2016/04/03 Tres Pinos fatality

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27217
Bad Launch!

Ryan Voight - 2012/09/26 14:23:55 UTC

Running to the right = weight shift to the right.

It's all about what the glider feels. Running to the right pulls the hang loop to the right, just like when you weight shift at 3,000 ft. Glider doesn't know or care what means you used to pull the hang loop to the right.

Oh really?

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069-25104-reversed

Tell me how the glider knows the difference between a right pull generated by a Dragonfly pulling a pilot to the right and one generated by a pilot running to the right.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34243
Fatal HG crash in Tres Pinos CA 4-3-2016

Ryan Voight - 2016/04/06 22:08:19 UTC

Does the tow operator instinctively try to "pull" the student back on course with the winch- which actually would do the opposite, accelerating them into deeper trouble.

He does if he buys into the moronic shit you post on the u$hPa operatives forums.

And further note:

By holding on to the cart, the added weight of the cart and with weight shift, I tried to get the right wing down and get the glider back in line with the tow.

Got the tug shifting his weight under the high wing and he's muscling his own weight plus what he can of the cart's to the same place and...

The desired result never happened. The glider continued to turn left...

... it STILL doesn't end well - and nobody's terribly surprised by the moderately catastrophic results. So go ahead, Ryan Instant-Hands-Free-Release Voight... Give us muppets the theory to help us understand what is and isn't happening on that one.

Or, since your now socially extinct li'l expert on everything buddy tells us that hang gliders operate independent of theory, give us your OPINION on why things turn out the way they do - with both a glider and "pilot" who won't be airworthy again for a while.

[<BS>]

Nancy Tachiban, novice

http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=26715
Re: Rethinking towing

Her name was Nancy Tachibana. She would have been 45 this year. As avidly as she enjoyed hang-gliding, as certain as she was and confident in those whom she entrusted with her training, there was very little she could have done differently on Sunday, April 3rd. Except perhaps go home after her 3rd successful tow that day. From the description of the accident, it happened quickly. Whether she turned away from the line and locked out, as has been put forth, seems entirely possible. But so does the notion that the release mechanisms failed.

It is my hope that organizations like USHPA do better to stay impartial and do proper investigations. In this case, they did not. And even went so far as to cover up and destroy as much as they could in order to save hang-gliding from a black eye. I would point out that Nancy got a hell of a lot worse than a black eye. When she plummeted to the ground she was going an estimated 35-40mph and landed head first, herniating her brain into her spinal column. The helmet made it out just fine. She was brain dead instantly; 41 years of life and love....gone in an instant. She was kept alive by machines for one more day so that family and friends could say their goodbyes. If proper safety measures were in place, checked, double-checked, triple-checked even, then it's very possible that Nancy would still be here.

From what I gather on these forums, towing is frowned upon, for the most part. If someone is to be trained in hang-gliding, then according to what I've read, towing is the last thing they should be doing. Nancy held an H1 rating; not a total beginner, but far from being an expert. She had only begun flying solo, without being in tandem with a trainer. Going forward from this tragedy, I would hope that people who love to hang-glide continue to do so. And that those who teach it treasure the lives of their students as if they were their own kids. An ounce of experience goes a long way. Unlike when you're on the ground, when you're in the air, you get zero screw-ups. This is something I could never do myself. But Nancy, ever the thrill seeker, absolutely loved it. If there isn't a way to make towing a safer activity, then it should be accessible only to the experts.

[Tad Eareckson]

2020/12/17 11:45:00 UTC - This and the following post moved here (where they belong) from the "instructors and other qualified pilot fiends" topic.

http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3722
Nancy Tachibana's accident at Mission Soaring

Lin Lyons - 2020/12/07 06:47:43 UTC

I trained at Mission Soaring in Tres Pinos. There were lots of critical comments on that thread, which in my experience, are not warranted. There was a comment that "she should be learning tandem." I'd had over 100 hill flights before I started towing. At Funston, I remember hearing a comment that "Pat Denevan's students always have good landings." Yes. They do lots of flights on the 30' + 40' hills before they get to tow. On the first tow, Pat attaches the tow rope, and runs and pulls you to get you off the ground. After that, when he uses the winch, you get higher in small steps. I had several tows before I was 50' off the ground. When I was being towed, the operator watched me, and slacked off the power if I got out of line, or higher than they thought was appropriate at my level.

