Eight years is probably long enough.
Arguably a week or two TOO long.
Here you go Tad.
Not to mention hang gliding at large and the general public.
Luis Felipe Amunategui wrote:We need to consider getting an injunction against this guy communicating with the FAA on this subject.
Fuckin' waste of space. All heartbroken about the 1996/07/25 Bill Bennett / Mike Del Signore in his backyard (was participating in the clinic the day before but had to split), did the standard never again...
We owe it to Mike and Bill to further refine aerotowing in general and tandem towing in particular.
...crap in the 1996/12 magazine issue, never lifted a finger.
Had an extensive correspondence with him in the late June of 2006. Continued his proud tradition of not doing shit.
Lost his aerotow site just east of Cleveland...
http://ozreport.com/20.104
A major nuisance
Luis Felipe Amunategui - 2016/05/24 13:04:52 UTC
...and five miles NNE of Gates where Bill and Mike had bought it a wee bit under a decade prior.
And regarding that issue... Ya know the way standard aerotow weak links that blow just off the cart every other pull are mere inconveniences which increase the safety of the towing operation? Bet the neighbors really appreciate listening to all those extra takeoffs, approaches, landings.
Lisa Tate wrote:I forwarded the letter to Tim Herr yesterday asking about this.
Waste of space. Gets a copy of that vile, stupid, semiliterate letter to me Tracy posts 2009/05/10 02:08:52 UTC then writes advising me that I need to work with the Towing Committee - the one that had totally ignored my hundreds of hours worth of work on the revisions its Chairman had asked me to make.
Rich Hass wrote:Perhaps a strongly worded letter from Tim will do the trick. We can't force Tad to work within the USHPA framework but we can make it unpleasant and expensive for him if he chooses to makes derogatory and false statements about USHPA to the FAA he can't back up.
"We can't force Tad to work within the u$hPa framework but we can make it unpleasant and expensive for him if he chooses to firebomb u$hPa headquarters to further his goals."
WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT COME FROM??? Where was there a SCRAP of evidence of a derogatory and FALSE statement about u$hPa?
And you'll notice that what he's REALLY worried about are the derogatory and false statements about u$hPa that he CAN back up. Gotchya motherfucker. Total smoking gun.
If I understand the previous comments, his sending USHPA a draft letter is an indication of willingness to engage in some dialogue before going to the FAA.
With the derogatory and derogatory and false statements about USHPA that he can back up. Then we're fucked. We'll have no recourse.
Good luck with this guy!
Why does anyone need LUCK dealing with this guy when we're all on such totally solid ground with absolutely nothing to hide, no skeletons anywhere in any closets? I've never needed any LUCK clearly exposing any of u$hPa's criminal negligence in the deaths of scores of its participants. Everything's crystal clear in black and white from posts and in pixels from high resolution video stills.
The pilot who I asked about towing was John Heiney and he definately knows towing.
- Oh really, Bob?
http://www.kitestrings.org/post7657.html#p7657
If you don't know squat about towing then how is it possible to identify anyone who DEFINATELY does?
- Name one individual involved in US hang glider towing who definately DOESN'T know towing. Bobby Bailey? Malcolm Jones? Tracy Tillman? Davis Straub? Steve Kroop? Steve Wendt? Jim Rooney? Ryan Voight? Lauren Tjaden? Bart Weghorst? Bill Cummings? Peter Birren? Sam Kellner? Pat Denevan? Just name ONE. Kelly Harrison work for ya?
- If John Heiney definately knows towing and writes regarding balloon drops:
John Heiney - 1992/11
A small line (205 cord) extends from the release pin to the basetube (remember to stow it at the top of the downtube with tape). I pull the release with my teeth so I can keep both hands on the basetube.
When the balloonist gives you the okay, raise your head slightly, put the release line in your teeth, move the control bar to a good dive position (about your stomach) as you pull the front of your body down. You will feel weightless for a bit so hold yourself to the basetube. Hold the dive position until you feel moderate positive bar pressure, then ease out.
why do you think he's never found it worth his time and effort to comment on Industry Standard pro toad bent pin barrel releases...
