Re: Quest Air 2018 - state of the art AT
Posted: 2018/04/28 19:25:12 UTC
Could be. And The Pilot agreed to sharing information with the u$hPa safety coordinator for the purpose of improving safety in the sport of hang gliding, so I expect we'll be knowing for sure any day now. (Nice catch. And hard to look at that picture without thinking about what could've happened if the nose had centerpunched the back of The Pilot's neck.)
As I've noted via a PS in (what is now) the first post in this topic, I killed Thursday and then some doing an overhaul of the five photo archive posts. Mostly a handful of new stills (we're now up to 240) - some of them moderately important - with the consequential major pain-in-the-ass reshuffling of the catalog numbers.
Continuing discussion of this Task 3 launch (it's gonna take a book) let's start by backing up to the practice day launch...
Glider starts rolling at 011013.
011-011132
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/841/40764763775_4bcc9f4234_o.png
At:
014-011626
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/859/39848402450_e73383f8e6_o.png
the tug's rolled right wing high and almost certainly fully airborne. And at:
015-011750
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/870/40798783115_8af7ef525f_o.png
it's fully airborne without the slightest question. Seven and a half seconds max. If it goes from zero to thirty air/ground speed (no headwind) instantaneously it's eaten up about a football field's worth of runway. But it's not going from zero to thirty and we know there's a headwind 'cause otherwise they wouldn't be using the east/west (north up) runway:
so considerably less. And this shorter runway is two thousand feet.
Fast forward to Task 3.
098-081525
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/848/40764728235_52a7ab23f0_o.png
Note tug shadow in upper left corner:
107-082146
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/826/40979594944_efe3905ef1_o.png
It's HUGELY airborne a bit under nineteen seconds into forward motion.
108-082225
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/909/40764724035_5d85f1e424_o.png
East / Far side up (reasonably consistent with what the camera's seeing)...
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7400/26585605333_8144a67215_o.png
...three thousand foot runway. About a second shy of the end of the sequence:
133-084721
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/940/39848323990_cfbda65d84_o.png
Motherfucker STILL has runway to burn. Reasonably safe to say that the shadow's the same distance down the runway that the tug is so he still has a couple football fields (including the two pairs of end zones) going to waste.
Wallaby...
029-040943
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/899/39848395430_0dbf7618d1_o.png
Up to a couple thousand feet plus. Lockout...
http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4309/35947543512_536c23cfac_o.png
01-0001
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5610/15517297799_15c3437578_o.png
02-1228
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3940/15517777168_cc124ac594_o.png
03-1703
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5606/15518351500_8d9b474a65_o.png
04-1817
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3956/15083816823_06a6ea6c34_o.png
05-1928
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7486/15517296939_114b538a97_o.png
06-2114
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7532/15704755632_88341e6914_o.png
2200 feet. Manquin...
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/908/41722240671_7cbc3eba8a_o.png
1.2 miles. Ridgely...
01-02404
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5233/14063543119_254d82862b_o.png
Infinite.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=9084
Aerotow problem/question:Properly washed, I think
And when there's an actual power problem with a tug at an actual mainstream AT operation...
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20110723X95952&key=1
Catch that, people of varying ages? Actual low level tow emergency that's gonna end up killing the tug pilot and before she's reached soybeantop altitude...
http://ozreport.com/3.066
Weaklinks
Is this a joke ?
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7509/15659143120_a9aae8f7bd_o.jpg
And here we were all thinking that in actual emergencies tug drivers were all as incapable of squeezing their joystick mounted release levers as all hang glider pilots were of pulling their easily reachable release actuators.
- Oh. Your tugger generally REALLY wants to help you, and will do all that he can to do so, but he's got trees to stay out of as well. So what's the scenario when the glider needs help from the tug but the tug can't help him because he's too busy staying out of the five hundred foot trees? I'm having a lot of trouble picturing it. All I can come up with is the Pilot In Command dumping his passenger to enable the tug to clear the trees while guaranteeing that his passenger will stall into them. Has there ever been anything close to such a situation at any point in the history of any flavor of aerotowing?
- Suck my dick, Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney.
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3600
Weak link question
Zach Marzec
5
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/900/26320843187_42024d4ef3_o.jpg
...Evgeniya? I'm guessing so 'cause neither you nor anyone else is identifying you.)
- Also...
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=6911
Sunday flying at Florida ridge. -
You motherfuckers wanna help us?
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
08-19
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5277/30076449505_1f6ed2f804_o.png
...competently.
As I've noted via a PS in (what is now) the first post in this topic, I killed Thursday and then some doing an overhaul of the five photo archive posts. Mostly a handful of new stills (we're now up to 240) - some of them moderately important - with the consequential major pain-in-the-ass reshuffling of the catalog numbers.