I think that towing is safer than, for example, going to Ed Levin where the options are the 50' hill, and then the 300' hill. When you launch from the 300' hill, you'll be up in the air, and flying is all up to you. No one can see that you're in trouble and get you lower. When towing, you get up 20', then 30', then 40', in steps, with the tow operator watching to see you're flying right. You get tasks, making 45° turns, after the tow release, and getting straight again. Then 90°, etc. After many flights -- a couple dozen or more, you're allowed to turn 360° and land closer to the launch.

When we start flying, we're told that there is an element of danger to it. Nobody thinks that it's perfectly safe. I had to toss my parachute when, after dozens of tows, I attached my my tow line incorrectly. Scott Howard was at the top of his tow, with dozens of tows under his belt, when he released the tow with too much pressure on it and tumbled. I knew Raffi, who crashed at Funston. And Chris Carrillo who drowned off Devils Slide, trying to fly down to Half Moon Bay. There is some inherent danger to hang gliding. That's the price of the feeling to be up in the air, like a bird, looking down at the world.

Given my druthers, if I was starting today, I'd most certainly go back to Mission Soaring. I don't feel that I was ever put into a situation that I would not be expected to handle.

I trained at Mission Soaring in Tres Pinos.

Yeah, you're world famous for having trained at Mission Soaring in Tres Pinos.

There were lots of critical comments on that thread...

What thread? I'm guessing:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34243
Fatal HG crash in Tres Pinos CA 4-3-2016

But that's in the "Incident Reports" subforum - which your local coffee shop owner put off limits to everyone without the ability to log into his local coffee shop. Any comment on that?

...which in my experience, are not warranted.

What does your experience have to do with the issue of a comment being unwarranted?

There was a comment that "she should be learning tandem."

No there wasn't. I searched through all seventeen pages for "tandem" and anything matching that sentiment to a reasonable degree. If somebody said something then identify him and document it.

I'd had over 100 hill flights before I started towing. At Funston, I remember hearing a comment that "Pat Denevan's students always have good landings."

Total bullshit. A foot landing - which is all hang gliding instructors teach - by definition is crap. And getting away with them is based on circumstances and luck.

Yes. They do lots of flights on the 30' + 40' hills before they get to tow. On the first tow, Pat attaches the tow rope, and runs and pulls you to get you off the ground.

I guess Pat's determined that Steve Wendt's scooter tow approach is a total load o' crap. Better let Wills Wing know so's they know they need to pull the video and issue a major advisory.

After that, when he uses the winch, you get higher in small steps. I had several tows before I was 50' off the ground.

What's the worst that could happen? Maybe we could get an opinion from Tomas Banevicius.

When I was being towed, the operator watched me, and slacked off the power...

Slacked off power? Wouldn't it be much safer if he instantly chopped it? That's how the focal point of our safe towing system functions and we all know that the absolute worst possible outcome we can experience is an inconvenience. Also... Pat puts people up with Birrenators. Can't one of those do a pretty good job of taking the slacking off the power option off the table?

...if I got out of line...

Why wouldn't you just release? Or do you need TWO hands to fly the glider when things start getting a bit iffy?

...or higher than they thought was appropriate at my level.

Oh. So YOU're thinking it's OK but THEY're thinking otherwise. Why should there be a discrepancy? If this were downhill skiing shouldn't you be able to evaluate your own capabilities and limits?

I think that towing is safer than, for example, going to Ed Levin where the options are the 50' hill, and then the 300' hill.

