could break them and increase the safety of the towing operation more efficiently?
Than when the pilot being towed...
The pilot being towed is not a pilot. He's a passenger of the Pilot In Command of the tug. BTW, if you think I'm just spouting theory here, Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney personally refused to tow a flight park owner over this very issue. He didn't want to clash, but he wasn't towing him. Yup, he wanted to tow with a doubled up weaklink. He eventually towed (behind him) with a single and sorry to disappoint any drama mongers, they're still friends. And lone gun crazy Rooney? Ten other tow pilots turned him down that day for the same reason.

And it wasn't until 2010 at Zapata after they broke six Rooney Links in a row in light morning conditions due to some kind of coincidence phenomenon that Russell Brown (tug pilot, tug owner, Quest Air owner) said, "This is to many. Go ahead and use multiple ones. But be sure you tell your Pilot In Command if you're one of those playing by the new same rules we all play by so he will know that you've changed the equation and he needs to tow you extra safely."
...locked out...
The pilot being towed didn't lock out, douchebag.
...it created a oscilation problem for the trike...
Wow. The glider locked out while the trike endures a oscilation problem. Just look what happens when you use multiple weaklinks! First they broke to many, then they used to many multiples. And probably put them on BOTH ends of the bridal to multiply the effect even more. And as all of us well know, the glider can't blow the release in a lockout and the tug can't blow it after a oscilation problem has been created.
...that threw the pilot out.
- Pretty much inevitable after a oscilation problem has been created.

- Hey Pat... If a oscilation problem can throw the pilot out why couldn't an deliberate hard turn into a thermal? Is this a plane that should ever have been allowed in the air in the first place?
Yes a few other things should have been done different.
But we don't need to talk about those because everybody was fine as long as to many weaklinks were being broken. And the takeoffs and landings were really safe in the total sled air at that time of day.
Also the 2 g allowance is 25 yrs old.
25 years is WAY too long. It's high time we change it to some other number. Anybody got some dice we can roll or should we just draw straws to determine who gets to pull whatever he feels like out of his ass - the way Donnell did for his Infallible Weak Link and Quallaby did for their Standard Aerotow Weak Link?
The people that actually tow. Actually pull their freinds into the air.
Like:
- Dave Farkas and Bill Bennett and Mike Del Signore
- Corey Burk and Rob Richardson and unidentified female concussion victim
- Arlan Birkett and Mike Haas
- Gary Solomon and Arlan Birkett and Jeremiah Thompson
- Bobby Bailey and Robin Strid
- Mark Frutiger and Zack Marzec
Actually do this for a living and don't want to kill customers have come up with the current system.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRrpHNa68iY/UQ6Pv9gRZyI/AAAAAAAAjTg/Hc22bx5122Q/s2048/20943781_BG1.jpg
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It is in their best interest to do it right.
And who better to do it right than a bunch of stupid ultralight drivers who declare themselves to be Pilots In Command of our sailplanes.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks
Jim Rooney - 2013/03/04 19:31:36 UTC

The accepted standards and practices changed.
Calling their equipment junk is just insane.
OK. Their equipment is cheap moronic shit. That work for ya?
Calling them irresponsible is just insane.
OK. Let's go with criminally negligent pigfuckers.
Patrick Halfhill - 2009/06/23 23:04:54 UTC

Tad,
if the two pilots involved would have gotten tired of breaking weaklinks and gone and got beer, The young man may still be alive today.
I think you're onto sumpin' there Pat. Let's go the extra mile and really do the job right. Think how much safer all tow operations would be if we took the gasoline out of the equation. We'd have a lot more money for beer and could start on it right away. And maybe limit the slope launch stuff to fifty feet vertical.
The extra weaklinks were a direct cause of the problem.
They only had one weak link, dickhead. Half as many as they were legally required to.
Things have evolved in the last 24 years and the trend seems to be safer now.
And you're a prime example of how a lot of evolution of Homo sapiens has been going backwards fast.
You can be as rude as you want about folding lawn chairs and stuff.
It's a dirty job but somebody...
But it doesn't get around the point. A weaklink is an important part of what we do.
No shit. Focal point of a safe towing system.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27494
The exciting bits
Jim Gaar - 2012/04/27 03:34:28 UTC

We adapt and fly on, lesson learned each time.
Weak-links break! They are supposed to...we are ready for that. It's what we do.
The most important part of what we do.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Jim Rooney - 2011/08/28 19:39:17 UTC

Weak links break for all kinds of reasons.
Some obvious, some not.

The general consensus is the age old adage... "err on the side of caution".

The frustration of a weaklink break is just that, frustration.
And it can be very frustrating for sure. Especially on a good day, which they tend to be. It seems to be a Murphy favourite. You'll be in a long tug line on a stellar day just itching to fly. The stars are all lining up when *bam*, out of nowhere your trip to happy XC land goes up in a flash. Now you've got to hike it all the way back to the back of the line and wait as the "perfect" window drifts on by.

I get it.
It can be a pisser.

But the "other side"... the not cautions one... is not one of frustration, it's one of very real danger.
Better to be frustrated than in a hospital, or worse.
No exaggeration... this is the fire that the "other side" is made of. Best not to play with it.
It's what we live for. And the motherfucker's totally absent from any and all discussions on the 2013/02/02 Zack Marzec inconvenience splattering. Responds in Chris McKeon's:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=28289
Seeking imput from large Pilots

thread six and a half days after impact while the Jack and Davis Show wires are melting down with the Standard Aerotow Weak Link issue.

And has no comment when Davis and many of us suddenly become happy with Tad-O-Links.

http://www.willswing.com/history/robs-page/
Rob's Page - Wills Wing
Image

Rob was a friend to every pilot he met, and his impact on, and contributions to the sport of hang gliding cannot be overstated.
- Being a friend to every pilot one meets automatically means being a mortal enemy to the sport and the handful of decent competent people in it.

- That duplicitous bullshit cover-up report of his was a huge factor in doing massive irreparable damage to the sport, destroying immeasurable hundreds of thousands of hours of peak thermal flying opportunities, making scores of aerotow operations unsustainable, getting thousands of gliders crashed in inconvenience incidents, getting hundreds of people seriously injured and scores killed, handing control of a huge chunk of the sport of hang gliding to dickheaded powered ultralight drivers like Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney.
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Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
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Re: Weak links

Post by Tad Eareckson »

From the 1985/09 magazine issue:
The Best Nationals Ever

Rick Rawlings wins both the 1985 Nationals and becomes the national champion, with the most CPS points for the year.

article and photos by C.J. Sturtevant

No kidding! That seemed to he the almost unanimous opinion of pilots, meet director, and ground crew, about the 1985 National Championships in Chelan. "Who's going to write this up for Hang Gliding magazine?" I asked Walt as we drove out to Reardan on the last Saturday. "You are!" he replied in his official meet director-no arguments voice, Well, as "Head Launch Mama" and assistant to the storekeeper I know how everybody started out and where they ended up each day. Add to those dry facts some of the quotable comments from the pilots' landing forms, and maybe that (indefinable something that made this meet so special will come through for those who couldn't be there.

If ever there was a meet run by amateurs, this was it. Luckily our meet director, Walt Dodge, had years of practice ordering around pilots and ground crew, and our meet organizers Mark Kenworthy and Lee Fisher had lots of experience flying in competitions. Their attention to details kept everything running reasonably smoothly until we newcomers caught on to the system. Each morning pilots and crew would gather at the grassy field by Lakeside Grocery about 9:30, to load gear and gliders on the Uchytil Special Glider Transport Truck (you'll have to see pictures to believe it!) and bodies on the cattle truck, to head up to launch. The first day the pilots started setting up as soon as they arrived on top, before the pilots' meeting. Everyone got a lot of sprinting practice as dust devils whirled across the top of the butte, threatening gliders and carrying off loose bags and clothing. Walt catches on fast; from then on it was meeting first, then set up. That lowered the anxiety level considerably!

The highlight of each morning's meeting was the weather report by Harold Locke, infamous Seattle sailplane and hang glider pilot and expert weather interpreter. Each day he'd call the Ephrata Airport for the latest weather information, explain what all those numbers meant in terms of getting up and going far, and help Walt and the rest of the advisory committee decide on an appropriate task for the day. Harold's forecast was right on each day, and before long he'd earned the title "Dr. Weather." Maybe we Seattle pilots can convince him to do this for us at Tiger, our closest-to-home XC site!

The first day, Saturday, the task was the Wilbur Airport, about 60 miles away by air. Walt sent me and Jean Dawkins -- "a gimp and a pregnant lady," Jean quipped (she's the pregnant lady) -- out there to set up the goal posts. In spite of our total ignorance about what an official goal should look like, we managed to get up the poles and flagging, and put out tarps to make it more visible, before Randy Haney of Canada came streaking across, closely followed by John Pendry of England. The fastest time of the day was Chris Bulger, who flew the 60 miles in 2 hours and 40 minutes; the average time for the 14 finishers was 3 hours and 15 minutes. Those were 14 happy guys out there, sitting in the shade of the tarp and drinking cold beer until the goal closed and the glider truck headed back along the retrieval route. The folks who landed short didn't have it quite so plush; there's not a lot of shade out on the Flats, and even water cooled by high altitude flying warms up in a hurry in the 100 degree sun. At the end of Round I, Chris Bulger was in first place, Randy Haney was second. Rick Rawlings was third just seconds ahead of Joe Greblo, and John Pendry was fifth.