Continuing discussion of this Task 3 launch (it's gonna take a book) let's start by backing up to the practice day launch...
Glider starts rolling at 011013.
011-011132
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/841/40764763775_4bcc9f4234_o.png
At:
014-011626
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/859/39848402450_e73383f8e6_o.png
the tug's rolled right wing high and almost certainly fully airborne. And at:
015-011750
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/870/40798783115_8af7ef525f_o.png
it's fully airborne without the slightest question. Seven and a half seconds max. If it goes from zero to thirty air/ground speed (no headwind) instantaneously it's eaten up about a football field's worth of runway. But it's not going from zero to thirty and we know there's a headwind 'cause otherwise they wouldn't be using the east/west (north up) runway:
so considerably less. And this shorter runway is two thousand feet.
Fast forward to Task 3.
Glider starts rolling at 081256.08:04 - I had a bit of an exciting tow here... Leaving the airfield the tow speed was too high and I had to bring my knees to the bar to fly fast enough. It slowed down shortly after and was fine for the rest of the tow.
098-081525
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/848/40764728235_52a7ab23f0_o.png
Note tug shadow in upper left corner:
107-082146
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/826/40979594944_efe3905ef1_o.png
It's HUGELY airborne a bit under nineteen seconds into forward motion.
108-082225
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/909/40764724035_5d85f1e424_o.png
East / Far side up (reasonably consistent with what the camera's seeing)...
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7400/26585605333_8144a67215_o.png
...three thousand foot runway. About a second shy of the end of the sequence:
133-084721
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/940/39848323990_cfbda65d84_o.png
Motherfucker STILL has runway to burn. Reasonably safe to say that the shadow's the same distance down the runway that the tug is so he still has a couple football fields (including the two pairs of end zones) going to waste.
Wallaby...
029-040943
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/899/39848395430_0dbf7618d1_o.png
Up to a couple thousand feet plus. Lockout...
http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4309/35947543512_536c23cfac_o.png
01-0001
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5610/15517297799_15c3437578_o.png
02-1228
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3940/15517777168_cc124ac594_o.png
03-1703
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5606/15518351500_8d9b474a65_o.png
04-1817
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3956/15083816823_06a6ea6c34_o.png
05-1928
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7486/15517296939_114b538a97_o.png
06-2114
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7532/15704755632_88341e6914_o.png
2200 feet. Manquin...
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/908/41722240671_7cbc3eba8a_o.png
1.2 miles. Ridgely...
01-02404
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5233/14063543119_254d82862b_o.png
Infinite.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=9084
Aerotow problem/question:Properly washed, I think
Jim Gaar - 2008/10/28 15:55:22 UTC
We always told towed pilots that the first 500 feet belonged to the tug pilot. They have enough to do to keep themselves safe.
- Bullshit. Trees, for all intents and purposes at mainstream aerotow operations, are total nonissues. 'Specially the five hundred foot tall ones. Ditto for powerlines. If they actually were we'd have tugs going down into them and most of their drivers being seriously fucked up or killed. Engine problems, power failures are not all that uncommon when one is running tens of thousands of launches - a huge percentage of which are tandem thrill ride pulls.Jim Rooney - 2008/12/11 18:45:01 UTC
Yup, the first 500ft are mine. Try to keep up. Your tugger generally REALLY wants to help you, and will do all that he can to do so, but he's got trees to stay out of as well.
And when there's an actual power problem with a tug at an actual mainstream AT operation...
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20110723X95952&key=1
Keavy's not crashing into five hundred foot trees with the glider in tow. She's immediately dumped the ride and goes on to tickle the tops of the two foot soybeans before getting back high over the runway and dropping into a tug totaling and fatal spin.National Transportation Safety Board - 2011/08/02
NTSB Identification: ERA11FA413
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Saturday, July 23, 2011 in Ridgely, MD
Aircraft: MOYES DRAGONFLY, registration: N402HA
Injuries: 1 Fatal.
According to a flight instructor who was towed aloft by the airplane with his student in a tandem configured hang glider, it was "hot and sticky" that morning and he had briefed his student prior to the flight that it would take a longer ground roll than normal to takeoff. After they took off in tow, the flight instructor climbed the glider up to an altitude of about 15 feet above ground level (agl) behind the airplane. During the tow he observed that the airplane did not lift off until it was near the end of the grass runway. As the airplane reached the end of the runway, he saw the towline "release" from the airplane. He also observed that as the airplane reached an adjacent soybean field, that the airplane was "tickling the beans with its wheels". The flight instructor then continued straight ahead and executed a landing to that same soybean field.
Catch that, people of varying ages? Actual low level tow emergency that's gonna end up killing the tug pilot and before she's reached soybeantop altitude...
http://ozreport.com/3.066
Weaklinks
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846Davis 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.