Thank you very much for your opinion. Got any data or anecdotal evidence to support it?

When you launch from the 300' hill, you'll be up in the air, and flying is all up to you.

Yeah, I kinda like things that way. Always have.

No one can see that you're in trouble...

Example?

...and get you lower.

Thank God. In aviation when you start getting in trouble you certainly don't wanna be maintaining or - perish the thought - GAINING altitude.

When towing, you get up 20', then 30', then 40', in steps, with the tow operator watching to see you're flying right.

Examples of when you're not? Preferably on video.

You get tasks, making 45° turns, after the tow release, and getting straight again. Then 90°, etc. After many flights -- a couple dozen or more, you're allowed to turn 360° and land closer to the launch.

Who are the people who - if left to their own devices - would wanna push into situations beyond their abilities?

When we start flying, we're told that there is an element of danger to it.

Damn good thing, too. If we weren't told that there is an element of danger to flying we'd have no fuckin' clue and the level carnage that would result would be totally unimaginable.

Nobody thinks that it's perfectly safe.

Pretty close to it. If you look for incident reports in the magazine and/or u$hPa's website you'll find they're close to nonexistent.

I had to toss my parachute when, after dozens of tows, I attached my my tow line incorrectly.

Your Your release was overly complicated. Three-string towline tension step-down mechanism. Mission solved that problem by switching to two-string. Hard to imagine why they were stupid enough to be using three-string all those years in the first place. And I'm rather surprised that Karl Allmendinger didn't get that situation properly addressed right after he came on board at Mission.

Scott Howard was at the top of his tow, with dozens of tows under his belt, when he released the tow with too much pressure on it and tumbled.

Wow! That sounds a lot like what happened at Quest on 2013/02/02!

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.

Ah but hg'ers get so uppity when you tell them not to speculate.

Mystery finally solved! (Anybody got current contacts for Paul and/or Lauren?)

I knew Raffi, who crashed at Funston.

Rafi Lavin had his aircraft fall apart on him under 1.1 Gs of loading right off of launch 'cause he couldn't be bothered to simulate higher loading in the setup area. So does Mission teach the relevant procedure? Or are they too concerned about work hardening their wires and/or grinding them into sharp rocks? I'm gonna assume the latter 'cause none of those motherfuckers has ever bothered to weigh in on any Jack Show threads.

And Chris Carrillo who drowned off Devils Slide, trying to fly down to Half Moon Bay.

Guess that was because he had really crappy instruction and didn't appreciate the danger of going down in the ocean or surf.

There is some inherent danger to hang gliding. That's the price of the feeling to be up in the air, like a bird, looking down at the world.

You don't wanna be looking too far down. The higher you are the further you have to fall. Nancy learned that the hard way.

Given my druthers, if I was starting today, I'd most certainly go back to Mission Soaring.

If I were starting today and understood what I do now... I wouldn't go anywhere NEAR this abortion of a sport and the crud that controls and populates it.

I don't feel that I was ever put into a situation that I would not be expected to handle.

Course not...

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HUGE safety margins on that one. And a list of redundancies way to long to include in this post.

Steve tipped me off to this one 2020/12/09 00:38:26 UTC while I was buried a mile deep in the Steve Young project.

Posted on The Bob Show over two and a half days ago and not a whisper of acknowledgement from anyone. They're probably all tied up trying to get all those fraudulent votes thrown out so they can continue Making America Great Again at an ever accelerating speed.
---
2020/12/12 04:30:00 UTC

Just discovered Bob's relocated this one to:
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2434&p=29345
Blog Forum
Rethinking towing

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3722
Nancy Tachibana's accident at Mission Soaring

Lin Lyons - 2020/12/07 06:47:43 UTC

When I was being towed, the operator watched me, and slacked off the power if I got out of line, or higher than they thought was appropriate at my level.