On Sunday, Walt and Dr. Weather decided to send the troops back to Wilbur. Conditions on launch were difficult, to say the least -- light, cross, squirrely wind kept everyone on the hill until almost 2:00. Since Walt had declared the launch window would close at 3:00, those in the back of the line, 24 pilots in all, were unable to get off before the window closed. The goal closed at 6:30, as it had the previous day, but because of the late launches only 13 of the 28 finishers arrived before the closing. Rich Pfeiffer was the first to cross the goal, and John Pendry had the fastest time. Chris Bulger made it within yards of the airport, but was too low to cross the goal line. At the end of round II Randy Haney was in first, John Pendry was second, Joe Greblo third, Steve Moyes fourth, and Bruce Case fifth. Rick Rawlings had dropped to seventh, and Chris was eleventh, right behind Gerry Uchytil, the only Sporting Class competitor to place in the top ten. Matt Wagner and Doug Lawton, who eventually tied for first place in the newly-established Leisure Class, pinpointed their landing as "the Jacuzzi at Campbell's Lodge, cold beer in hand."

Monday's pilots' meeting was long and controversy-filled. Many pilots were concerned about the safety factor when a large number of pilots are forced to leave the hill in a short time to avoid a penalty. Walt solved that by deciding the launch window would remain open until the last pilot launched. Walt also felt he had erred in calling for a 6:30 closing of the goal, and suggested counting all those who made it to the Wilbur Airport as having finished. Quite a number of pilots objected to that, saying that they had altered their flying tactics to make the 6:30 deadline, and had landed short when they could have made goal had they known they had more time. The 6:30 closing time was not changed for Sunday, but alt future closing times were sufficiently generous to assure that no one would fly the distance and arrive too late.

On Monday, Walt and Dr. Weather decided on an out-and-return to Sims Corner and back to the Chelan Airport, a total of about 59 miles. The pylon folks drove out to Sims and set up six white tarps behind a big barn; the pilots were to fly beyond the barn and note the configuration of the tarps, then return to the airport and describe what they saw to the goal timers. This sounded simple as it was explained on launch, but in practice several pilots found it difficult to see the pattern from 11,000'.

Once again Chris Bulger had the fastest time to goal: 2 hours and 15 seconds. Randy Haney held on to his first place position, Bruce Case moved up to second, and Rick Rawlings was in third. Chris's smoking time moved him up to sixth, and Gerry Uchytil continued way out ahead of the rest of the Sporting Class, seventh overall.

Tuesday was, in the estimation of Dr. Weather, a 100-mile day, so the goal was set at Reardan, just over 100 miles away as the glider flies. No one hung around on launch this day; by 12:30 the lemmings were on the move, and the last one had leaped by 1:15. The launch timers rejoiced in the opportunity to free fly or swim, but it was a long, hard day for pilots and goal crew. Kevin Bye, in particular, found it rough going; he and his ProDawn happened upon one of those infamous Chelan "killer thermals," which tumbled the glider and broke the leading edge. Kevin deployed his chute and landed unharmed just north of Almira, about 50 miles out from the butte.

Rick Duncan from Australia was the first to arrive at the Reardan Airport at 5:33, but Chris Bulger once again had the fastest time, making the course in 4 hours and 29 minutes. A total of 9 pilots cross the goal, the first time a 100-mile task had been called and accomplished in a U.S. National Competition. Bruce Case, with a time of 4 hours 55 minutes moved into first place, while Chris had streaked his way back up to second. Rack Rawlings was third, followed by Randy Haney and John Pendry. Gerry Uchytil's consistently strong performance kept him in seventh place overall, still way out ahead of the rest of the Sporting Class. Jeff Huey flew 10 miles and landed along the Waterville Road, "mistaking a tin T-hangar for the airport cafe in Reardan." Mike King, a Leisure Class pilot who signed Jeff's landing form, agreed it was an honest mistake; Jeff probably thought he had streaked out to goal so fast the timers hadn't had a chance to set up the poles and tarps. Luckily no one told these guys this was supposed to be a serious competition!

Wednesday was a "rest day," a chance to sleep in, enjoy the lake, or fly for fun. For most of the pilots and crew, the first order of business was the aerobatics display over the city park. Chris Bulger and Ricky Duncan started the show with a "fly-by" in their trikes. They did some crowd-pleasing maneuvers, then just buzzed around until the gliders launched from the butte. Steve Alford, Randy Haney, Rob Kells, Mitch McAleer and Aaron Swepston awed the spectators with their aerial maneuvers and perfect landings in a small area sprinkled with evergreen trees. Rob, Aaron and Mitch used smoke, which really highlighted their performance. Many of us have stood on the ground shouting, "Loop it! Loop it!," but had never seen a full over-the-top loop before. It was heart-stopping, and beautiful. The event was marred by Chuck Dugan's tree landing (no damage to pilot, broken leading edge on a brand new GZ) and a sail landing (Larry Strom punched a large hole in Mitch's custom glider), but the overall impression was definitely favorable. There were also several gliders set up in the park, an old Standard, a single-surface glider and a Magic IV. The spectators crowded around for a chance to pick up the gliders and hang in the harnesses, and to ask questions about anything and everything. In spite of the landing mishaps, it was a good day for improving the image of our sport.

As most of you know by now, the day ended on a tragic note. Chris Bulger had taken his trike out to the Chelan Airport, and had done several tows during the afternoon and early evening. John Pendry was under tow when he locked out and was unable to release. The "weak link" was perhaps 400 lbs., too strong to break, and apparently Chris's release in the trike did not function properly. It was not until the tow line tore free of John's harness that the two aircraft separated. John was able to regain control of his glider, but the trike tucked and tumbled, and Chris was thrown out several hundred feet above the ground. Without a parachute or helmet, he did not survive the impact.

The 9:30 gathering on Thursday was subdued, and Walt asked us all to join in a moment of silent prayer or meditation in honor of our fallen sky brother. He then announced that there would be no competition that day. A number of pilots objected, feeling that the best way to ease the pain would be by flying, but Walt pointed out that most of the top placing pilots were in no condition to compete. Quite a few pilots opted to fly, others took a quiet day to rest their bodies and their spirits.

On Friday it was business as usual. Walt called a 90-mile task to Davenport Airport, and the first pilot launched shortly after noon. Once again the launch timers could take off for flying or swimming before 3:00, as the pilots hurried to get on their way and catch the best lift out on the Hats. Rick Duncan was the first to arrive at Davenport, closely followed by John Pendry, whose fastest time for the day put him in first place. Bruce Case dropped to second. Rick Rawlings was third, and Ricky Duncan moved up to fourth, Randy Haney landed short of the goal, setting him back to sixth place, and Gerry Chital held on to his seventh place slot. Twenty-three pilots completed the task, and when the goal closed at 8:00, many of them headed for a barbecued ribs dinner in Creston.

Meanwhile, Lawton and Wagner were fighting it out for first place in the leisure Class. Doug's landing slip showed he had a clear understanding of the task: "race to the lake for a cold beer and to chase the 14-year-olds." He recorded his 7,000' altitude gain, and pinpointed his landing at the Chelan junkyard, beside his car. Matt Wagner "did launch from Chelan Butte without a launch time (or assistance) and thermal -- yea verily I did know several thermals and found them chilly. Henceforth, my instincts spake to me. 'Land by the river, my son.' So it was and I was with beer and date before 8:00. And that's the way it is!" We've all been watching and learning from the World Class pilots for years, but perhaps these Leisure Class competitors have some new tricks to teach us!

Saturday it was out to Reardan again, and by 2:15 everyone was on the way. The advisory committee had strongly urged calling the goal at the ribs restaurant in Creston, but Walt would only agree to a compromise; the task was Reardan, but Walt would buy the first round of beers for an all-you-can-eat ribs dinner at Creston, Mike Daily, Keith Lamb and Hen Davidson obviously misunderstood, and landed within a stone's throw of the restaurant, about 20 miles short of goal. Randy Haney had some time to make up, and covered the 100 miles in 4 hours and 6 minutes, arriving at the goal before the meet director. Luckily the goal timers were there to provide cold beer, shade and company while he hung around waiting for some other pilots to join him. Randy's best time of the day moved him up to fourth place, Rick Rawlings took first place. John Pendry was second, Bruce Case dropped to third, and Gerry Uchytil moved up to fifth. Rob Kells arrived at the goal ecstatic -- his first 100-mile (light! Rob Kells is one of those famous pilots with zillions of flights and competitions. If our meet offered him something new, that's pretty significant!

Meanwhile, back at the butte, Dan Morrisson was having "one of those days." First, with incredible skill and daring, he buzzed the Wuffo Rock at about two feet but was unable to grab a single wuff, or even a hat. He then landed in "his" field, just below the butte by the river, stepped in two cowpies, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to extort landing fees from other pilots who were not "regulars" at that field. Some days you just can't win!

Sunday, the final day, Walt called a repeat of the Sims Corner to Chelan Airport out and return task. This would get everybody back in the area in time for the awards ceremony Sunday evening. Launch conditions were once again squirrely and difficult, and no one got off before 1:15. Instead of the usual nose-to-tail lemming rush, there were several minutes between launches as the pilots waited for a decent wind to launch into at a time when those out in front were not sinking into oblivion. Gerry Uchytil ended up last in line, and broke a downtube on a stuffed launch. "You don't even have to fly today to take first in the Sporting Class," Walt pointed out, but Gerry said, "There are four other guys ahead of me!," and borrowed a glider and was on his way.