07-300
...like the one that killed Jeff Bohl at Quest last spring?
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7077/27082298482_cda1aba01b_o.png
What's unacceptable under a balloon at five thousand feet in dead air is totally cool behind a Dragonfly going 30 five feet off the deck in violent thermal conditions?
And I'm guessing John was totally OK with what happened to me in the aftermath 'cause I never heard anything to indicate anything otherwise.
His comment was that while it might be good for USHPA to make recommendations in this area...
...we CERTAINLY don't wanna have any REQUIREMENTS for stuff like strength, load capacity, load to actuation ratio - the way we did when we presented them to the FAA in 1984 as conditions to be granted our aerotowing exemption. Right after that we just disregarded them and changed all the requirements to recommendations to accelerate innovation and get real quality hardware into circulation.
....there is still plenty of room for innovation.
- Really? After a quarter century of ZERO effective enforcement of even the shoddy standards in the original conditions for the exemption? How is that possible?
- By the spring of 2009 how much room for innovation was left in the fucking gliders themselves? Tell me about some of the amazing advancements we've seen in the eight plus years since.
- He's a fucking glider designer and the stuff he put out had to comply with rigid HGMA strength, stability, performance, control responsiveness certification specs that NOBODY - since Donnell Hewett - has ever had the slightest problem with. How come he's not out there lobbying to have THOSE revoked or gutted to open up a new Golden Age of glider design?
- So obviously he knew that in 2009 the Industry Standard state-of-the-art towing equipment was dangerously flawed and people were dying and would continue to until the fixes were implemented. (Anybody care to argue otherwise? Anybody think we don't have enough fatality data to adequately illustrate that position?)
-- Did he bother to cite any examples in which we had serious issues which could be addressed before the next motherfucker got splattered?
-- Was something stopping him from implementing fixes, innovating designs himself? What was he doing that was more important than keeping Arys Moorhead from getting splattered at Jean Lake in front of his family a bit under half a dozen years later a couple hundred miles to his NNW?
- What did he cite in my SOPs proposal as the most innovation killing burden? Could he have helped me do a better job? Or wasn't that worth any of his precious fucking time either?
- And he's obviously been perfectly fine with all versions of whatever the fuck the Towing Committees were publishing from 1984 through this morning 'cause he's never thought any of them merited a single syllable of constructive criticism.
Yeah Bob, John Heiney DEFINATELY knows towing. Right up their with Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney and the people actually working things. Guess that's how things work in your aeronautical engineering profession too, Bob.
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.
Right?
For that reason, he doesn't think USHPA should mandate any kind of obligatory system that would stifle that innovation - whether Mr. Eareckson's or any other.
Just u$hPa's. That's always been perfect. If there were the possibility of anything better we'd all be using it everywhere already.
What a total load of unmitigated CRAP.
When I first read it as attributed to "someone who knows the topic pretty well" my response was what a total fucking ASSHOLE. Properly attributed now - even more so.
I used his article as an outline for the design of my balloon drop system that I used to go up and off from Milton, Delaware on 1993/04/29 - 5400 feet. And I'd crossed paths with John Heiney at the Kitty Hawk Spectacular once before and after, talked with him about stuff, liked him. Did a lecture on designing and bench certifying the basetube/downtube corner bracket hardware for a current high performance kingposted glider he was producing. Not consistent with this bullshit he spewed. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.
I have very little background in towing, so I'm just passing this perspective on for your general consideration.
I had no background whatsoever in balloon dropping and no certification whatsoever as an engineer. I just read the available material, built the best balloon drop system on the planet, and fuckin' did it though. 'Stead of spending years talking about I had no background in it.
By the way Bob. DEFINATE has the same root as FINATE - as in "finate resources" or "infinaty".