What you did while you were being towed wasn't the problem and totally slacking off the power wouldn't have prevented you from getting terminally pile driven if you hadn't gotten your chute out and open in time. It wasn't in the air that the operator really needed to watch you. It was during prep for the flight that you needed to be watched. Actually, all the motherfucker needed to do and should've done was check your work, preflight the goddam configuration before hitting the gas. And he was negligent as hell in failing to do that.

This WILL happen at any halfway competent operation...

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The tug's 250 feet upwind so he can't do much but there's virtually always a crew guy or two looking things over to ensure that everything's at least moderately airworthy.

At mountain sites devoid of commercial or organized interests this happens. People instinctively check each other for unsecured battens, twisted suspension elements, open zippers... And sometimes they catch shit that really matters - like dangling carabiners. And most of us know what a properly hooked up three-string looks like.

And you were a goddam Hang Two STUDENT and product of their commercial operation. That was WAY more Harold Johnson's negligent fuckup than it was yours. That was ENTIRELY Mission's as far as I'm concerned. And one fuckup like that should no way in hell have been the near deal breaker it turned out to be.

When we start flying, we're told that there is an element of danger to it.

Like Russian Roulette. Do it enough times and you're gonna lose.

Nobody thinks that it's perfectly safe.

Bullshit. If anybody thinks the flight isn't gonna be at least as safe as the drive to the site he has no business leaving the ground. The airlines do it and there's no excuse for us performing south of what they do.

I had to toss my parachute when, after dozens of tows, I attached my tow line incorrectly.

Tell me how that had anything to do with flying. If you'd been a Four with a hundred hours and all the merit badges what bearing would that have had on your ability to properly hook up a three-string?

Scott Howard was at the top of his tow, with dozens of tows under his belt, when he released the tow with too much pressure on it and tumbled.

So that's all he did wrong - released the tow with too much pressure on it. If a defective splice near his end of the line had failed we'd have had the some catastrophic and near fatal outcome. He'd have been doing everything flawlessly as far as the actual flying was concerned and it wouldn't have mattered. That's EXACTLY what we saw after Hang Four Tandem Aerotow Instructor Zack Marzec elected to continue his tow into that monster thermal with his pro toad bridle and Standard Aerotow Weak Link. Dead man flying. Didn't have shit to do with his experience or skills.

I knew Raffi, who crashed at Funston.

Why are we bringing him up in a topic that's supposed to be about student level flying skills?

And Chris Carrillo who drowned off Devils Slide, trying to fly down to Half Moon Bay.

Not a flying incident. He was fine when and shortly after he landed. This was an inability to breathe underwater incident. At some point prior he pushed his luck a bit too much shooting for some distance or duration goal. And very shortly afterwards he knew it and had a pretty good understanding of what the outcome would be.

There is some inherent danger to hang gliding.

Like what? You haven't come anywhere close to citing a partially decent example.

That's the price of the feeling to be up in the air, like a bird, looking down at the world.

BULLSHIT. And as far as I'm concerned nobody with a mindset like that has any business being up in the air. Or maybe try wingsuiting. Seems like those guys are always seeing how close they can come shooting over the outcropping.

Given my druthers, if I was starting today, I'd most certainly go back to Mission Soaring.

And maybe stay on as instructor.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27396
Scooter tow faillure... or Never Land On Your Face

Mitch Shipley - 2012/10/22 19:04:16 UTC

We engage in a sport that has risk and that is part of the attraction.

Seems like you have the right mindset, attitude for an operation like that. (And we're still waiting for Mitch to come back and tell us all how much more attraction he's feeling for the sport now.)

I don't feel that I was ever put into a situation that I would not be expected to handle.

You most assuredly were. But that's not a mistake you'd ever in a million years make again. And now what you're saying contradicts what you said in the last two paragraphs of the previous paragraph.

We need to stay in situations we KNOW we can handle no matter what at all times. And precious little of that is dependent upon flying skills much north of solid Two level shit.

Rewind to Jean Lake 2015/03/27, shoot Kelly, swap in a solid tow trained Two, properly equip everybody, do a couple straight practice drills with the driver, everybody goes home healthy and happy.