About 4:00 we. heard via CB radio that a glider was under canopy out by Mansfield. Alegra Davidson's ProDawn had been tumbled in a dust devil several thousand feet above the Flats, she had lost hold of her control bar and was unable to regain it so she threw her chute. Unfortunately, because she was tumbling, the lanyard wrapped around her upper body, breaking five of her ribs and essentially tying her fast to her glider. When she landed the keel did some serious damage to her foot, and she was taken by ambulance to the Chelan Hospital. She was tranferred. to Wenatchee, and about a week after the meet ended she flew home to Connecticut for surgery on her foot.

Instead of visually noting the arrangement of tarps behind the barn as on the previous Sims Corner task, the pilots this time had to photograph a row of silos from the east side, proving that they had flown past the turnpoint.. Over half the pilots made it out to Sims Corner and part way back, but a head wind and some cirrus clouds that Dr. Weather had not predicted put many on the ground between Sims and the rim of the gorge. Only Randy Haney and Rick Duncan made it all the way back to the airport; we at the goal could see quite a few gliders circling above the rim, but they were unable to get high enough to make goal before the clouds shut everything off. Rick Rawlings landed with John Pendry less than a mile short; all Rick had to do was stick with John ail the way to the ground to stay ahead, and that's what he did. Randy's completion did not give him enough points to move ahead of Bruce Case, who landed at the top of McNeil Canyon, so the final standings are:

Place - Pilot
- Class - Glider

1st - Rick Rawlings
- World - HP
2nd - John Pendry
- World - Magic IV
3rd - Bruce Case
- World - HP
4th - Randy Haney
- World - Magic IV
5th - Rick Duncan
- World - GTR
6th - Gerry Uchytil
- Sporting - Magic III
7th - Rich Pfeiffer
- World - Sensor
8th - Kevin Christopherson
- World - Mystic
9th - Joe Greblo
- World - Mystic
10th - Lee Fisher
- World - Magic IV
11th - Steve Moyes
- Sporting - GTR
12th - Rich Sauer
- World - Magic III
13th - John Woiwode
- Sporting - Magic IV

The awards ceremony was held at the Chelan Airport Sunday evening. All available diver rigs had been out scouring the Flats for downed pilots, and scorekeeper George Sturtevant was able to compute the final standings by 8:00. The etched glass trophies, set on a table against a background of mountains and evening clouds, were truly impressive. Two cans of Bud sitting beside the trophies looked like clutter someone had neglected to remove, but Walt soon demonstrated their significance, these were the trophies for Matt Wagner and Doug Lawton, winners of the newly-established Leisure Class. Dr. Weather was awarded a Nats T-shirt signed by ail the pilots, there were hugs and applause for the ground crew, the Sporting and World Class trophies were awarded, Rick Rawlings look home a second trophy as the National Champion (most CPS points) of 1985. a meteor streaked across the darkening sky, and the best Nationals ever came to an official end.

What made this meet such a success? The site, of course. Chelan Butte gave us 10 days of consistently excellent flying conditions. Harold "Dr. Weather" Locke's expert weather interpretation was a major contribution; without his input Walt would have had difficulty calling a task that was possible and appropriately challenging. Walt made it all come together. He had the experience we organizers lacked at the beginning, and the intelligence and sensitivity to deal with problems in a way that left everyone reasonably satisfied. George Sturtevant, the man with the computer, kept refining the scoring program (with some expert advice from Mark Kenworthy) until by Friday he could crank out the standings in less than two hours. But probably most of all it was the pilots, wonderful people all to work with. These were serious competitors who, in spite of the intensity of the competition, took the time to thank the support crew, express their appreciation to the locals, pick up their litter, put a little humor in their landing forms. and in general make us Chelan regulars feel like they were grateful for our efforts and had the same fondness for this site that we do. I've always felt the warmth and affection among our Northwest flying family, and after this meet I know that family extends all across the country, in fact all over the world. I'm sure I speak for all the meet organizers and ground crew when 1 say we learned immeasurably from this experience, and loved it!

Will we do it again? You bet!! Just give us some time to rest up and rehydrate, and we'll be ready to start putting together a Chelan happening for next summer. It was a lot of work, but worth every minute.
--
Illustrations:

Gerry Uchytil about to make the last launch on the last day of the Nationals.

Illustration by George Sturtevant
http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4733/27236982469_f7d121e4f6_o.png
Image
1985 U.S. NATIONAL HANG GLIDING CHAMPIONSHIP GOALS AND TURNPOINTS

TOP: Steve Moyes comes in for a landing at the Reardan goal. ABOVE: Loading up the Uchytil Special Glider Transport Truck.

The awards ceremony. Meet director Walt Dodge (right) officiates while "Dr. Weather" Harold Locke is presented with a signed T-shirt.

Rick Rawlings
Note - In the DVD archive the pages are out of order and sequenced: 27 28 30 29 31
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Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: Weak links

Post by Tad Eareckson »

C.J. Sturtevant - 1985/09

The Best Nationals Ever

What made this meet such a success?
Here, lemme give it a shot...

1985/07/16
Kevin Bye, in particular, found it rough going; he and his ProDawn happened upon one of those infamous Chelan "killer thermals," which tumbled the glider and broke the leading edge. Kevin deployed his chute and landed unharmed just north of Almira, about 50 miles out from the butte.
1985/07/17
The event was marred by Chuck Dugan's tree landing (no damage to pilot, broken leading edge on a brand new GZ) and a sail landing (Larry Strom punched a large hole in Mitch's custom glider), but the overall impression was definitely favorable.

As most of you know by now, the day ended on a tragic note. Chris Bulger had taken his trike out to the Chelan Airport, and had done several tows during the afternoon and early evening. John Pendry was under tow when he locked out and was unable to release. The "weak link" was perhaps 400 lbs., too strong to break, and apparently Chris's release in the trike did not function properly. It was not until the tow line tore free of John's harness that the two aircraft separated. John was able to regain control of his glider, but the trike tucked and tumbled, and Chris was thrown out several hundred feet above the ground. Without a parachute or helmet, he did not survive the impact.
1985/07/21
Gerry Uchytil ended up last in line, and broke a downtube on a stuffed launch.

About 4:00 we. heard via CB radio that a glider was under canopy out by Mansfield. Alegra Davidson's ProDawn had been tumbled in a dust devil several thousand feet above the Flats, she had lost hold of her control bar and was unable to regain it so she threw her chute. Unfortunately, because she was tumbling, the lanyard wrapped around her upper body, breaking five of her ribs and essentially tying her fast to her glider. When she landed the keel did some serious damage to her foot, and she was taken by ambulance to the Chelan Hospital. She was tranferred. to Wenatchee, and about a week after the meet ended she flew home to Connecticut for surgery on her foot.
Kinda makes one wonder a bit what the worst Nationals ever were like.
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Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: Weak links

Post by Tad Eareckson »

C.J. Sturtevant - 1985/09

As most of you know by now, the day ended on a tragic note. Chris Bulger had taken his trike out to the Chelan Airport, and had done several tows during the afternoon and early evening.
Early evening. Rob reports it as late in the afternoon. And...
Many of us have stood on the ground shouting, "Loop it! Loop it!," but had never seen a full over-the-top loop before. It was heart-stopping, and beautiful.
You were there. He wasn't. Not really a discrepency of any significance but it does put us on really solid ground regarding the glassiness of the air in which John blew the safe weak link highly likely on the tow immediately preceding the fatal one.
John Pendry was under tow when he locked out and was unable to release.
- As opposed to not being under tow over an airport when he locked out.

- He DID NOT lock out and it wasn't the glider that turned off the heading.

- There's NOTHING in Rob's report about him even intending to release at any point or having a reason to until things had gone irretrievably south.

- If he HAD locked out or had BEEN locked out he wouldn't have needed to release. The tension goes through the ceiling pretty fast and something between the tug and glider is gonna blow pretty soon. (And he'd have had tons of altitude so it wouldn't have been an issue.)

- The estimate in the report is that they were between 1.0 and 1.5 thousand feet. So the only way one would know whether or not he was trying and unable to release would be from a statement from him.

-- Rob clearly reports that he was in recovery mode when things went critical and never had any intention of releasing. And that adds up 'cause it's what we would expect and consistent with everything else we have on the event.

-- And you're telling us that he was trying but unable. If there:

--- is no truth to that you're misinformed, mistaken, or lying

--- IS truth to that one wonders way Rob spent so much ink on the failure of the trike's release and not a whisper about why the glider's release was inoperable

You guys need to do a much better job of getting your stories straight before you go to press. There's one or two of us glider people out here who know how to read.
The "weak link" was perhaps 400 lbs....
Is "perhaps" still the best we can do?
...too strong to break...
Didn't you just tell it that the "weak link" was perhaps 400 pounds? Doesn't that tell us that it will break at perhaps 400 pounds?
...and apparently Chris's release in the trike did not function properly.
Apparently? It was obviously scrap metal before it hit the ground.
It was not until the tow line...
Bridle.
...tore free of John's harness that the two aircraft separated.
- One of them wasn't an aircraft anymore.
- So there very obviously was a point in that fiasco when John really wanted to release but couldn't afford to make the easy reach.
John was able to regain control of his glider...
Funny. In Rob's report we never heard a single syllable about him losing control of his glider at any point in this incident. I'm guessing he was probably using BOTH hands to control his glider as best he could throughout this incident.
...but the trike tucked and tumbled, and Chris was thrown out several hundred feet above the ground. Without a parachute or helmet, he did not survive the impact.
No shit. Too bad he didn't have a helmet.