Is this a joke ?
...she's:Jim Rooney - 2011/08/31 09:25:57 UTC
Oh how many times I have to hear this stuff.
I've had these exact same arguments for years and years and years.
Nothing about them changes except the new faces spouting them.
It's the same as arguing with the rookie suffering from intermediate syndrome.
They've already made up their mind and only hear that which supports their opinion.
Only later, when we're visiting them in the hospital can they begin to hear what we've told them all along.
Nobody's talking about 130lb weaklinks? (oh please)
Many reasons.
Couple of 'em for ya... they're manufactured, cheap and identifiable.
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.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7509/15659143120_a9aae8f7bd_o.jpg
And here we were all thinking that in actual emergencies tug drivers were all as incapable of squeezing their joystick mounted release levers as all hang glider pilots were of pulling their easily reachable release actuators.
- Oh. Your tugger generally REALLY wants to help you, and will do all that he can to do so, but he's got trees to stay out of as well. So what's the scenario when the glider needs help from the tug but the tug can't help him because he's too busy staying out of the five hundred foot trees? I'm having a lot of trouble picturing it. All I can come up with is the Pilot In Command dumping his passenger to enable the tug to clear the trees while guaranteeing that his passenger will stall into them. Has there ever been anything close to such a situation at any point in the history of any flavor of aerotowing?
- Suck my dick, Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney.
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3600
Weak link question
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971Jim 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.
Zach Marzec
We hang glider muppets are just passengers on your certified aircraft for the flight to an agreed upon destination. Our gliders are no longer our gliders for the duration of that period. For that duration they're passenger compartment components of your certified aircraft and you're as legally responsible for their safety as any other pilot of a certified aircraft is of his. If you put your certified aircraft in a situation around five hundred foot trees which results in the injury or death to one or more of your passengers you can be held criminally responsible. You're no different from a speeding drunk driver who puts a telephone pole into the car where the passenger used to be sitting. (Right...Jim Rooney - 2013/02/16 05:05:41 UTC
Here's a little bit of bitter reality that ya'll get to understand straight off. I won't be sugar coating it, sorry.
You see, I'm on the other end of that rope.
I want neither a dead pilot on my hands or one trying to kill me.
And yes. It is my call. PERIOD.
On tow, I am the PIC.
Now, that cuts hard against every fiber of every HG pilot on the planet and I get that.
Absolutely no HG pilot likes hearing it. Not me, not no one. BUT... sorry, that's the way it is.
Accept it and move on.
Not only can you not change it, it's the law... in the very literal sense.
5
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/900/26320843187_42024d4ef3_o.jpg
...Evgeniya? I'm guessing so 'cause neither you nor anyone else is identifying you.)
- Also...
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=6911
Sunday flying at Florida ridge. -
Socrates Zayas - 2008/05/21 23:53:23 UTC
Florida Ridge Air Sports Park
At 10:30 Eric came out to tow me to the southwest with the wind SSW. That put me right over the right side of the hangar and parking lot. This is a short section of the field but not all that bad as long as you have an exit strategy. I decided I would NOT continue to double the weak link after seeing my wife eat it a few months ago.
It broke at about ten seconds after hitting 800 fpm lift off the LZ!!! Hell of a cycle. The tug and I went up like rockets. But instantly at 200 feet it wasn't all that bad. I flew the U2 into a nice foot landing right by the cars.
Second try:
This time the wind seemed H&V (heavy and variable) and we decided to take off to the southeast. But this gave us a short runway and an orange orchard in front of us and we decided to take off with a bit more speed.
The cycle was nice, nothing out of the ordinary, but just as the tug flew over the fence line of the orchard the weak link broke. It was as if it didn't even break - Eric and I both thought it was a release malfunction. But Axo, Ralph, and I found the release and confirmed otherwise.
I was flying nice with good speed and climbing. I thought "Shit. It broke again. Damn, I don't want to land between those trees, they don't even have the keys to the gate anymore." So I turned to the right cross wind toward the RVs and campfire spot.
Rafael Castro - 2008/05/23 19:52:57 UTC
We all watched his weak link break, it was non-event something that happens all the time...
You're not allowed to take your occupied passenger compartment up off a marginal runway with it connected to your certified aircraft by a chintzy sub legal safety device which dumps it over an orange orchard and claim you did absolutely nothing wrong.Axel Banchero - 2008/05/22 04:19:39 UTC
Doc's body wasn't moving and we were shitting our pants until he started talking confused. The first thing I saw was his eye bleeding and swollen the size of an 8 ball. There was sand and dirt inside. Looked like he lost it at first until he could open it a little bit.
You motherfuckers wanna help us?
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Try learning how do do your fucking jobs...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.
08-19
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5277/30076449505_1f6ed2f804_o.png
...competently.