[Tad Eareckson]

Eleven days now and no response to / acknowledgement of Lin's post - by ANYBODY (left) on The Bob Show. Both his and Nancy Tachibana's Tres Pinos / Mission incidents were of MAJOR historical importance for US hang gliding and this prolonged deafening silence on that rag screams volumes about just how much in the way of substance Bob has left.

I'm one hundred percent positive that Lin originally posted as a response at:

http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2434
Rethinking towing

'cause Nancy's 2016/04/03 incident was Rick's trigger for launching the thread and Lin wasn't posting down in Bob's Basement "New Users Forum" - 'cause that's all he had access to - and referencing the topic Bob moved him back to after he was auto-bounced. And thanks bigtime for that bullshit, Bob. Really makes things fun for others who care to follow and comment on what very little you have going on over there. (And in case you haven't noticed - there's nobody anywhere else on the planet commenting on what very little you have going on over there. The local coffee shop owner running the worlds largest hang gliding community has outlawed all such references and there's nothing happening on Davis and Greblo. (And on the latter a serious unhooked launch incident appeared briefly then vanished without a trace - 'cept for here.))

That topic and the arrogance, cluelessness, stupidity of the douchebag who launched it infuriates me beyond description. Mike Lake dealt with him over there pretty well and I was dealing with him over here in this thread but a bit more needs to be said.

Rick Masters - 2016/04/12 01:02:41 UTC

My research on towing clearly indicates the practice is one of the most dangerous things one can do on a hang glider.
A lot of people blame this on weight shift.
Weight shift certainly aggravates the problem but an awful lot of sailplane fatalities are also towing accidents, so there's more to it.
Essentially, the way I see it is towing may have its place as a last resort - for instance, where there are no hills within a couple hours drive.
Maybe advanced pilots can accept the risk, but I think they do it too easily.
Novices in training? H1s?? Hell, no.
Who talks a novice into towing? Commercial instructoes withtow operations, for the most part. There is a lot of money in it.
Who else benefits from tow training?
Why in the world are instructors training novices with towing equipment when training hills are within reach?

What this asshole is saying is that there are immutable risks of fatality associated with slope and tow launched hang glider flights and for the former it's X and for the latter - due to all the associated complexities - it's 12X. After three people rack up a total of 12X tow flights one of them's gonna be dead - and there's NOTHING we can do to lower that rate. (Likewise for the slope launchers. Even less room for improvement anywhere on that front.)

And let's just ignore the FACT that a mountain flyer is thirty times more likely to get totaled than an AT park flyer and just look at the tow launch incidents.

Was anything that happened with either of the last two fatals at Quest a big fuckin' surprise? Did Challenger blow and Columbia burn up 'cause - even though everyone was doing everything as right as possible - space launches and re-entries are inherently dangerous? Every mission we're just rolling dice?

Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974

"A bad flyer won't hurt a pin man but a bad pin man can kill a flyer." - Bill Bennett
"Never take your hands off the bar." - Tom Peghiny
"The greatest dangers are a rope break or a premature release." - Richard Johnson

But then half a dozen years later Donnell came around and got everything properly sorted out.
- There was:
-- no such thing as a bad pin man, just crappy pilots. (Most of them using stronglinks trying to trade off safety for the sake of convenience.)
-- absolutely no disadvantage to taking a hand off the bar 'cause we had a center of mass bridle that would continuously autocorrect for roll.
- The only problem with rope breaks and premature releases was that they weren't premature enough. And all we had to do was install a one G max Infallible Weak Link which would keep us from getting into too much trouble and guarantee a safe recovery.

And you were all totally on board with all that crap 'cause you did all this extensive research on hang glider towing and found nothing wrong with any of it. Also nothing wrong with Seventies era towing 'cause you had no criticism of that either. Towing is towing ferchrisake. No matter how things are being conducted your extensive research on towing clearly indicates THE practice is one of the most dangerous things one can do on a hang glider. Right up there with not getting your flare timing properly perfected prior to getting signed off on your Two.