Anybody notice the conspicuous absence of any comment anywhere ever from the single individual astronomically better qualified to report on this one than anyone else present or not that evening? Does that seem the tiniest bit natural? What kinda smell do we get from that?

In this 1985/09 magazine issue..

Page 06
UFDATE

CHRIS BULGER, MASTERS OF HANG GLIDING CHAMPION, DIES IN WASHINGTON STATE
photo by Hugh Morton

GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, NC --

The hang gliding community in North Carolina and surrounding states has been shocked and saddened by the death of Chris Bulger, 20, on July 17 in Chelan, Washington. Bulger, whose residence changed during the past year from Mercer Island, WA, to Destin, FL, was piloting an ultralight while towing another hang glider pilot when equipment failure caused the fatal accident. Bulger was the 1983 United States Hang Gliding Champion, and was winner of the most recent Master of Hang Gliding Championships at Grandfather Mountain in 1983 and 1984.

Bulger was a member of the United States Hang Gliding Team at the World Hang Gliding Championships in 1981, 1983, and 1985, and was a member of the United States team competing in the American Cup Hang Gliding Championship in Great Britain in 1982. At age 17 in 1982, he was the youngest pilot ever to compete in the Masters of Hang Gliding Championship at Grandfather Mountain.

Paying tribute to Bulger, 1984 U.S. National Hang Gliding Champion Stewart Smith of Grandfather Mountain said, "Chris was a warm, friendly and extremely popular pilot whom everyone here will miss for years to come. He was without question one of the best hang glider pilots in the world."
Pages 08-09
Accident Report
--Chris Bulger--
by Rob Kells
Pages 27-31
The Best Nationals Ever
by C.J. Sturtevant
Page 33
RATINGS AND APPOINTMENTS
MASTER RATINGS
Chris Bulger - Seattle, Washington - Master - Steve Hawxhurst - Region 1
I'm sure I met Stewart Smith with a small group of locals on top of Potato Hill, in easy sight of Grandfather Mountain, on 1982/06/17, the morning after I'd made my first mountain flight the previous afternoon. Had camped out with fellow Kitty Hawk Kites Instructor Lawrence Battaille (who hadn't flown). Stew would make 1984 US National Champion in 1984 and buy it at the Masters comp at Grandfather 1986/09/05 in a landing crash.

Very sad all this. Seems like several lifetimes ago.
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Tad Eareckson
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Re: Weak links

Post by Tad Eareckson »

Dennis Pagen - 2005/01

SUMMER 2004 ACCIDENT REPORTS

Recently two unrelated hang gliding accidents occurred in Europe, which may have some lessons for us. I had flown with and knew both pilots. My descriptions and analysis are based on eyewitness reports in the first case and the fact that I witnessed and talked at great length to the pilot as well as examined the wreckage in the second case.

FATAL TOWING ACCIDENT

The first accident occurred in Germany at an aerotowing competition. The pilot launched with his Litespeed and climbed to about 40 feet when he encountered a thermal that lifted him well above the tug. After a few moments, the glider was seen to move to the side and rapidly turn nose down to fly into the ground, still on tow, in a classic lockout maneuver. The impact was fatal.

Analysis

This pilot was a good up-and-coming competition pilot. He had been in my cross-country course three years ago, and this was his second year of competition. What happened to him is not too unusual or mysterious. He encountered so much lift that although he was pulling in the base bar as far as he could, he did not have enough pitch-down control to get the nose down and return to proper position behind the tug. This situation is known as an over-the-top lockout.

I am personally familiar with such a problem, because it happened to me at a meet in Texas. Soon after lift-off the trike tug and I were hit by the mother of all thermals. Since I was much lighter, I rocketed up well above the tug, while the very experienced tug pilot, Neal Harris, said he was also lifted more than he had ever been in his heavy trike. I pulled in all the way, but could see that I wasn't going to come down unless something changed. I hung on and resisted the tendency to roll to the side with as strong a roll input as I could, given that the bar was at my knees. I didn't want to release, because I was so close to the ground and I knew that the glider would be in a compromised attitude. In addition, there were hangars and trees on the left, which is the way the glider was tending. By the time we gained about 60 feet I could no longer hold the glider centered--I was probably at a 20-degree bank--so I quickly released before the lockout to the side progressed. The glider instantly whipped to the side in a wingover maneuver. I cleared the buildings, but came very close to the ground at the bottom of the wingover. I leveled out and landed.

Analyzing my incident made me realize that had I released earlier I probably would have hit the ground at high speed at a steep angle. The result may have been similar to that of the pilot in Germany. The normal procedure for a tow pilot, when the hang glider gets too high, is to release in order to avoid the forces from the glider pulling the tug nose-down into a dangerous dive. This dangerous dive is what happened when Chris Bulger (U.S. team pilot) was towing John Pendry (former world champion) years ago. The release failed to operate in this case, and Chris was fatally injured. However Neal kept me on line until I had enough ground clearance, and I believe he saved me from injury by doing so. I gave him a heart-felt thank you.

The pilot in the accident under discussion was an aerodynamic engineer. He had altered his glider by lengthening the front cables and shortening the rear cables to move his base tube back. The amount was reportedly 10 centimeters, or about 4 inches. This is well within the acceptable range, according to Gerolf Heinrichs, the Litespeed designer. Why the pilot altered his bar position in this manner is anyone's guess, but my guess is that it was because he felt the bar was too far out on the glider with the VG off. This Litespeed was the pilot's first topless glider and I expect he wasn't informed that most of the new topless gliders experience a great movement of the base tube as the VG is pulled through its range. The result is that the bar is so far out and the pitch pressure so strong that with the VG off, that the standard procedure is to take off and land with at least 1/4 VG. If the pilot didn't know this he would have been tempted to move the bar.

Factors that attributed to the accident in various degrees were the pilot's experience, the conditions and the alteration of the base tube. To begin, he wasn't greatly experienced in aerotowing, although he had learned and spent much of his flying with surface tow. It is difficult to assess the effect of the turbulence, but suffice it to say that it was strong enough to project him upward, well above the tug. Finally, the alteration of the basetube position could have been a contributing factor because he certainly would have had more pitch authority if he hadn't done that. It is impossible to tell, but perhaps the thermal that lifted him would not have done so as severely if he had had a bit more pitch travel.

What We Can Learn

To begin, alteration of our gliders should not be done without full agreement and guidance from the factory or their trained representatives. Even with such approval, be aware that the factory might not know how you will be using your equipment. Changing the pitch range of a glider is a fairly serious matter and should only be done with full understanding of all the effects.

Secondly, over-the-top lockouts are not frequent, but common enough in big-air towing that tow pilots should all have a plan to deal with them. Think about this: When we are lifted well above the tug, the tow system forces becomes similar to surface towing, with the limit of tow force only being the weak link. The susceptibility to a lockout is increased in this situation.

My experience leads me to believe that a strong thermal hitting when low can push you vertically upwards or sideways before you have time to react. If this happens when I am low, I fight it as hard as I can until I have clearance to release safely. If I am high above the tug, I stay on line with the bar pulled in as far as possible and keep myself centered if at all possible. I fully expect the tug pilot to release from his end if necessary for safety, but in the case of a malfunction, I would release before endangering the tug.

We are taught to release at the first sign of trouble, and I fully support that general policy, but in some cases, the trouble happens so fast and is so powerful that a release low would have severe consequences. In my case, I was instantly high above the tug with a strong turn tendency and a release at that point would have been ugly. The main point for us to understand is that we must gain our experience in gradually increasing challenges so we can respond correctly when faced with different emergencies. It should be made clear again that a weak link will not prevent lockouts and a hook knife is useless in such a situation, for the second you reach for it you are in a compromised attitude.

Thirdly, experienced pilots should be aware that towing only from the shoulders reduces the effective pull-in available to prevent an over-the-top lockout. Like many pilots, I prefer the freedom of towing from the shoulders, but I am aware that I must react quicker to pitch excursion. Sometimes reactions aren't quick enough and emergency procedures must be followed. It seems to me that we shouldn't be overly eager to encourage lower airtime pilots to adopt this more advanced method of aerotowing. Normally, we tow topless gliders with about 1/3 VG pulled to lighten pitch forces and increase speed. Intermediate gliders are often towed as much as 1/2 VG pulled for the same reasons. Pilots must understand these matters when aerotowing.

Finally, I think it is appropriate to remind all dealers, instructors and pilots in general to inform their customers and friends that the new topless gliders exhibit the notable bar movement with VG travel as explained above. As such, it is normal to take off and land with 1/4 VG on in order to place the bar in a position to roll easier and to reduce the pitch pressure. It is much easier to maintain safe control speed with the VG pulled 1/4.
* * *
Joe Gregor

In both of these accidents there is room for interpretation. In the first case, the ideas of experienced aerotow pilots and tug pilots are welcome in order to better define the proper procedures in different incipient lockout situations. Certainly my experience indicates that tug and glider pilots must operate in combination to maximize the survivability and minimize the dangers to both individuals. Only communication will establish the best procedures. In the second accident, the cause in not definitely established. We welcome other inputs from those knowledgeable in such matters, either due to having had similar experiences or knowing the UP Speed's characteristics.

