http://www.rmhpa.org/messageboard/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4258
HG accident in Vancouver
Tom Galvin - 2012/11/05 01:05 UTC
I step through and look at the biner before picking up the glider to ensure that my harness, chute and both straps are connected to it with a locked gate, except at the shore where I do not lock the gate. If conditions are not right, and I set the glider down, then I repeat it when I pick up again. Lift and tug can give a false positive if you are hooked in to something other than your hang strap, or in a situation like this...
I step through and look at the biner before picking up the glider to ensure that my harness, chute and both straps...
The one that has an actual function and the one installed by the manufacturer for the sole purpose of keeping its idiot customers happy.
...are connected to it with a locked gate, except at the shore where I do not lock the gate.
In other words - locking the gate has no actual beneficial function. In the entire history of hang gliding in which untold zillions of hours have been logged at coastal and lakeshore sites at which gates tend to be flown unlocked (due to the drowning issue) there have been ZERO related incidents, problems reported.
Compare/Contrast with:
Fuckin' dime a dozen. And if the main doesn't get it the backup:
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17990
parachute bridle attachment
will. So somebody give me a sane explanation for the reason for using locking carabiners. They make it safer for flying over terra firma but not over water? Over water we're worried about the increased risk of drowning but not the least bit of plummeting several hundred feet to the surface?
If conditions are not right, and I set the glider down, then I repeat it when I pick up again. Lift and tug can give a false positive if you are hooked in to something other than your hang strap, or in a situation like this...
So you're saying that two minutes after you've set the glider down you're unable to remember whether or not you've checked to make sure you're not hooked in to something other than your hang strap or in a situation like:
? In the entire history of hang gliding has there ever been a single report of anyone having done a preflight shortly before stepping onto the ramp and launching hooked into something other than his hang strap or partialled?
And why stop there? Why not check some of the other lethal issues you might have forgotten at preflight in the setup area? Wires, basetube pins, missing nylocks? Why is it ONLY the suspension and connection issues - the ones that SHOULD BE *FRESHEST* in your memory and foremost in your list of priorities - that concern you?
And how come after you've launched you're one hundred percent positive that everything's one hundred percent solid? Your memory is total shit in the seconds, minute prior to launch but so fuckin' bulletproof from the moment you initiate your first step on that you NEVER feel any need whatsoever to (re)check ANYTHING?
You've been up for five minutes and you're a thousand feet over in smooth ridge lift. Why not check for one of those issues you cited? Call it a partial. You can climb up into the control frame and fix it and if it lets go before you've got things secured you're in excellent shape to get your chute out. But NOT ONE of you INSTRUCTOR motherfuckers has EVER suggested ANY such post-launch procedures/precautions.
And that is a smoking gun LOGICAL CONTRADICTION.
Can't do a lift and tug JUST PRIOR TO LAUNCH 'cause you might have omitted something critically important / committed something incredibly stupid that lift and tug won't catch and get a false sense of security. But once you've started moving on the ramp you're fuckin' GOLDEN until next weekend.
And DON'T EVEN *THINK" about telling me that you assholes don't teach post launch checks because they'd be...
Luen Miller - 1994/11
After a short flight the pilot carried his glider back up a slope to relaunch. The wind was "about ten miles per hour or so, blowing straight in." Just before launch he reached back to make sure his carabiner was locked. A "crosswind" blew through, his right wing lifted, and before he was able to react he was gusted sixty feet to the left side of launch into a pile of "nasty-looking rocks." He suffered a compound fracture (bone sticking out through the skin) of his upper right leg. "Rookie mistake cost me my job and my summer. I have a lot of medical bills and will be on crutches for about five months."
...too dangerous. This is another really valuable weapon we can use to gut these sonsabitches.
P.S. Hey Luen... If the launch situation was so critical that this asshole suffered these consequences as a result of him not being able to "react"...
Dennis Pagen - 2005/01
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.
..."quickly" enough then just how advisable was it for him to be launching unassisted - whether or not he'd done his idiot check of his idiot carabiner locking mechanism?