Reminds me a lot of:

Towing Aloft - 1998/01

Weak links very clearly will provide protection from excessive angles of attack, high bank turns and the like for this form of towing.

Rick Masters - 2016/04/13 02:57:39 UTC

To understand my thinking, you need to know that I am a purist.

And just imagine where this sport would be without people understanding your thinking and level of purity. I don't give a rat's ass whether or not people understand my thinking or level of purity...

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=939
Weak link breaks?

Dan Tomlinson - 2005/08/31 00:33:01 UTC

Tad's post is difficult to read but I've seen his work. His release mechanism is elegant in its simplicity and effectiveness.

Scott Wilkinson - 2005/08/31 11:47:53 UTC

Tad's point of view is irrelevant to me--there's no intelligent reason to ignore his work if it is superior to what we're all currently using. (The sport would never improve if everyone thought "if it ain't broke, don't fix it.")

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13132
Unhooked Death Again - Change our Methods Now?

JBBenson - 2009/01/25 16:27:19 UTC

I get what Tad is saying, but it took some translation:
HANG CHECK is part of the preflight, to verify that all the harness lines etc. are straight.
HOOK-IN CHECK is to verify connection to the glider five seconds before takeoff.
They are separate actions, neither interchangeable nor meant to replace one another. They are not two ways to do the same thing.

http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=929
Training Manual Comments / Contribution

Bill Cummings - 2012/01/10 14:04:59 UTC

Tad's procedures for aerotowing should become part of any training manual.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31781
Another hang check lesson

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http://www.energykitesystems.net/Lift/hgh/TadEareckson/FTHI.pdf

Aeronautics is all about Newtonian physics and if we need to start understanding a particular individual's thinking on any particular issue we're doing religion. And that's totally fine with all you dickheaded purists.

I believe hang gliding in its purest form involves footlaunching off mountains.

Yeah, you're so fucking pure that you've never been within five hundred miles of a major tow operation. You learned everything you really needed to about tow launches from flying in the Owens forty years ago. Perish the thought that you should ever once hop on a truck tow platform or AT cart in sled conditions and taint yourself with a milligram's worth of actual experience. Then all us tow launchers would have no one pure enough to tell us what a bunch of totally clueless dickheads we are for spending our weekends at Ridgely and leaving cobwebs growing all over the High Rock ramp.

And by the way...



Hang gliding didn't evolve from or through footlaunching off mountains. And I'd maintain that it went substantially backwards when it took that route. (And towing went substantially backwards when Hewett got involved and established it...

Donnell Hewett - 1980/12

Skyting requires the use of an infallible weak link to place an absolute upper limit to the towline tension in the unlikely event that everything else fails.

Now I've heard the argument that "Weak links always break at the worst possible time, when the glider is climbing hard in a near stall situation," and that "More people have been injured because of a weak link than saved by one."

Donnell Hewett - 1982/09

In addition to the above mentioned roll and yaw tendancies, there is some sideways force on the pilot due to the body line. This is illustrated below:



As can be seen, this sideways force tends to pull the pilot over to the correct side to make the glider turn naturally in the proper direction.

...as a branch of his religion.)

Yeah, we can agree that paragliders DO collapse in thermal turbulence and when this happens low enough there won't be enough time for either recovery or a parachute deployment. So let's say there's a defective reserve in circulation that requires an extra three seconds to inflate. You see a PG guy about to launch with one. Do you say NOTHING 'cause paragliders are twelve times as likely to get one killed as a mountain launched hang glider and your purity prevents you from saying or doing anything to dial things down a notch or two?

Nancy didn't get killed 'cause Mission lured her off the training hill so's they could make megabucks hauling her up off the flats on a line. Nancy got killed 'cause the Mission guys are incompetent douchebags using total shit state-of-the-art equipment and procedures.