[The mechanism by which a lockout occurs is not clearly understood by this investigator. What is clear, however, is that the practice of towing a delta-wing aircraft using a powered ultralight creates a dynamically unstable system. The pilot being towed must respond with a continuous series of control inputs in order to maintain a stable attitude while on tow. Experienced aerotow pilots make these numerous small inputs without thought. Move out of position far enough, however, and the required control forces can rapidly exceed the pilot's ability to correct. At this point, the situation will worsen as time moves on. If you, as the pilot, feel that you are able to release from a bad situation while still maintaining aircraft control, you should do so. If you feel that a controlled release is unlikely--due to the control forces being experienced, and the release system being used--you should strive to maintain stability while gaining sufficient altitude to recover from any post-release unusual attitude that may be experienced. -- JAG]
The first accident occurred in Germany at an aerotowing competition. The pilot...
It would kill you to give us his name? Location? Date? Whatsamattah? Doing your best to shield the identity of the tug driver who pulled him all the way to his death on impact / didn't release him when things started going south and things could've been survivable?
...launched with his Litespeed and climbed to about 40 feet when he encountered a thermal that lifted him well above the tug. After a few moments, the glider was seen to move to the side...
Which one?
...and rapidly turn nose down to fly into the ground, still on tow...
Why was he still on tow?

- Probably wouldn't have made any difference in this one but being still on tow at that point certainly wouldn't have done him any good. And there were people on both ends of that string with the alleged ability to dump the line. And neither of them did. And this isn't worth addressing? We don't even need to know what the glider was using for a release?

- Guess they must've...
Towing Aloft - 1998/01

Three recent aerotowing accidents have occurred--one fatal. The common thread in all three was a lockout and the use of a much too heavy weak link. Tandem gliders are much less responsive than smaller gliders and the pilot in command often has a less than ideal position on the control bar. The situation shouldn't be compromised by an over-strength weak link.
...compromised the situation with a much too heavy weak link, huh Dennis?

Obviously a weak link broke on impact and allowed the tug to fly away without a care in the world. And obviously this should've been an important component of the report. But this motherfucker knows he can't afford to draw too much attention to the focal point of a safe towing system in this one.

Two mentions of the focal point of a safe towing system in this one:
When we are lifted well above the tug, the tow system forces becomes similar to surface towing, with the limit of tow force only being the weak link. The susceptibility to a lockout is increased in this situation.
The obvious implication being that that's a good thing. That's all we've got going for us to prevent or at least limit the severity of the lockout.
It should be made clear again that a weak link will not prevent lockouts and a hook knife is useless in such a situation, for the second you reach for it you are in a compromised attitude.
Again, he can't say it won't prevent a lockout 'cause he's talking about a fatal incident in which even the insanely light DHV mandated aerotowing weak link didn't. So it's just harmless at worst here. Even more harmless than your hook knife 'cause the whole idea of a hang gliding weak link is to function as a release you don't have to easily reach for.
...in a classic lockout maneuver.
A lockout isn't a "MANEUVER" - asshole. The root word is manus/hand and the implication is that it's something one is doing deliberately. A lockout is the overwhelming by misaligned tow forces of anything you can do with your hands. It's like a tumbling down the staircase maneuver.
The impact was fatal.
Must not have been using an appropriate weak link with a finished length of 1.5 inches or less. An appropriate weak link with a finished length of 1.5 inches or less will break before you can get into too much trouble.
Analysis

This pilot was a good up-and-coming competition pilot.
Yeah, name somebody who isn't.
He had been in my cross-country course three years ago, and this was his second year of competition. What happened to him is not too unusual or mysterious.
Really? Is it described and dealt with in the excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden?
He encountered so much lift that although he was pulling in the base bar as far as he could, he did not have enough pitch-down control to get the nose down and return to proper position behind the tug.
Probably the same thing happened with John Pendry and Chris Bulger. 'Cept it was glassy smooth early evening air and the only "lift" the glider was getting was developed from the thrust provided by the tug and couldn't be countered 'cause they were using a pro toad bridle.

Speaking of which... Wanna tell us at this point what he was using for a bridle? Just kidding.
This situation is known as an over-the-top lockout.
Yeah? I checked the excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden and couldn't find anything about it.
I am personally familiar with such a problem, because it happened to me at a meet in Texas.
What meet? When? It wasn't worth reporting at the time? Was it something not worth discussing in your XC clinics? Might this guy still be alive if you had? Did you refund this next of kin the clinic fee?
Soon after lift-off the trike tug and I were hit by the mother of all thermals.
So I guess nobody had bothered to set streamers up along the runway.
Since I was much lighter, I rocketed up well above the tug...
Yeah Dennis. That's why you rocketed up well above the tug - because you were much lighter. Nothing to do with wing loading, pitch control authority. Tell me how once the two planes are in the same air mass they know what they're supposed to do, how they can tell the difference between lift, sink, stable.
...while the very experienced tug pilot...
Name one who isn't.
...Neal Harris, said he was also lifted more than he had ever been in his heavy trike.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec
Mark Frutiger - 2013/02/09 02:31:37 UTC

The turbulance level was strong, among the strongest thermal activity I've felt leaving the field. I've encountered stronger mechanical mixing, but the vertical velocity this time was very strong.
I pulled in all the way, but could see that I wasn't going to come down unless something changed.
Why? 'Cause of your stupid, cheap, illegal pro toad bridle?
I hung on and resisted the tendency to roll...
Yes. Resisted the tendency to roll. "Fought the roll" wouldn't have worked.
...to the side...
As opposed to a roll to the front. You get paid by the word for this crap, dontchya Dennis?
...with as strong a roll input as I could...
Good thinking.
...given that the bar was at my knees.
Like THIS:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meaneyman/130742003/
Image

you mean?
I didn't want to release, because I was so close to the ground and I knew that the glider would be in a compromised attitude.
- Clever you. I shudder to think what would've happened if one of us muppets had been in that situation.
- Is there anything you didn't want your weak link to do at that point - asshole?
In addition, there were hangars and trees on the left, which is the way the glider was tending.
- Care to say anything about what would've happened if you'd made the easy reach to your pro toad bent pin barrel release when you were so close to the ground and knew that the glider would be in a compromised attitude?

- Compromised attitude, tending... Obnoxious pseudo intellectual crap from someone fundamentally stupid enough to have gotten himself...
What happened to him is not too unusual or mysterious.
...into that situation in the first place.
By the time we gained about 60 feet...
You both gained about 60 feet? I thought the glider was going up faster than the tug because the former was so much lighter than latter.
I could no longer hold the glider centered--I was probably at a 20-degree bank--so I quickly released before the lockout to the side progressed. The glider instantly whipped to the side in a wingover maneuver.
- Whoa! Sounds like you should've released more "quickly"!

- Why didn't you just wait a second longer for your Standard Aerotow Weak Link to very clearly provide protection from excessive angles of attack, high bank turns and the like for that form of towing?
I cleared the buildings, but came very close to the ground at the bottom of the wingover. I leveled out and landed.
So you...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9Ek9_lFeSII/UZ4KuB0MUSI/AAAAAAAAGyU/eWfhGo4QeqY/s1024/GOPR5278.JPG
Image
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Xh_NfnOcUns/UZ4Lm0HvXnI/AAAAAAAAGyk/0PlgrHfc__M/s1024/GOPR5279.JPG

...LUCKED OUT.
Analyzing my incident made me realize that had I released earlier I probably would have hit the ground at high speed at a steep angle.
Oh. You used your superior intellect to ANALYZE your incident. About three days later after you'd fed the track log and meteorological data into Watson and let it run for fifteen or twenty minutes. I got news for ya, Dennis... Most of us muppets are doing this in the small fractions of seconds we have available to react at the time.
The result may have been similar to that of the pilot in Germany.
Or tons of others like it over the decades - only a very small fraction of which are low enough to matter.
The normal procedure for a tow pilot, when the hang glider gets too high, is to release in order to avoid the forces from the glider pulling the tug nose-down into a dangerous dive.
How the fuck do you know what the "NORMAL" procedure is? And why should we have bullshit like this going on frequently enough to be talking about "NORMAL" procedures? This one was about a foot shy of fatal and it was gotten into by nothing but negligence and incompetence. And if that's the best you motherfuckers can do nobody should be doing it.

Furthermore this is absolute total bullshit. Never in the history of hang glider aerotowing has a tug even begun to get pulled nose-down into a dangerous dive.

Image

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec
Mark Frutiger - 2013/02/08 19:12:21 UTC

Zack hit the lift a few seconds after I did. He was high and to the right of the tug and was out of my mirror when the weak ling broke. The load on the tug was not excessive as with a lockout, but I was not surprised when the weak link broke.
That's the single most extreme, perfect storm incident from the history of the sport. Pro toad blasted up into a whipstall, probable tail slide, and fatal tumble from 150 feet. And the fuckin' tug hardly notices anything going on. Not a word about having to pull a centimeter back on the stick.
This dangerous dive is what happened when Chris Bulger (U.S. team pilot) was towing John Pendry (former world champion) years ago.
Suck my dick, Dennis. There isn't one syllable in the official u$hPa report about a dive of any kind. It was ENTIRELY about a TUMBLE. And there has never been shit in the way of an explanation about the only part of this flight that really mattered - how the trike got into the tumble. Also if or how the glider got high. Also note that that one was over a thousand feet up in late day glass air.

The glider was probably slow and high 'cause the tug was fast and John was flying pro toad. But at worst that would've nosed it down and sped it up a little. Tumbles are consequences of STALLS. And STALLS are consequences of flying too SLOW.

P.S. My first aerotow was 1986/08/01 at Robinson Private Airport on the Patuxent River on my Comet 165 behind the same trike tug with John Leak at the wheel using the same bridle and release configuration. It was a BITCH to try and hold the glider down and the more up you got the more up you got. By 900 feet I was looking close to straight down at the top of the wing and pinned off. And John wasn't the LEAST BIT fazed.
The release failed to operate...
Failed to OPERATE. I didn't think releases were supposed to OPERATE. I thought the pilots were supposed to OPERATE them. (Gawd what a nauseating pretentious writing style.)
...in this case...
- What release? Aren't we supposed to have them at BOTH ends of the string? Did both releases fail to operate in this case or if just one failed to operate why did the guy with the good one fail to defuse this deadly sequence of events?

- Why?

- The piece o' shit they were using on the trike would've failed to operate in just about any case. Did the problem ever get fixed or did we just address it with half G weak links?
...and Chris was fatally injured.
No he wasn't. He was fatally splattered right in front of most of the 1985 US Nationals crowd.
However Neal kept me on line until I had enough ground clearance, and I believe he saved me from injury by doing so.
Good ol' Neal. Saved you from "injury" - rather than from being splattered.
I gave him a heart-felt thank you.
- Really? I thought we were supposed to...
Towing Aloft - 1998/01

Pro Tip: Always thank the tug pilot for intentionally releasing you, even if you feel you could have ridden it out. He should be given a vote of confidence that he made a good decision in the interest of your safety.
...always thank the tug pilot for intentionally releasing us, even if we feel we could have ridden it out. He should be given a vote of confidence that he made a good decision in the interest of our safety. Shouldn't you have called him an incompetent dickhead to lessen the chances of him making another poor decision regarding the safety of a future hapless pilot?

- So did you address any of this not too unusual or mysterious crap in a second edition of the excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden? Or have you just been continuing to set people up for the same fatal injuries in the same not too unusual or mysterious situations in the near thirteen years since this report?

- Also Dennis... I haven't heard you cite anything from your personal experience regarding a tug pilot having made a good decision in your favor. And just looking at my own experience, observations, research think this scenario is statistically or totally nonexistent. Just about all of what we have are random Infallible Weak Link pops and those NEVER increase the safety of the towing operation.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRrpHNa68iY/UQ6Pv9gRZyI/AAAAAAAAjTg/Hc22bx5122Q/s2048/20943781_BG1.jpg
Image

Not the slightest indication that he ever even heard of that one.
The pilot in the accident under discussion was an aerodynamic engineer. He had altered his glider by lengthening the front cables and shortening the rear cables to move his base tube back. The amount was reportedly 10 centimeters, or about 4 inches. This is well within the acceptable range, according to Gerolf Heinrichs, the Litespeed designer.
Fuck Gerolf Heinrichs. If the glider wasn't certified with the bar four inches back it's not within any acceptable range. Pulling a glider pro toad also decertifies the crap out of it. And then there's the issue of trying to fly it one-handed while one makes the easy reach to his easily reachable Industry Standard release in an emergency situation.
Why the pilot altered his bar position in this manner is anyone's guess...
'Cause all other aspects of hang glider and hang glider towing engineering had been maxed out a decade before and this was all that was left.
...but my guess is that it was because he felt the bar was too far out on the glider with the VG off.
- Yeah, he probably thought he wouldn't be able the fly the glider slowly enough with the bar so far out with the VG off. And the thought of adjusting his hang point forward to trim the glider faster never occurred to him.

- What do you guess he felt about the bar position when he was pro towing?
This Litespeed was the pilot's first topless glider and I expect he wasn't informed that most of the new topless gliders experience a great movement of the base tube as the VG is pulled through its range. The result is that the bar is so far out and the pitch pressure so strong that with the VG off, that the standard procedure is to take off and land with at least 1/4 VG. If the pilot didn't know this he would have been tempted to move the bar.
Good move.
Factors that attributed...
Do you know what that word means?
...to the accident in various degrees were the pilot's experience...
Yeah? What did he do wrong with what he had to work with? You said:
He encountered so much lift that although he was pulling in the base bar as far as he could...
If he'd had more experience would he have been pulling in the base bar even farther than he could?
...the conditions...
Ya think?
...and the alteration of the base tube.
The basetube wasn't altered. The control frame was angled aft.
To begin, he wasn't greatly experienced in aerotowing...
Which is relevant how? What did or didn't he do upon which experience would've had a bearing?
...although he had learned and spent much of his flying with surface tow. It is difficult to assess the effect of the turbulence, but suffice it to say that it was strong enough to project him upward, well above the tug.
Strong TURBULENCE doesn't PROJECT one upward, well above the tug. LIFT does.
Finally, the alteration of the basetube position could have been a contributing factor because he certainly would have had more pitch authority if he hadn't done that.
Ya think? Or maybe he just didn't have the experience he needed to be able to fully stuff the bar when his glider rocketed up.
It is impossible to tell, but perhaps the thermal that lifted him would not have done so as severely if he had had a bit more pitch travel.
Suck my dick.
What We Can Learn
Yeah, there's always something for "US" to learn from these. No fuckin' way we should understand all this forward and backward before we get signed off on our AT rating.
To begin, alteration of our gliders should not be done without full agreement and guidance from the factory or their trained representatives.
You mean the manufacturers who brought us the floating keel to enhance our roll control authority and designs its gliders for foot launched soaring flight and not to be motorized, tethered, or towed?
Even with such approval, be aware that the factory might not know how you will be using your equipment.
What are the possibilities, Dennis?
Changing the pitch range of a glider is a fairly serious matter and should only be done with full understanding of all the effects.
Oh, thank you so much for informing us of this. No telling how many of us would've reconfigured our flying wires to alter the bar position otherwise.
Secondly, over-the-top lockouts are not frequent, but common enough in big-air towing...
You mean the kind of towing we're all gearing and hoping for every time we head out to the airport?
...that tow pilots should all have a plan to deal with them.
And spend lots of time practicing stuffing the bar all the way back.
Think about this:
You sure you want us thinking while we read this crap?
When we are lifted well above the tug...
It will only be because a thermal got in between us and the tug - almost always at altitude - and we won't be in it for more than several seconds.
...the tow system forces becomes similar to surface towing, with the limit of tow force only being the weak link.
Oh. The weak link. The focal point of our safe towing system. The thing that's most likely to kill us in a pro toad over-the-top lockout situation.
The susceptibility to a lockout is increased in this situation.
Whoa! Good to know! I think I'm gonna start getting serious about staying in position behind the tug now!
My experience leads me to believe that a strong thermal hitting when low can push you vertically upwards or sideways before you have time to react.
Really Dennis? I was led to believe that even without your experience.
If this happens when I am low, I fight it as hard as I can until I have clearance to release safely.
Oh. Release...
I could no longer hold the glider centered--I was probably at a 20-degree bank--so I quickly released before the lockout to the side progressed. The glider instantly whipped to the side in a wingover maneuver.
...SAFELY. You're gonna fight it as hard as you can until you have the glider level, trim, no bar pressure, can afford to fly the glider with one hand while you release with the other. So why not just continue the tow to full altitude at that point?
If I am high above the tug, I stay on line with the bar pulled in as far as possible and keep myself centered if at all possible.
Good thinking. I shudder to imagine the choices I'd have considered in the absence of your wisdom on this subject.
I fully expect the tug pilot to release from his end if necessary for safety...
For SAFETY? If he blows the glider off for any reason and it dies as a consequence, how much was done for SAFETY?
...but in the case of a malfunction...
A malfunction?
- Why should there ever be a malfunction? What's the excuse?
- How the fuck are you planning on knowing whether there's a malfunction or the tug driver is electing to continue the tow?
I would release before endangering the tug.
And then what would you do? Land safely because the release was for safety or get fatally splattered to keep from endangering the tug? Fuck that. The primary responsibilities for the guys in the planes is to keep their own planes safe. And if the operation is halfway competent things will never get twenty percent of the way to the point at which one might feel inclined to make a noble sacrifice. When whatever asshole it was who was pulling Jeff Bohl with his 582 Dragonfly pulled that lever to keep himself from going into the trees he knew what the consequences would be for the glider. But if any competence had been involved in that operation nobody would've gotten halfway close to that situation. Fuckin' waste of time to talk about bullshit like this.
We are taught to release at the first sign of trouble...
And fortunately all of us have enough in the way of piloting skills, instinct, common sense to disregard the total crap we were taught to do when we get into actual situations.
...and I fully support that general policy...
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
...but in some cases, the trouble happens so fast and is so powerful that a release low would have severe consequences.
Oh. So what we were taught was dangerous crap that will get us killed IN SOME CASES. But you FULLY support that GENERAL POLICY. Totally despicable motherfucker.
In my case, I was instantly high above the tug with a strong turn tendency and a release at that point would have been ugly.
But a weak link break at that point would've increased the safety of the towing operation, a mere inconvenience at worst.
The main point for us to understand is that we must gain our experience in gradually increasing challenges so we can respond correctly when faced with different emergencies.
Is that what you did? Started out launching into really mild thermals and gradually worked your way up to the mother of all thermals as your skills increased? Bull fucking shit.
It should be made clear again that a weak link will not prevent lockouts...
- AGAIN? You seemed to make it pretty fucking clear in your bullshit book that it WOULD - for aerotowing at the very least.
- And do make sure not to make the point that if your weak link had increased the safety of the towing operation at the point at which it was most likely to some other total fucking sleazebag u$hPa operative would've been writing the report and bending over backwards to obscure the primary cause of the heartbreaking tragedy.
...and a hook knife is useless in such a situation...
Or in any other towing situation.
...for the second you reach for it you are in a compromised attitude.
You mean like:
By the time we gained about 60 feet I could no longer hold the glider centered--I was probably at a 20-degree bank--so I quickly released before the lockout to the side progressed. The glider instantly whipped to the side in a wingover maneuver.
Exactly the same as when you made the easy reach to your bullshit bent pin pro toad release?
Thirdly, experienced pilots should be aware that towing only from the shoulders reduces the effective pull-in available to prevent an over-the-top lockout.
- Thirdly. We finally get around to mentioning the primary issue in the Chris Bulger / John Pendry and Dennis Pagen near fatal luckout.