I didn't start towing - as a Three skilled Two and Kitty Hawk dune instructor at the tail end of the era when the connection was glider-only - 'cause any commercial instructoes withtow operations talked me into it. I started towing 'cause we had a Yarnall winch and I was champing at the bit to get airborne in as many venues by as many means as possible. And I was having a BLAST doing all that.

Rick Masters - 2016/04/12 20:04:03 UTC

I am not calling for no towing, ever.

Who gives a rat's ass - one way or another - what you feel like calling for? What credentials are you supposed to have to be establishing or recommending policy for anyone else?

Advanced, experienced, skilled pilots can evaluate the risk.

Advanced, experienced, skilled pilots can go fuck themselves. Bo Hagewood and Zack Marzec were advanced, experienced, skilled pilots and neither ended up in very good shape - the former on multiple occasions. Jeff Bohl was an advanced experienced skilled Hang Four AT comp and ace airline pilot. And none of that did him any good 'cause he tried to launch with several marginal issues in play on total crap equipment and made a small mistake with a duration of under a second that would otherwise have been a total nonissue.

You don't need to be advanced, experienced, skilled for anything that matters much in this sport. You need solid Two level COMPETENCE. And a COMPETENT pilot doesn't EVALUATE risk - he DOESN'T TAKE risks. "Well, there's only a one percent chance of me locking out and slamming in on this launch 'cause I'm really advanced, experienced, skilled. Let's GO FOR IT!" You don't make it through a good weekend without killing someone working on that model. And every actual competent pilot knows that and your last sentence tells us all how you fit into this picture.

I fit that description...

No shit. To a fuckin' T.

...and I have chosen never to tow.

Also to never fly for the past four decades. And never been so much as scratched in a flying incident within that period - a record which most of us muppets can only dream of matching.

Others who I respect choose to tow pretty regularly.

1. Which end? Dave Farkas, Corey Burk, Gary Solomon, Bobby Bailey, Tex Forrest, Lisa Kain, Mark Frutiger, April Mackin have all done fairly well for themselves over the years. Really surprising 'cause for every launch one of us muppets makes the front enders must do a couple hundred. And they're the Pilots In Command so have two planes to fly each launch.

2. Can we get a list of the others whom you respect? I want to add them to my list of those I don't - in the unlikely event they're not already on it.

They figure they can deal with whatever goes wrong.

Go fuck yourself. They all bloody well know they won't be able to do shit on their total crap excuses for equipment. And I know that even with the best engineered equipment on the planet (which I had to design and build myself) I won't be able to deal with "whatever goes wrong". And the reason that - even with total crap equipment - the launch crash rate (excluding Standard Aerotow Weak Link inconveniences) is so close to zero that it's not worth talking about the difference is because the environment is so ultra safe.

Tug driver plus two man launch crew - neither of whom is performing a function any more critical than signaling the tug to floor it.

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Before we've even reached this point:

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about seven seconds since commencement of roll we're virtually bulletproof. We prone out on the cart, grab the hold-downs, signal the tug, stay pulled in a little, wait till the glider trims and we get tons of airspeed, nose up a little and lose the cart. Tell me how one manages to fuck that up - preferably with the inclusion of a video illustration.

We each look at the same thing and come to different decisions.

Then someone to everyone is wrong - and probably stupid.

Nobody who thinks the way I do has ever been killed towing.

Implying that individuals who think the way you do HAVE BEEN killed in mountain launch incidents. And I can name one of them: 1982/07/31 - Bob Dunn - Plowshare Mountain - unhooked launch. Don't see many of those at platform and AT ops.

But an awful lot of people who think the opposite are no longer around.

Name them. Show us how right they were doing everything but got killed anyway 'cause towing is such an inherently and insanely dangerous means of getting a hang glider airborne.

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Anybody who doesn't recognize that launch environment as several hundred times more dangerous than what one has at ANY AT op has total shit for brains.