- And did anybody notice that this motherfucker didn't even use the word "bridle" anywhere in his report - let alone tell us whether the German fatality was towing one point or two? I think it's a no-brainer that he was towing one 'cause:

-- Just about all toplesses tow one 'cause it's a lot easier (but not safe) to tow toplesses one.

-- He didn't get killed just over the two issues of an unremarkable thermal on launch and a loss of four inches of pitch control range.

-- Dennis wants to make this one all about the glider modification and bury the fact that the freedom of towing from the shoulders decertifies the crap outta the glider and thus isn't even legal under the terms of the AT exemption. EXACTLY the same way he's saying nothing about the lethal potential of his Standard Aerotow Weak Link very clearly providing protection from excessive angles of attack, high bank turns and the like for that form of towing. Even if Dennis wanted to say something about the bridle he wouldn't 'cause he never speaks out against anything that's being done in the sport on a wide scale. His bullshit book is nothing but a commercial tow industry infomercial and there's no fuckin' way he'd be able to change course and come out the tiniest bit intact.

- But you inexperienced pilots don't need to worry about this. This is a pros-only issue.

- No shit...

Image

...Dennis. But first let's make a big fucking deal about the four inches of range he lost with the glider modification.
Like many pilots...
You're not a PILOT, Dennis.
...I prefer the freedom of towing from the shoulders...
The wonderful, INDESCRIBABLE FREEDOM of towing from the shoulders. If you haven't done it, there are no words to convey the feeling. Me... I like the freedom of being able to make my glider do what I want it to, comparable to what I have in free flight; maintain full control when it becomes necessary to disconnect; not have some piece o' shit loop of fishing line make my decisions about when to stay on and get off tow.
...but I am aware that I must react quicker to pitch excursion.
Really?
I am personally familiar with such a problem, because it happened to me at a meet in Texas. Soon after lift-off the trike tug and I were hit by the mother of all thermals. Since I was much lighter, I rocketed up well above the tug, while the very experienced tug pilot, Neal Harris, said he was also lifted more than he had ever been in his heavy trike. I pulled in all the way, but could see that I wasn't going to come down unless something changed. I hung on and resisted the tendency to roll to the side with as strong a roll input as I could, given that the bar was at my knees. I didn't want to release, because I was so close to the ground and I knew that the glider would be in a compromised attitude.
I seem to have missed the part where you didn't react quicker to pitch excursion. Sounds to me like you were just another stupid, freedom loving, pro toad, dope on a rope praying for the focal point of your safe towing system to not increase the safety of the towing operation and avoiding an instant fatal splattering by the thinnest of luck based circumstances.
Sometimes reactions aren't quick enough...
What if we practiced more on our quickness, maybe took quickness enhancing drugs?
...and emergency procedures must be followed.
Quickness at this point no longer being an issue.
It seems to me that we shouldn't be overly eager to encourage lower airtime pilots to adopt this more advanced method of aerotowing.
Nah. Let's leave it to the pros...

37-23223
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The cool righteous stuff dudes who've...

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...been at an around all this plenty long enough to understand what's what and who's who and tend to be pretty hot in the quickness department.
Normally, we tow topless gliders with about 1/3 VG pulled to lighten pitch forces and increase speed. Intermediate gliders are often towed as much as 1/2 VG pulled for the same reasons. Pilots must understand these matters when aerotowing.
Then when they get the fundamentals down they can start thinking about enjoying the freedom of towing from their shoulders for the four minute climb to release altitude.
Finally, I think it is appropriate to remind all dealers, instructors and pilots in general to inform their customers and friends that the new topless gliders exhibit the notable bar movement with VG travel as explained above. As such, it is normal to take off and land with 1/4 VG on in order to place the bar in a position to roll easier and to reduce the pitch pressure. It is much easier to maintain safe control speed with the VG pulled 1/4.
But don't even think about using a two point bridle to totally eliminate the pitch pressure and allow full certified pitch range. What's the point in having a topless if you can't enjoy the freedom of towing from your shoulders?
Joe Gregor

In both of these accidents there is room for interpretation.
This note is inserted in the middle of Dennis's two reports of European incidents. The second was a free flight incident which had absolutely zero relevance to the first or anything relevant to towing.
In the first case, the ideas of experienced aerotow pilots and tug pilots are welcome in order to better define the proper procedures in different incipient lockout situations.
The first real case was Chris Bulger / John Pendry. And it was total fringe activity and the reporting was total bullshit. The same is pretty much true for everything in its wake.
Certainly my experience indicates that tug and glider pilots must operate in combination to maximize the survivability and minimize the dangers to both individuals.
- Wow. That was profound and useful.

- Would those issues include shit like using safe and solid connections between the planes that line up reasonably well with their Centers of Mass/Drag, releases that can be blown while control of the planes is fully maintained, streamers along the runway to warn of thermal and dust devil activity?
Only communication will establish the best procedures.
- Sure. And that communication must be carefully moderated and controlled at all times by commercial interests and u$hPa operatives.
- With a threat of incarceration for individuals violating the best procedures.
[The mechanism by which a lockout occurs is not clearly understood by this investigator.
Then this investigator really isn't up to the job. Which is exactly what u$hPa had in mind when they appointed him.
What is clear, however, is that the practice of towing a delta-wing aircraft using a powered ultralight creates a dynamically unstable system.
Ya think?
The pilot being towed must respond with a continuous series of control inputs in order to maintain a stable attitude while on tow.
What if he's elected to decertify his plane because he prefers the freedom of towing from his shoulders?
Experienced aerotow pilots make these numerous small inputs without thought.
But neither the dead German guy nor the freedom loving American guy and coauthor of the excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden were able to do this. Go figure.
Move out of position far enough, however, and the required control forces can rapidly exceed the pilot's ability to correct.
'Specially if he's one of those freedom loving types.
At this point, the situation will worsen as time moves on. If you, as the pilot, feel that you are able to release from a bad situation while still maintaining aircraft control, you should do so.
Just go ahead and make the easy reach to your Industry Standard release - while still maintaining aircraft control of course.
If you feel that a controlled release is unlikely--due to the control forces being experienced, and the release system being used-
What does the release system being used have to do with anything? Aren't they all equally safe? Would a responsible tug pilot permit you to hook up behind him with anything but the best and highest quality equipment available?
-you should strive to maintain stability while gaining sufficient altitude to recover from any post-release unusual attitude that may be experienced.
Sounds simple enough. Certainly got me sold on the concept. But isn't this all academic? Don't we all fly with weak links which will break before we can get into too much trouble anyway?
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Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: Weak links

Post by Tad Eareckson »

A biggie from the earliest days of Davis's clueless semiliterate rag...

http://ozreport.com/1.007
Bad Day in the Paddock
Davis Straub - 1997/12/27
Hay, New South Wales

This report is about a pilot who got hurt today. If you don't want to read about this or see the photos, then this is the time to stop. I used my camera to get some close shots of the results of a fairly bad accident. There were a good number of people standing about around the victim being useless. Some resented my being there with a camera. They didn't seem to close their eyes though.

Belinda and I, Nicki Hamilton and every one on the Canadian team (other than Roger) went out to the paddock at about 3 PM today (the day before the start of the Australian Nationals). It has been blowing all day (and for the last 3 weeks) at about a steady 15 mph and we saw no reason to go out earlier.

I was there to help Belinda fly if the winds calmed down, but they didn't. After taking a few shots I wandered over to the next lane to get a shot of Tova in her purple lyrca flight suit standing next to Conrad Lotten.

As I took the photo a car drove up and the driver yelled out for Conrad that there had been a bad accident and a pilot had gone in head first about 5 lanes down the paddock. We hadn't seen it. Conrad is an emergency room doctor.

We raced down to the broken glider to find Steve Blenkinsop lying on the ground surrounded by some of his Australian team mates and other pilots. Steve is a top Australian pilot and the Australian dealer for Icaro. His new Laminar ST was lying next to him with the sail ripped and the leading edges and a down tube broken.

Steve was not in good shape. Conrad immediately placed a neck brace on him.

According to witnesses Steve had locked out on tow and dove straight into the ground after getting one wing almost vertical and turning almost backwards to the tow line. It wasn't clear to me if he had released or not or if the weak link broke. What was clear was that the weak link hadn't broken in time and that he hadn't released in time. I'll speculate that as an advanced pilot he was trying to save the tow.

Conrad continued to work with Steve, checking for movement in the hands and arms (he could move them), and eye movement. Conrad noted that one eye didn't track, but that there seemed to be no damage to the eye orbit. This indicated possible internal brain bleeding and pressure on nerves.

Steve suffered significant facial cuts and Conrad tended to these.

An ambulance had been called and showed up quickly. Given the problems with eye co-ordination Conrad called for Steve to be taken to Griffith for a cat scan. Hopefully Medevac'ed from Hay.

I have towed with the Laminar ST and it is quite a handful on tow. It skates about the sky. The same design that makes the Laminar ST very easy to handle in the air makes it also difficult to tow. You have to be on top of it. One day at Forbes last year I had 9 tows in one day on my Laminar ST. I didn't feel that bad towing it, but it is no Falcon.

I have heard the same about the Moyes CSX. Rohan Holtkamp told me after seeing Steve's accident, that he had added a fin to his CSX to help out on tow. I towed a Moyes SX 164 last year and it was rock solid. SX's have a reputation for being solid tow machines. Of course, the Exxtacy rides on rails.

It would seem that if you are towing with a CSX or Laminar ST, you had better be prepared to correct quickly or get off the line as soon as it gets out of hand. Don't try to save it. Also, be light on the weak link. You need that margin of safety. I'm sure glad that mine broke last year.

Davis down under
http://ozreport.com/1.008
Belinda does static tow
Davis Straub - 1997/12/28

We got out to the paddock around 9:30 AM to get Belinda off in calm conditions. The wind died down last night and it never blew more than 5 mph all day. Nikki Hamilton, British ladies champion was out there with us doing tandem flights (hell of a place to do tandems).

With Russell driving, we quickly got Belinda in the air with her sky floating harness. She was a champ, running down the lane and then staying right on the lane in the air. She could work herself into the harness while on tow. After she landed, she said it was easier than aerotowing.

She then went up for another flight, broke a weak link at about 200 feet, and landed just fine.

I helped hold her control bar down just before Belinda launched. With the Hewlett bridle, there is a lot of pressure under the bar, and it is somewhat difficult to hold the glider level if you are not use to this. As soon as you start running you let the nose come up and you keep the nose high on tow. Belinda only had to run a few steps before she was off.

We put the Lionel Space design wing tips on her Wills Super Sport for extra tracking power. The Super Sport was on rails.
http://ozreport.com/1.009
Update on Steve Blenkinsop
Davis Straub - 1997/12/30

Spoke with Conrad Lotten yesterday. He said that Steve didn't suffer in brain damage. Considering that possibility, he is "lucky" to come away with a compound fracture of the jaw and a broken nose.
Day One
Chris Muller, one of our team members, came in eighth.
Day Two
Four tasks were called given the uncertain wind direction, but finally a task was chosen, 130 kilometers to the north, but not as far as Ivanhoe, again along the Cobb Highway.

I was given the opportunity to tow up early this time, as I was last on day one and the rope had broken just before I was scheduled to take off. Roger Nelson made use of the dolly for his launch as the wind continued to switch from south to north.
French Paddock Bombers
Some of the French team were also with us in their rental cars. I noticed that they had taken off their cars' bumpers. They had bolted angle brackets on one of the exposed bumper bolts and attached the tow mechanism (a hydraulic plunger that lets you measure the pressure on the tow line).
---
There were a good number of people standing about around the victim being useless.
The same way everybody involved in that comp had been being prior to the "accident".
Some resented my being there with a camera.
Did you try putting the camera away to find out if it had anything to do with the resentment you were feeling?
According to witnesses Steve had locked out on tow...
As opposed to having locked out not on tow.
...and dove straight into the ground after getting one wing almost vertical...
While the other wing remained reasonably horizontal.
...and turning almost backwards to the tow line.
At which point the lockout was pretty much inevitable.
It wasn't clear to me if he had released or not or if the weak link broke.
Ya know how to make it clear? Check to see whether or not the weak link is broken. (Notice that at this stage of Davis's development "weak link" is still two words.)
What was clear was that the weak link hadn't broken in time and that he hadn't released in time.
- In that order.

- Well, regardless of the issue with the release, another thing that's clear as a bell is a need for faster reacting weak links. But since we have zero information regarding the near lethally sluggish one he was using we really don't have any idea where to begin. But a good starting point would be one that only breaks five out of six times in a row in light morning conditions. And if you have one that breaks all six out six then doubling it should be the proper cost/benefit solution.
I'll speculate...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec
Jim Rooney - 2013/02/28 01:17:55 UTC

Well said Billo
I'm a bit sick of all the armchair experts telling me how my friend died.

Ah but hg'ers get so uppity when you tell them not to speculate.
Jim Rooney - 2013/02/12 18:00:27 UTC

But back to the root of my anger... speculation.
...that as an advanced pilot he was trying to save the tow.
Yeah, probably thought he could fix a bad thing and didn't wanna start over. Got one wing almost vertical, turned almost backwards to the towline, locked out... And was STILL trying to save the tow. I just don't get these advanced pilots. The inexperienced pilots just fail to make any attempt to correct to do the same thing. That's a good bit easier for me to understand.

And I guess his driver was also thinking he'd be able to save the tow if he just maintained the pressure, right Davis? 'Cause there was obviously nothing in the way of timely release from the other end either. Right?

And make sure not to tell us anything about what or who was pulling him, whether it was foot or dolly launched, what cheap crap they were using on the glider for a bridle and release. My guess is that this was a surface tow, foot launched, maybe a payout winch, one point bridle, easily reachable shit release.
I have towed with the Laminar ST and it is quite a handful on tow. It skates about the sky. The same design that makes the Laminar ST very easy to handle in the air makes it also difficult to tow. You have to be on top of it.
And even then it's imperative that you use a Standard Aerotow Weak Link to allow you to walk away from any lockout...

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.
...from 250 and up. Right Davis?
One day at Forbes last year I had 9 tows in one day on my Laminar ST. I didn't feel that bad towing it, but it is no Falcon.
Well I guess Steve just wasn't quite as advanced as you are, Davis. Quite a difference in results over such a minor discrepancy in skills though.

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I have heard the same about the Moyes CSX. Rohan Holtkamp told me after seeing Steve's accident, that he had added a fin to his CSX to help out on tow.
But not a faster acting weak link?

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14903
New Lookout Release--preliminary test
JD Guillemette - 2009/02/13 03:24:15 UTC

Sweeeet!!!! Looks good to me.
I like the bent gate bar, as Marc suggested that should make release force many times less than tow force, if not nearly independant of tow line force.
Nicely done Lookout! Elegant solution!
As in most cases, the simplest designs work best.
Sounds like he's just making things more complex and dangerous when the real solution is so obvious and simple.
It would seem that if you are towing with a CSX or Laminar ST, you had better be prepared to correct quickly or get off the line as soon as it gets out of hand. Don't try to save it.
Catch that, people of varying ages? Correct quickly OR get off the line as soon as it gets out of hand. Since you can't be correcting as you're releasing. And the assumption is that if you release as soon as it gets out of hand you'll be just fine. You're low, on your ear, you'll be kissing three hundred pounds of thrust bye-bye instantly, and you'll be able to level out, rotate to upright, and execute that all important perfectly timed landing flare no problem.
Also, be light on the weak link.
What do ya think, Davis? Maybe a quarter of what Steve was using?
You need that margin of safety.
Fuck yeah! Standing by for you to tell us what Steve was using, why the meet heads were allowing him to use it, what they mandated for everyone in the aftermath.
I'm sure glad that mine broke last year.
And I'm sure glad that Zack Marzec's broke on 2013/02/02. 'Cause that pretty much ended the open spewing of this crap you and your colleagues pulled out of your asses for all those decades.
With Russell driving, we quickly got Belinda in the air with her sky floating harness. She was a champ, running down the lane and then staying right on the lane in the air.
Good thing she was a champ, then. We can reserve the launch dollies for all the muppets who probably shouldn't even be towing anyway.
She could work herself into the harness while on tow.
I so do love doing that. Taking off on a dolly fully kicked into the harness is for fags.
After she landed, she said it was easier than aerotowing.
Why? 'Cause the truck can slow down / reduce the tension enough to make it POSSIBLE to kick into the harness?
She then went up for another flight, broke a weak link at about 200 feet, and landed just fine.
Bummer Steve hadn't been using whatever it was that blew Belinda off when everything was going great.
I helped hold her control bar down just before Belinda launched. With the Hewlett bridle, there is a lot of pressure under the bar, and it is somewhat difficult to hold the glider level if you are not use to this. As soon as you start running you let the nose come up and you keep the nose high on tow.
Jesus H. Christ.
Spoke with Conrad Lotten yesterday. He said that Steve didn't suffer in brain damage.
Can't imagine he wasn't brain damaged before - what with trying to save that tow all the way until impact when heading in the opposite direction.
Chris Muller, one of our team members, came in eighth.
The Chris Muller who will buy it at Quest doing the goodie bag trick on 2005/04/23.
I was given the opportunity to tow up early this time, as I was last on day one and the rope had broken just before I was scheduled to take off.
The rope had broken. Not the weak link that dumped Belinda at two hundred feet in smooth air with everything fine. Really classy operation.
Roger Nelson made use of the dolly for his launch as the wind continued to switch from south to north.
And note the conspicuous absence of any mention of use of a dolly in the obviously violent conditions in which Steve got damn near killed.
They had bolted angle brackets on one of the exposed bumper bolts and attached the tow mechanism (a hydraulic plunger that lets you measure the pressure on the tow line).
To make sure you don't over-pressurize and crush to towline. Glad to see these guys doing things right. And so with this we've confirmed that Steve's ride DIDN'T have a gauge to measure the pressure. Static tow, no observer, guy just hits the gas and hopes/assumes everything's great on the back end. Then we get to listen to the usual crap about faster responding weak links and always releasing from tow before there's a problem.

Prequel to the 2005/01/09 Robin Strid fatality at the same fuckin' place a wee bit over seven years later.

http://ozreport.com/9.008
2005 Worlds
Death in the paddock.

Same total fucking assholes doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. We're just not doing the same things over and over well enough.
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